Ecuador: Who Needs the Galapagos When You Have Manta?

After sailing from the port of Manta in Ecuador last evening it occurred to me that the 3 hour shore tour in my 118^th country was my favorite type of excursion. Learn a little about the country from the full time English teacher but part time tour guide, if possible drive up to the highest local point and take a picture of the ship, maybe visit a local industry, and then take a short walk in an impromptu shopping area which is surrounded by police with sub-machine guns before returning to the ship. The guide managed to cover all important facts about the country including the “amazing phenomenon of eggs balancing on their end only within 10 meters of the Equator Line on 25^th (!) of September and March”. I didn’t know that.

Manta is a small town on the Pacific coast which has three big claims to fame: a military base with presumably American jet fighters loudly flying in circles, the center of production of $800 “Panama Hats”, but it is primarily a grungy port where commercial tuna ships are unloaded laboriously by hand. Tuna fishing is so important that the otherwise very industrial town has its only public art piece in the center of town dedicated to that product. An additional highlight of any visitor’s stay is a tour of the “ivory nut” factory where the nuts of the tugua tree are processed into buttons, hastily hand made knick-knacks, or beads (presumably the rejects from the former production). The town has a lot of police, unsavory looking characters, and street waifs are most evident on otherwise empty streets, and all gas stations and even trunks full of tuna fresh from the ships are escorted by terrorist looking heavily armed guards. We arrived at the only port in Ecuador at noon and sailed at 6:30 pm as a tug continued to ram our ship as if to say, “and don’t come back”.

Today is a sea day. Tomorrow morning we arrive at Salaverry (which most folks onboard are spelling “salivary”, ok spit it out, ha, ha), the first of two ports in Peru, where I have been invited to explore some of the beautiful colonial houses of nearby Trujillo with Larry and Libby Herson. Larry is professor emeritus of and former department chair of History at Ohio State but now spends most of the year traveling from ship to ship giving enrichment lectures. How anyone would want to spend so much time or lecture on cruise ships is a mystery to me.