Tarqui

It‘s nearly 5pm by the time we arrive at the busy port of Manta, where Aurora is sat at berth across the bay. As expected, this brief passage through part of Ecuador has left me with more questions than answers. A friend from home, who spent 6 months travelling around South America with his partner, told me that Ecuador was one of their favourite places, but I’ve seen so little of it on this trip that I’ll have to come back to find out why. I suppose I should be grateful—we’ve seen far more of the country than our fellow passengers on the ship, who are forced to make an assessment of a whole country from an 8-hour stop in a single coastal town. But still, that’s often what cruises involve, and in their defence, most people view a cruise holiday as a whole package, rather than judging it by the sum of its parts.

Here we must leave our awesome tour guide, Manny, who has been with us since we left the ship a few days ago (or was it a month ago? It certainly feels like it!) Much like Juan, our guide for the overland tour of Iguazú (sidebar: what are the chances of getting two guides with the same names as the two guys I live with?), Manny has been an absolute legend—so funny, supremely organised, and very adept at dealing with even the whingiest of the whinging poms. It takes a special kind of person to do this job, and he’s done it perfectly.

Back on the ship, I head straight upstairs to get a view of the city. Sadly, it’s not worth the effort, as there’s a bloody great barge in the way. But never mind. We sail away an hour later to a beautiful sunset.

That brings to a close our second (and final) overland tour, which was every bit as exhilarating and exhausting as the first. Several people, especially those who only did one overland tour, have asked me which one was best, but that’s almost impossible to answer, as they were so different. The Iguazú falls were absolutely beautiful, of course, but until this trip I’d never actually heard of them. Machu Picchu, however, is world famous, and is so loaded with mysticism and intrigue that walking into the complex actually did take my breath away. The Iguazú trip was a day longer than this one, and gave us the chance to go to Argentina, but even the shorter Machu Picchu trip allowed us to see more of Ecuador than we would’ve done had we stayed on the ship. I can’t choose between them, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss either trip, personally.

I shall be spending our sea day tomorrow mostly in bed recovering, before our transit through the Panama Canal on Thursday.Read more