Escape from Guayaquil

Although, as we mentioned yesterday, we have a soft spot for Guayaquil, a city gringos generally avoid like the plague, it was with relief and anticipation that we boarded the 8 am “Servicio Ejecutivo” to the Beach town of Manta, our center of operations for the next three months.

The line that serves the costal province of Manabi is called “The Reina del Camino” (Queen of the Highway) and leavers from the modern “terminal terreste” or municipal bus termal, a gigantic concrete way station just beyond the last runway of the airport. Before they built it in the late 80{s all the busses left from a 4 block area in downtown Guayaquil which, in the best tradition of bus staions everywhere, was surrounded by cheap bars, fly-soup eateries, fly-by-night curb-side businesses and illicit capitalism in all its grimy glory.

But those days all long gone, and the new terminal is safer and more convienient, although much less of a pulsating petri dish of South American sidewalk society.  The biggest difference we noticed from our last visit was the greaatly increased level of security, No bags, knapsacks, backpacks, food dishes or boxes were allowed inside the bus – everything had to go in the baggage compartment. Pocketbooks were thoroughly examined, and all passengers were frisked before being allowed to board.

Of course, they were not looking for drugs, or trying to spot terrorists (virtually unknown here). Rather, they were trying to prevent what has become one of the most popular and lucrative forms of semi-organized crime in these parts, hijacking interprovincial busses and cleaning out the driver and passengers alike. The preferreed technique is to plant one member of the gang aboard the bus – with a gun – and have the rest follow the bus in a private car.  At some desolate spot, the inside guy (or gal) forces the driver to pull over, the rest get aboard and stripsearch everyone, then speed away. The bus station searchers were looking for guns.

Once we were away, it took almost an hour to clear the pestilent periphery of the city. Tire repair, Agricultural products factories, squatters stations, gas stations, rundown shops of all sorts and pathetic irrigation ditches choked with trash and weeds went on and on, seemingly endlessly. Finally, we broke through the smog and grime, and were racing along the costal highway, out of Guayas and into Manabi.

We passed through Monticristi, a tiny sandy town which is the world center of hand made Panama hat production.  Everyone in this town is involved in some way with the production, shipping, storage or sales of panama hats.  We passed through a small city with one of our favorite city names – Jipihapa, pronounced “hippy-hoppa”. Finally, at about noon, we pulled into Manta. The short stocky Indian who hefted our two oversized suitcases out to the street and into the taxi was happy with the 38 cent tip mandated by Norma Yvonne

We are still estatic about the apartment we found waiting for us. Two blocks from the beach, two bedrooms, fully functional kitchen with refrigerator, stove and microwave. (A confirmed coffee addict, the Dowbrigade has brought his own coffee machine and bean grinder.) The second bedroom has two sets of bunk beds for all the visitirs we expect. There is even a TV with 27 channels of cable, including MTV, ESPN (NBA playoffs!), HBO and CNN!

The only thing missing is the phone line. In typical Ecuadorian fashion, after paying a bribe the telephone guys were here yesterday, and the line is in, but it won’t start functioning until Monday, after Semana Santa (Easter weekend). This means our blogging will be limited to cybercafes for the next few days, but after that we should be on-line and open for business 24-7.

Right now, we are upstairs in the office of our friend the architect who owns the place, robbing a little internet time while his office staff is at lunch. There is a supermarket just around the corner so this afternoon we will lay in all the necessary supplies, and off we go.

Semana Santa is a big deal here in Manta; thousands of tourists arrive from inside and outside of Ecuador, and the beach looks like Coney Island on the 4th of July. We plan to take it easy, and do some writing which we may have to wait until Monday to upload. Happy Easter, everybody!