Maritza's family owned half of a duplex house and a small 3 bedroom house behind it in Manta. Sue and I stayed in the house in the back and shared it with a few interesting room mates. That evening and the next evening we sat (I was in a hammock, sigh!) in the courtyard between the two houses and looked at the sky toward the southeast through the trees where the stars of the Southern Cross were visible. Alpha and Beta Centauri were visible lower toward the horizon and some of the Milky Way was visible despite being within the city. We got up and moved around and were able to see in the opposite direction to the Gemini Twins, Leo and the brightly shining Jupiter to the west of Regulus.
The next day we drove into the downtown part of Manta for a breakfast of ceviche at their favorite Cevicherias, or restaurant specializing in this type of soup. This is, as far as we could tell, a cold soup that is served with thin-sliced red onions and fish or shrimp. You decorate the soup with popcorn, or corn nuts, or my favorite, fried banana chips. We opted for the shrimp ceviche. It was good, especially after adding fresh tomatoes, parsley, and lime juice.
After breakfast we drove about 50 km north from Manta to a small city on the beach called Crucita. Sue and I played in the ocean for a while and then joined up with Maritza and her parents on a restaurant patio across the street from the beach. Had a few drinks and conversation before a great dinner of fish, rice and plantains.
We headed back to Manta after dinner and after a couple of hours of wandering around a mall while I was online checking on my class we all headed back for another quiet evening in the courtyard talking and star gazing. It was to be an early evening as Maritza had to fly back to Quito in the morning to get back to school for an important exam, and we had a long day of driving ahead of us.
The next morning, following another breakfast of ceviche, we headed north along the coast for a while before the highway turned eastward toward the Andes and Quito. The road took us northeast across the coastal plains through Rockafuerte, Tosagua, and Chone, the town known for its beautiful woman.
We crossed a range of mountains that took us into Flavio Alfaro and then on to El Carmen where we stopped for dinner. By this point we had climbed back up to about 2000 meters and were once again noticing the effect of being at higher altitudes.
Following lunch we continued onward and a two hours later we were back on the Pan American highway and heading north to Quito and Graciela's house.