First stop in Ecuador - Guayaquil

We did have to get off the bus at the Peru/Ecuador border after all, ah well, but it was just the usual formalities, and we arrived after only 25 hours in Guayaquil (the guidebook said it could take 29 hours). The journey was the most comfortable yet as we had huge very comfortable seats (the bus only had three seats across each row), and I reckon I had the best sleep ever on a bus. They also showed a number of decent movies too that really helped pass the time.

Most people only use Guayaquil as a jumping off point for flights to the Galapagos or for access to the beaches on the coast. It was quickly clear why, as the town isn't really that nice, although it has it's nice spots I suppose. We had the possibility of getting a flight directly to the Galapagos on the day after we arrived, but I decided we might as well check out the town a bit. I also wanted to check out a couple of Guayaquil-based tour operators for Galapagos tours, and also to take our time checking the various flight options.

So the following day it turned out that the flight options were quite limited, although the main airlines did have a slight discount for low-season, so we just booked for the following day with TAME. We only checked one of the main tour operators in the town, mainly just to get an idea of the prices - so that we'd know to try and get cheaper prices once on the islands themselves.

So with our flights booked we explored the town itself a wee bit. One of the main attractions is a small city park famous for it's hundreds of resident iguanas. I think we timed our arrival well, as all the lizards were out and about feeding on cabbage leaves. It was quite an impressive sight to see a couple of hundred large lizards crawling up and down the trees and lazily feeding, mostly oblivious to all the humans staring at them and taking photos.

After the park we popped into a couple of museums. The first museum was putting on little ethic shows for school kids (including a cool sacrifice scene, followed by a burial scene, all accompanied by cool modern Andean mystical music), and the second one had mostly religious art and sculptures, but our guide was a cool, funny local guy who'd spent a couple of years studying in Ireland.

That night we had another stroll down the newly completed waterfront, which is all very modern and nicely done, followed by a drink in a cool bar that seemed to be having a Battle-of-the-Bands competition and then another cheap dinner in a lovely local restaurant.

The next morning everything was all really easy-peasy getting to the Galapagos - a local bus for the 10 minute journey to the brand new airport and an effortless check-in and departure (15 minutes early in fact). 90 minutes later and we're touching down on the main Galapagos island of Santa Cruz - mad!