MANTA, ECUADOR

So, what do you think the temperature was in Ecuado...35C maybe...guess again. We landed in Manta on November 11 and found ourself in 16C temps. We were cold. It turns out that the average temperature in the coastal region of Ecuador is 20C all year round.

The Humbolt current touches against Ecuador and northern Peru which brings cooler temps and lots of fish. We vaguely remember this from school but that was so many decades ago that we do not care to go that far back.

We were unpleasantly surprised to find the ship failed to commemorate November 11 rememberance day as there were many veterans from Canada, Britain, Australia and the USA on board. They tried to make up for it the next day but after the fact is never timely.

We took a tour here and found out that Panama Hats originated in Ecuador and because they were sold to the Panama Canal engineers they became known as Panama Hats. If we were not off and on a 3 month jaunt, we would have purchased one each.

On the way to the hat market the bus got stopped by a religious procession and he backedthe bus up on a steep hill. Great drivers here.

Ecuador is very poor but they are much better off than most of Central America. They are workingvery hard at trying to develop environmentally sensitive industries besides fishing and flowers which they ship all over the world. One is vegetable ivory from Tagua pronounced Towa. This is from the same plant as tequilla but a different variety. They dry the flower pods for 2 months and then slice it into discs from which they make buttons and sell to the Chinese. They also carve from it such things as small birds, animals, jewellery etc.

On our way back to the ship, we spotted many monuments to the tuna and our favourite was a large scuplure in the middle of a traffic circle which Barb dubbed ODE TO A TUNA

There was a tour to Quito, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was cancelled due to the plane requiring servicing. How on earth do you not service a chartered plane.....