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Guayaquil

Guayaquil, Ecuador · May 2026

Stayed: Suite con Balcón, an Airbnb apartment over the river, two nights
Paid with: Cash, $165 for two nights through Airbnb
Where: 2.18° S · 79.88° W

Where I stayed · Suite con Balcón

An Airbnb apartment high above the river for two nights, with a balcony looking out over the water. A pretty nice one.

The apartment

The living room, with the balcony and the river beyond

The bedroom, with a guitar and the river in the window

The kitchenette by the door

The bathroom, with robes

The view

From the balcony: the Guayas River and the riverfront promenade below

Part one · Cerro Santa Ana

444 numbered steps up the hill above Las Peñas, past bars, cafés and murals, to a lighthouse, a small chapel and old cannons looking out over the city and the river.

The first stretch

Every step is numbered, from 1 at the street

Step 1

The climb starts past the bars on the lower steps

A small plaza over the river, with a bronze of two children playing

Bottled water going up by hand, around step 130

Step 164 and up, with a cat resting halfway

Murals and side streets

A mural of a farmer with corn and fruit, at step 181

Up toward an arched gate

Callejón de las Cuevas, around step 230

A guitarist mural, with the river behind

The same mural, from the top of a side staircase

A cat asleep under a bench

A café at step 304, with a cat under the table

The last stretch

Bar JC Escalón, at step 314

Looking back down over the city and the river

A side alley out to the river

Steps 357 to 363

The last few steps, with the chapel in sight

At the top

Cannons, flowers and a ship that never sails

Old cannons along the wall, with downtown and the river below

A building shaped like the stern of an old Spanish ship

The lighthouse above a stone slope and bougainvillea

The lighthouse

The lighthouse at the top, with a cannon out front

Across the plaza from the chapel

The chapel

Capilla Santa Ana, next to the lighthouse

Juan Pueblo, the Guayaquil everyman a cartoonist created in 1918, on a bench by the chapel

Me and Juan Pueblo

Stained glass on the back of the chapel

The view

The river on one side, the city and the hills on the other

The Guayas River and the riverfront, with a Ferris wheel

Downtown, over the tin roofs below the hill

The next hill over, covered in houses and antennas

New towers going up along the river

Part two · The Malecón and downtown

Lunch on the river

La Panga, comida típica

Lunch at La Panga, over the river on the Malecón

Comida típica: a soup, onion and tomato salad, canguil popcorn, ají, and a bowl of meats

Fried pork, boiled beef, blood sausage and plantain sausage over plantain chips

Along the Malecón

Jabalí, a bronze wild boar on the Malecón

Dr. Vicente Lecuna, honorary citizen of Guayaquil, under a fig tree

León Febres-Cordero, the mayor behind the Malecón, in a lagoon

The lagoon and its waterfalls

Juan Pueblo again, on a bench by the river

The Moorish Clock Tower, with Juan Pueblo on his bench

The clock tower from across the street, over a painted crosswalk

The six virtues

Plaza de la Administración

Six bronze women around the plaza, each one a virtue the city claims as its own: generosity, strength, courage, leadership, freedom and solidarity. They are by the Guayaquil sculptor Edgar Cevallos and went up in 2017.

Plaza de la Administración, with the Palacio Municipal behind

Mariscal Sucre on his monument

Generosidad

Fortaleza, outside the Universidad de las Artes

Valor

Liderazgo

Libertad

Solidaridad

Coming next: more of Guayaquil.