This morning we had another easygoing morning. We ate breakfast at our hotel (unfortunately it was mostly bread, so we just ate bananas and drank the juice of tomate de arbol (the tree tomato)), then enjoyed sipping on some tea and coffee. We eventually headed out to walk on the Guayaquil waterfront, called the Malecon. We started out heading south of our hotel, as the guidebook had said there were some cheap food stalls there. We arrived and checked out the menu- turns out not so cheap after all. Next, we tried to go to one of the markets, but it was apparently closed for cleaning…

There were a couple other typical Ecuadorian dishes that we hadn’t tried yet, so we set out looking for those. First, we encountered encebollado, which is a fish soup with lime, and considered a national dish. It had a similar taste to a cooked ceviche (delicious), and even came with a little lime squeezer on the side!

Next stop was a place that served a set menu lunch. We split a starter of chupe de pescado (a different kind of fish soup, more potato based), a meat skewer of chicken and sausage, along with some cooked vegetables.

There was still one more dish that we were searching for, encocado, which we finally found just about when we were ready to give up. It was a fish in a coconut milk sauce, and definitely worth the effort in finding it. Alejandro ordered Cazuela de Pescado, which we thought was going to be a fish soup, but turned out to be more like a thick stew made from mashed plantains and peanut butter. It was also very delicious.

After lunch, we headed north on the Malecon towards Las Penas neighborhood. We walked through some botanic gardens and did some people watching on the way.

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Upon reaching Las Penas, we walked up the 444 (the steps were actually labeled with numbers) steps to the lighthouse on the top of the hill. Then a few more steps up the light house and we were rewarded with some great views over the city and river.

We walked back to the hotel and got our things ready for our trip to the Galapagos tomorrow morning! We will be meeting up with Cassie’s parents and siblings for a week long cruise. Supposedly we will have internet, but we doubt it will be good enough to upload pictures, so stay tuned and we’ll update again as soon as we can!