Manta has about 200,000 inhabitants and is the 5th largest city in Ecuador. It is known for its tuna fishing and canning. There are a few pleasure crafts in the harbor, but most of the boats you see are fishing boats. The large boat in the foreground is a tuna fishing boat. We saw a crane with a huge net moving from the ship to a truck and then began to empty the net. We could see hundreds of tuna spilling out ( see below left). On the right below, you can see the same pictures zoomed way in on the fish. There are lots of them and they are large. We were told that that they were unloading these fishing boats all day.
Left: The museum guide, our tour guide, Dick, Caroline, Dave, Maureen, and Barbara. Right: Our tour guide Peggy. That is her given name, not nickname. She was fantastic.
Left: We visited Montecristi, the home of the Panama Hat. They are called Panama hats because of a picture of Teddy Roosevelt wearing one when he visited the Panama Canal. However, they are made in Ecuador, specifically Montecristi. Depending on the intricacy of the weaving, it can take many months to finish a single hat. They range in price from $30 to over $100,000. Several hats were purchased from a market in Montecristi. Right: Even thought I don’t think it ever snows in Montecristi, they had a snowman built out of plastic cups.
There were local artisans selling there wares in the markets. The woman on the left is showing a table cloth. From the woman on the right, Maureen and Caroline bought an alpaca shawl that she made.
Left: A mother and her four children were crossing the square. Dave was very active in scouts and he wanted a picture. We asked the mother and she had them pose for us. What a great looking family. Right: I (Chuck) love to go in the local stores and buy local snacks. From this young boy I bought a couple bags of something akin to Goldfish crackers. They were quite good.
This little boy was with his dad who was selling orange juice from a cart. I took the picture on the left and tried to get him come look at it. He was not excited about that. After a bit, I put my camera down on the table where he could see his picture and he came a little close to see it. Then I tried to get him to smile by pantomiming a smile and pointing at the camera. The picture on the right is best he could do. I hope he wasn’t imitating my smile.
It was a great day.