Wet in Guayquil

After an uneventful flight, from San Cristobal, we arrived in Guayaquil, on the coast.  We stepped off of the plane into dripping humidity and melting temperatures. We were met at the airport by a driver who had been sent by the guest house we were staying in and he told us..."Here in Guayaquil it is hot in the morning, hot in the afternoon and hot all night".  So, we should not have been as shocked as we were...turns out we are here in the rainy season...which is also the scorching hot season...ah we are truly gringos!!!

As we were here only for the afternoon and evening we decided to go to the historic center of the city,  and the driver agreed to take us.  I was the spokesperson as I have a small amount of Spanish...in any case, we ended up at the Historic Park, not at all where we wanted to go...but learned on the way that we could expect rain to start at about 3 and to end sometime in the evening...so...having not a lot of time, the park was what we did. 

It was a park devoted to natural history and to showing the local flora and fauna.  It was very nice with a reconstruction of the main city street from the 1700's.  Sure enough...at 3 o'clock the rain started and it varied from a drizzle to a roaring downpour.  We got very wet indeed.  We wandered through the park for a while and then made our way to a local mall where Paul ate KFC and I something more local...

We were exhausted and so went back to the guest house and stayed there for the night...enjoying the air conditioning.

The parts of the city that we saw were less affluent than the areas we had seen in Quito and admittedly, I felt less safe than I have in other places.  Even at the park, located in the affluent tourist area, there were at least two security guards patrolling the grounds and a security guard at the front gate.  in the mall, most large stores had security posted at their doors, and the mall itself had security at all doors and in the parking garage.
Now we are off to Lima, and I admit that I am looking forward to a bit of down time. although we will be spending some part of our week there making plans for the sacred valley and Machu Pichu...