Stuck in Guayaquil

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We got to Guayaquil in the hopes of getting a bus to Tumbes in Peru pretty soon after. After a little bit of wandering about and investigation we foudn the office of a bus company called Grupo Ormena who we were told were very good for transportation across the border into Peru (we´d heard it wasn´t a very easy crossing). When we went in we were basically sent away with a Spanish flea in our ear but couldn´t work out why the guy wouldn´t let us buy a ticket or tell us when we could catch the bus. Eventually after a bit of persistence with this guy (Mike said some incredibly derogatory things about him which I´ve been sworn never to repeat) we worked out the border was closed.

We had the name of 2 hostels, one of which I was fairly sure was shut for the off season as all the internet booking sights said there was no availability. So we found a cab and headed for the one we thought was our best shot. Turns out it was a hostal not a hostel (Hostals are generally mid range hotels) but as we were there had no info on Guayaquil except it was prety dangerous and no other hostels to go to we ended up gettign a room at this place. Needless to say it was pretty expensive compared with what we´ve been paying but it was nice to have a splurge - there was a bath and 2 sinks!!!!!

The next day the lovely woman who owned the hostal arranged a much more reasonable rate at hotel down town.

Guayaquil is definitely not the monster we were lead to believe it was. I think you have o watch yourself particularly at night but that´s no different to London. The Malecon 2000 is a big pier type thing that stretches along the estuary in Guayaquil so we had a look around that area and there a plenty of shops and cinemas. In our wanderings we also came across a little park in the centre of the city filled with Iguanas! They were just roaming around climbing trees and generally basking in the sun. Also in the park were loads of turtles. Its so weird to see animals like that out of context! They are the only pics we took in Guayaquil!

We stayed 2 nights in the downtown area and had a good time - the only hiccup was it was impossible to find a bar in that area and we ended up on our second night in a dodgy hotel bar drinking alone with about 6 memebers of staff loitering around - its was pretty surreal!

After some consultationw ith our fellow travellers Tima and Bek who were havign their own nightmare we decided to head to Loja to try and cross a different border crossing (which after some research sounds a hell of alot safer!)

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