Blogs from Guayaquil, West, Ecuador, South America - page 4

On Saturday, my host brother, Jordi, who was home for the weekend from the military, took us into Guayaquil. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and it´s about a 20 min bus ride away from our neighboorhood. It´s very different from Duran, very metropolitan. July is the ¨Festival of Guayaquil.¨ Yes, the entire month is the festival. Our host mom said there would be parties every day. As soon as we got into town, we happened upon a parade and our host brother realized it was the beginning of the festival. We had no idea. We walked to ¨Malecón 2000¨which is a waterfront restoration project. It´s like a boardwalk on the riverbank of Guayaquil. It was very nice and modern. We came across something of a children´s exercise class and they were dressed as fruit ... read more

Hi All! First, pardon any typos because this keyboard is different. We arrived yesterday, Tuesday after a bit of trouble. After receiving a call from American Airlines at 3:30am that our first flight would be delayed with a new arrival time of 6:40, I realized we would never make our connection at 6:50. I called American and they got us on a Delta flight: Philadelphia to Atlanta, Atlanta to Miami and then our orginal flight Miami to Guayaquil. Our first flight was at 11:45. We had to make quick changes at each airport but we actually made it all the way here, and so did our luggage!!! Our host families picked us up at the airport. Melissa, the other student from my school, is staying in the same house as me. Our host mom is Alicia, ... read more

Sarah enjoyed her new book, Precious, while I tossed and turned in the airplane seat feeling awfully sick on our flight back from the Galapagos. Our plan when we landed was to go to the bus terminal and figure out how to get out of Guayaquil as quickly as possible, although in all likelihood it would have to be the next day since we did not want to show up in a new town at night. We had already spent way too much time in Guayaquil and neither of us really liked Guayaquil. After claiming our bags, we tried walking over to the bus terminal. It is only 1 km away, but the directions we got were not great and we ended up in a cab. The cab arrived at the terminal, but disaster struck shortly ... read more

We arrived in Guayaquil to the main bus terminal about 3:00 in the afternoon. Guayaquil does it right, their bus terminal is gigantic, has a mall and sits right next to the airport. We grabbed some US$ from the ATM (so wild that they use the USD as their currency). In the food court we grabbed some Pizza Hut. Talked to information. Then took a $3 cab ride to the city center. We had the cab driver drop us off near Iglesia San Francisco near the Malacon district, the Miraflores of Guayaquil (aka gringo safe spot). The Malacon recently underwent a massive facelift and is now the nicest part of the city. It is about a 2km long section that hugs the Rio Guayas. The Malacon was quite different than Miraflores. In Miraflores most buildings were ... read more

Hello world! It is your lucky day! This blog post is brought to you by none other than the Rummy champion of the Harte household and, dare I say, the WORLD! Yes that’s right folks, it’s Adrianne! Please, please! Applause is not necessary (although it is appreciated). On this beautiful, warm, sunny Friday in Ecuador (suck it, Canadian winter), my family and I had a blissful day of almost complete sloth. My brother and I did nothing but enjoy carbonated beverages, BBC with Spanish commercials, and a lovely swim in the pool. The parental units enjoyed much of the same, plus massages. The Female PU had a massage that she describes as “disturbingly invasive”, a category that appears to be becoming a trend with our vacations (some of our more dedicated readers may remember their massages ... read more