Grand South America & Antarctica Voyage, Sailing into Guayaquil, Ecuador...

Today, we entered the Guayas River on our way to Guayaquil, 45 miles (72 km) upstream from the Gulf of Guayaquil in the Pacific Ocean.  Due to a narrow river and sandbars, a pilot boarded the ship to take us into Guayaquil.  The Guayas floodplain is one of the most extensive and accessible fertile regions of Ecuador and the source of much of the country’s chief export, bananas.  There are extensive plantations of coffee, cacao, rice and tropical fruits, as well as numerous shrimp farms flourishing because of the brackish water.  We spent the day outside on the back deck taking in all the sights along the way to Guayaquil.  The closer we got to Guayaquil the temperature and humidity began to climb as we are inland at the equator.  In light of the Ecuadorian Presidential Elections today, No Shore Leave has been granted to both passengers and crew alike.  The No Shore Leave Order is for safety and security reasons in anticipation of demonstrations, road closures during and after the elections.  Guayaquil is an overnight stop so we are hopeful tomorrow things have calmed down enough to let us off the ship tomorrow morning.  If not, oh well…  just part of travel!  We arrived Guayaquil at 3:30 pm ahead of schedule.  Tonight, we are having a German party in the Lido midship pool area in honor of Oktoberfest…loving this Grand Voyage!