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Tuesday, December 31. Manta, Ecuador We went off for our excursion to Cerro Jaboncillo at 8:30 am after just a cup of coffee in the suite. We had another happy shouter as a guide but not quite so bad as the previous one we suffered. But he did talk all the time in the coach until we reached our destination, which was about an hour away from Manta.
At our destination, Hojas Jaboncillo, there was a very expensive, fairly new museum. The archaeological site of Cerro Jaboncillo is unique because it allows observation of a distinct and complex society that was established in the area between 900 and 1500 AD. This developed society controlled large areas of Guayas and Manabi provinces in Ecuador. The Cancebí-Manteños acquired highly developed levels in their society practices and with their control of the sea extended their culture to the California Gulf, Mexico, Chile and Peru. It is the largest archaeological site in Ecuador, with an even greater dimension than the Machu Picchu ruins in Peru. Cerro-Jaboncillo offers a glimpse at a macro-settlement of an enormous city belonging to the Manteño culture; its total area embraces a polygon of seven-thousand hectares in size. Cerro is a mountain world, not just a city: a system of terraces, water channels, and complex structures that climb up to the very top of the hill. I have to say that on the ground today, it is virtually impossible to appreciate the size or scale of the site - we really saw very little.
While Manteño culture spread from northern Manabi (known as the Manteño-Huancavilca) to southern Guayas (known as the Manteño-Puná), Cerro Hojas-Jaboncillo, an archaeological complex composed of several conjoining hills, became a symbolic and spiritual landmark for natives, divided into several defined trades: fishermen, engineers, farmers, artisans, and artists.
Perhaps the best-known artifact of the Manteño is the Manteño U-shaped stone seats with arms bearing an anthropomorphic figure at the base. This figure looks bent over, as if holding the seat up, its arms and legs forming two symmetrical “U”s, the armrests and the seat’s legs. The purpose these seats had is not fully understood; there are different interpretations. Archaeologists believe the seats belong to local overlords; others don’t even agree that these seats were seats at all.
We had a guided tour by the museum director but this was not very successful as he had to be translated into English by the happy shouter and the result was not comprehensible really. I did have a chat though with the happy shouter’s assistant who wanted to practice his English and I learned quite a lot from him about the kapok tree which, as I thought ,was related to the baobab tree.
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We then got back on the coach and drove for five minutes on an unmade road to the bottom of a hill. There were two or three small houses constructed like that of the.Manteños. They are thought to have lived here between 900 and 1600 A.D.. We then climbed up to a viewpoint . But we realy did not get any cocept of this being an enormous site - it is still all hiddenen under the trees, and only Lidar has seen it.
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After this, we drove to Porto Viejo, for the sole reason of having a snack in a restaurant. This snack was most unhealthy, though maybe it reflected the local diet, apart from a good glass of blackberry juice.
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Then back to Manta, we had to leave the coach at the gates of the port, wander through their shopping area and then board a transfer bus back to the ship. This seems to be the norm with Cruise boats these days, in order to force you to walk past the souvenir shops. A bit like Duty Free shops in airports.
I had a siesta and then a swim and then we had some tarts from the arts café back in our room with a coffee on the balcony. At six we went to the dusk bar to observe the sunset and the town growing dark. There were a few fireworks but nothing worth watching. Earlier en route we had noticed many. stuffed animals and people which would be burnt at midnight. We dined in the Silver |Note and listened to the singer and the pianist who doubled us a flautist We went up to deck 11 to look down at the New Year party on deck 10 just before 11 pm but decided we did not want to join it to see midnight in instead we went back down to our suite and finished watching a video on drones.
Happy New Year one and all