1-14 Manta Ecuador

1-14 Day 8 Manta, Ecuador

Crossed over the Equator during the night, so we are now in the southern hemisphere. We arrived early into Manta (around 5 a.m.) because some of the passengers were leaving from here for the Galapagos Islands and needed an early start.

Manta is a busy port town – it has the world's largest tuna fleet. It was fun to see all the boats with their nets, buoys, etc. But it is not a pretty port and does not offer a lot to see and do. The biggest thing is a side trip to a small town, Montecristi, to see where they make Panama hats. The interesting thing is - why do they make Panama hats in Ecuador? Well, they have always made them in Ecuador, but because all the workers building the Panama canal wore them, they became known as Panama hats. We did not go to this nearby town because we knew we weren't interested in purchasing a hat!

Instead we went by shuttle bus to a craft market in Manta where they sold lots of local crafts, including Panama hats. They were not the better quality hats like the ones actually made in Montecristi, but it was fun to see all of them – and so many being bought up by tourists. Doug bought me a necklace slider made out of some of their various local stones and put in silver in an interesting design. I wore it to dinner tonight. It is different and pretty. It was very warm in the market and there was not much to see or buy, so we were only there for a short time.

After a light lunch, I spent the afternoon reading and Doug went to the movie (including popcorn!) on board ship. It was a very relaxing day.

After dinner tonight, the ship's entertainment was a group of local dancers who portrayed their culture through interpretive dance, colorful costumes, and music. It was not very good, actually – more like a high school performance that hadn't practiced enough.

An aside: I think I've mentioned that there are a LOT of older people on this ship. We heard about a poor elderly lady who wanders the halls in her nightgown and just one slipper. Don't believe she is on our floor as we haven't encountered her yet. But we did see another elderly couple again today in the dining room for lunch. The man was still wearing his shoe horn in his shoe as he made his way to the table. We weren't sure if we should say something or just let it go – we decided to just let him go on and enjoy his lunch and not worry about his feet! I truly don't know how some of these folks make it through a day. On the other end, there is a single young mom on board with her 4 year old daughter. Doug overheard her telling someone that her husband had been killed in Afghanistan – he was a navy seal. Before that, he was part of the navy seal team who eliminated the Somali pirates who had taken the American captain hostage in the Indian Ocean. So we have both ends of the spectrum here on the Amsterdam.

The next two days are sea days before we arrive in Peru, so the Blog entries will probably be pretty short!