Why I visited this dangerous city

It has one of the highest murder rates in the world and Smartraveller advises against all non-essential travel there, but I still went.

One of the great disappointments of my recent trip to Ecuador is that I didn’t stay longer.

The three days my parents and I spent in Quito before flying to the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador’s west coast were one of the best travel surprises of the last 12 months; the people are delightful, the UNESCO-listed historic district is an architectural treasure, the food is outstanding and the art and handicrafts are exceptional. Quito’s Capilla del Hombre ‘Chapel of Men’ gallery, a protest to violence and human suffering by indigenous Ecuadorean artist Oswaldo Guayasamin, is one of the most powerful spaces I’ve ever been to.

But the nationwide state of emergency and resulting curfew first imposed in Ecuador in January and then extended due to gang-related violence is sadly deterring tourists.

Pretty pastels in Quito, Ecuador. Picture: iStock

We’d only just booked our flights and paid the deposit for our bucket-list cruise in the Galapagos when violence erupted in Ecuador. (Curfews are no longer in place, but a state of “internal armed conflict” has been declared). We decided to press on with our plans.

To get to the Galapagos, you need to fly from Ecuador’s capital city Quito on the mainland. The flight then makes a stop in the port city of Guayaquil City to pick up and drop off passengers. We chose to enter the Galapagos via Quito and then exit Ecuador on an international flight out of Guayaquil City, as it was quicker and cheaper to fly to Panama City with COPA Airlines and then onto San Francisco.

We would need to make an overnight transit in Guayaquil to make our flight early the next day. But within a few months of booking our flights, a state of emergency was declared and a Smartraveller warning issued singling out Guayaquil City.

And so I ended up spending a night in one of the world’s most dangerous cities.

Gang violence has made Guayaquil one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Picture: iStock

Guayaquil City is less than an hour’s flight from the Galapagos island of Santa Cruz and is the launchpad to this magical archipelago. But it’s also a critical export hub for transporting cocaine to Europe, and according to local media, gang violence and homicides have escalated.

Guayaquil now has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

The advice level from Smartraveller before we left was the orange level three ‘Reconsider your need to travel’ due to the high risk of kidnapping and violent crime. It advised against all non-essential travel to Guayaquil, and still does. We would be spending less than 24 hours in the city, should we risk it?

A slightly apprehensive writer, Jenny Hewett, at Guayaquil airport.

My Aussie-based tour operator assured me that they had been working with the tour company on the ground for a long time and that it would safe as long as we travelled directly to the hotel and stayed there. Some travel insurers won’t cover destinations with level-three advice from Smart Traveller, but my provider Cover-More does.

The Grand Hotel in Guayaquil.

We decided to take a risk, and booked the hotel recommended to us by our Aussie tour operator through Booking.com. On the boat the night before we departed the Galapagos, our guide Darwin pulled me aside. The office wanted to check what our plans were in Guayaquil City and to make sure that we knew the situation there.

I said we would go directly to the hotel and stay there. He reiterated that it’s “not safe to go out”. It’s one thing to read about it, but hearing this from a local was quite confronting.

A heavy police presence at Gauyaquil airport.

Guayaquil airport was a ghost town, with very little tourists. Once we exited the terminal, we were met with heavy police presence and large temporary police billboards recommending that travellers only use the taxi services offered by the airport. I ditched our plans to get an Uber and we hopped in an airport taxi. We drove past a man dressed only in a fitted bedsheet.

Our nerves settled when were arrived at the hotel within 15 minutes. Life seemed to be carrying on as normal on the streets, but there were no other tourists. That night we ate our last Ecuadorean meal of ceviche and empanadas in a near-empty hotel restaurant before an early wake-up to catch our 830am flight. It was eerie to see barely any other cars on the street at 5am and every traffic light blinking orange, for what reason, I’m not sure, as the midnight until 5am curfew is no longer in place. It was a strange way to leave a beautiful country, but our hearts were full.

The writer travelled at her own expense.

This article originally appeared on Escape and was reproduced with permission