Throughout the day yesterday, the ship was on a southerly course en route to Manta, Ecuador. Not too much was visible at sea other than some Brown Bobbies diving for fish and a couple of small dolphins. Shortly after midnight, at 1:00am we crossed the Equator.
This morning at 4:15am we embarked our local pilot for the final course into the pier at Manta. Today the sky is overcast with a temperature of 79 degrees. Manta is very close to the Equator. It’s Longitude and Latitude is 0 degrees 55.880 South Lat. and 80 degrees 43.240 North Lon. The port of Manta is the gateway to Ecuador and its capital, Quito, the second highest capital in elevation in the world lies at 9,300 feet above sea level.
Many passengers disembarked at about 5:30am this morning for extended tours. The tour to Quito flew out and will return tonight at 6:30pm. Tours to the Galapagos Islands (600 miles away), and Cuzco/Machu Picchu will rejoin the ship in a few days at Lima, Peru.
Over the years we have visited Manta several times. Because of these previous trips we chose to not do any of the tours, most notably to the village of Montecristi. This village is noted for small family-run home industries where you can see women weaving Panama Hats. In Manta there is the Archaeological Museum and Ivory Nut factory. At this factory they carve the Taguera nut into jewelry, buttons, and artwork. Probably the biggest industry in Manta is tuna fishing and processing.
This morning we watched as many of the tuna boats were unloading their frozen catch of hugh tuna. Our ship’s Hotel General Manager and one of the Chefs were lucky enough to get one of the tuna that fell from the trucks.
Our scheduled departed is at 7:00pm tonight. We will then have two sea days and will arrive in Lima on Friday, January 28th.
