Firstly, the hotel - what a lovely place and the staff were wonderful, nothing too much trouble. The hotel sits in the Parque Historico Guayaquil, a tropical park complete with botanical gardens, a wildlife sanctuary and various other interesting areas.

It was originally built in 1891 and moved, board by board, in the 1980s to its current position. It's pretty close to the airport so an ideal place to stay for a couple of nights (or longer, if only we had the time!).

As you might be able to tell from the photo on the right, it was raining when we got up but we were there in the rainy season so ...

A snack before bed on our first evening and then breakfast were under the canopy - very tasty they were too!

On the left, the corridor to our room - open to one of the courtyard squares - I can think of much worse views to open your door to.

The chapel tower had a gym at the first floor and a massage etc. place in the upper part - I didn't use either. There was also a chapel but I couldn't get the door to open (possibly swollen by the wet weather).

The lounge looked really inviting - a great place to check through the day's photos (if only there weren't other things we wanted to do to make the most of our time in this lovely place).

We later discovered that this courtyard was known as The Orchid Garden (we had afternoon tea there!)

Tea was, of course, after our tour around Guayaquil with Ricardo. We were heading up to a look-out point when Ricardo and Jonathon started talking about our feathered friends. We had a short stop part way up the hill to admire the view and look for birds. Needless to say, Jonathon hadn't got his bird camera gear with him but he did manage to photograph this little bird. As you can guess from the puzzled looks, it wasn't easy to identify so we came away not knowing what species it was.

The views where we were bird spotting were amazing. Even more surprising that everything is brown and grey in the dry season.

We had to go through an army checkpoint to get to here as there is a firing range and army barracks etc. at the bottom of the hill. We even saw a few army chaps doing their exercise as they trotted past us.

We did have spectacular views from the lookout - it made us realise just how big Guayaquil was.

From there we went to see a "before and after" example to show some of the work the City Hall had been carrying out for housing.

As you can see, some of the properties look a little bit ramshackle but they are still pretty colours and, more importantly (?), there is a bridge from there to the football stadium across the road.

The stadium was huge - could fit 80,000 fans in. The bridge is pedestrian because the city couldn't cope with the traffic on match days before it was installed!

This is the "after" result. Far more stable and safer housing.

These lovely Roseate Spoonbill were minding their own business in front of the "before" properties.

From there, a special treat as we went to ee our first Iguanas.

I asked Ricardo why there were no candles (seemed strange to me). Apparently the candles were starting to damage the fabric of the building so it was changed to small light bulbs but they didn't appear to go down too well so they were stopped and now there's nothing on those lines at all.

We were driven back to the hotel and almost immediately set off to walk around the historic park that the hotel sat in, specifically to see the rescued animals that are being looked after there.

Some were more "cuddly" than others! These are Central American Agouti; the animals on the left are Collared Peccary

Horned Screamer

Chilean Flamingo

Chilean Flamingo

 

The park is split into different types of environment, the Drizzle Forest being one of them.

Red-lored Amazon Parrot

I think these are Tortoise but they could equally be Turtle.

No idea what kind of spider this is but wouldn't want to get too close.

Two-toed Sloth

Ocelot (beautiful creature) - there were two rescue Ocelots and they appeared to be quite calm in their large enclosure.

If the animals are fit to be released back into the wild then that is the ultimate goal. For those that have come in from captivity /pets, they stay in the rescue centre for as long as required.

Stray kitten - obviously worked out where he'll be cared for.

Forested Floodplain