Tuesday 29th March - Guayaquil, Ecuador

We were in bed about 9.30 last night, the equivalent to 3.30am England time and meant we'd been up nearly 24hrs....... Yep! We slept well.

Add captionA view from the ship at Guayaquil Port

And woke at about 7.30 to our first proper day in Ecuador. I've been reading up on Guayaquil, (Why-a-kil) and the locals think it's the most unsafe city in Ecuador. Bars on the windows and high security type fencing around houses and estates sort of gives an idea of the environment so we'd decided that we'd stay on the ship today, and catch up on ourselves after all the travelling.

Except..........

Well. It was all down to that little island next door to us. The port of Guayaquill is not on the coast, it's on a river, and the little island that I could see was just loaded with birds. I couldn't see them properly and I'd been using my camera on full zoom to get a look which was not ideal and very frustrating. I was kicking myself for not bringing my binoculars which I knew I would want on the various tours I'd planned that Peter and I should go on.

A view through the full zoom on the camera. I can make out the Heron, but is that a stork or an ibis - I think there are ducks over there as well as the cormorants, and what is the little black and white bird. I can't see properly!

I didn't know what to do about it at first, but at about 11 o'clock we made the spur of the moment decision to "nip" into town and buy some. That shouldn't be difficult should it? We had 2½ hours to find them.

So armed with the name of the shopping centre "Mall del Sur" or "Centro del Sur", we set off to get a legitimate taxi (we'd received instructions from security people at the airport). We managed to hail one down just as we left the port. I told the taxi driver where we wanted to go, he immediately said, "no, you want to go to Mall Del Sol". I'm like, well, I know I was told "del Sur" but he's saying that the other mall is bigger and better. This is all by sign language by the way, because he didn't understand a word of English, and we had absolutely no idea what he was trying to tell us in Spanish.

Anyway, we told him we wanted binoculars, he insisted we went to Mall del Sol and we drove past Mall del Sur. Driving in Ecuador doesn't seem to follow any rules. They don't stick to lanes, don't use indicators, they squeeze through wherever they feel like and blast their horns a lot. Just about every car we saw on the roads was dented - and the roads were hectic. As our taxi driver negotiated his way through the mayhem, Peter and I started to wonder if we'd been right allowing him to take us to Mal del Sol. We sat in the back, getting more and more worried as time ticked on. We had to be back by half past one!

We finally got to the mall at 12.25 and we'd worked out that we needed to leave by 12.45 to meet our curfew. We charged around the mall, asking one shop assistant after another if they knew where we could get binoculars. Just as time ran out, the last girl said "Radio Shack, over there" (in Spanish of course). Halelujah! It didn't take long to identify a suitable pair, and then the taxi driver (who'd waited for us), drove even more manically than the rest of the traffic back to the port. We were just 5 minutes late, but still in time for a quick bite to eat before the Emergency Drill. As far as I'm concerned, the binoculars are worth it, we're going to be on the ship for four weeks, and I would be so fed up without them.

After the safety drill it was Peter's meet and greet thing with the other entertainers. Neil and Louise Bonner are on board, which we are very pleased about. The ship set sail at 3pm and took a few hours to travel downriver to reach the sea. I spent an hour or so on deck, watching the jungle go by. Using the binoculars I managed to see a few more Roseate Spoonbills feeding on the riverside. Later on in the day, the sky became filled with Frigate birds. Several passengers tried to photograph them. The birds were a magnificent sight, line after line of them almost stationary in the wind currents as we sailed beneath.

Showered and fed, it wasn't long after dinner before the difference in time zones caught up on us again, and we were in bed by 10. Peter woke a little later though and a good job an' all. Paperwork had been pushed through the door for us to be on tour in the morning. We're going to a National Park which we hope will be interesting. As Peter says....... "Bring it on".