Parque Histórico Guayaquil (Samborondón) & Puerto Santa Ana Guide

If you want to see what Guayaquil looked like before concrete high-rises replaced its nineteenth-century timber palaces, and observe coastal Ecuador's rainforest wildlife without leaving the metropolitan area, head across the Río Daule bridge into the garden municipality of Samborondón (La Puntilla / Entre Ríos) to visit the eight-hectare Parque Histórico Guayaquil, then pair it with a sunset stroll along Puerto Santa Ana.

1. Zone 1: The Mangrove & Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary (Zona de Vida Silvestre)

Inaugurated in October 1999 by the Central Bank of Ecuador along the tidal banks of the Río Daule, Parque Histórico begins with an elevated 1.2-kilometre wooden boardwalk winding through a regenerated coastal forest and mangrove swamp. Because the animals here have been rescued from illegal wildlife trafficking and cannot be released into the wild, they live in spacious naturalised habitats right beside the walkway: look into the canopy for two- and three-toed sloths (perezosos), howler and spider monkeys, harpy eagles (Harpia harpyja), scarlet and Great Green macaws, toucans, white-tailed deer, Baird's tapirs, ocelots, and American crocodiles.

2. Zone 2: The Rescued 1900 Urban Architecture Quarter (Zona Urbano-Arquitectónica)

Emerging from the forest brings you onto a cobbled turn-of-the-century Guayaquil street complete with a horse-drawn tramway (tranvía de mulas). In the 1980s and 1990s, before demolition crews could tear down four of downtown Guayaquil's finest timber buildings, conservation architects dismantled them piece by numbered piece and reassembled them here:

• Casa Lavayen Paredes (La Casa Verde, 1892), Banco Territorial (1886/1902), Casa Julián Coronel (1899) & Hospicio Corazón de Jesús (1892): Admire the trompe-l'œil wooden facades carved and painted to imitate European marble and stone, and step into the courtyards where actors in 1900 period dress perform lively street-theatre scenes; check the official Parque Histórico / Samborondón portal for current Wednesday-to-Sunday opening days.

3. Zone 3: The Cocoa Hacienda & Montubio Peasant House (Zona de Tradiciones)

The final sector recreates a late-19th-century Pepa de Oro cocoa plantation house (Casa de Hacienda San Juan, 1882) surrounded by fruiting cacao, coffee, banana, and tagua-nut groves, alongside an elevated bamboo-and-thatch Casa Campesina Montubia where rural horsemen and musicians demonstrate coastal rhythms (amorfinos) and traditional cocoa-bean sun-drying on rolling wooden trays (tendales).

4. Evening Contrast: Contemporary Puerto Santa Ana

Back on the western bank of the Río Guayas at the northern foot of Cerro Santa Ana, walk the modern riverfront boardwalk of Puerto Santa Ana, where the brick malt silos of the historic 1913 Cervecería Nacional have been converted into the Museo de la Cerveza, art plazas, and riverside dining terraces.

5. Getting to Parque Histórico from Downtown

Registered taxis take roughly fifteen to twenty minutes from Malecón 2000 or the airport across the Puente de la Unidad Nacional into Entre Ríos.