My eyes dart about, searching, but unseeing. I can hear the excited cries of little children, the murmur of people talking, but amid the greenery I can’t see what I am looking for. Then I glance up, my attention caught by a subtle movement. My eyes go wide as I see an iguana perched atop a Palo Verde tree. Soon my eyes adjust and there are more iguanas on the tree, dozens, scores, a foot long, some several feet long. Then I look around and the iguanas seem to have popped out of nowhere to where I can now see them now in their hundreds. I’ve found them, or have they found me?

Officially this is the Parque de Simon Bolivar (Simon Bolivar Park), in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but to the locals and all who visit this square block it is Iguana Park. Amidst the towering trees and the valiant statue of Simon Bolivar, the old-style bandstand and the park benches, lies the home for these… herds… of iguanas. I look at a rows of low-cut hedge and see a dozen heads peer curiously out from the top. These are little guys, only a foot or so long.

I sit on a bench and watch as hoards of tourists snap pictures. Many iguanas are on the ground, walking indifferently through this mass of humanity. One iguana walks by a young girl of about five years who is with one of the tour groups. She squeals, first in fright, then in fascination. Her father reaches down and grabs the animal’s tail. I fear a violent reaction, but the three-foot iguana keeps walking, trying to pull away. Evidently, it’s used to such rude handling. The father hands the tail to the girl. The iguana is a three-footer, not much smaller than the child. He walks away, dragging her behind until she looses her grip.

I sit a moment and consider these creatures. Mostly they seem to move with a dignity and purposeful quality. Then something astonishes one two-footer and it dashes away at sprinter’s speed.

Farther on, someone has dropped some bread and two iguanas face off over the food. They glare at each other, nodding their heads to show aggression. One iguana is older and bigger, sporting scars on his head and shoulders from past fights. After a few moments of stubbornness the other turns and leaves the bread for the dominant one.

But then, even that morsel of bread is instantly forgotten. A park worker rolls a cart filled with chopped lettuce and fruit. The iguanas come running. By the time the hoard is tossed into a pile, a mass of forty or more iguanas scramble over each other to feed.

Guyaquil lies on the Equatorial Pacific Coast. It is an industrial city, the most populous in Ecuador, and often overlooked by tourists for the much more famous mountainous interior where cities like Quito, Otavalo and Cuenca draw millions to their Cloud Forests and Inca traditions. Guayaquil has long had a reputation as an ugly place, hot, humid, crime-ridden and dangerous to visitors.

No more. In recent years an energetic city government has initiated the most massive civic renewal project in the history of South America. Now, legions of police, security and maintenance workers swarm over public places to keep them safe and scrupulously clean. The filthy harbor has been turned into a dazzling centerpiece of walkways, gardens, shopping and tourist attractions. The city is rapidly becoming checker-boarded with exquisite open spaces filled with appealing moments.

So there is new, but also the city fathers have kept the best of the traditional. One of the traditional best is here at Iguana Park, where a square block of shade and iguanas has beckoned locals and visitors alike for decades.

I wander to a large pool, where snapping turtles, breadbox-sized land tortoises and some fish, looking oddly like Koi, live in separated areas. A shrine is in the corner, overlooking the pool area, a common site in Catholicized Latin America. Next to the shrine is a monster of an iguana, five-feet long perhaps and definitely not so common, stalking by the sainted place towards the base of a magnificent tree standing nearby. It grabs onto the bark and starts climbing into the branches above. I watch for a while, following it until it disappear amongst the leaves.

It’s time to go. When I reach the wrought-iron gates of the park entry a take a last look. The iguanas are gone from my sight, even though I spend long moments looking into the depths of the stately trees above me. I can’t see them now, but I know they’ll be here next time I return.