Barrio Las Peñas, 444 Steps & Cerro Santa Ana Lighthouse Guide, Guayaquil

At the northern end of Malecón 2000, where the green hill of Cerro Santa Ana drops down to the water's edge, stands the exact spot where Spanish settlers founded Guayaquil in the sixteenth century. Together, the single surviving wooden lane of Barrio Las Peñas and the pastel houses climbing the hillside to the Cerro Santa Ana Lighthouse form the city's most photogenic walk.

1. Barrio Las Peñas & Cobblestoned Calle Numa Pompilio Llona

• The Wooden Architecture That Survived the Great Fire of 1896: Originally home to 16th-century fishermen and shipwrights, Las Peñas was rebuilt in the early 1900s after the catastrophic Great Fire of 5 to 6 October 1896 (El Gran Incendio) destroyed nearly half of Guayaquil. Wealthy cocoa exporters and intellectuals erected two- and three-storey Republican mansions crafted from rot-resistant tropical hardwoods such as guayacán, chachajo, and mangrove, featuring wooden louvred shutters (chazas) designed to catch river breezes while maintaining shade and privacy.
• Walking the 300-Metre Cobblestone Street of Presidents & Poets: Declared a National Cultural Heritage site in 1982, the narrow stone-paved lane of Calle Numa Pompilio Llona (named after the Guayaquil poet laureate who lived at the end of the street) curves between the hill and the Río Guayas. Bronze plaques on the timber facades mark the former homes of eleven Ecuadorian presidents (including Eloy Alfaro, José Luis Tamayo, and Carlos Julio Arosemena), composer Antonio Neumane (who wrote the music of Ecuador's national anthem), writer Enrique Gil Gilbert, and a young Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who worked briefly as a volunteer pediatric doctor here in 1953. Today the ground floors house intimate painter studios, art galleries, and riverfront cafés.

2. Climbing the 444 Numbered Steps of Cerro Santa Ana to El Faro

• From Escalinata Diego Noboa to Step 444 (60m Elevation): Starting at the small plaza at the entrance to Las Peñas, the Escalinata Diego Noboa climbs straight up the spine of Cerro Santa Ana. Every single step is marked with a yellow ceramic tile counting from Step 1 at the bottom to Step 444 at the summit plaza, making it easy to pace your twenty-minute ascent. Along the way, small landings open onto shaded benches, cold-coconut-water stalls, craft shops, and mid-hill viewpoints looking down over the curve of the Malecón.
• El Fortín Open-Air Museum, Capilla de Santa Ana & the Lighthouse (El Faro): Reaching Step 444 on the Plaza de Honores rewards you with three landmarks: the Museo Abierto El Fortín (displaying replica 17th-century bronze cannons that defended the young port against Dutch and English privateers such as Jacques l'Hermite, William Dampier, and Woodes Rogers), the stained-glass Capilla de Santa Ana, and the 18.75-metre blue-and-white lighthouse (El Faro de Guayaquil, built in 2002). Climb the spiral stairs inside the lighthouse for a 360-degree view encompassing the confluence of the Daule and Babahoyo rivers, Isla Santay, and the towers of Puerto Santa Ana below.