Thursday, March 15, 2018- Cruise Day 51; Manta Day 2

Thursday, March 15, 2018- Cruise Day 51; Manta Day 2

We woke to find a large hydraulic dredge ship next to us.  It took a while to figure out what it was because it was covered by huge pipes and cranes.  The air pollution did improve by morning.  We had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room and then headed off the ship to do a little walking around Manta.  The free ship’s shuttle did take us to the head of the port security terminal, which was where the jetty intersected with the beach.  It was 85 degrees, sunny and very humid.  

We walked to the Manta Museum of Cultural arts, which had free admission, and contained a number of pre-columbian artifacts.  For some reason, they had an extensive collection of incense burner figurines, all of whom were proudly displaying their genitalia.  The upper floors had some exhibits on the anthropology of the various tribes that inhabited the west coast of South America over the years, and modern art.  While the museum had interesting things in it, there were no English explanation plaques, and the building lacked air conditioning, so it was very hot and humid.  We had sweat dripping down our faces.  

Just a little further down the block was the Mall De Pacifico, which was a modern air conditioned multilevel shopping mall.  It could have been grafted right of an American suburb except for the lack of any escalators.  There was free Wifi, which allowed us to upload our photostreams, and a large food court.  KFC is popular brand in Ecuador, but not only do they do chicken, but they also had a free-standing KFC ice cream and desserts kiosk like a miniature Baskin and Robbins.  This gave us a chance to cool off and dry off after sweating profusely in the museum.  During the entire trip, Ben has had his eye out for an Apple Store to buy a watchband for his Apple watch that doesn’t have the magnetic clasp that his Milanese loop band has because it has demagnetized his room card more than 20 times during this cruise.  It took a while to figure that mystery out.  This mall actually had a Mac authorized store selling Apple computers and accessories, but they carried only one Apple watch band, which was a bright orange and red nylon band.  That might have worked ok with a teenage girl’s rose pink Apple watch, but it wasn’t going to work on a man’s wrist.  

While the mall had modern toilets, you had to buy toilet paper from a vending machine if you needed to do #2, which seemed very odd for a Mall that was otherwise state of the art.  We headed back to the comfort of the ship’s air conditioning and toilets with free toilet paper, ending our adventures in Manta.  We learned at the mall that a friend, who lives in Florida had managed to arrange a fishing charter that left at 5:30AM.  It was just $100 per person, so we are anxious to talk with them to see how that went.

We had lunch, naps, and then attended the afternoon trivia, which was a Discovery Channel branded Myth Busters trivia.  We pretty much bombed it with a score of 8/20.  The winners tied with 14/20, and they tied on the one tie breaker question as well, so they had to guess Wally’s age and month of birth.  We knew from an earlier tie breaker that Wally’s birthday was August 17, but didn’t know his exact age.  It turns out he is 31 years old.  His Peruvian genes make him look quite a bit younger than that.  

We had a relaxed dinner in the dining room.  We opted not to see the second performance of Mark Preston, opting instead to just relax and watch some TV. Before long, it was time for the evening trivia called I’ll Take Trivia for 100, which was their spin on Jeopardy.  Each team answered all the questions on the board, and then at the Final round, had to wager an amount on the final category, which was not revealed until after the bet was placed.  In the end, we answered the final question correctly, but didn’t bet big enough to win the game because we had only bet $500 out of our total $8900.  The winning team had bet all $8500 of their $8500 to win.  But we didn’t feel bad because our raw score had beat theirs.  

Tomorrow is another at Sea Day, and another Formal night.  We have another progressive trivia in the morning and an Escape Room activity booked for tomorrow night.