Guayaquil

If you don't have a sadistic-like desire for spending your time in big cities, you will probably not like this one. Guayaquil is a quite ordinary place and much more expensive than any other part of the country. Its only feature worth mentioning is its half-interesting, but pricy, seaside development, which was an attempt to tackle high crime rates along the river. It resulted in an urban regeneration scheme, some kind of a spiced-up seaside park-entertainment-eatery-shopping hybrid area called Malecón 2000; and the only reason why it is the safest place in the city is that it is fenced off and watched by an army of policemen.
I was so excited about Guayaquil that I stayed in the city one whole day. And it had nothing to do with the $13.40 hotel room, which was the cheapest (but still a damn good value) place I could find.

Malecón 2000