We headed out from Máncora on the only the only night bus which meant we were travelling economico. This meant no fancy seats, pillows etc, a fight to claim our seats from the sleepy peruvians that had occupied them since Lima, stops at villages every half hour and several police checks as well as the expected two separate frontier stops. The first, to leave Peru, went fairly smoothly apart from an unsuccessful attempt to get $10 of us for the free Ecuador entry forms. When we got to the 24 hour Ecuador entry post there were police cars outside and the TV in the back room was playing. However it took nearly an hour for the film to finish and for anyone to appear and check us through into our next country.

We finally got into the out-of-town Guayaquil bus station/shopping mall a little before expected at 7.30am and had some breakfast. A cab took us to the hotel we had contacted but they hadn't checked their email. However, they did have a room and we were soon back out on the streets to try to bargain ourselves a Galapagos experience. We had expected to spend a couple of days sorting this out but it went more easily than we expected. By lunchtime we had handed over a lot of money for flights and for an 8 day cruise. So we head out tomorrow morning to have a few days in Puerto Ayora, where we hope to organise some diving, before joining our boat.  
 
It left us a short time to explore the more exciting parts of Guayaquil. The seafront area was redeveloped substantially in 2000 and the town is justifiably proud of what they have done. Attractive and well planned parkland follows the coast, interspersed with a number of playgrounds, viewpoints, cafes, shops and a cinema. The walkways and interesting planting, in areas of different climates, reminded us a little of the Roma Street Park in Brisbane (though much smaller) Included is the most interesting Internet cafe we’ve ever seen in an old railway carriage. Unusually for south america, the town is quite keen on maintaining the facilities, so a number of areas were fenced off as peligroso (dangerous) and we had to avoid the high pressure hoses being used to clean surfaces everywhere.  
 
We then went to visit Parque Bolívar, which at first looks like any other city green square. Only then do you realise that the place is full of dozens of very large iguanas all over the grass and the pathways. Later you also realise that there are also loads of them hanging around in the trees above your head! They are largely unconcerned about the people all around (and the local people seem pretty unconcerned about the lizards too!) At times they even seem to be deliberately posing when cameras are produced. One very old and large specimen was quite happy for people to stroke it (although the park attendant kept a wary eye on what was going on and stopped a young man who started to pull the creature’s tail. We presume that regular official feeding encourages them to stay (there were a couple wandering in the street outside) but members of the public were all obeying the signs forbidding feeding. Tony was particularly surprised as when Jen had been telling him there were dinosaurian iguanas in the park (quoting Lonely Planet) he had presumed they were models.