Hace Mucho Calor en Manta

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I have yet to take pictures yet, though that is on the agenda for tomorrow. Anyway, ¨Hace mucho calor en Manta¨should translate as ¨it´s hot in Manta¨. Today, the bank thermometers read 34C, which should translate to about 95F (remember when taking your temperature when you´re sick, 37C is 98.6F). Not only is the temperature up there, it´s also pretty humid. However, being on the ocean, there´s a nice breeze most of the time - at least along the ocean. That helps...

Manta is known primarily for being the ¨Tuna Capital of the World¨. It´s fairly easy to see why...at the port, you can see fishing ship after fishing ship, for the bigger fisheries getting their stocks to send to all of us around the world in convenient little packages with names such as Star-Kist or Chicken of the Sea. In fact, I remember looking at the packages back home and it saying a product of Ecuador. You´ll now have to look for yourself. When you do see it, you can know it almost certainly came from Manta. Additionally, there are individual fisherman that are often walking around with their individual catches, big bluefin (well, they were blue fish, anyway...) tunas either in hand or on the ground.

That said, Manta´s strength so far appears to be in the fisheries. Yesterday, I spent a good chunk of the day walking, walking, and more walking. I definitely got my exercise! I walked through some local neighborhoods and eventually winded my way to what, so far, appears to be the closest to tourist attractions or similar. I will say by the time I walked for seemingly endless miles, it was nice to come upon a Supermaxi (a large modern grocery store chain in Ecuador). I got myself a pastry, yogurt smoothie thing (I took a chance that the big grocery chain could be trusted with yogurt products...remember my last adventure in yogurt) and some water. I also found a small hotel/hostel that was closer to where I wanted to be, a comparable room, and $9 less per day. I told the lady I would return the next day. However, in all these walks there didn´t appear to be things that might attract a tourist such as shops or historic architecture. I also have yet to find attractions such as cultural events to see. The city isn´t a bad or seedy city, it´s just very day-to-day business, presumably connected largely to the tunas being caught, plus the needs of the locals operating those fisheries.

However, I did find the Oro Verde Hotel. This is probably one of three first class hotels comparable to what you´d see in the U.S. I suspect Oro Verde is the best of the three. The others include a Howard Johnson, which despite its questionable reputation in the U.S. (and not just because I´m a Holiday Inn guy...frankly until Holiday Inn does their chainwide revamp, there´s some questionable Holiday Inns too), the Manta HoJo is supposed to be fairly decent. The other one is the Hotel Lun Fun, an independent hotel that looks nice and has relatively high prices. However, Oro Verde is on the ocean and near the beach, so besides having a nice product generally, can seem to command around $120/night, which is pretty high in Ecuador (at least in Manta). Keep in mind most hotels in Latin America are currently independents, there are relatively few chain hotels at this time (though I think that will change...it seems a lot like the U.S. in the 1950´s when Kemmon Wilson and others were starting the chains in the U.S.) Anyway, the Oro does have a casino for some tourist attraction and I hear there are cruise ships docking in the port. That said, I want to explore that more as I have yet to see any cruise ships.

Ultimately, besides the ocean itself, I think the tourist potential right now is using Manta as a starting base and moving from there. Right now, Manta doesn´t seem to hold a lot of tourist attractions. There are some towns nearby that promise to have things to see, such as Montecristi where Panama hats are produced for export. Perhaps I will take a day trip there and explore that town. There are also some resorts along the ocean a little outside the city itself which may hold some potential. However, I think I will ultimately have explored what I can in a few days here. I´m sure if I had more time, I could find every little nook and cranny, but time is actually starting to run short in Ecuador. The plane ticket takes me to my next destination, Panama, on the 15th - just one week away.

Briefly, there have been two adventures so far to Manta...the first was taking what is fast becoming a preferred airline, TAME, to Manta. Knowing time is running short I decided to cough up the cash for a plane ticket. However, I didn´t buy ahead of time. When I arrived on a bit of faith, I was told the plane was full. However, I went to a standby line. After some waiting, I managed to get a seat. This is probably because TAME operates more with open ended tickets. It appears you buy a ticket and it´s good for up to a year (depending on the ticket you buy). Apparently you then make a reservation. There must have been people who made reservations but then didn´t show. Anyway, at 6:10 for my 6:30 flight, I was called up to the check-in agent. She put me in a seat and took my backpack. However, I first had to go and actually buy the ticket at the ticket window. I did that quickly, but then had to return to actually ¨check-in¨. So back I went to the check-in agent, followed by going through security. Time was obviously running short as, when I was walking to my gate, I heard an announcement that, while I didn´t understand much of it, did understand the part of ¨Senor Gary Bowman...(please add a Spanish accent to the pronunciation of my name), Senor Gary Bowman¨. I ultimately made it, but it was yet another test of my abilities and a little faith in flying not only standby (which I´ve never done before) and doing it primarily in Spanish.

The second adventure was just today, when I moved hotels. I knew where to tell the taxi to take me, but when I got here and got out of the cab, there was a sign that claimed the hotel was closed for maintenance. What, closed? You didn´t think to tell me this yesterday when you knew I was coming today? Well, I talked a little bit with some guys out front and when I was starting to get ready to look for a new place to go for the night or two, suddenly I was being called and they checked me in. I would have been fine, but would have been that much more hot and sweaty hiking around with all my belongings in the 90F+ humid weather.

Okay, I´m on a public computer and it is actually costing me money to send this along, but I wanted to get something to everyone. I will work on picture to add to this blog, but may not get them online for a few days. I hope all is well and I´ll talk with you all soon.

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