Our next port was Manta Equator. The only thing Manta is famous for is Panama Hats. Every tour the ship offered included Panama Hats. These hats were made in Equator, and shipped to the people working on the Panama Canal. There was of course much news coverage of the canal, so the Ecuadorian hats became known as Panama Hats. When the ship got there we went to the 3rd floor to get off. There was a mess up with the tide levels, and gangplanks. This was the first time this ship, or apparently any cruise ships it’s size have docked at Manta. The port wasn’t ready for them and the tide was too low. Our gangplank was on a very steep angle. They let the people for the longer length ship’s tours off, but it took a lot of work to help all those people so they weren’t able to let everyone disembark. One of the people that got off for a ship's tour was an old man with two canes, and it was too hard for us to get off? They must have had to carry him. Finally, after two hours they got a big enough gang plank to get off at the 5th floor. As they moved all the disembarkation paraphernalia from the 3rd floor to the 5th floor I heard the sound of glass breaking. One of the scanners or gates or such had fallen against one of their glass doors and it had disintegrated. The ship was definitely not having a good day. They cleaned up the glass an every one finally got off.
There wasn’t really a lot that we could find to do in Manta. We went to a small town called Montecristo and went to the market and bought oranges to drink and mangos to eat, and some little everyday items like clothespins. Later we returned to the tourist market outside the ship and Greg bought a lovely jade mask and Ciaran found a flute.
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