We both had a lovely sleep last night. We didn't get to bed much before half past midnight but when we did we fell right to sleep in the lovely big hotel bed; it's so wide I didn't see Mike all night long! The hotel is nice, we have a lovely room and the view out our window is very cool.




I didn't really want to get up this morning but Mike was complaining that he was hungry and that he really needed his coffee, so after showering we headed to the hotel restaurant for a continental breakfast. The breakfast wasn't bad, lots of choices, although who wants ceviche for breakfast is beyond me, and I think there might have been goat soup too but I'll have to confirm that tomorrow morning. We ate enough to last us till dinner and Mike finally got his cup of coffee, it was cold, but he got it. The coffee was actually gross, the waiter gave me three quarters of a cup of warm milk and then a jug of cold thick coffee to add to it. I couldn't drink it (I had lovely mora juego instead), but Mike got seconds.



After our late breakfast we went for a little walk around the hotel area; we didn't go too far as it is super hot and muggy here and it is mostly shops around the hotel and we are all shopped out. We did check out the cathedral which is huge, but quite plain on the inside - a little different to Cuenca which is all faced in marble. It was nice though, and it has some beautiful stained glass windows.






We spent a good chunk of time today in Parque Bolivar, which is right across the street from our hotel, hanging out with the iguanas. I don't know how many live in the park but there are a good number of them and they are so cute; we pretty much spent a few hours watching them going about their business. We got there just as they were being fed breakfast this morning and they are all good little eaters. The gardeners unload barrows full of greens for them and they all come snaking down out of the trees to chow down. They are very cool to watch and they are not afraid of people at all, and they always seem to be willing to pose for a photo or two. After eating they slowly started back up into the trees and found a nice comfy branch to spend the rest of the day hanging out on; they don't half have a good life. They are quite difficult to see in the trees once they have all settled down for the day, but when they are getting settled the whole tree looks like it's writhing as there are so many of the little guys.


















Also in the park is a good size pond that is full of turtles and fish and today the park guys happened to be cleaning it out. They had already done one side when we arrived but we watched them catching the turtles and fish and moving them so they could clean the rest of the pond. The fish weren't too impressed about the whole ordeal, and the turtles just kept trying to sneak back over the wall as fast as the guy was moving them. The figured it out in the end that the fresh water was much better than the dirty stuff.






After Mike took a nap we went to El Fortin for dinner; it is apparently one of the best resturants in Guayaquil and since it was in the hotel we decided to try it out. They of course had lots of stuff we couldn't eat but they also had some really excellent pasta that we did get to eat, along with salad. Mike had four cheese sauce which was super creamy and I had the pesto; it was the nicest I've had. It was really quiet, apart from one other diner we were the only ones which meant that we got excellent service, and no one else got to see us wearing bibs! We finished of the meal with a shared creme brulee which was almost as good as mine. All in all we had a very good day today.

Mike: I wanted to take a little lizard back for my mother in law! Becc said NO!