Thanksgiving 2008

27 November 2008
Thursday (Thanksgiving) we are back in Manta.

Coming in to Manta

Harbor light

We arrived and were cleared with no problem - the boat backed in and I thought maybe they would paint the other side, but it didn't look as if they did. Bob had been to the port lecture and thought we should walk to a new museum not far from the dock. I wanted to go to the main square and shop. So we went to the museum. I figured I couldn't buy hats anyway because I didn't know anyone's head size.

Bahía de Caráquez (The Central Bank Museum) includes an important collection of Manta's Pre-Columbian craft. By the first millennium, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains, and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed permanent settlements. Among those groups were the Valdivia of Ecuador who were among the most important sedentary Amerindian groups in South America. They concentrated on the coast.

The museum includes a permanent exhibit room of the archeology of the seven cultures that inhabited the province of Manabi from 4.200 BC to 1.530 AC: Valdivia, Machalilla, Chorrera, Guangala, Bahía, Jama-Coaque and Manteño-Huancavilca

Sign at the gangway

We still had to get the shuttle from the boat to the entrance to the port, but then we had to walk three or four blocks. It was hot in the sun and there wasn't much shade.

Informacion Turistico Building

There is a Tourist Information (Informacion Turistico) building just about a block away from the port. They were able to tell us where the museum we were looking for was (across the street) and they had A/C in there. Bob took me down there, but I had seen the museum across the street. It was in a bank, and he didn't see the museum sign which was hidden by the trees, he could only see the bank sign at the top of the building.

Bank Sign and Museum ticket

We had to cross a four lane divided street. Bob went up to the intersection. I didn't want to walk that far, so I crossed in the middle. Then we paid $2.00 each and went up the elevator (outside of the building so we could see the ship from it) to the fourth floor.

Ship from the bank/museum elevator

The museum is open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9h00 to 17h00
All the signs and information was in Spanish.

Poster

The coca shamans of the Jama-Coaque culture that could extract the hallucinogenic effects of the coca leaves without chemical processes. They combined lime and ash to neutralize the harmful effects and extract the hallucinogenic juices. Another thing worth admiring of this same culture are the gigantic huts that are impressively similar to the Asian-Pacific pagodas. Tnere is also a mural that represents the long voyages of the natives on balsa boats.

Depiction of a local village

Archeological findings have shown that the Ecuadorian natives were one of the oldest in the Americas, spanning from 3500 to 1800 BCE. The Valdivia lived in a community that built its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza, and were sedentary people that lived off farming and fishing, though occasionally they went hunting for deer. From the remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, hot peppers, and cotton plants, the last of which was used to make clothing. Valdivian pottery initially was rough and practical, but it became showy, delicate, and big over time. They generally used red and gray colors; and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works.

They had an exhibit of early instruments (conch and other kinds of shells and also some pan pipe type things)

Various musical instruments

and also a place where you could listen to the sounds they made through earphones.

They also had an explanatory film (in Spanish) about the and local burial practices etc. timeline . Entrance fee $2.00 should include a tour in English, but we did not know about this and so only saw a film in Spanish.

TimeLine

Reconstruction of a burial

First and Second stage

Cotocollao (1500 - 500 a.C.) had small cemeteries were found amidst the groups of houses. The most ancient cemeteries are formed by individual tombs that lodge corpses covered with corn leaves.

The Machalilla (1500 – 800 a.C). cemeteries in a different region consist of extensive graveyards, an instance of which is the grave at Salango. A unique characteristics of these tombs is the setting of the corpse under a ceramic turtle shell.

Third stage

The La Tolita (ca. 600 a.C. – 400 d.C.) culture inhabited an area from the mouth of the River Esmeraldas to the Bay of Buenaventura in Colombia. People came to a central place from very different regions to worship their gods. They shared in religious ceremonies and buried the dead.

Ceramics and Custom of offering food to the Dead

I took a picture of an explanation of the exhibits and this is the translation of it.

Ceramics and Custom of offering food to the Dead

MILESTONE
Valdivia, one of the oldest pottery traditions of the New World

Valdivia ceramics was 6000 years ago, one of the oldest pottery traditions and highlights of the continent incorporating religious concepts which were later used by other societies in the Americas

Since then, the use of social, ceremonial and utilitarian ceramics has been an outstanding dimension in Native American culture, it is the expression for ceremonial meals, which even today, is part of events central to the social and religious life of indigenous groups

The habit of giving food and drink in special pots aims to communicate the affection felt for the community of the ancestors and the guardian spirits of plants and animals which mean fertility and abundance

Skull and pottery

And they had gold jewelry

Gold jewelry

and ceramics of course

Funerary ceramics and an Owl

on the right Bart Simpson?

After that of course I had to walk back to the ship, but this time on the shady side of the street. Bob said I could shop on the way back, but mostly what they had was ceramics which didn't appeal to me

Ceramics

Construction

We didn't eat anywhere, but we did see some places to eat. I took photos as we walked back toward the place where the cruise ship was docked. There were regular restaurants, as well as streetside stands. One of the restaurants was actually in a trailer parked on the street - but you did not have to stand to eat. They had chairs and tables under a canopy so that you could eat on the street sitting down in comfort.

Domino players

When we got back to the port entrance, there was a roundabout and then cross from there as it was shorter. They had a dolphin inlay into the sidewalk.

Dolphin insert

They did not ask for any ID coming through the gate - either we were obviously tourists or they recognized my cane (and there are at least 3 other people with a similar cane on the ship).

Trix?

The shuttle back to the ship was called the Trans Rabbit (Transporte Turistico). It had a drawing on the door something like the Trix rabbit.

The shuttles are VERY high up off the ground. I had trouble getting my foot up to the step.

I was completely soaked with sweat by the time I got back to the ship - my hair was all stuck to my head. So I didn't have energy to get the shuttle from there to the main square as I had intended and we just stayed on board.

Sweet and sour chicken.

We went up to the Lido and I had sweet and sour chicken. Bob did the laundry and after I rested a bit, I changed into a bathing suit and went swimming in the salt water pool on the aft deck (deck 10). This pool is colder than the Lido deck pool (deck 11 - fresh water and covered from rain), and the ladders are also very hard on the feet.

I shampooed my hair in the shower at the pool after I got finished swimming, but didn't have a brush with me so as a result it stuck up in the air in weird directions. I watched a bit of the third quarter of the Detroit game and figured I hadn't missed anything so we went on up to Trivia. We did horribly badly. I think we only got 7 right. We stayed to watch an oceanographic ship come in and view the little sailboats racing out past the harbor entrance.

Towing (how do they stop?)

Oceanographic ship

By this time it was 1645 and the Excursion office opened at 1730 and closed at 1830. We usually went to dinner at 1730 or 1745 and did not get done until almost 1900, so those hours were MOST unsatisfactory for us. But I thought if I started to stand in line early that maybe we could still be at dinner in time for the show.

I stood (and eventually sat) at the excursion desk window and Bob took one of the information desk people down to deck 6 to smell the bad sewage smell that they have down there. It is worst when we are in port or if we have a tail wind. He has decided that the toilet vent air is re-entrained on the ship on those circumstances. The whole of the aft Lower Promenade deck (deck 6) smells like a toilet. The halls and the rooms both. We've complained verbally and we've complained in writing to no avail. On discussions with others, we find that they also have complained and been told that no one else has a problem. But the stewards probably don't notice it anymore due to olfactory fatigue.

When the excursion lady came to the window at 5:30, she said that the afternoon Tortugero Canal excursion was filled. So I canceled the Rainforest Canopy Adventure. I wasn't sure if I was physically up to it anyway as it was listed as strenuous. Originally I thought this was Bob's preferred excursion, so I asked Bob if he wanted to go on that and let me do the canal, but he said No that he wouldn't go without me. Then after I canceled it he denied that he had said that. Aargh.

The dining room had an ice turkey sculpture (and a plastic turkey model)

plaster turkey

at the entrance, and they have the beautiful bouquets of flowers throughout the ship that I had expected on the Maasdam two years ago, but didn't get. On that cruise, since Xmas was approaching and they just had masses of poinsettias.

Bouquet

Bob had the shrimp cocktail which said it had bourbon cocktail sauce, and he didn't like that version of cocktail sauce. I had the

Ambrosia

but it wasn't really ambrosia. It did have a lot of pineapple, but no citrus or coconut. I also had

Butternut squash soup

which had some actual nuts in it. We had the 'traditional' turkey dinner,

Turkey dinner

which was OK but not delicious. Bob had the Thanksgiving Sundae (apple cider spiced peaches) which he didn't think was very good. I just had ice cream.

Nov 28th - Sea Day today.

Swiss Muesli

I tried the Swiss Museli at breakfast. Bob said just figs and raisin bran and the waiter felt that wasn't enough so instead of three figs they gave him a triple helping. We had such a good time at the table with a couple from Houston and one from Wisconsin that they cleared the table around us.

Except that we ate three meals and didn't win trivia again on Nov 28th, I'm not sure what else we did.

I had a

Stuffed potato skin

and a

Bay Shrimp Caesar Salad

for lunch and Bob had a

Pineapple Boat

and a

Club House Sandwich

Bouquet

appetizer

For dinner they listed Turf and Surf, but there was no turf.

Surf and Turf with no Turf - only lobster tail with jumbo shrimp

We had that even though (as the waiter warned me) there was no turf. Bob had

cheesecake

and I had

no-sugar-added Lemon Cream Pie for dessert.

Tomorrow it is back through the Panama Canal.