Question: What's open on Palm Sunday in a Catholic country?

Answer: EVERYTHING! (as long as there's a cruise ship in port)

Yesterday morning we were out on the deck as we pulled into the port of Manta, Ecuador. The weather was not nearly as humid and hot as we had anticipated, and there was a nice breeze that made it feel very pleasant. The port is home to lots of tuna boats and we even saw one of the Ecuadorian navy's two submarines.
Here we are in Ecuador and Cindy finds a part time job. In the photo you see her pulling fibers through a metal comb. This is used to split the fibers and make them softer. The fibers come from the agave plant. The native Ecuadorians split and soften up this fiber, make thread out of it, and use it to make hats, mats, clothes -- including underware. I guess it's like making underwear out of brillo pads! They say after a few washings it softens up. I guess it goes from a brillo pad to a scotch pad. Wouldn't that feel great on a long hike!
Our second stop on the tour was in the town of Montecristi, home of the Panama hat. They are called Panama hats because they were originally made by remote villagers in Ecuador to be sent to the men building the canal. When the workers went back to Europe with their hats, they referred to them as their Panama hats and the name stuck. They are made by hand and each one takes a minimum of 3 months to complete.
An interesting stop at the ivory nut factory was next. These tagua nuts come from a palm tree and have the appearance of ivory. Each nut, about the size of a racquetball, is sliced into discs and punched into buttons. Not much goes to waste; the shavings are fed to the livestock.
In this photo you see what they do with all those nuts. I'm talking about the little bags of things, not the big nut in the back of the rack, that's my sister Connie. They sell all these beads and buttons and they are colored by using vegetable dye. They also carve the nuts and make all kinds of statues and jewelry from it. If you didn't know that they made them from the nuts you would think it was ivory.
Our last photo was taken right before we started heading back to the ship. Here was this guy building this boat with his family and all kinds of animals standing around two by two waiting to get on. I don't know what that was all about but I hear history repeats itself. So heathens take warning. Actually this was the shipbuilding yard. It was located right on the beach near where our ship was docked. They had several boats being built all in different stages of completion. It was quite interesting to see.