Walk along Numa Pompilio Llona and Guayaquil begins to tell a different story. Here, at the foot of Cerro Santa Ana and beside the Guayas River, historic wooden houses contain studios, galleries and the workspaces of artists who have spent decades interpreting the city through painting and sculpture. Las Peñas has become one of the places where Guayaquil’s architectural memory and creativity continue to occupy the same streets.
Its artistic character developed naturally. Artists found inspiration in the river, the changing light, wooden façades, balconies, cobbled streets, and the constant movement of a city shaped by commerce and migration. Ecuadorian painters have created and exhibited from houses in the neighborhood for generations, while artists still open their studios to visitors today.

There is an interesting relationship between Guayaquil and its artists. The city has repeatedly transformed itself through fires, economic cycles, urban expansion, and regeneration. Las Peñas preserves traces of these changes while remaining in an active neighborhood. Art becomes one way of recording that evolution.
Even architecture contributes to the story. The wooden houses lining Numa Pompilio Llona represent a construction tradition adapted to Guayaquil’s climate and history. Inside some of them, easels, canvases, and sculptures have replaced or joined domestic spaces. Heritage remains useful because people continue creating within it.

For travelers, this is where an ordinary walk can become something richer. Entering a studio offers the possibility of meeting the person behind the work, asking what they see in Guayaquil and discovering which details of the city have captured their attention.
Perhaps this is the most revealing way to understand Guayaquil’s bohemian side. It lives through a community that continues to observe, interpret, and paint the city from the banks of the same river that has shaped it for centuries.