At sea and Manta, Ecuador

After our transit of the Panama canal we had a nice relaxing day at sea.  We took care of paying some bills on line, sent out the laundry and checked our schedule for the upcoming ports.  Since we made our tour reservations back in October we could not even remember what tours we booked.  Once you learn a bit more about the tours you wonder what you were thinking at the time.  Our dinner was in "Signatures" the specialty French restaurant.

Tom comparing hair styles with our waiter and wine steward.

Our next day was Manta, Ecuador.  We had not seen much of this area as on the previous cruise in 2012 we took an overnight side trip to Quito.  Manta is a huge fishing port with hundreds of large boats that mostly fish for tuna.  There are several canneries here including a large Starkist facility.  We observed several boats off loading their catch.

One of the huge fishing boats

Off loading the tuna

For our tour to the city of Montecristi, we took a local style open air bus called a "Chiva".  These buses are painted with bright colors and are actually old "Bluebird" school buses from the US.  There were several of these buses on our tour and two of them had groups of musicians on the roof  that played loud music while we drove along the roads.  Montecristi is where the "Panama Hats" are made.  We observed a demonstration of how the hats are made and then shopped in a plaza where many vendors were selling the  hats..  It is amazing to see how much work and many hours go into the making of the hats.  The prices were very seasonable when you consider how much time and effort goes into the process. We were told that some of the better hats take several months to make.  Noel bought a very nice hat and was able to bargain for a $20 reduction in the original asking price.  

Woman on the right is boiling the fibers, the one in the center is weaving the crown and the one on the left is weaving the brim.

Weaving the brim

The Chivas buses we rode on