Parque Seminario (Iguana Park) & Metropolitan Cathedral Guide, Guayaquil

Four blocks west of Malecón 2000 between Calles Chimborazo, Chile, Clemente Ballén, and 10 de Agosto lies the historic heart of Guayaquil's 1693 Ciudad Nueva ("New City"). Here, a single block of wrought-iron Victorian gardens brings together the city's grandest church and one of the most unusual urban wildlife colonies in the Americas.

1. Parque Seminario / Parque Bolívar (The Famous "Parque de las Iguanas")

• From Colonial Plaza de Armas to 1895 French Garden: Laid out in 1695 when Guayaquil relocated southward from Cerro Santa Ana to escape pirate raids and fires, this square served for two centuries as the colonial Plaza de Armas. In 1889, the city unveiled the central bronze equestrian monument of Simón Bolívar (cast in Rome by Italian sculptor Giovanni Anderlini upon a granite pedestal), and in 1895 wealthy benefactor Miguel Suárez Seminario funded its transformation into a Belle Époque park enclosed by French wrought-iron railings, a octagonal Victorian music gazebo (glorieta, 1889), and two bronze wild boar statues imported from the Val d'Osne foundry in Paris.
• Meeting the Resident Colony of Green Land Iguanas (Iguana iguana): What makes Parque Seminario world-famous today is its thriving population of several hundred free-roaming green iguanas (Iguana iguana), some measuring over a metre from nose to tail tip, which descend from the branches of the park's mango, almond, and ficus trees every morning to bask on the warm stone paths alongside red-eared slider turtles and koi carp in the fountain pond. To protect the reptiles' health, municipal park rangers strictly prohibit visitors from touching or feeding the iguanas (park staff feed them scheduled rations of fresh cabbage, lettuce, and mango twice a day).

2. Catedral Metropolitana de San Pedro Apóstol (1924 to 1937)

• Three Centuries of Churches on Chimborazo Street: Directly facing the western gate of Parque Seminario rises the dazzling white facade of the Catedral Metropolitana de Guayaquil. After two earlier timber cathedrals on this site were replaced, construction of the current reinforced-concrete neo-Gothic temple began in 1924 under Italian architect Paolo Russo, with the twin pointed spires and facade completed between 1941 and 1958 by Spanish architect Juan Orús Madinyá and sculptor Emilio Soro.

3. Stained Glass, Carrara Marble & Christ the King Spires

Look up at the two 46-metre bell towers, where a statue of Christ the King (Cristo Rey) atop the northern spire blesses the city. Inside, three soaring naves paved in Cuenca marble are bathed in coloured light filtering through French and Spanish stained-glass rose windows and pointed lancets depicting the life of Saint Peter and Ecuadorian saints; admission is free outside mass services.