Guayaquil and Santay: An Encounter between Nature and Modernity

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Ecuador’s modern city of Guayaquil and the virginal island of Santay are only separated by a river. Being so close to each other, the resulting contrast is amazing to see: on one side, Guayaquil stands as Ecuador’s most populated city and an icon of the country’s modernity. Only 500 meters (0.3 miles) away, the Santay Island is a virginal place that keeps an intangible record of its history and represents the past and the unknown to the modern world. From the Guayaquil’s famous pier, it takes only a 10 minute boat trip to get to this little natural paradise of 2,214 hectares wide and a population of 233, highly contrasting with the 2,800,000 people living in Guayaquil.

Arriving to the island, you can observe the exotic birds and plants living there and feel the peace of its inhabitants. Different types of tours are available, such as the canoe paddling tour, where you sit on a canoe floating almost as low as the water level and a tourist guide shows you the different bird species appearing among the foliage as you paddle along the river. If you rather take an inland tour, there are various paths to explore the island’s fauna and flora.

In Santay Island, you get to know all the people living there, listen to their stories and learn about their lifestyle while feeling happily welcomed. While you have a cup of hot chocolate, you may hear the story of the times when Simón Bolívar, known as the American Liberator, stayed in the island in 1829 to recover from an illness. You may even want to stay longer than planned, spending the night at the bamboo-made houses where you can comfortably rest after a day of adventures.

Being in the island and looking at the natural preservation of its surroundings feels like time had stopped. As you sit down to enjoy the sunset that kindly illuminates the green landscape full of singing birds, you can understand a way of life that has been preserved for centuries in this island; a way of life that exists only there, although it once was the lifestyle of the entire region including its close and beloved neighbor, Guayaquil.

Photo: Nihilo

200 Years of Living History in Only One Park

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Guayaquil is the name of the Ecuadorian coastal region’s main city, a place full of cultural enchantment and a rich history. To keep its past alive, there is a park in the north of the city called the Guayaquil Historical Park. This place takes visitors to a time when Guayaquil used to be called “The Free Province of Guayaquil”; and its territory used to cover the whole coastlines of what nowadays are the provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, El Oro and Manabí.

Visitors travel in time as they go along the park’s three sections. The first section is the Wildlife Zone. With a length of 5 hectares, this zone shows how life was at the mangrove swamps and the dry tropical forests that used to cover great extensions of Ecuador. Walking through this section, visitors can observe a great diversity of tropical animals and outstanding ecosystems. Places such as the viewpoint tower and the Monkey Island will certainly get the attention.

The second stage is known as the Urban and Architectural Zone. It takes us to the time between the years of 1800 and 1900, when the streets, the houses, the means of transport and the people were different. Here, there is an astonishing recreation of those times, with real, 100-years old houses that have been restored and placed facing the simulated seafront known as the “Foreign Colony’s Walk”, dating back to 1931, with its carriages and its pier. A friendly couple of inhabitants of those times are there to invite you to meet the famous house of Dr. Coronel, built in 1900. The house has a beautiful view to the Daule River, and on its first floor you can enjoy a nice cup of coffee at the “1900 Café”. Afterwards, you have the opportunity to see other important restored constructions, such as the Territorial Bank (1886), created to give an incentive to cacao production in the country; the Corazón de Jesús Hospice (1892) and its beautiful gardens; and the famous Green House (2896), that belongs to the powerful Lavayén-Paredes family.

Finally, following the path you find the Traditions Zone, which shows the life of the Ecuadorian peasants, active characters of the Ecuadorian coastline during the 20th Century, whose houses can still be seen from some points of the coastline. In this tour, you meet these famous people, who happily invite you to their bamboo-made houses and talk about their customs and lifestyle. A bell ringing far away calls for the peasants to gather in the manor or estate, dating back to 1882, that is better known as the Boss’ House and belongs to the owner of the lands were the peasants worked. The tour finishes with the visit to the gardens, were you can learn from the peasants themselves about medicinal plants; the origins of the coffee and cacao grains; as well as about their natural cures for illnesses such as flu and asthma. If you are lucky, you get to know the Shamán, a folk healer that performs a ritual called limpia (cleaning) that, according to their beliefs, takes any negative energy away from your body.

Undoubtedly, this park takes you through a whole journey to the Ecuadorian coastal region’s past, where you will learn about the customs, the people, the stories, the architecture, the ecosystems and the fauna of those times. The park is also a witness of the hard work of the region’s inhabitants, something that nowadays sets an example of agricultural and commercial development to the rest of the country.

Photo: Biblioteca Municipal de Guayaquil