Travel // Going Around // South America // Guayaquil, Ecuador
Ever heard of Iguanas lurking the park carefree and playfully mingle with human beings? Well, I saw it for the first time only in Simone Bolivar Park in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. These iguanas simply just wander around, climbing up and down the trees and approach every people at the park as if they wanted to be cuddled. The photo above is very memorable to me. I was taking several close range photos of this iguana when suddenly I felt somebody poked on me from behind my ears. I thought it was just some of my ship colleagues but it turned out to be a baby iguana that jumped off from the tree and landed at my backpack. I startled and threw my backpack to the grass -. Gosh!... I was really frightened that I was about to run away from that spot but I pretend to look cool… at least..LOL... Manila Zoo also has lots of iguanas but sadly those iguanas lived inside a glass cage and not free to roam around.
Yesterday, the ship was at the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Guayaquil is not the capital city of Ecuador but it is the country’s largest city and is the center of trade and industry. The port in Guayaquil is the main sea port of the country. The port is about 54 nautical miles inside the Guayas River and inbound and outbound navigation is nearly 4 hours. Pilotage in the area is compulsory so local pilots normally boards every ship at the pilot station and is handling the ship’s passage all the way in and out the port. According to the pilot who boarded the ship, an average of 10 cargo ships are coming in and out the port daily and 3 cruise ships are visiting the port weekly. Downtown area is about 15 kms. from the pier and around 45 minutes trip by bus. I went ashore soon after the ship’s regular safety drill for all crew was carried out and arrived at downtown area already past noon. It was Sunday and the traffic wasn’t that bad and the city was not so crowded. The pick up and drop off point of the shuttle buses was at the front of Simone Bolivar Park where this grand interior (inset photo) of the Catholic Cathedral just opposite and facing the park is situated. Ecuador is predominantly a very catholic country and that’s why catholic churches dominate in many areas around the city. Most shops in the city were closed on Sundays but I noticed that plenty business establishments along 9th of October Boulevard (Bulevar Nueve de Octubre) such as shopping malls, restaurants, internet and phone café were opened. The local currency of Ecuador is US dollar, so I saved some times looking around for some place to exchange my US dollar to the local currency of the country I was in. Formerly, the currency was “sucre” but in 2000, the government changed the country’s basic currency to US dollar to help stabilize the country’s economy.
At 6 PM the ship left the port and started its way heading to Panama Canal. We should be in Balboa, Panama on the 10th of March at 5AM where the ship will commence its transit across the 50-mile long canal.
