Guayaquil, Day 2

Todays plan was to walk Diego Noboa y Arteca stairs. It is a popular tourist attraction. It begins at the foot of the hill and ends at the top. It is made up of 444 numbered steps.
Boris did not want to go ashore today, yesterday was very hard on him.
I would probably not go by myself, but Erin and Mui were generous enough to take me along.
We took an 8:30am shuttle and from the shuttle an Uber to get to the steps as early as possible.
There are actually two sets of stairs, but the other set is not safe for tourists. We wanted to take a picture of the other stairs, but were intersected by police and locals telling us to turn around. We explained we just want a photo and were told to hide our phones.
Erin took a quick photo and we walked to another stairs patrolled by police.
The walk to the top was very pleasant. We stopped many times to photograph little squares, art galleries, coloured buildings. In no time we mastered 444 steps and saw a small chapel, the lighthouse and Naval Museum that was closed.
We decided to visit Santa Ana chapel first.
It has nineteen stained glass windows. The chapel was build in 2002.
On the opposite side of the plaza located the lighthouse. Also build in 2002. We climbed the lighthouse. It is allowing 360 degrees view from the top balcony. We could see an old neighbourhood and a modern luxury residential and commercial buildings.
Another attraction on this plaza was a sculpture of Juan Pueblo. We had to take pictures with this character.

Now it was time to navigate same stairs down. Very close to the bottom of the stairs is a beautiful cobblestone street with colonial houses painted different colours. The street was lined with art galleries. It is not a very long street, so it took us 15 min or so to walk the street both ways.

Our next stop was the MAAC — Museo Antropologica y Arte Contemporaneo.
I was looking forward to visit this museum, but when we walked in, I could not wait to get out. The place was not air conditioned. Inside was much worse then outside. Maui and I got out and Erin continued to see this museum. It did not take long before she gave up and went outside.
Anyway it was time for lunch. We went outside of Malecon 2000 to find a place.
We found a restaurant with A/C and ordered our food. We were the only customers.
We washed our food with a cold beer. The food was delicious and very filling.

After lunch, we went back to Malecon and walked back to our shuttle. Again, we admires sculptures and gardens along the way.
We were back on the ship around 2:00PM.

Tomorrow is a sea day to relax.Read more