The Road to Guayaquil

Dense fog, winding mountain roads, landslides, daredevil drivers…your life feels out of your hands when you take a journey by road in Ecuador.

Drivers, be they in charge of buses, taxis, lorries or cars, don’t think twice about taking risks, often overtaking on blind bends and two or three vehicles at a time.

Be prepared for delays. We were held up an hour at the entrance to El Cajas national park, where they were relaying the road surface, and just outside of Guayaquil, where a bus had crashed off the road.

Poor Zenchai had suffered badly with motion sickness on the way from Loja to Cuenca, so we looked for an alternative to buses when travelling to Guayaquil on the beginning of our trek towards the Ruta de la Sol (Route of the Sun) along the coast.

We found a reasonable solution in Elmoctour, a people-carrier firm based on Av Remigio Crespo 3-54 (Tel: 2455326) in Cuenca. They charged $12 per person for the four-hour journey (we gave the driver an additional $5 for taking us straight to our hotel).

Zenchai slept more than half the trip, thankfully during the mountain phase where sometimes visibility was practically a hair-raising zero.

By the time he woke up, the vegetation had changed dramatically, the air felt muggier and the temperature had risen. 

We were in Guayaquil.

Of course, we’d been forewarned countless times: be on guard for pickpockets and muggers; it’s not safe to walk around.

While we’re never dismissive of friendly advice, we always prefer to judge from experience and, perhaps because of the many unflattering reviews, Guayaquil, though bustling and a big city, was a somewhat pleasant surprise.

The Malecon (boardwalk) in particular is clean and smart and there’s a breeze coming off the water that takes the edge off the humidity.

There are also some nice parks and interesting museums and buildings, although we didn’t get the chance to fully explore given we were there for virtually an afternoon.

Zenchai, in particular, had great fun running around, working up a sweat and it felt like a relief after Cuenca for us to allow him to burn off some energy along the Malecon without worrying about him falling or darting into traffic.

We stayed at the Suites Madrid, in town. A young man called Christoper, who spoke excellent English, was exceedingly helpful, to the point when I asked to visit the supermarket he accompanied me and he even drove us in his car down to the Malecon.

However, the hotel can be noisy. For $35, it was, by Ecuadorian standards, overpriced. The hostal is in a busy part of town. We had the sound of water dropping on to corrugated iron all night, not to mention the staff talking loudly in the hollow corridors and car alarms going off in the street.

Abrams Family Travel Tip: For car/motion sickness try some ginger essential oil and rub on the underside of the wrists; keep your eyes on the road (if your can); have some ‘fresh’ air coming into the vehicle; have a supply of sick bags – and napkins for cleaning - at the ready.

Comments

[Bill M]

Guayaquil does have a reputation as a risky place, but then, so do many big cities many have visited and enjoyed. It's a matter of savvy and luck--and in the right place at the right time, Guayaquil can be great and it can suck.

The city has been working on its crime problems--at least, on those that victimize tourists; corruption and vice flourish as ever. But the result of the cleanup efforts has made touristic areas of the city much safer, especially during touristic "prime times." Outside of those times and areas, the city is much riskier than Quito--which isn't as safe as it could be, either.

Still, it would be a shame to miss the good bits (and thus, not support them) in order to avoid the bad ones. Caution goes a long way toward assuring oneself a good time.