Sweathog and Mountain Woman: Friday, May 20, 2016

Yesterday Liz and I found each other at the Miami airport with no problem. We had four hours to kill so we had dinner and just sat at the gate and caught up on our lives. Our plane was late in departing but we still arrived in Guayaquil on time at 1:15 AM. Guayaquil is on our Central Time and is 2 degrees south of the equator. Our prearranged transportation to the hotel was there holding a sign "RAYMOND EDWARD"....hard to miss! A little glitch in that the hotel did not have our reservation, which was prepaid. Our driver worked it out and we settled into our room at 2:30.

We managed to sleep in until 7:30, got up and had a great buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was then off to la Rotunda, a Monument Park on the Guayas River to catch a double decker tour bus of the city. Schedules are apparently not a big deal here as we waited 30 minutes after the scheduled pickup time and the bus never came. We walked back to the hotel and visited Parque Seminario which is a one square block park that is full of iguanas. Then it was back to the hotel for a little rest before heading to the History Park.

It was about a 25 minute cab ride to the History Park. The park was built by the National Bank of Equador and showcases the four different temperate zones of the Equador coastal region. The park highlighted both plant and animal species of the region. We decided to have a personal tour guide rather than just walk around. Our cab driver waited an hour and a half for us and drove us back to the hotel. The cab fare and wait time was a very reasonable $25.

We will visit the Catholic Cathedral before dinner and will most likely hit the sack early. We fly out tomorrow morning to the Island of Baltra in the Galapagos and then ferry to the island of San Cruz where we will spend two nights before starting our cruise.

At la Rotunda