Things to do in Guayaquil

Landmark · The riverfront, from the centre north to Cerro Santa Ana

Two and a half kilometres of secured riverside promenade, ending at the oldest surviving quarter of the city climbing a hill in painted timber houses.

Local tip: Las Peñas is 444 steps up Cerro Santa Ana to a lighthouse and chapel, numbered so you know exactly how much suffering remains. Go late afternoon and stay for the lights on the river. Both the Malecón and the Cerro are gated and patrolled, which is precisely why they work and why the unlit streets immediately around them do not — do not wander off the route after dark.

Landmark · Beside the cathedral, in the centre

A small colonial square in the middle of downtown containing several dozen free-roaming land iguanas, some of them a metre long, entirely unbothered by anyone.

Local tip: Known to everyone as the Parque de las Iguanas. They come down from the trees to be fed in the morning and lie on the paths. It is genuinely startling the first time and it is thirty seconds from the cathedral — the most efficient piece of tourism in the country.

Nature · In the Guayas river, reached by a footbridge from the southern Malecón

A 2,200-hectare Ramsar-listed wetland island between Guayaquil and Durán, with a mangrove boardwalk, a crocodile pond and a small stilt village, reached only on foot or by bicycle.

Local tip: The bridge is pedestrian and cycle only, which is the whole point — no traffic, no noise, and a genuine wetland fifteen minutes from downtown. Go early, before the heat and before the mosquitoes get organised, take water and repellent, and hire a bike at the entrance rather than walking the whole loop.

Nature · Off the Vía a la Costa, about half an hour west of the city

Six thousand hectares of protected tropical dry forest — a globally rare habitat — with howler monkeys, guayacán trees that flower yellow for a few days a year, and over two hundred bird species.

Local tip: Most residents have never been, which is the standing joke about it. The dry forest is a different world from the Amazon everyone flies east to see, and it is a half-hour drive. Go on a weekday morning, book a guide for the longer trails, and if you can time it for the guayacán bloom after the first heavy rains, do.

Food · The centre, and the crab restaurants along the northern avenues

Where the coast eats: encebollado counters at seven in the morning, and, on the other side of the city, tables laid with newspaper for crab.

Local tip: Encebollado is a breakfast, not a lunch — the good places have sold out by eleven. For crab, go with people who know how, on a Wednesday or a weekend, and accept that you will be there for three hours and will need a shower afterwards. Both are cash businesses.

Neighborhood · North of the Malecón along the river

A regenerated riverside strip of towers, museums and restaurants built on the old brewery site, immediately below the historic hill.

Local tip: This is the one part of central Guayaquil where people actually live at street level and walk in the evening, because it is a managed private-public development with its own security. It is not representative of the centre and nobody pretends it is — but if you want to be downtown rather than in the northern suburbs, it is the realistic answer.