The Key West Citizen

Traveling Around America

Yes, he's rowing through flowers! But—they're water lilies growing so thick the surface of the river seldom shows. It is a scene on the Guayas River upon which rests the chief port of Ecuador—the city of Guayaquil visited weekly by cruises from New York.

The trip up the Guayas River to Guayaquil, located about thirty miles from the Gulf of Guayaquil, is remindful of the trip up the Congo. The banks are smothered in jungle and studded with the stilted thatched huts of the natives. The channel is animated with every type of watercraft—balsa rafts roofed over with leaves and crowded with natives; steam launches of ancient vintage; barges heaped high with produce; rickety rowboats and the trimmest ships that ever spanked a wave.

Above Guayaquil, the river wanders into dense jungles, and the shrubbery grown banks crowd the channel. Orchids and other exotic parasitic blossoms hang from the trees close enough to pick; and alligators slither through the bushes and splash noisily into the water—offering excellent sport to the hunter. In many places, like the one shown here, lilies grow so thick that one seems to be rowing over a garden; and the air is heavy with perfume.