The North American boat was part of the times of river transport

By Sergio Cedeno Amador *

During the 1970s and long before, the only means of transportation from Guayaquil to Babahoyo, capital of Los Ríos province, was by river “upstream” through the mighty Babahoyo River.

Several boats leaving the Pier # 8, located at Malecón and 10 de Agosto, They provided this service, which was announced every day on the last page of the Diario EL UNIVERSO, detailing the name of the boat and the time of departure, which varied daily depending on the rising tide.

Among the largest and most elegant was the motor ship Daisy Edith, but I preferred to travel on Sunday nights to the Angélica ranch, where I worked, in the north america speedboat, which was piloted by Captain Contreras, who made the trip most enjoyable for his endless anecdotes about the Babahoyo River and about the personalities who had sailed on his famous boat. When it was time to set sail, he blew a whistle and shouted from the bow: “The boat is leaving!”

Generally, North America had guitarists and there was never a lack of a good singer in the corridors, they sold rice with vegetable stew and meat or dry duck, and then when “I fell asleep”, since the trip was very long, the passengers fought for the hammocks. Some of these were mocora and were “reserved” in advance by Captain Contreras for the most important passengers.

The official stopovers in North America were in Samborondón, where he arrived after four hours of travel, and in the Angélica ranch, where the boat docked for half an hour, but any passenger could also make the boat stop by ringing a bell that was pulled with a rope.

We will always remember with nostalgia the famous North America, the last passenger boat to cross the Babahoyo River known by many montuvios as the Rio Grande.

The race to Babahoyo

This type of transport is the subject of the very interesting book The century of river steamers: 1840-1940, written by Julio Estrada Ycaza and Clemente Yerovi Indaburu, from where I extract the following text signed by the second:

As “races” the routes or paths of the vapors were known. Each one had its own characteristics, not only due to the number of passengers, the type of cargo and the customs of the operators, but also due to the problems of the route.

The most frequented and competed races were initially Guayaquil-Babahoyo and Guayaquil-Daule, which occasionally extended to Ventanas the first and Balzar the second. There were also races to Santa Rosa and Posorja…

The Guayaquil-Babahoyo route represented little more than 100 nautical miles round trip. The ascent, always with the tide in favor in summer, took from six to eight hours, depending on the “attached” or intermediate stations to take passengers, unload merchandise or ship firewood. The return took no less time. With the rains, the trip up took longer due to the strong current, but this served to shorten the duration of the descent.

The movement of passengers and cargo between Guayaquil and Babahoyo was enough so that every day there was even one steamer that left. But the round trip of each steamer took four days: one to go up from Guayaquil to Babahoyo, another port in Babahoyo, a third for the return trip, being the fourth day in port in Guayaquil.

This line was the last one operated by the Indaburu Company with the steam Chimborazo, which at a certain time went up to Caracol, Catarama, Ventanas and intermediate ports.

The steamers left Guayaquil between eight in the morning and six in the afternoon, and after touching in Samborondón and intermediate haciendas, they arrived in Babahoyo between three in the afternoon and one in the morning. On the way down, they sailed from Babahoyo at high tide, between one in the morning and one in the afternoon, arriving in Guayaquil between eight in the morning and eight at night. So, for example, in The Telegraph on May 20, 1911, the departure of the steamship Puigmir was announced at 8 am

Normally this race was held for leisurely work, but if another steamer left the same day, it was necessary to hurry to gain the various clients that were on the way and first enter the fixed ports such as Samborondón and Pimocha. The eventual stops took place when signals were made from some riverside hacienda or the steamer was called, to embark passengers, products or cattle.

The eventual clientele of intermediate haciendas was limited to the Guayaquil-Samborondón section, since from the latter population to Guayaquil, the dairy boats of the haciendas in the area, which left every morning, had swept up the passengers and the available cargo.

* Member of the National Academy of History, president of the Montuvia Regional Culture Foundation and proud montuvio.