Trip to Guayaquil...

Day off, whoo!! And I’m at the temple! Ha! There is a man at the visitor’s center who just asked if I was a mother and if I was married. Great! We left at 5:30am from Cuenca and drove a very winding road to Guayaquil. Our driver is Edgar but goes by Negro. We stopped at the top of this winding hill to see nothing but clouds below. It was so cool! I literally felt like I was on top of the world. Then down the hill we went, below the clouds. The road was winding all the way down until we hit Guayaquil. Now I’m just waiting for the girls to be done, with this man trying to talk to me in Spanish. Hope they hurry up!

  

 

 

  

 

After the temple we went to an iguana park and lighthouse. The iguana park was gross! There’s just a bunch of iguana’s walking around, in the tops of trees, and then there were tons of birds. It was cool enough for a picture but that’s about it. The lighthouse was awesome! Walked about 500 stairs to get there but we made it. Guayaquil is huge. I t was so beautiful with the many colored houses and shops. Crazy to think it’s so beautiful but in reality it’s a dump. Everything is run down. There’s no sense of up keep or renovations. There’s garbage on the rooftops, on the streets, but yet, it’s still so beautiful. You have to look at the bigger picture to see its real beauty.

 

 

 

 

  

   

 

   

 

   

 

We headed back home after the light house and ended up getting pulled over at a police stop. Vanessa, Mekai, Cara, and Ashley didn’t have their passports with them. What?! Who travels around in another country without their passports?! Negro had to pay the police man $20 to let us go. What an experience that was!

 

  

 

 

 The "Oh, Shit!" Bar

It was good to travel to another city and check out the sights…even if it was to the temple! Successful day off!

**We later found out there was a stand-off at the lighthouse just after we had left. Negro knew about it and was very sneaky about taking us a certain route so we wouldn’t be involved. Apparently, there was a man at the top by the lighthouse who had another person at gun point. As we were leaving we saw 2 police men running up the 500 stairs and wondered what was going on. Also, how long it would take to run up 500 stairs! Come to find out… a man with a gun was about 10 minutes behind us! Thank goodness! After knowing this, no group is allowed in Guayaquil anymore!