Journey With Jeannie

January 17, 2026, Saturday

Weather: 86° Partly cloudy with a breeze

Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest city and main commercial hub. It felt like Miami to me. We were shuttled 45 minutes in to Iguana park where we met our guide for a city tour. We booked through Get Your Guide. The company was called BM tours. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it would be just us! There is a large police presence along the busy shopping centers and parks. They are trying to make it safer.

Guayquil is Ecuador’s largest city and main commercial hub. The country exports bananas, shrimp, and cacao.

Iguanas and turtles live freely in this small park right in the middle of the city. Someone feeds them daily, cleans up after them, and cleans the area of extra debris. There were probably more than a hundred perched in the trees. Our guide said they come down when the food comes. I wish I had brought some lettuce to feed them. There are many pictures online of people hand feeding them! They are moved to different places as they keep populating.

The chapel overlooks the Las Peñas colonial quarter.

We walked along the Malecón 2000, a riverside boardwalk. It has green spaces, restaurants, and historical monuments. The water in the Guayas River was flowing out towards the ocean this morning, and it was flowing back in when we came by in the afternoon. David took some pictures of these things, but like I said before it is taking days….for his pictures to load to the cloud. Sometimes I can just text them to me, but airdrop doesn’t work at all.

Our guide used to be a military pilot in the Ecuadorian Air Force. When he retired he decided to study and get licensed to be a tour guide. One thing in common with most of the South American countries we have visited is that no one trusts or approves of their government leaders. We saw some wonderful progress in their city such as new commercial and residential developments. The city area is continually being hosed down, swept up, and patrolled by police. But behind that, it is said that the President of Ecuador is in bed with the drug traffickers and has the police doing his bidding. The common people can’t afford these new fancy developments and think drug traffickers are the ones who get to live in them. I see the similar thinking in many South American cities we visit. We admire the progress of newly paved 4 lane highways and garbage services in areas that can afford them. Some of the improvements have been paid for by China and Germany.