Manta, Ecuador, January 13, 2015

Pig wandering in open range, Agua Blanca, Machalilla NP, Ecuador

On the day at sea between the Panama Canal and Manta, Ecuador, we had the opportunity to help Pam celebrate her birthday, topped off with the Indonesian birthday song, always a fun way to honor the birthdays of passengers.  We look forward to two more birthday celebrations while on the cruise.

We arrived in Manta, Ecuador early in the morning on the 13^th, having crossed the Equator just after midnight.  King Neptune didn’t bother us this time – he let us sleep through the night.  We probably won’t be so lucky the next time we cross the Equator!

Ecuador is named for its position on the Equator.  It was most likely settled by people who arrived by rafts either from Central America or from along the Amazon River.  Early settlers along the coast were most likely fishermen and hunters and gatherers, while those who inhabited the Amazon region were nomadic hunters and gatherers.  Sometime in the 15^th Century Incas took over the region, and when the Spanish arrived in the 16^th Century, many of the indigenous people died out.  Along with several other countries of northern South America, Ecuador became part of Gran Colombia after gaining independence from Spain in the 1820s, but Ecuador broke away in 1830.   Ecuador and Peru rivaled for the same land for about two centuries until 1998 when a boundary dispute was finally settled.  The country has an area of about 109,500 sqaure miles and a population of about 15.2 million people.  Ecuador is a democracy similar to ours with three branches of government – the legislative branch (not bicameral as we are), executive branch, and judicial branch.   

Manta, our Ecuadorean destination, is the 5^th largest city in Ecuador and its largest seaport.  Due to its excellent location, it has been in existence since pre-Columbian times.  The main industry is tuna fishing.  (Bumble Bee and Van Camp tuna comes from Ecuador.)  The last time we were here, we watched them unload thousands of pounds of tuna!   In addition to this it is also known for its chemical industry and of course tourism.   A nearby suburb, Montecristi, which we visited in 2013, is considered the “home” of the Panama hat.  The Panama hat got its name from Theodore Roosevelt, who was presented with an Ecuadorean hat while visiting the building site of the Panama Canal.  Since he got it in Panama, he dubbed it the Panama hat.  The name stuck despite the fact that the hat originates in Ecuador! 

The day was dismal, but at least there was no rain!  Chuck was off on a shore excursion, and I was on a mission to find water and/or pop that would cost us less than it does on the ship. 

Shortly after breakfast, I boarded the shuttle that would take me to the craft market.  Right across the street, I discovered a very small supermarket so I went there in hopes of finding what I was looking for.  The water and pop were quite reasonable by comparison with ship prices, so I came away with a 12-pack of pop and 3 water bottles – about all I could carry.  Proud of my purchase, I returned to the ship, only to discover that someone else had found a better deal at a nearby supermarket.  So after lunch I boarded a shuttle to the port entrance and hiked uphill to the supermarket, dragging my carryon bag behind me.  There I managed to get 15 more bottles of pop at a lower price. This time, I was able to drag it behind me, and the walk back was downhill!   Not a very exciting day in Ecuador, but at least I can mark it, ”Mission accomplished!”

                                                                                                            BT

Since, like the Grand Med, Barb is being selective about what shore excursions she feels she is able to handle, I did a second excursion independently. In Colombia, our friends Bob and Nancy did the same one I had elected, but that wasn’t the case today.  Pam and Paul did the most popular excursion for first time visitors to Manta (which went to Montecristi where Panama Hats are made) but we had done that in 2013.  I wanted to find something that took me further afield so I could see a little more of the country.  Ideally we would have taken an overnight excursion to the Galapagos Islands which many will recognize as a magnificent ecological site and home to many indigenous species of birds.  It is about 600 miles into the Pacific from Manta, but to travel there from the ship, one must access it by air. To help limit the number of people visiting the islands, prices are extremely high.

Thus I chose an excursion called Machalilla which took me on a two hour drive to one of Ecuador’s national parks not surprisingly called Machalilla National Park. As we drove out of Manta, our course took us south along the highway known as the Route to the Sun, but as Barb indicated, today was a very cloudy day which represented a contrast from our stop here two years ago. But our tour guide, Henry, explained that we are entering Ecuador’s wet season and rain can be expected at any time and often during this time offers rain on a daily basis. But as tourists, we didn’t need or want rain so had to be happy that it was just cloudy. Temps were a bit cool according to natives, topping at about 85 degrees.  We will take that as our daily newspaper shows a low of minus 1 Fahrenheit with snow in Chicago.  I don’t miss that at all but am sorry for friends in Chicago area and Western New York.

As we drove, our knowledgeable guide gave us an informative overview on Ecuador, some of which Barb described earlier.  By the way, Henry is so fluent in English that he has only the very slightest detectable accent which poses absolutely no difficulty in understanding.  For a comparative analysis, Ecuador is the size of the State of Colorado.  Of interest to Americans – and something that US travelers love – is that since about 2000, Ecuador uses the American dollar and pegs its rate at exactly the same as the US.  No need to determine what the American dollar is worth in the other country’s currency!  Wonderful! 

While substitute teaching at Lincoln-Way Central last school year, there was an Ecuadorian student that I had in several classes.  He had been interested in the fact that I had visited Ecuador in 2012 and would be returning in 2015.  Unfortunately I couldn’t remember his name, not that it would have done any good given the size of the country and the fact that I believe he lived in (near?) the capital of Quito, a few hundred miles from where I was visiting.

After a period of turmoil with so many presidential changes, Ecuador has a government which is supported by about 70% of the citizens.  The president was elected in 2007, easily won support for a constitution that would allow a four year term with right to one additional term.  He has proposed beneficial reforms that are popular with the people but will leave office in 2017.  Despite his popularity, most people feel it is best that after that length of time, a new president should take over.  One area he has taken a leadership role in is education. Ecuador had been notorious for poor educational quality with teachers’ unions having much influence in who was chosen as president, but the current president has insisted on testing teachers for competence.  They get three tries to pass the certification test and if after their third try, they can’t pass, they lose the license to teach.  Only 17% have been fully certified but the hope is that they will be an incentive to teachers.

He listed the top factors in the Ecuadorian economy, some of which comes as a surprise.  Top factor is oil, followed in order, bananas, tuna, shrimp, roses, tourism, and money from Ecuadorians living outside Ecuador.  While we drove, we saw dozens to hundreds of vultures circling in the air, sitting on telephone lines, or walking on the ground just waiting for their feast! We watched, unsuccessfully, for howler monkeys which often are found romping from treetop to treetop.

As we drove the Route to the Sun, we passed several villages along the Pacific coast we also went from a tropical dry forest to tropical rainforest and back to dry forest.  Most trees are deciduous and at this time of year, having completed the dry season, trees have lost leaves but are awaiting the budding of new leaves.  We observed numerous kapok trees with their white fluffy, cotton-like flowers, in bloom. Kapok is not in demand as much as it had been around the middle of the 20^th century because of the substitution of synthetics for the kapok.  We also saw brilliant orange/red acacia trees in bloom as we drove as well as bamboo trees and several homes constructed of bamboo.

Our first stop was at the Playa Los Frailes, within Machalilla, with its beautiful, long, sandy beach.  We had the opportunity to walk the beach and go for a swim if we wished.  Only one or two people took the opportunity for the swim but reported the water pleasantly warm.  The beach is in a semi­-circle between two cliffs. I walked the sandy beach as far as I could in one direction and began an ascent to a view point.  While the distance wasn’t too great, I decided that the walk to the top to see the view and then the return to the bus might make me late for the bus, so cut that walk short.  Walking in street shoes in the sand is rather slow.

The second, and longest, stop was at the main part of Machalilla National Park where we toured a small, two-room museum.  Henry told us that a villager would give descriptions in Spanish and he would translate.  He indicated that it was done that way to give residents a feeling of ownership of the area in which they lived as well as to give them a bit of positive income.  He didn’t say it, but I think Henry would have been competent enough to have led the museum portion of the tour.  We were in an area where an ancient civilization had flourished about 5,000 years ago.  Archeological ruins had been located during other modern excavation.  After seeing some ancient burial pots (quite different from our cemetery burials in coffins), the people must have put the remains of deceased into pots after bones of the dead were broken.

From this point, we took an optional walk of about an hour, across a dry riverbed that will have at least six feet of water rushing through it once the rainy system starts in earnest.  As we walked, we saw an abundance of birds, small reptile (mostly lizards) , and mammals along our path.  We were actually walking through an active farm but their version of farm animals had free range of the land outside the confines of the farm itself.  We watched for and saw several birds but most were too hidden by trees or too quick to fly away as we tried to focus our cameras for a decent photo.    We were treated to seeing two large black and white owls sitting in broad daylight on a branch on a tall tree.  They remained in place and were visible enough to take adequate photos.  Among other animals I noted were even more of the vultures, a small deer, donkeys, chickens and a proud puffed-up rooster, horses, sheep, a couple goats, and several black pigs with long black hair on their backs and a much sharper snout than our squealing pink pigs.

Following our interesting nature walk, we piled back onto the bus for a 15 minute drive to a nice hotel overlooking a pool and Pacific Ocean for our lunch served buffet style outdoors.  The meal was one of the better shore excursion meals despite the fact that they served seafood.  I passed on the fish, but did take a shrimp skewer as well as rice and a few other items.  The dessert was excellent with a slice of jelly roll, with a scoop of excellent vanilla ice cream, and fruit on the top.  Following the efficiently served lunch, we got back on the bus for our two hour drive back to the ship to get ready for our eight consecutive days at sea before we reach the first French Polynesian island of Nuka Hiva.  It will be our longest ever stretch without touching land, but the ship always has lots of fun activities to keep us busy.  The next blog post will probably come after January 22 when we make our second visit to Nuka Hiva (first since our first South Pacific crossing in 2009).

At dinner, we reconnected with Pam and Paul and Alice.  We had done three different tours and it was fun to compare comments and stats, some of which were different depending on what tour guide was quoted.  (Naturally mine was the best so I have taken his comments as gospel -- just kidding of course).  We will be back in touch after the 22^nd when we visit our next port.

Note:   Internet access has become difficult once we got well into the Pacific.  We tried without success to get online on Thursday, January 15 and have no idea when we will be able to gain a connection….   It is now Saturday and we will make another attempt.  We are now in the fourth of eight consecutive days at sea (the longest time without a port in our cruising history) and we are told we should receive a Pacific satellite that might allow a connection.  When we lost internet, we were on a South American satellite.  Yesterday the captain told us he had purposely zigzagged to try to pick up satellite connection but the ship funnels had been blocking connection. 

CT