After two days at sea, spent watching Futbol and cricket on the TV, reading, Andrew (The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake) Mark (The Worst Journey in the World-Antarctic 1910-1913), fast walking over 3 miles a day, playing numerous games of ping-pong and eating too much, the brothers Dalton disembarked on the dock at Manta, Ecuador on the morning of October 19. Armed with a rudimentary Spanish phrase sheet, reading glasses, camera, swim trunks and Yankee dollars our intrepid adventurers hired Jorge with his taxi to take them on a grand loop to the south and east of town. Jorge spoke very little English and we spoke less Spanish but we were eager to communicate!
Our first stop was at a fishing village called San Lorenzo about 20km down the coast. There were many people in the streets, wearing their Sunday clothes, coming or going to church we figured. Our objective was the lighthouse on a steep hill at the north end of the village. We rattled our way up a narrow road to a cell tower that was at the start of the lighthouse trail. This trail was mostly steps carved into loose dirt with a crosswise board for a riser, and on the steeper parts a railing made of rickety posts joined with rotten poly rope. To the north the hillside fell away vertically about 400 feet to a beach. From the lighthouse we had a panoramic view of the village and could see the Isla de la Plata off the coast in the distance.
As we travelled down the coastal highway the three of us engaged in conversation as best we could. Jorge, endeavoring to make our trip as informative as possible, would point out objects of interest and in Spanish sentences that contained only one English word explained what we were seeing. For my part I asked questions, in Spanish, that I concocted by combining words from various phrases on my sheet of Spanish phrases for the complete idiot. Andrew had a more freewheeling style and managed to have a five minute conversation with Jorge using only soccer team names and the word Si!
Our next stop was a small town called Puerto Cayo with a beautiful beach and fishing fleet of small boats. Just outside of town we entered Macalilla National Park which surprised us by being desert like with cacti and scruffy shrubs rather than jungle as we had expected. A few miles inside the park we turned off the highway at the entrance to the beach at Los Frailes. Employees at the gate took the names and ages of tourists and locals alike before sending us down the bumpy road to the beach. Jorge's taxi, which he owns and takes pride in, did not like this stretch and had a broken shock rattling around somewhere beneath my rear seat.
Los Frailes is a picturesque curving beach between two headlands that was perfect for swimming and body surfing and had decent showers.
We were feeling a bit parched after our swim so we had Jorge stop by a tiny roadside shop as we went through Puerto Cayo heading east and purchased a couple of 20oz Pilseners for the next leg of our jaunt. No open container laws we supposed. We followed a bus with a giant picture of Jesus on the back of it out of town and headed up a mountain pass where the vegetation changed to deciduous forest. Jorge was happy to stop at any time for us to take photos and had no qualms about stopping on blind corners next to the guard rails where there was no verge. On one of my photo opportunities the nylon belt in my shorts broke as I vaulted the guard rail, so for the rest of the trip I had to hold my shorts with one hand while trying to act nonchalant and not stand out too much. On the eastern side of this pass some interesting Baobab like trees started to appear, which Jorge called Saybo or cotton tree due to their fluffy seed clusters. There were not many of them so I had Jorge stop when I saw one close to the road and hopped out to take a photo or two. I had to fight my way through thorny brush, one-handed, to take photos of this rare tree. The joke was on me because a few miles down the road they became the dominant tree and we took masses of pictures of better specimens as we drove by them.
Our next stop was in Jijihapa, pronounced keekeehappa, the corn capital of Ecuador where Jorge insisted that we have a photo taken at the giant corn cob that looms over an intersection on the highway. 
A few miles down the road we drove through a village that specializes in selling coconut milk from the roadside stands with the most enterprising and bravest sellers set up on the speed bump in the middle of the road. Speed bumps abound in Ecuador but seem to do little to slow down the maniac drivers.
Our final stop before returning to the ship was in Montecristi which is known for the manufacture of Panama hats and historically for Inca pottery which is promoted by a ten foot tall statue of a buxom naked Inca potter!
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