A fond farewell to Ecuador--Day 10

 CHRISTY

Our last final full day in Guayaquil  and we spent it exploring the city.  We started off with a breakfast buffet Ecuador style.  They have the basic breakfast classic like fruit, pastries, bacon, sausage etc... then they have a type of rice with some sort of stew.  I always try it and it is delicious.  After breakfast we get ready to walk to the craft market. We decide to ask the front desk if it is safe to go to the market if we walk.  Scott seems to remember that we shouldn't head south on a certain street but he can't remember the street, so that's great.  We have also been getting alerts saying the area isn't safe.  We find two other couples that want to go to the market too and we figure "safety in numbers", right?  One of the people in our group is talking to the front desk and she is asking if it's safe to walk to the craft market or if we should take a taxi....the next thing I know the manager is insisting we take a guard with us.  I was already worried that it wasn't safe but now I'm thinking is it really worth it to get souvenirs?  Everyone else thinks it is safe so we head to the market.  It was a pretty big market but we had mostly bought everything we wanted so it didn't take us long to get through the whole thing.  We noticed they had these sky gondola's that went across the city and over the river so we thought that might be a great way to see everything and probably safer than walking in the streets.  Once we told our guard our plans he said ok I go back to the hotel then.  I wasn't sure if this was good or bad.  I felt like he was saying this is as far as he goes and we are on our way from here. That didn't make me feel great but all 6 of us decided to go.  It was really a nice view of the whole city.  We made it back to the hotel in one piece but we were drenched in sweat so we thought we would hang out at the rooftop pool and cool off.  We stayed there for a couple of hours and had a few drinks with our friends.  After that, it was time for our last tour of the trip, a walking tour of the Malecon and Boardwalk.  We explored the city for a couple of hours and learned about some of the famous people who had statues there.  We went to a really cool park called Iguana Park.  There were so many iguana's crawling around and climbing trees, it was crazy.  We took our pictures and decided to head into a beautiful Catholic church across the street.  It was built in the 1800's and had the most beautiful stained glass and murals.  Once we were done we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, Frida's.  The food was delicious!

SCOTT:

I didn't "seem to remember" certain things about the dangers of the city, I was protecting Christy from what I knew.  Here are two helpful tips from the official State Department alert about Guayaquil dropped the day we arrived here:

  

Hmm, kinda creates a conundrum, huh? Plus there is a countrywide state of emergency declared by the government and, oh yeah, there is a curfew in place from 11pm to 5am every day.  Now I have never gone on a vacation to a place with a mandatory government-imposed curfew.  After all, I'm not a combat reporter. So all that to say that I was trying to underplay the danger of wandering around the city.  That's why the front desk people couldn't believe we would walk the seven blocks to the market and gave us a security escort... But the force for shopping is strong in this one.  So we ambled toward the market, my head always on a swivel, passing various posters that did little to calm my fears that we were going to be kidnapped or at least met by an angry, armed mob.  Like this one:

 I don't know what it says, but I'm feverishly trying to remember the movie No Escape with Owen Wilson, because I'm certain we are going to have to hide in a boat and float down the river to the next country when the rebels attempt a coup of the city and start rounding up Americans.... But we did make it, and her shopping went on blissfully unaware of the looming danger all around

We made it out without a scratch, and the gondola ride across the entire city and river from the air was the best $6.45 we spent here.  As we were coming down the stairs from the gondola platform and headed back from our morning adventure, with thoughts of tomorrow's looming return home, I was reminded of a very simple message that sums up this trip, and so much more:

In all, this was our first vacation on a tour.  Wasn't sure about it as a concept, but Exoticca set up a great tour that was truly remarkable and carefree. 

Thanks for coming with us on our adventure.