Lizards and cigars and pirates, oh my!

After a good nights sleep, air conditioning and no car alarms, we spent the whole day in the downtown area. Our first stop was at must-see for us, the iguana park. Actually, its name is Parque Boliver, but the cab driver did know it as the lizard park. When we got there, we just saw these guys on a monument, but it didn’t take long to see the ones in the trees, on the grass away from the entrance, and around like squirrels in our parks. Each tree had about 25 iguanas laying on the branches. I was shooting my camera up, so I’ll need better editing software to get the color right, but these pictures should show you the lizard haven we saw.

There were turtles in this park also, but my family knows what I think of turtles…

Just as we finished taking pictures of the lizards, two things happened. It started to rain and Phillip decided to find a cigar store. We walked first, then we started asking people. I brought 2 umbrellas and 4 ponchos since I knew it was the rainy season here, but of course, since we hadn’t needed them yet, all the rain gear was in our suitcase back at the hostal on the other side of the city! After about 3 hours of walking in the rain, following directions of people who weren’t really sure, but thought a cigar store was just a few blocks that way…. no cigars. We gave up and just walked the Malecon… a very nicely done, pedestrian-only area along the water, with different sections such as a kid play area, a botanical garden, shops, restaurants, monuments. It is about 2 miles long, and we walked from the center north, then back all the way to the south end.

At the south end, we left the Malecon because we saw a market area. Acres of vendor stalls, selling shoes, clothes, electronics, pharmacy items, anything you can think of, and low and behold, at the end of one row of vendors, cigars! Phillip’s quest was over and he was happy as a pig in guano. He bought a box of Ecuadorian cigars for a very reasonable price. And it stopped raining.

We walked back on the Malecon because we saw the advertisement for Pirate Ship Morgan, which sailed at 4 pm. OK, it may have had a mast, but it ran on an engine and the “pirates” sold us a beer and bowl of popcorn. We went on the hour-long cruise in the bay/river area. It was a good way to see the city and the waterway. When I first saw the water from a distance this morning, I thought it was full of trash… but no. The stuff you see in the water is water lilies. Hundred of them that come in and go out with the tide.

We’re back at the hostal, and as I slave over the computer, saving and compressing the photos, writing the blog post, Phillip enjoys his cigar…..