A day in Manta and an overly long bus journey

The morning started out promising, as I woke up early, had enough time to draft a few bits for my blog for the previous days and then headed on down to a breakfast for one.

It is always interesting to see what hostels and hotels will put out for breakfast, and this one was sugar bread with jam and a variety of cereals plus a banana, all washed down with a fruit juice drink.

Sugar, sweetener and t-bags seem in good supply all over South America, but they have a shortage of cold milk for a decent cuppa, so the powdered stuff that a family friend of my took with him on his boat now doesn´t seem half as silly as it did when I first learned of it.

The sky was grey for the morning, despite it still being around 23 degrees, and so I decided to risk walking the half hour to the beach using my trusty compass and map that was in the hotel. I did quite well, saw a few interesting things that will look great when I download the photos and get a chance to post them.

From the night time Manta central and east looked fairly well developed and certainly the cinema was good, so I was expecting more good things down at the beach and I was not disappointed, banks, a wharf, a giant statue of a fish, casino and a few bars and nightclubs were all in plentiful supply.

However this was all after I took an unexpected detour after being so preoccupied with taking photographs that I didn´t pay attention and took a wrong turning, only finally realising where I was when I reached a familiar church that I had spotted on the map for investigation later on, so I snapped a few more, adjusted my heading and then found the beach.

I had left early in order to make the most of the beach, however as the morning drew on it got greyer and then started to lightly rain, so my chances of evening out my suntan were a washout and what was worse was that it was still too early in the morning to go into the bigger restaurants.

After a slightly breezy and damp but still pretty walk along the beach, I found myself in the commercial area in the north west sector of the city, so I swung by a few of the main streets til I spotted a large pharmacy / minimart that would have everything that I could possibly want. Haircare products for a young middle-aged man, anti-mosquito lotion, shaving foam, blank dvd to burn photos onto to send home ( in case anything should happen to my camera or laptop ) coca cola and skittles, what more could a guy ask for?

With my hoard of newly purchased goodies I decided that to walk back with it all would be a bit of a waste of time and effort, so I grabbed a taxi and whisked myself back to my hotel in double quick time, on the way spotting the way to walk back to the restaurant that I was due to meet my friend again later at and also where most of the happening bars were on this side of the river.

Back in my hotel I could not find the other English lady that was either learning the basics of Spanish or hoping for more wind in order to go kite surfing, so I again felt like the only guest in the hotel and the only Brit for hundreds of miles around.

Prior to meeting up with my friend I took a jaunt back along the road that had all the clubs, in order to get an idea of what was available should my friend ask my choice of clubs, and then met her at just after 6pm. From our meeting place we made a quick taxi ride to a nearby corner restaurant where I got to try a local dish that was like eggs and mashed potato mixed with diced meat all rolled into a huge yellow ball.

Next on the agenda was a trip to her English Class, where I tried my best not to feel or appear too much of a tourist, and both got involved in the lesson and at the same time trying not to overtake it or have everyone make a big fuss over me, as this was a class after all.

My energy levels were beginning to fade by the time we got out of there and although my friend suggested that we pause at a Casino and then go on to a club I was not sure that I could last many more hours so suggested that we didn't spend too long in the Casino.

Sadly I was even more tired than I imagined as barely more than an hour in the Casino and I had not only spent more than I had planned to but I had also depleted all of my energy reserved and thus had no choice but to take a taxi back to my hotel, which made an very early and somewhat abrupt end to what could have been a great night had I been able to stay awake for another couple of hours.

I am sure that my early exit and hasty retreat back to my hotel upset my friend there, and this was not my intention, however I was struggling to stay awake and the idea of another few hours of loud local music and alcohol was just not on my cards this night.

Early next morning I checked out early, grabbed a taxi and planned to take a five or six hour bus from here to Quito, however frustratingly the bus company that I had been recommended had ceased running early morning buses and so I was faced with either staying another full day and leaving that night or going to the main bus station and taking a less reputable and slower bus to Quito.

Not wanting to waste a day in Manta, as the weather was as grey as it was before, I chose to later and so took a second taxi to the general bus terminal and with a wait of only an hour I was able to book passage to Quito for the amazingly low price of only US $8.

The Ecuadorian landscape is beautiful, however being cooped in a bus with blurred windows from the mud and rain meant that I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped and also could not even get a chance to take a photograph or two for posterity. As I had dashed out without stopping for breakfast, I chose to try some of the food stuffs that the local traders came around at the numerous stops, ending up with a slightly bland but still tasty and filling banana cake and a bottle of water for US $1 each.

After four hours I was getting excited as I felt that I must be getting close to Quito by now, so I asked a fellow passenger how long she expected the trip to take and was devastated when she dropped the bombshell that we were still at least four hours away. I have no idea how a 6 hour trip could suddenly change to 8 hours without anyone letting me know, but I resigned myself to be a little later than planned and tried to enjoy the trip.

The roads in Ecuador are not the best, especially not when taking turning onto or off smaller roads, and a number of times the bus seemed to try and take off as it hit a ramp or bump and indeed the first time it happened the lady and her child next to me covered themselves with water from the bottle they were holding and a smaller child sitting on the other side of the bus smacked his head against the roof of the bus.

Daytime changed to evening and then nighttime, the sky outside grey dark and as we rose higher into the mountains I could tell that it was getting also getting a lot colder. Near the end of the tthe hour I was confident that we must be nearing the end of the journey, so again I asked and was almost floored by the news that we were still 2 hours away, as this was far from the 5 or 6 hours that I had been told prior to getting on the bus, and had I known that it was going to take all day I would have stayed in Manta for the day and slept on the bus overnight.

In the end the bus arrived at around 9pm, 12 hours after it had started and I was at my patience end, and had I been able to swear and shout at the cheating, lying bus conductor I would have done so, even it it ran the risk of me getting dumped somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I do not object overly to long bus rides, even bumpy ones, but do not tell me it will be 5 hours if the journey is going to take more than double that, it really pisses me off as is sure to make me at least a little bit tetchy by the end of it.

Thankfully my friend in Quito was a mind reader, or just very prepared, and already had a friendly taxi driver with my name written on a piece of paper to meet me ( my first time for this on this trip, yahooooo ) and a bottle of coke plus a warm pizza waiting for me.

Luxuries like these go a long way to calming a stressed Dickon down, and so although the bus driver earned my eternal wrath my friend has restored the balance and I am once again in a positive mood, looking forward to a good few days over the weekend in Quito before a short flight to Cali ( booked well in advance and so it is fortunate as if I had to take another long bus ride so soon after that one I think I might kill someone ).

Looking back over my itinerary, successes and missed opportunities of the last two months I feel that If i knew now what I knew then, I would book to stay at least a week in each city, travelling often overnight, booking tours and trips more in advance, booking hotels and hostels closer to the city centres and the bus terminals and allowingng myself a weekend in each city that way my friends in each city could spend a few days each with me without having to rearrange their lives or take days off work in order to do it.

I should also say a big thank you to all my friends out there, the ones I have met, the ones I plan on meeting and the ones I was unfortunate enough not to have met, as they have all been great to me, helped make this journey bearable and all shown a degree of bravery themselves in agreeing to meet up with a crazy Brit who just as easily could have been an axe murderer or worse.

Life is for living, make the most of it and, although being spontaneous and going with the flow means that you wont miss any opportunities offered to you, a well prepared backup plan is never a bad thing.

Arrival in Manta

After a slightly mosquito ridden night, and I really think that I should have brought along a net with me, I was off to the bus terminal to catch a semi long bus ride from Guayaquil to Manta. I was both blessed and cursed that the sucking bleeders chose to attack my arms and feet and left my face alone, not sure why that is, but with so many bites on my feet in this heat they went from a mild iritation to a manic cat scratch fever in no time at all.

I had brought along with me a little clicker gismo that I am not sure if it realy worked as they were driving me insane before use and afterwards, but then perhaps how much more would they be driving me Miss Dazy if it were not for the gismo, and my friend also helped by giving me her little pot of chinese Mentol creme which all the locals use to cover their own bites.

The bus terminal in Guayaquil was am imposing during the morning as it was in the middle of the night, but with my friend to guide me it was a mild frustration that I did not have to face. The cost of the 4 and a half hour bus journey was only US $4, which is nothing when you consider it, and I could tell that this part of Ecuador was much flatter than Peru as there was not all the zigzagging and bumps in the road that was so distinctive in and around Cusco and Lima.

An old tv and dvd unit showed a couple of modern movies with John Travolta, which would have been better if the leads and the signal would not switch in and out with every bump in the road, and of more than a few times the guy in front of me had enough of staring at a blank screen and went up to adjust it himself.

As I was becoming familiar with now, there were the usual mid town pauses where sellers would charge on to the bus and rapidly try to sell the same thing to everyone on the bus, before the bus started up again, and one guy seemed to have missed the plot and just stood at the front reeling off more of a monologue than a sales pitch and I was curious if he was expecting someone to pay him just to shut the hell up and get off the bus!?!

When I finally got to the bus terminal I jumped into a taxi right away and was very shocked when the fare was a low US $2 and I had to remind myself that Manta was a small city, large town and as such despite being touristy were still happily quaint and not overly milking foreigners for every cent they could get.

The hotel that I arrived at was just outside of town, and it looked impressive from the outside and for a while the outside was all that I got to see for a good few minutes as the receptionist must have been on a break and was not answering the door. After a very long delay I was finally able to get some response though a combination of ringing the bell, pussing the buzzer, calling out and knocking on the door, and I was very glad as I was getting a bit frustrated at that point and kicking and screaming is not very dignified for a gentleman such as myself.

Anyway, the I finally managed to get in and was shown up to my room, which was very impressive with three beds and a good view of the pool behind and I began to realise that the low cost was purely due to being ten minutes away from the city centre and not from a lack of facilities or quality.

I still had a few hours to kill before I was meeting up with my friend here in a restaurant very near her work, and as I had not been able to do any blog entries for a few days due to lacking internet connection I decided to stay in rather than go searching and try to put my blog back in a proper order and add the photos.

My afternoon flew by, helped by the messages that I have received from friends and family that I were only just beginning to mount up and on my way downstairs and out to the taxi I found the only other guest in the hotel, another woman from England travelling solo after an unfortunate mountain biking accident had sent her partner home early with a broken colar bone.

Now instead she spends her mornings learning Spanish, the afternoons kite surfing ( or would if the wind would rise above a slight breeze ) and the nights eating and drinking, and I said that If I saw her about the next day then we could have a longer chat and maybe even go into town together and see what mischief we could find in this very small city.

The taxi to meet my friend was only US $1 and again I think that apart from the mosquitos, South America really does have a lot going for it, and the meal in the restaurant was top class and also a fair price, and I was glad that she spoke and understood enough English for me to have the first indepth conversation in English with a local for a few days, which gave me a chance to confirm a few things that I had been only guessing before.

Sadly I think that my accent must still be incorrect and hard to understand as any times during the night when I tried to say things in Spanish she would be unable to understand me, despite then repeating the word which to my ears was identical to what I was saying in the first place!

After a nice Italian meal we took another short taxi journey to watch a movie, and a floor of relief filled me as I found out that it was more in the European style of keeping it in Hollywood English and adding Spanish subtitles instead of badly dubbing it into Spanish like most of the films that I have watched in the last month and a half.

All too soon the movie as over and I was in a taxi going back to my hotel, and yet again the taxi driver was unable to know where it was, which is starting to anger me as Manta itself is a tiny city and I can probably walk across it in entirely in under two hours, so the local taxi drivers should have a good enough grasp of where all the tourist hotels and hostels are by now.

Back in my hotel I finally managed to catch up completely with my blog and prepare for a full day tomorrow of exploring the city immediately after breakfast.