Ah yes, Panama hats - that are, in fact, made in Ecuador. Made popular almost 100 years ago by Teddy Roosevelt who wore one of these hats while visiting the in-progress Panama canal. And also by Humphrey Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon". At any rate, real Panama hats are made in Ecuador.
But we were not headed anywhere near hats. Almost 2 hours in a mini-van headed north to Isla Corazon.
Unfortunately it wasn't till the boat ride to Isla Corazon that I perfected the technique of using the "burst" mode on my iPad camera in order to capture a photo of something of interest out the bus window as we zoomed along. Hard to describe the houses and towns we saw along the way - other than the highway, not many paved roads at all. Most of the houses were incomplete - a floor or two finished, with an unfinished upper floor - literally the support beams sticking up from the roofs of the highest completed floor. As in other areas we've seen, people build what they can afford and leave the structure for the next piece, ready to be completed when money becomes available.
This resulted in odd juxtapositions of randomly complete, incomplete, and ramshackle houses. There would be a beautiful, finished house and literally right next door would be a house that wasn't much better than a shack. Many of the houses were on stilts, because of the annual flooding of the two nearby rivers.
Also interesting were the tiny town-centers - with restuarants and stores - and hardly anybody in them.
The group was very small - only 10 of us in a mini-van. We had all noted that there was an age limit - no one over 65. Nobody had any idea why. There was also a note that this excursion was NOT for those with limited mobility. This became obvious with the first super-steep ramp down to the boat that took us to Isla Corazon. There were a bunch of them. After the first down ramp, I figured out how to creep down crab-wise. No problem!
Out on the water we saw coromants, pelicans, and frigate birds galore, all hovering around the fishing boats:
We then checked in at the wildlife center - we recorded our names, nationality and age. This was proably the place to ask about the age restriction, but none of us thought to do that.
And here was this little guy:
I was leery of getting any closer, thinking he'd bolt. Turns out, I could have gotten much closer because he wasn't going anywhere. This is a juvenile frigate bird - one of his wings was badly damaged when he was caught in a fishing net. He was rescued and brought to the wildlife center. Apparently he will neer be able to fly, so now he lives here, quite used to humans.
Walking along the boardwalk back to the boat, we could see the beach was covered with crabs:
Yeah ok you can't really see the crabs, but the egrets could see them and were doing a great job at plucking them out of their holes.
Once on Isla Corazon itself, we were joined by the local guide, Julio. I was actually able to understand about 95% of what he was saying in Spanish.
What we mostly saw on Isla Corazon was - mangrove trees. Black mangrove and red mangrove. Apparently at one point, these trees were mostly gone and with them most of the wildlife in the area. The trees were replanted and protected and now have since recovered.
In case you've never seen a mangrove tree, they look like this:
The whole island was covered by these trees. We did spot a tiny yellow bird called the Mangrove Warbler, but it moved too fast for me to get a photo. That turned out to be the only non-frogate/pelican bird we saw the entire day.
BUT there we more crabs. This is a fuzzy photo of a red crab:
This was as exciting as the wildlife got. Highly disappointing to the two birders in our group (one equipped with the requisite ginormous camera).
Interesting, but not as exciting as we had hoped.
Lunch was at the hotel that served as a loading dock for the tour boats. The menu - three kinds of ceviche, the local (and/or Peruvian) equivalent to paella in Spain. One was octopus, the second shrimp, and the third a generic fish. Which was liberally peppered with cilantro. In case you are not aware, I don't do cilantro. The plantain chips were really good!
On the way back I captured this photo of an unfinished house:
And a kapok tree:
These trees are everywhere. The fiber that comes from their seed pods is used to stuff pillows and mattresses.
We contemplated whether or not we had the time after the tour to take the shuttle into Manta to find the marketplace. We got back to the ship at about 3:45; we decided to take a chance.
Turns out it was pretty easy - the shuttles stop literally across the street from the market. Success! I have a genuine Ecuadoran "Made In Montinegri" visor! With purple trim!
I think it was $8. Ok, not the highest quality, but eh, who cares.
Since Manta is the tuna capital of the world, here's the obligatory photo of a fishing trawler:
We enjoyed the day, even though we didn't see the promised "teeming birdlife".
Now we were faced with 2 days at sea. Yesterday we managed to fill the time, including the last night of Hanukkah. Once again a huge crowd. The kitchen never really figured out how to make decent latkes, but the sufganiyot were great.
There was a silly poolside ceremony for people crossing the equator for the first time. This somehow involved King Neptune, a colorful pirate, and something involving kissing a dead fish.
Just realized all those photos are on my phone as opposed to my iPad, therefore not within easy access. I will come back and update this entry after we get home and all my devices are on wifi at the same time.
<silly photos are here>.
Oh and our "official" certificates showed up yesterday as well:
Here we are on the second of two days at sea, and I'm filling up the time by catching up on my blog. Unfortunately, only one of us can be online at a time.
Tomorrow is Lima. For the first time, we had to fill out a customs form. We also received a letter from the captain with dire instructions on how to be safe in Lima - stick to your tour group (we only have a 3 hour "highlights of the city" thing), don't take taxis/use only the ship shuttles, etc. Egads. Tonight will be the the "Destination Explanation" talk at 8:00, which will be a great time to find out what the heck the story is with that.
Adelante a Lima!
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