Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador, a hot, noisy and energetic port on the Guayas river, a few degrees south of the equator, and the place where a rider's journey up the coast begins. It is a commercial city, and proud of it. In the nineteenth century, cocoa made fortunes here, and the grand houses and the old customs building along the river recall that boom. The waterfront walk, the Malecón, runs for more than two kilometres along the river with gardens, fountains and a lighthouse, and on a warm evening it is full of families.
The city has a few oddities worth knowing. In a small square near the cathedral, wild iguanas lounge in the trees and on the benches, apparently unbothered by the crowd, and the guides will tell you to look up. The old district of Las Peñas, a steep hillside of painted wooden houses, climbs to a hilltop chapel by four hundred and forty-four steps, and the view from the top over the river and the city is excellent. The food is a pleasure, with ceviche served with popcorn, encebollado, a fish soup that is the traditional hangover cure, and fried plantains.
The ride that starts here is the Ruta del Spondylus, which follows the Pacific coast northwest through fishing villages and beaches. The route is named after the spiny oyster, Spondylus, whose red-orange shell was prized by the peoples of the Andes as a sacred offering and traded for hundreds of kilometres. The road runs through dry scrub on the Santa Elena peninsula, then through greener country toward Manabí, with surf towns, mangroves and long empty beaches. Surfaces are mostly good, with sections of roadworks and occasional potholes.
Leaving Guayaquil is the hardest part, since traffic is heavy, with buses, trucks and motorcycles filling every lane, and the heat and humidity are strong. Set off early, before the roads fill up. Fuel is cheap and plentiful, with stations on every main road, though quality and supply vary in small places, so fill up before leaving the larger towns. Rain is heavy between January and April, and the dry season runs from May to December. The coast gets a morning mist, called garúa, in the cooler months, and the sea is cooler than you might expect.