South America Overland Day 1 - Manta to Lima

Prior to our early morning arrival in Manta, there had been a week of going down to Guest Services each day to follow up on the return of our passports. These had been collected by the ship after New York and held in preparation for processing in bulk at the next few stops. It was acknowledged that as we were getting off the ship for 5 days at Manta we would need our passports back but it was proving difficult to get details of when this would occur. More so because this was a private tour and not one organised by the cruise line. We did finally get confirmation that our passports would be available from 7:00 a.m. on the day we arrived as they had them separated out for early processing by the authorities when we arrived.

We signed up for this private tour a few years ago and it had been cancelled along with the world cruise every year since the start of the pandemic. The private tour had been highly recommended by everybody else who had done the tour with this company in prior years. It was a little more expensive than the princess tour but it was 5 days rather than 3 as we disembarked at Manta in Ecuador and headed to Cusco and Machu Picchu while the ship was still at sea headed for Lima. We did have a couple of get-together opportunities onboard to meet the other members of the group and we all assembled prior to 7:00 a.m. to collect our passports and board a shuttle bus for the cruise terminal. (A whole post on shuttles will come later if I have time)

At the terminal, we did some shopping (mostly chocolate) and then met our host. Jamie was larger than life and as pleased to see us as we were to see him. This was his first Machu Picchu ship excursion since 2019. We met our local guide for Ecuador and the bus driver and then we were off on our adventure.

The first stop was at Montecristi for an exhibition of Panama hat-making. Panama hats are of course traditionally made in Ecuador and are called Panama hats due to early misinformation from Teddy Roosevelt who initially made the hats popular. Having driven past a large statue of the hat makers I was keen to see the demonstration.

The statue turned out to be an idealised representation of the backbreaking work of weaving a hat while leaning over and pressing down on it. We did see a demonstration of how the raw material is made from plant stems, how the hats are made and how the hats can be folded. This turned out to be a great advantage as the hats purchased at this point were to suffer through five days of coach and plane travel. The thin balsawood box that was part of the package I purchased did not survive the first flight.

From Montecristi we piled back into the bus and headed for Guayaquil. Through hills studded with Kapok Trees and then past ricefields as we approached the city. Our lunch stop set the bar for the rest of the tour. Fabulous food at a local restaurant and a local beer.

After lunch, we visited a park and church in the centre of the city. I have avoided commenting on any churches visited on the trip but the park was something unexpected. Surrounded by a wrought iron fence and with gates manned by police it was a safe space for visitors and the park inhabitants. In the park, we saw many large Iguanas and a pond full of snapping turtles who had climbed on each other's backs to form a wall in the pond. Not what I was expecting. Jamie, the tour operator is the one on the ground taking a selfie with a lizard.

After a short tour of the Church, we headed out to the airport and booked in for our flight. Immigration and airport security in Spanish is only marginally more confusing than in English but we made it through and past the duty-free store (somehow acquiring more chocolate) and headed to the bar for more local beer. An uneventful flight to Lima had us arriving after 11 p.m. and booking into an airport hotel ready for our 4 a.m. wake-up call for our next flight.

Day 1 in South America was interesting and full of chocolate and beer.