World Cruise - Through The Canal to Ecuador and Peru

As I write this we are 229 days away from our World Cruise. I have an app on my phone, T-Zero, which counts down for me. The anticipation is almost as much fun as the cruise will be, I'm sure. Once we cruise from Miami to the Caribbean to Columbia, we then go through the Panama Canal. We've been through the Canal three times already and each has been a wonderful experience. We always learn something new. There is so much history there as well as new construction that had started when we last passed through. It will be fun to see how it is changing.

Once through the Canal, we move on to two ports in Ecuador. Our last trip to Ecuador was to see the Galapagos Islands. This time we will be stopping in Manta and Guayaquil. Manta is the largest seaport of Ecuador and is the gateway to Quito, although the city is reached by airplane from Manta. My search for things to do in Manta revealed a lot of kite-boarding schools. Think we'll pass on that. There is a little town about twenty minutes away however where Panama hats are made. It's called Montecristi. While the taxi fee looks to be $20 roundtrip, there is a ship excursion that is $59 includes a stop at a museum and we can be sure there will be no language problem as some people experienced according to the Cruise Critic boards and we'll get back to the ship on time.

Guayaquil is a little harder to figure out and we may just wait to plan anything until we get closer to it and learn more about while aboard our ship. It looks to be a large city. The offerings for excursions that are within our price range are not terribly interesting from this perspective yet. This will be a wait-and-see port.

We have a day of cruising before we reach Salaverry, Peru, our next port. Salaverry is the port for Trujillo which has several temples from ancient times that look interesting. One especially, The Moon Temple, is said to rival Machu Piccu in interest. It is thought to be a thousand years older. Need to do more research as this doesn't look like a great port to get transportation easily especially with language problems and instances reported of drivers taking the long way around at $10/hour.

Lima, Peru, will be an overnight stop. This is where passengers from the first segment of our cruise will disembark and new passengers will arrive for the second segment. This is the opportunity to meet new people and change dining situations if we need to although as I understand, there are so many booked for the whole world cruise that there may not be a lot of change over on each segment.

Well, off to explore the options in Lima. Ever been there? If so, tell me what you saw and liked.