Day 9 Jan 12 - Manta, Ecuador

Manta, Ecuador photos
January 12, 2008
First a few notes about the Mariner in no particular order. Repeating our favorite thing about this ship is the ability to ride the tender on the rooftop seats in fresh air! The Mariner does not have the vibration problem that Voyager has, good. The Mariner standard cabins are about 50 sq. ft. smaller than the Voyager and this is very noticeable to us especially in the closet, bathroom and the area at the foot of the bed. Communications between the ship and the passengers is a problem on this ship. They do not do as well with the video messages as Jamie did on Voyager Today. There was no video or slide show at the Seven Seas Society party in the Constellation Theater for example. That was always such a nice touch on Voyager as they recognized the guests with the most number of nights, etc. But, it also extends to things that we consider really critical, like the way both Diamond and Voyager had little keycard case-sized slips of paper at the exit to the ship in every port with the name of the exact dock the ship was at, along with the time of the last tender or all aboard, sailing time and the name and phone number of the local port agent in case of emergency. Now, supposedly if you never left the ship without being on a ship sponsored excursion, you would have no need for any of that information, but we really miss it. It was a very nice touch that we really appreciated in the past. On other cruiselines, we had to fold up the copy of the daily newsletter, to have that information with us for the day, but Mariner does not even provide the port agent/dock name there! If you find yourself separated from the dock/ship's personnel, you have no idea who the local contact person for RSSC is or the name of the dock/port/marina area! We realized that this Tour Concierge team and entire ship's staff and crew seem really united on discouraging independent travel (as well as the destination speakers!) but this absolute absence of a critical piece of information should one have a local emergency/crisis just seems an extreme measure to keeping tour revenue onboard. We are continuing as we always would anyway, but with an extra lack of security without the safety blanket of knowledge of the local port agent. It just seems like either a serious oversight or an extreme marketing/profit measure and neither are confidence inspiring. The new linens by Anichini are great. They still have to heavy blue wool lap blanket, but the new Anichini one is really wonderful too. The toiletries are not Aveda in our cabins, though those are still onboard as they are stocked in the Women's locker/dressing/bath room in the spa/gym area. The new toiletries are "R"egent brand? They do have an ingredients list on each bottle but no indications who or where they are manufactured. They are much more mildly scented than the old Aveda and contain no aloe which is good. Bad news is that the moisturizer is not to the satisfaction of any of us and because we loved the Aveda moisturizer so much before we did not bring any of our own. We asked the Hotel Director Richard Fenn about the status of the new TV systems since our TVs and reception/broadcast quality is so poor and unreliable. He said that it was scheduled for March 4 to 24, 2008. He said that he had scheduled a crew to come onboard to do it in Ft. Lauderdale and he was having half of the flat screen TVs and interactive equipment delivered on the 4th and the crew would stay on for the full 20 days. He would have the remainder of the TVs and equipment delivered on the return to Port Everglades on the 14th. So, he expected it all to be done during 2 10-day Caribbean cruises in March, after we depart. Also, Captain Romeo had some words about the pod problem on Mariner. He said that some insulation fell into one of the winding motors inside one of the pods in Alaska a year ago last November or so. It was a hidden manufacturer's defect. It damaged the pod and motor. There were technicians and inspectors aboard since then and it is as fixed as it can be, but they were advised to run it at 60% or less. So, we have an uneven wake and we cannot make full speed since only 1 engine can run at full speed. Since that engine also has the hidden defect but has not manifested damage yet, they are trying to run neither engine at full out. The schedules RSSC has been running and into the future reflect the reduced running speed in shorter port stays, so no cruises have been disrupted by the damaged pod issue for months. Captain Romeo said that the damaged pod should be completely replaced by a new one without the hidden defect in January of 2009.
So, on to today's port of Manta. Debbie had scheduled us a private car/driver and English-speaking guide here through Metropolitan Touring Manta. (operaciones@metromanabi.com) We had options through the Ship's Travel Concierge for a couple of hours tours to Montecristi or else 10-11 hours or so tours involving flights to Quito and the Highlands. We really didn't like any of those options. We chose a more local, yet away from port option here. We went with Metropolitan Touring's Machalilla National Park Tour. Our cost was $85 pp for 7:30am to 5pm and included lunch and entry fees. Our driver was Carlos, our Manta guide was Veronica who was a Manta native and our Machalilla guide was Alegria (which means Joy) and she was born in Guayaquil and has lived in Puerto Lopez for over a decade. the tour description was:
"MACHALILLA NATIONAL PARK - Visit Montecristi where the finest “Panama Hats” are made, drive over the coastal range to Puerto Lopez and enjoy the journey to the Salango Archaeological Museum, where there is an exhibit of the life of the “Balseros de la mar del Sur” (ferrymen of the Southern Sea), honoring the navigators and merchants of the pre-Hispanic Ecuador. The museum also gather history from the times of the Valdivia culture up to Manteña, which mends more than 5,000 years of permanent occupation of this region. After a hearty lunch at Alandaluz restaurant, visit the lovely Piqueros Beach before heading back to Manta."
OUr schedule was slightly modified from the one shown above, because one the ship was delayed clearly and two the guide and driver wanted to reverse the events and did not want to take the mountain road over to/from Montecristi. Clearing ship in a port in a different country every day can be exasperating from a passenger perspective and must be very frustrating to ship's personnel. Ecuador requires tourists to have in their possession their actual travel documents (passport and yellow fever vaccine certificate). We had to produce them to provide our passport numbers to the tour company when we picked up our Machalilla National Park guide as well. Evidently, the police arm of the Ecuadoran state has some serious issues with photocopies (as we learned when we hit a military police checkpoint and did not have the "official" registration on the van but only a "notarized copy" and its "legality" was discussed. Carlos left the van at that point and he and the officers went behind the van where we could not see them, but one can imagine what took place for our photocopied documents to become legal. The officer did not ask to see the passenger documents, but we did have our actual documents on us! For that we would like to praise the RSSC Mariner's Clearance Officer Helga Hohenwarter! Debbie heard from a past WCer we know that they were sitting in the Constellation Theater being jerked around about starting their long expensive day of touring, so we did not feel too bad when we encountered resistance and reluctance at the Reception Desk trying to get our passports to leave independently. Once Helga appeared all smiles, we knew she had cleared the ship and once she was informed that we were almost a half-hour past the meeting time for our guide who was visible at the end of the dock, she went and personally recovered our documents from the Ecuadorean authorities onboard and gave them to us. The people on the ship's tours were still in the CT waiting. Thank you so much to Helga for her professionalism, courtesy and thoughtfulness as well as her personal follow through.
So we drove straight down the coast for 97km to Puerto Lopez and picked up a biologist/National Park Guide from Machalilla Tours, Alegria, and continued through lunch before returning to Manta and then zipping the 21km up to Montecristi and back. We got started about a half hour late and returned about a 1/2 hour late, but we still had plenty of time to spare. We were rushed in shopping for Margie's Panama Hat though and we completely skipped the tagua nut part that the guide planned in Montecristi. So, if the Montecristi portion and shopping for local goods/souvenirs is really important to you, you might want to stand firm on the itinerary or keep on top of the time better than we did. The drive down the coast was pretty amazing. We saw an incredible diversity of landscapes and really distinct and varied microclimates. You could almost always see the sea, but rounding a corner or rising over the top of a hill would bring you to an entirely different place each time. It was incredible. There was also very different housing styles/construction techniques in each distinct landscape. In the brown, dry areas, the houses were built of bamboo/wood and reeds/thatches and up on stilts because of flooding and for the animals. In the green areas, they built sometimes up on stilts and sometimes on a flat/ground foundation in block/brick/stucco and we were told they did not have flooding. On the coast road immediately leaving Manta there was a lot of expensive real estate development under way with more traditional North American-style beach condo type housing being built. One had a sign with prices starting from about $43K. Ecuador uses the US Dollar as its legal currency. We found things very reasonably priced and gas was about half the price it was at home when we left! It seems that Ecuador recently had an election and has a new president. As he promised in his campaign he has dissolved the Congress (because of its corruption) and right now in Montecristi there is an appointed assembly writing a new Constitution. Our guide, Veronica, who was completely charming, was very happy and excited about the political changes occuring in Ecuador. Along political lines here, both our guides today were women and both felt that Ecuador was a very good place for equality of women and women's rights. On the way out of town, Veronica told us about the surfing in Ecuador which is evidently very good and popular. She had taken lessons and tried it once, two years ago and she could still vividly remember the adrenaline rush. She reenacted the long 3 seconds of her one stand on the board before her screaming plunge and the board bonking her on the head. She was really cute and funny as well as informative and curious. Carlos was our driver and he was quiet but knowledgeable and a very good driver. We were in a van that could probably have held 9 people, so we had plenty of space and it was air-conditioned and comfortable. Alegria was older than the other two and a biologist and very well-spoken in English and very informative and enjoyable.
We really enjoyed a completely private tour of the Salango Archaeological Museum with Alegria. (We had a potty stop here as well.) Then we went to Piqueros Beach, which also has a museum with in situ excavations from some of the pre-historic periods covered at the first museum and that added to our experience. The beaches are not pure white sand, but are nice soft tan sand. We visited at low tide and had wide expanses of beach to stroll. We walked along studying the ghost crabs, and sand dollars and other shell life on our way to the cliffs and rocks creating a boundary at this beach. Piqueros Beach means blue-footed booby beach, sadly none were seen by us here. We had a great time viewing all the small life in the tidal pools left behind in the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. There were a bunch of kids down the beach and we spent so much time bent over and crouching by the pools, they must have decided that we had found the Conquistador's gold or something and came in throngs to chatter and point around us in puzzlement. We were really lucky with the heavy cloud cover or we would have been broiled off that beach and excavations trail prematurely. It was the first time that either of the guides had taken tourists to the museum here. We guessed that most people when asked if they would like to do it, answered no that they wanted to go right to lunch. We enjoyed it and got a very exciting walk over a scary little suspension bridge! Veronica took a picture of Margie from the rear trying to hold on! She was very amused.
We went a bit further down the coast to Alandaluz Ecological Tourist Resort for lunch. This is an eco-lodge with tree houses, cabins, rooms etc. that is as healthy, self-sustaining and ecologically sound as they can make it. The dining room was open-air near the beach under a high, steeply-thatched roof in a building framed of bamboo. It was shady and cool with a nice breeze. They are famous for their corvina dishes (fish). Clay had that and a Pilsener, the local beer. They offered us each a glass of juice and our choices included raspberry and watermelon, the girls and boys were evenly divided in ordering and we got big glasses of each. Clay got an enormous beer in a bottle. We started with chicken and potato soup which was nicely flavored and ended with dessert of chocolate cake or a coconut flan. Margie had shrimp and Debbie had free-range chicken. Our thinking was that it would have been hard to come up with any thing that wasn't free range around here. We saw free-range poultry, pork, beef, goat... This was the most amazing place any of us had ever seen. The diversity was just amazing. The guides told us that we had not even seen anything really poor or primitive. It is hard to imagine. We saw women doing laundry in plastic wash tubs at every home in the villages or in the countryside. In one of the larger villages we saw an absolutely packed Banos Publicos, that was an open air public laundry, which was still women hand scrubbing. One assumes they came with their clothes from places without a clean water supply!
After lunch, we dropped off Alegria and headed for Montecristi, except as stated before for some reason we did not catch (time, distance, conditions) we were not taking the mountain road. So, it was back to Manta and then 21km up to Montecristi which was visible in the distance. We rushed to find a hat Margie liked and a T-shirt big enough for Clay. Debbie had purchased a small pre-Columbian replica 'Venus' figurine on a cord at the first museum along with a handful of Ecuadorean coins. On astreet lined with tourist shops that sold Panama hats among other things, we looked at about 4 different places before Margie finally asked to try a child's hat that turned out to fit her and be in her price range. We were back at the dock around 5:35 in plenty of time for the 6:30 all-aboard. The ship left dock promptly at the scheduled 7:00 time with no announcements or anything. We just noticed that we were leaving.
It was a casual night and we were dining at the Hotel Manager's, Richard Fenn, table. It was a table for seven with another couple and a single woman in addition to Richard and the 3 of us. It was a pleasant meal with lots of laughs. Richard is from England and almost missed the ship in Ft Lauderdale because of weather problems. He said that they had made their first local beer purchase in Manta, getting some Pilsener onboard. On the way to dinner, we had seen a little beer display at the Mariner Lounge saying they had Pilsener onboard. This is a nice touch for the Mariner as they did not regularly display local beers on the Voyager so you more or less had to ask about them after each port.) This was the same beer that Clay had at lunch though thet had the 12oz bottles onboard and not the 22oz bottles that Clay had at lunch. The meal ended right at 9:30 and everyone was a sleep by 10. It was a long day for us.
Manta, Ecuador photos