Our Day in Guayaquil

Tuesday, November 1, 2016: our first full day aboard the Silversea Explorer

Time has been short, but now I sit in my suite aboard the Explorer with every intention of catching up on our last eventful few days. 

We flew Saturday from Dallas, to Miami, and on to Guayaquil, not bad flights as flights go and we landed before I got around to sleeping in spite of the late hour.  We didn’t lay our heads on our pillows, however, until after 3 AM Sunday morning.  Our enthusiastic and cheerful guide Maybell and our driver Antonio had met us at the airport, settled us into the hotel and then set the time for our tour of Guayaquil the next day—blessedly not too early.  We gamely rose, breakfasted and had already explored the Municipal Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul and its adjacent park just across the street before they picked us up.  The park, dedicated to the Liberator Simon Bolivar is also known as the Park of the Iguanas because of the large number of the giant lizards who live there.  Full of people freely petting and feeding the iguanas as well as the squirrels and pigeons, I was wondering whether their beds are lice-infested or whether these creatures are cleaner than the ones we have in American parks.  One lady was caressing a large squirrel and letting it crawl all over her head and hair.  This gave me the willies. 

This cathedral was the view from our hotel window and we went inside while Sunday Mass was being said.  You could walk up to the altar and receive a blessing from the trio of priests who walked from left to right sprinkling holy water on the faithful who came forward.  I hadn't seen this custom before but I remember from my early days in the Church when the priest would send sprinkles of holy water over the congregation while the deacons would shake the incense lamps sending out a smoky smell that would usually cause a couple of the kids to faint.

On a less spiritual note, here are a few of the iguanas who live in the park outside the Cathedral.  They are very tame and slither freely among the folk.  The kids pick them up and carry them around.

 

Ditto the squirrels