It's All Happening at the Zoo

We looked over the possible sightseeing destinations for today and settled upon a zoo that was about 30 minutes from our hotel. We cleverly contracted with our cab driver from yesterday who picked us up at 10 A.M. He spoke Spanish to us and I (hee hee) translated for the group. I knew we were getting somewhere when we started joking with each other. We spotted quite a large man and I said, "Grande" to which he replied "Albondigas" and when I told the others that we said the man was one big meatball all of us had quite a laugh! The zoo was a rudimentary affair and blessedly small. Our guide conducted quite a thorough tour which was, you guessed it, all in Spanish. Ron bought a ticket for our driver to come along and we 5 were the only patrons. The guide was a cute and animated girl who spoke slowly for my benefit and who enhanced her descriptions with many gestures. She provided each animal's name, where it was found and what it ate. I always understood carne and fruitas and that seemed to comprise most of the diets. There were signs in English, too, with the animal names. I stayed with the guide and got the cab driver involved when needed but the others basically amused themselves. We all agreed that it was an experience with many aspects as is true of so much of this life. We did enjoy going through a village en route to the zoo where we saw many tuk tuks and no cabs. Reminded me again of India except that there were so many less people. Jackie came up with a good idea of returning to the bazaar so we did that before returning to the hotel. Another good experience. There are very few English speakers and not really that many tourists here in Guayaquil since the Galapagos limits the number of visitors. The people here are very proud of their city and the cab driver wanted to make sure that we all enjoyed seeing the sights. He might have warned us off thte zoo, but he probably thought we really wanted to go there. The other option was a botanical garden. In retrospect..... Early day tomorrow and by afternoon we'll be on our ship and able to swim, snorkel, hike or kayak. How about all of the above? More from The Endeavor - maybe tomorrow.