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.