Why it looks like this

Guayaquil lives on its river: the Malecón waterfront runs along the Guayas, a broad estuary river that made the city Ecuador's port and shipyard through the colonial era, and the downtown checkerboard grew back from that waterfront.

At the northern end of the Malecón the flat grid runs out against two hills. Cerro Santa Ana, the original site, is climbed by a famous public staircase through the painted lanes of Las Peñas — the crooked, colourful remainder of the old town above the modern grid.