Parque Histórico

Today's trip was to Parque Histórico on a peninsula where the Rio Guayas meets the Rio Duale.  The park has three sections: one that reproduces some of the buildings from Guayaquil 100+ years ago, one that depicts rural living and one that recreates some of the native jungles/environments for Ecuador's indigenous plant and animal species.  Some of the building scenes are still being constructed, so this post is mostly about the animals and plants that we saw.  Time for pictures!

(Please forgive some of the quality/framing of these pictures.  I pride myself as a photographer, but the only camera with me today is my cell phone.)

This is the church next door to our apartment.  (We were standing here waiting for our driver, Daniel, to take us to the park.)  I guess we won't be attending Saturday (Sabado) services; we're not between the ages of 13 and 35 years.

Here's the layout of the park - half buildings, half animal environment:

This is one of the re-created street fronts on the townscape.  Banco Territorial is in the middle.  Some of the recreations are false fronts built to show the full town; these, however, are full buildings.  They are not yet furnished, however, so there are no inside pictures.

A small cathedral and confessional.  The walkways along the top are pretty neat.  There are much more impressive cathedrals here in Guayaquil and more in Cuenca, but this one was still charming.

Back to the park.  The entire mangrove forest has a series of walkways built through it (the view is from a tower built for eagle viewing):

My guess is that these two guys worked together to plant a tree.  Unfortunately, one planted the top while the other planted the bottom:

 Mangrove forest:

Real flamingos, not the Florida front-yard kind:

Parrots and macaws:

 Symbiotic flowers growing on the trees (much like orchids do):

And, of course, a picture of the most beautiful species of all!  (along with the flora)

 PVC sprinkler systems have nothing on this setup:

While we were waiting for Daniel to pick us up and bring us back to the apartment, Emily noticed these guys painting an office building.  (Joe Ryan would not approve.)  I'm glad I had a career in IT!

While we were waiting for Daniel, a school bus with 100-some 10-12 year-olds arrived for a tour of the park.  As they walked past us, some of them were saying, "Hola" or "Buenos tardes".  Shortly, though, they starting saying, "Hello" or "Good afternoon".  When we would reply in English or ask them, "How are you?", they would start laughing and walk on, talking or giggling with each other.  Without intending to, we brought a lot of smiles to their faces and ours as well.  Definitely one of the highlights of the day!