Instead of taking part in any far flung tour on this, my third visit to Ecuador, I stayed close to the port of Manta. Manta is the largest city in the province of Manabi of Ecuador, with 180,000 inhabitants, and it's second busiest port after Guayaquil. Ecuador is of course named for it's latitude, right on the equator. There is actually a 'historic site' near Quito, the capital, where one can put one foot in the southern hemisphere, and one in the northern one.
Manta itself is home to a booming tuna fishing industry, and the harbour is filled with fishing vessels raising and falling to the swell in the bay.
Nearby is Montecristi, now famous and known throughout the world for the original and official Panama hats. Quite a number of excavatioe of ancient Inca temples and cities are underway in the vicinity.
I took a shuttle to town, a 10 minute ride. The town is not exactly a treasure trove of architecture, but it has a small museum, a lot of banks, a large number of sea food eateries, a craftsmarket overflowing with Panama hats, and more traffic than downtown New York. The Plaza Civico provides the stage for the colourful craft market, where indigenous people offer their wares: Alpaca blankets, ponchos, beanies, carved animals made from 'ivory nuts', paintings, embroidered clothing, fake Inca pottery, and a gazillion of Panama hats. Of course, I had to bargain for one of those, as one of my old ones at home has finally unravelled. I got a nice specimen of a 'fina', meaning tighly woven, for $25, after dickering it down from $40 and agreeing to buy it without the obligatory balsa wood box. The bargaining is a 'must do' out of respect, as paying an asking price is considered almost an affront.
I crossed over several lines of incessant traffic (no traffic lights) onto the shore of La Poza, the breakwater enclosed shallow bay, and sat on a rock, watching fishermen bringing in their catch. These guys were the small potatoes
people working from skiffs, running them ashore and selling directly to whoever happened to wander down to the beach. A bit of competition for the catch between pelicans and humans made thing entertaining.
A young schoolgirl in squeaky clean uniform joined me presently - taking advantage of the 'obvious' stranger to practice her English. However, things deteriorated quickly into a rapid Spanish, where I had trouble keeping up but managed to sustain a very pleasant school girl conversation, covering ship, journey, destinations, school programs, family and her dad's occupation: taxi driver.
Back at the main docks of the harbour, a gaggle of large tuna boats underwent major maintenance by an army of workers. Welding, net stacking, cleaning, hammering - whatever. Some ships unloaded huge quantities of tuna in giant net bags from ships' holds into trucks. Most of the latter had been out fishing for several months. Starkist seems to be one of the major customers.
People are exceptionally friendly and welcoming, waving, talking, smiling....the ones who insistently push their goods for sale are mercifully in the minority. I only noticed a couple of people asking for handouts. We were warned of pickpockets, but I did not notice any suspicious activity.
I even found the Correo Ecuador (Ecuador Postoffice) after traipsing all over town, which to be honest is somewhat neglected looking, and asking police, security guards, vendors, ladies going shopping for directions, in Spanish...I went a few blocks this way, then was directed that way, then up the hill, then down the hill...no one ever must have sent a letter anywhere here in Ecuador, as no one seemed to know where this strange building was supposed to be. Almost giving up hope, after passing dozens of public telephone shops, internets, banks with line ups a mile long (payday I guess), small restaurants, pharmacies, and everything-under-one-roof stores, I stumbled into the Correo. Airconditioned, plastic chairs, nice ladies behind the counter, US dollars national currency...quite civilized.
I sat in one of the chairs, the ladies weighed my envelopes destined to Canada, asked whether I was on the 'cruzero' (the ship), what the envelopes contained, calculated postage ($4.50 and $ 11.00) and gave me a choice of a whole art gallery of Ecuadorian stamps to be affixed to said envelopes...just so the recipients could appreciate the beauty of Ecuador via the pictures on the artistic stamps. They put about a dozen on each envelope, handed me a receipt, and I was off back to the ship.
There I was invited to a wine tasting - at 2 p.m. Four wines later, all very pleasant, one is faced with the difficult task of enjoying the rest of the leisurely afternoon in port....no lectures, no courses, blessed doing nothing.
