Trips to Ecuador

ATTRACTIVE TOURIST:

HILL SANTA ANA
The hill Santa Ana is located to the northeast of the city, the foot of the Guayas River and next to the traditional District the Rocks. To watchtower way, it dominates to the mighty Guayas river and the plain where Guayaquil rises.
The Hill, call formerly Green Cerrito, is the site where the city was originated, since in its skirts its definitive foundation in 1547 took place. It counts the legend that Young of Lecumberri, seeking Spanish of treasures, invoked Santa Ana when he was in death danger. In gratefulness by her salvation Santa Ana” in the top of the hill placed a Cross with the legend “, name that replaced since then the one of Green Cerrito.
At present, the Hill Santa Ana is a point of tourist interest of the city. In a route of 310 meters (456 steps) are restaurants, coffees, galleries of art, cibercafés and stores of crafts. It is equipped with small squares and green areas for the rest, and attractive more important his it is the view of the majestic Guayaquil.
From his top it is observed, to the north, the imposing intersection of the rivers Babahoyo and Daule that form to the Guayas; to the south, the commercial helmet of the city; to the east, the Island Santay and Durán; and, to the west the Hill of the Carmen and the rest of the city.

DISTRICT THE ROCKS
The district the Rocks is oldest of the city, and at present it is being repaired to be brilliant as once it were. In him always there are cultural activities and exhibitions. Located next to the river, it illuminates the city from this end.

The Rocks are historically the most important district of Guayaquil, because although its houses they only have around 100 years, their formal characteristics and structural they are very similar to those of centuries XVIII and XIX.

Each one of the houses have their own history. Here illustrious personages lived on the policy and the culture of the country, like the musician Antonio Neumane, presidents Francisco Oaks, Jose Luis Tamayo, Carlos Julio Arosemena Tola, Alfredo Brown Baquerizo, Eloy Alfaro, the writer Enrique Gil Gilbert, the historian Rafael Pine Rock, painter Manuel Rendón Seminary, Thorny Alfredo Tamayo, Juan Montalvo, the educator Rita Lecumberry, and inclusively Ernesto “Che” Guevara was of passage by this district and served free of charge as pediatrician between its people. Also it was the cradle of industrialists, housewives, fishermen and sailors, personages who nourish of life the cotidianidad of the city.

By the end of the sixty, Luis Noble Baquerizo and Eloy Avilés Alfaro they were the pioneers in realizing artistic exhibitions in the Rocks. They showed young, square painters of the Quito School and retorts of artists like Monard or Rembrandt, each 24 of July at night. This is only an example of the intense cultural life that always has had the district.

At the end of century XVII, with the transfer of the shipyards the district begins to lose importance. For many reasons, among them the urban growth and the unhealthiness of the areas limited that it by the south, the inhabitants of the old Guayaquil solved to found a new city on 1690, located about two kilometers to the south, in the level part, and since then it was divided to the city in “old” and “new”.

Many litigations were between which they were and those that emigrated. Obstinate to its district and its properties, and the other in search of the comforts that projected in the new one, because until the Town hall and main governmental offices they requested lots.

The limits of the old city determined from the hill Santa Ana and hill of the Carmen until which it is today Junín street, behind the church of the Favor, and the border laughs of it until the then called district Low, at the moment the prolongation of the Cordoba streets, Escobedo, Bolivar.
In order to unite the two cities a long bridge was constructed, in North-South sense, from the place of Santo Domingo to the Street of the Wall, as the present Junín street were called. The bridge had eight hundred Castilian twigs and all the sector crossed that it flooded because several matting in the winter and discharges tides (rising tides) watered their waters by the new street, that little by little was filled up of gravel.

In century XVIII the Rocks were a district of middle-class. Some well-off ladies transferred their houses towards that sector and coexisted with popular layers like prosperous craftsmen, fishermen, retailers and artists. “The Rocks in 1650 were sumun of all the colonial ethnic groups”, according to the cronistas of the time.
In century XIX its aristocratización with the purchase of some lots on the part of noble families of the time like Mrs. Clara Barron Ruiz and Barreyro, the Tola families, Maples, etc. begins.

The great fire of 1896 devastated the district, that was reconstructed in century XX with characteristics of its original architecture. In 1902 the last fire is registered that whipped the city, although the houses seriously were this time not affected thanks to the fact that by then already they counted on a detachment of firemen.
During great part of century XX he was one of the districts more known to welcome in the Buenosairean social elite.

On the foot of the hill Santa Ana and to the border of the river it is the small bastion that are known like the Gangplank, and in which the street Numa Pompilio Llona begins, name of the remarkable poet guayaquileño of aims of century XIX. This street narrow and winding that borders the hill is located in district of Rocks, first that was based on the city, that must to its name to rocks and rocky crags, spurs of the hill that submerge in waters, laughs towards it.

It is possible that outside on rocky crags and rocks that began the constructions of amurallamiento of the city at the colonial time (1682), as well as a fort armed of guns for the defense against the assaults of the privateers, very frequent then against the colonies of Spain.
The Rocks are a district that in Guayaquil has stayed through time besides the architectonic evolution and of the urban transformation; indeed in that it is his beauty and patrimonial value. At present it reunites the minimum elements so that it can be considered like the nexus of continuity between the history written with quincha, wood and roofing tiles and the contemporary predominance of the iron, the cement and the glass.

The district the Rocks is one of the few historical legacies that own the city and its very particular architectonic style, its narrow street, its houses next to the river, that own two fronts turn, it into a showy destiny of visit. Every month of July becomes display cabinet of art and culture of artists who live in the place and of cultural manifestations that have the opportunity to be year after year.

LEVEE 2000
The Levee is an historical pillar of the city, since from him its growth expanded.
Nowadays it is the central axis of one of the projects of more ambitious city-planning renovation of South America. They are 2,5 km of marine stroll, extended by the border of the wide Gauyas river.
This divided in sectors that show the variety of the greatnesses of Guayaquil, each of them with a different color.

LEVEE OF THE SALTY ONE
The Levee of the Salty Matting forms a great tourist circuit with Levee 2000. Thanks to regenerated and emblematic avenue 9 of October they are connected training a runner who is forced visit those who wishes to know the piers of the river and the matting.

THE HISTORICAL PARK
It is located in the citadel Between Rivers, in the Guayaquil-Samborondón highway. It looks for to recreate the form of life of long ago with three zones: of wild life, urban architectonic and of exhibition of traditions.
This site of 8 hectares is surrounded by forests of mangrove swamps and other species of trees, like platanillo, that grow naturally around a matting of the Daule river.
In the mangrove swamp 28 animal species exist in captivity, between which they are possible to be observed the deer of white tail, to the washing raccoon and osito, sluggish groups of saínos, tigrillos, bears, crocodiles… 90 species of birds like papagayos, pericos, eagle exist arpía, among others.
In the park also structures are appraised that represent the traditions of the coast, and the recreation of two apples of the Guayaquil, of beginnings of century XX, in which four constructions were located, constructed at that time and that is representative of the old city and has been declared cultural patrimony.

MUNICIPAL CEMETERY
One of the most impressive samples of architecture of the city, the General Cemetery of the city of Guayaquil abrió the 1 of January of 1843, and is one of the best ones of America. In him are all the architectonic styles: greco-romano, neoclassic, baroque, Italian, Spanish, Mudejar, Arabic and Jewish.
The cemetery, also call White City, is now Cultural Patrimony of the Nation. It is divided in 5 sections, being the most admirable the one of the mausoleums, that date from the beginnings of the city.
It owns avenues with palms, chambers, streets, ways, perrons, launching slips and unevennesses.