Guayaquil, Ecuador

From Baños I took a 10 hour night bus to Guayaquil on the southern coast of Ecuador. It is Ecuador's second largest city with a much different feel from the mountainous capital of Quito. Guayaquil has had a bad reputation as a large, hot, and fairly dangerous city, but in recent years they have done a lot to improve that reputation through a number of public works projects. From a landscape architecture and urban planning point of view it was a great experience to see those projects. In fact most all of the two days I spent in Guyaquil was spent visiting successful projects and taking hundreds of photos of design ideas. Below is just a sample of the parks and open spaces with the showpiece being the renovated waterfront.




















The first day I was on my own but later that night I met up with a great guy from the Servas program, Carlos. He is a part of a cultural exchange program that welcomes people and helps them to get a better feel for the place they are visiting (www.usservas.org). We went out for beers that night then he showed me around other parts of the city the next day. Besides seeing more parks and planning projects he took me to a place that had fearless iguanas roaming around. We spent the day touring the city then I was off to the bus station to take another night bus, this time 12 hours south to Peru.




















Canon barrel