Things to do in Manta

Nature · The city's main beach, north-west of the centre

A wide urban beach with a promenade of restaurants and bars behind it — the centre of Manta's public life and its safest stretch of sand.

Local tip: This is where the city goes at weekends and it is patrolled, which is why it works. Eat ceviche at the stalls rather than in the restaurants behind — it is better and it is a third of the price. Swim between the flags and ask about the aguaje: at spring tides the currents here change character completely.

Nature · About twenty-five minutes south-west along the coast road

A long, wind-scoured beach that has become one of South America's more reliable kitesurfing destinations, with a small resident foreign community to match.

Local tip: The wind is most dependable roughly June to December, which is exactly when the city is greyest — the two facts are the same fact, because the same Humboldt-driven pattern produces both. Schools rent gear and teach beginners. It is a genuinely different social world from Manta itself, and a lot of people who thought they were moving to the city end up living out here.

Culture · Twenty minutes inland, at the foot of its hill

The hat town: the birthplace of Eloy Alfaro and the place where the finest toquilla straw hats in the world are woven and finished.

Local tip: What the world calls a Panama hat is Ecuadorian, and the very finest superfino weaves come from here — a single hat can take a weaver months and cost thousands. Buy from a workshop rather than a stall on the main road, ask to see the weave against the light, and visit the Alfaro mausoleum on the hill while you are up there.

Nature · On the coast road south-west, beyond Santa Marianita

A protected coastal cloud forest sitting improbably above an arid shoreline, with howler monkeys, orchids and a fog-fed canopy.

Local tip: Almost nobody who comes to Manta goes, which is the point. A wet green forest twenty minutes from a desert beach is a genuine ecological oddity — it is fed by the coastal fog rather than by rain. Go early when the howlers are loud and the fog is still in the trees, take a guide from the community, and combine it with a beach afternoon.

Food · The centre, and the working beach where the boats land

Manabí food at source — viche, tonga, ceviche and the peanut-thickened cooking the province is famous for, beside a beach where the catch is still landed onto the sand.

Local tip: Go early — the fish comes in at dawn and the market food counters are a morning business. This is the best eating in the city by a distance and effectively none of it is aimed at visitors. Bring cash and small notes, and do not photograph the boats or the crews without asking.

Neighborhood · About an hour north along the coast

A long beach town below a line of cliffs whose ridge lift makes it one of the best-known paragliding sites in South America.

Local tip: Pilots fly the cliffs most afternoons when the sea breeze fills in, and tandem flights are cheap by any international standard. The town itself is scruffier and far cheaper than Manta, with a small but real foreign community — worth a weekend before you conclude the coast is only the city.