New Year, New Country

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Emma writes
I've always fancied being on a beach for new year. Ecuador's best beaches would mean travelling north again and we just don't have time to back track ( I think we might be saying that a lot on this trip).
Next stop therefore had to be Mancora beach in north Peru. After making that decision we were told by everyone that it was the place of the biggest party in Peru for new year. Sounds busy. We had no accomodation booked, like everywhere else we've been, so no real worries there, something will work out.

Getting off the bus there's a hundred mototaxi (a three wheeler motorbike rickshaw type afair) waiting to take us to the place of their choice. Everywhere has tripled their prices for new year, so we looked round a few. One was 3000 soles a night. There's about 6 soles to the pound... How to blow our entire budget in 4 nights.
So we settled on a cabin in a little place with a pool, close to the beach for 120. Bargain. So we thought, until it came time to settle up and soles had changed to dollars. We won't be making that mistake again... But the weather was great and the sea was warm, the hammock smelt like a fishing net and looked suspiciously like one too. All, kind of, good.

Next day there's loads of people rocking up in 4 wheel drives, camping on the beach. It looked like a festival. We spent the day reading books, swimming and listening to the rotten row of music coming from the hotel speakers. I think it was a local radio staion, but it sounded more like karioke fm. Just as we couldn't take any more it changed into some pretty good dance music and all was good in the world. We got chatting to the bunch of Limaens that had taken control and spent the night drinking vodka and sprite and discussing music and places and why lemons and limes are called the opposite in Spanish/English.

NYE midnight itself was spent drinking a not so cold beer on the beach watching everyone ignite the inner pyromaniac in themselves and start fires every few meters. Which was great. Everyone sitting around in the warm air waiting. But come midnight, or everyone's individual time keeping of such, the homemade fireworks got thrown in and everyone had to run for cover. I think my fear of fireworks is fading after traveling around South America. I've got no choice.

The rest of the night we wandered through the town. Reminded us a bit of Notting Hill Carnival. But without the good music.
Every bar had its own soundsystem turned up full, straining the amp, places next to each other trying to compete.
I've never been to such a noisy town. Every single minute of the day and night there'd be something making a shocking row.

New year's day, no hangover. But complete mayhem in the streets for everyone else. We tried to get a night bus out, but there was no chance in hell of that. There were about 50000 people all trying to do the same. We found ourselves seduced by a luxury looking bus as we tried to weigh up our options of travelling south to Trujillo or straight on to Lima. It was the seats - they turn into beds! And on a 17 hour journey we thought that might be a good plan. However, due to not booking it in advance, probably around last new year's eve, the only option open to us was the cheapo 11 pound journey to Lima the next evening...

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Photos

Pre-fireworks
And then came the firecrackers.