Still in Guayaquil

Guayaquil is not really a beautiful city, although it has a few pretty colonial buildings and also some real interesting modern architecture like the following building:

One of the prettier neighbourhoods is Las Penas on Cerro Santa Anna, a hill with cute colored houses and nice cobble stone streets. I wanted to go up from the back side but a woman who was sitting in front of her store, picking lice out of her little girls hair, warned me not to go up from there, as I might get assaulted and robbed, only the other side was safe. And indeed, on the other side, there was a policeman every 50 or 100 meters. You can walk up 1144 stairs until the top of the hill from where you have a nice view over the city. 

although it is more interesting to look into the side streets.

Along the shore of the river there is a nice guarded area called Malecon with parks, restaurants, shopping center, cinema and a beautiful museum of antropology with a very beautiful exposition of pre Incan ceramics.

Most of them are between 1500 and almost 4000 years old, it is unbelievable. 

Another lovely place in Guayaquil is the parque istorico, a beautiful park with topical vegetation and beautiful birds (free, not in cages!) , some typical houses of the area, a show garden and a little farm. This cute green parrot greeted me very friendly with ola, wheen I passed by. 

And these beautiful arara is called arara because he always says arara.

I find some of these trees so interesting- they have many roots that grow from the top to the bottom and get their nutrients from the air, dust and rain.

I fell in love with the ecuatorian chicken. I have never seen such pretty chicken anywhere. Doesn`t it look as if she has a fur coat and fur hat? And this in a climate of +35 degrees centigrades! austrian chicken should have such a "fur"!

aren't they gorgeous? 

and the cock is quite hand some too!

For all passionate gardeners- some nice ideas.

Frederic, if you are wondering what you should build me for my next birthday- here is a great idea!

And look what you can make with empty plastic bottles:

I was thinking to rent a car in Ecuador but I read that there are hardly any signs and it is hard to find your way. Well, it does not seem to be true! Look at that: