Current Time in Machala, Ecuador

Machala is the capital of El Oro Province in southwestern Ecuador, lying on the coastal plain a few kilometres from the Gulf of Guayaquil and about seventy kilometres north of the Peruvian border. The surrounding land is flat, hot and intensely cultivated, a patchwork of banana plantations, cacao groves and shrimp ponds threaded with tidal creeks and mangrove channels. The equatorial climate is warm and humid throughout the year, with a rainy season from January to April.

Around two hundred and eighty thousand people live in the city. Machala calls itself the banana capital of the world, and the claim is well founded, since Ecuador is the largest exporter of bananas on earth and a great part of that fruit passes through this province and its port. The World Banana Fair, held every September, combines an agricultural exhibition with concerts, parades and the crowning of a queen, and it is the biggest event in the local calendar.

The port of Puerto Bolívar, on the western edge of the city, is one of the busiest in Ecuador and the principal outlet for fruit exports. Shrimp farming in the coastal estuaries has become a second major industry, along with cacao, coffee and gold mining in the hills to the east, the last of which gave the province its name.

The town grew slowly through the colonial period as a small settlement on the route between Guayaquil and the southern highlands, and it expanded rapidly in the twentieth century as the banana industry took hold after the Second World War. Its layout is modern and functional rather than historic, and much of the architecture dates from the boom years.

The central Parque Juan Montalvo, the cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Merced with its blue domes and stained glass, the Malecón at Puerto Bolívar and the monument to the banana grower are the best known landmarks. From the port, boats cross to the Jambelí archipelago, a chain of low sandy islands and mangrove islets with quiet beaches and seafood restaurants that fill with visitors at weekends.

The province offers unusual excursions inland. Zaruma, a mountain town of wooden houses built around a historic gold mine, is one of the most attractive small towns in Ecuador, while the Puyango Petrified Forest, shared with Loja Province, contains one of the largest concentrations of fossilised araucaria trunks in the world.

Machala is connected by good roads to Guayaquil, three hours to the north, and to the Peruvian frontier at Huaquillas, making it an important transit point for regional trade. Buses and taxis serve the city, and a regional airport handles limited traffic.

The Technical University of Machala is the main institution of higher education, with strengths in agronomy, aquaculture and business, reflecting the economy around it.

Machala is important as the centre of Ecuador's fruit export industry and appealing to travellers as a working tropical city and a gateway to islands, mangroves and mountain gold towns.