Las Peñas and Cerro Santa Ana
The Malecón ends in the north at the picturesque barrio of Las Peñas, itself at the foot of Cerro Santa Ana. There’s little more to it than a short, dead-end road – Numa Pompilio Llona – paved with uneven, century-old cobblestones, but the colourful wooden houses here make this one of the prettiest corners of Guayaquil. Many of the houses have been beautifully restored, but part of the area’s charm derives from the flaking paint and gentle disrepair of those that haven’t. A couple of cannons standing by the entrance point towards the river, honouring the city’s stalwart resistance to seventeenth-century pirates, and the street is dotted with a few small art galleries; the best is the Casa del Artista Plástico of the Asociación Cultural Las Peñas.
Rising above Las Peñas, the Cerro Santa Ana was a very dangerous slum until a regeneration project transformed a swath of its ramshackle buildings into an eye-catching sequence of brightly painted houses, restaurants, bars and shops built around a winding, 444-step staircase to a viewpoint at the top of the hill: the Plaza de Honores, home to a colonial-style chapel and lighthouse modelled after Guayaquil’s first, from 1841.
With its discreet balconies, ornate lampposts and switchback streets leading from intimate plazas, the development does a fair job of evoking the image of a bygone Guayaquil – despite the plastic “tiled” roofs, heavy presence of armed guards and large locked gates blocking out the slums at its margins. Yet the spectacular views from the Plaza de Honores and the top of the lighthouse are definitely worth a visit, particularly after a day on the Malecón as the sun dips on the seething city below. Just below the Plaza de Honores, the open-air Museo El Fortín del Santa Ana holds cannons, seafaring paraphernalia, the foundations of the fortress of San Carlos, built in 1629 to defend the city from pirate attacks, and a reconstructed pirate ship, half of which is a bar. Further below, down by the river, the Puerto Santa Ana is the city’s latest regeneration project, currently being developed as a marina complete with waterside cafés, restaurants and apartments.
The Malecón 2000
The busy Malecón Simón Bolívar skirts the western bank of the wide, yellow-brown Río Guayas; it always heaves with traffic but the long pedestrianized section by the waterfront, known as the Malecón 2000, is the most pleasant place to stroll in town. Skilfully designed, diligently maintained and the most beloved public space in the city, it features a large, paved esplanade filled with trees, botanical gardens, contemporary sculpture and architecture, shopping malls and restaurants. It also connects some of Guayaquil’s best-known monuments along a promenade, which security guards regularly patrol, enclosed by railings and accessed only at guarded entrance gates – making it one of the safest places to spend a day in Guayaquil.
Its centrepiece is the Plaza Cívica, reached by gates at the end of 9 de Octubre or 10 de Agosto. As you enter the gates, you’re faced with La Rotonda, an imposing statue of South America’s liberators, José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, shaking hands against a background of tall marble columns topped by billowing South American flags. The monument, which looks stunning when illuminated at night, commemorates the famous encounter between the two generals here on July 26 and 27, 1822. It’s designed so two people whispering into the two end pillars can hear each other – though the din of the traffic somewhat undermines the effect.
South of La Rotonda are sculptures dedicated to the four elements, with fire and earth doubling up as timber-and-metal lookout towers crowned by sail-like awnings. The views from the top are striking: on one side the urban sprawl stretches to the horizon, while on the other the low, fuzzy vegetation across the river lies completely free of buildings. Looking north, the huge bridge of Puente de la Unidad Nacional stretches across to the suburb of Durán, from where the famous Quito–Guayaquil trains used to leave. Beyond the sculptures and past the Yacht Club, the 23-metre Moorish clock tower marks the southern end of the Plaza Cívica.
South of the clock tower is the CC Bahía Malecón shopping centre and the dignified Plaza Olmedo, dedicated to statesman and poet José Joaquín de Olmedo (1780–1847), the first mayor of Guayaquil and a key agitator for the city’s independence. At the southern end of the promenade, the Mercado Sur, a splendid construction of glass and wrought iron, is floodlit at night to dazzling effect and is a wonderful space for temporary exhibitions and events. Opposite, indigenous flower sellers surround the elegant Iglesia San José, and south of the Mercado Sur lies a small clothes and artesanía market, though you’ll have to bargain hard to get a good deal. The real clothes bargains are to be found over the road from the Malecón at the sprawling Las Bahías market, sited on several blocks around the pedestrianized streets on both sides of Olmedo, near the bottom of the Malecón 2000.
North of the Plaza Cívica is a succession of sumptuous botanical gardens, fountains, ponds and walkways; each garden is themed on a historical period or Ecuadorian habitat, such as the Plaza de las Bromelias, a lavish concoction of cloudforest-like trees swathed in mosses and bromeliads. At the northern end of the promenade is an IMAX cinema; http://www.imax.com/theatres/t/imax-malecon-2000/. Below it, in the same building, Guayaquil en la Historia displays the evolution of the city, with fourteen beautifully crafted miniature reconstructions of various scenes, accompanied by information in English.