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Published: August 23rd 2008
Working on a Boat
Not everyone in Mancora is on vacation. It is a working fishing village too.August 16 - 22, 2008
OK, where were we? Oh yeah, Puerto Eten and Reque. We made it back home to Pimentel and prepared for our next leg of the trip to Mancora (MAHN coh rah). This is how we got there:
From Pimentel, we arranged to have a taxi pick us up at zero dark thirty (OK, it was 7:00am) and take us to the LINEA bus terminal in Chiclayo. We had purchased our tickets in advance which is almost ALWAYS the best way to go about traveling by bus. We were not willing to risk the trip to Chiclayo in a combi which can be erratic and will not deliver you door to door like a taxi. We have gotten rather adept at travel by combi which is cheap and normally reliable, but we already had tickets in hand, so we opted for the sure thing.
We arrived at the LINEA terminal in Chiclayo in plenty of time, met up with our travel partners, Tom and Maribel and boarded the bus. Traveling by bus in Peru is….well……an adventure, in so many ways. For one thing, you are literally taking your life in your hands as
soon as you commit your life to the hands of the driver. Then, there are the fellow passengers in varying degrees of personal hygiene and politeness. Loud cell phone conversations are the norm. Rose got a little irritated with me making parrot noises like “hello” and stuff like that when people’s cell phones rang. We arrived safely in Piura about three hours later. Piura is a bustling town, to say the very least. It is smelly, noisy, crowded, dusty and a little on the scary side, although nothing out of the ordinary happened. We were told that a private car is the best way to travel, and was basically the only way to travel to Mancora from Piura other than mini buses or combis. We negotiated a price with the driver (ALWAYS, ALWAYS set your price before setting foot in a taxi) and he let us know the whole way there that he was unhappy with the fare. We got to Mancora and then he tried to soak us for another ten soles. Unbeknownst to him, we had planned to give him a ten sol tip, but he was such a prick, we didn’t do it. He also did not
Negotiating a Price for a Horseback Ride
Horses on the beach are common. The horses are Peruvian Paso Finos, but they were so skinny, I decided to not punish them by riding them. Had they been a burly Morgan, I would have gone. get the extra ten soles he tried to rip us off for. What a jerk!
Normally, I would leave the end of the story until the end, but for the sake of continuity, and to help educate our traveling friends, I will put this right up front. When you depart Mancora, tell the mototaxi to take you to the EPPO bus terminal. You can catch a bus, big, comfortable and safe (by Peruvian standards) for Piura cheaper than a private car. EPPO in Piura is just a block and a half from the LINEA terminal and you can either walk it (say “LINEA terminal , donde esta and they will point straight and then a turn to the right or left. Just a block and a half and you are there. Or take a mototaxi for a sol. Thirty five cents well spent, especially if you are carrying luggage. EPPO will also
take you to Mancora for a lot less money and hassle than we paid.
OK, we got there. We took care of the prick taxi driver and got a moto to take us to the place we
had decided on, Kimbas Bungalows. It is pretty and nice and quiet and VERY cheap, but it has mosquitoes (sancudos), and Rose is very sensitive to them. Kimbas was not in our future. The moto driver suggested we try some places on the beach which we did. We settled on the GrandMare Hotel and Bungalows. Well, more like bungalows right now. Maybe hotel later. The stated price was $70 USD per night per room during the low season. Did we pay that? Naaaahhhhhh, I don’t think so. Our little Peruvian negotiator got the price down to $40 a night for two rooms for two nights if we paid in cash. We were gonna pay cash anyway, duh! I had already gotten the guy down to $45 a night and Maribel finished him off.
The GrandMare’s website is www.grandmaremancora.com. The physical plant is very nice, although we did have some problem with tiny little sugar ants getting into everything. The beds were good. The rooms have functioning air conditioners and check this: HOT WATER SHOWERS! Yes, although it wasn’t 100% reliable, most of the time, when you wanted hot water, there it was. I had my best shower in Peru
Balsa Fishermen
I love to watch locals go fishing, using the caballitos or these balsas. These gents set their gill nets for the night and then go pick them up the next day. in this hotel. They apparently have wireless internet too, which I wish I had known about prior to departure. This blog would have been done days ago! The setting is beautiful, the pool is nice and just about everything is great. I thought the chow and drinks were overpriced, but it is a resort hotel. In the high season, I would have expected to pay those prices. By the way, continental breakfast with one cup of instant Nescafe coffee is included in the room price. A second cup of hot water and Nescafe in a little tube will cost you S/.4. (more than a buck!). The staff was reasonably polite, but a bit on the less-than-friendly side. Like any place in Peru, this place could learn a lot about American customer service.
To make your stay more pleasant, bring bug spray and use it liberally the night before you bed down. Spray, and go out and have a few Pisco Sours prior to turning in for the night. Bring and use sunblock. The equatorial sun is brutal.
Places to eat: La Espada. There are two of them and both are good. There are good Pisco Sours available for
cheap at a little discotheque near the south end of Mancora on the right side heading south. They will play whatever kind of music you ask for. We were old gringos and all of a sudden, 50’s and 60’s rock was playing. We also ate pollo a la braza at a little chicken place near the bus station. You kind of step down off the sidewalk into the place. Food was good, cheap and healthy. There are two small tables outside.
Shopping is a prevalent activity in Mancora. Even I bought something, which is rare. I bought a wad of tee shirts for everyone who had not gotten anything yet, and then I asked the gent to step out of his booth and let Rose take over as the tee shirt vendor (see pic). Pretty much everything is for sale there including a couple of perverted little statues (which I wanted but did not buy).
Sunsets. Oh my God, sunsets. They are stunning. The pictures here are just a sample. The weather in Mancora is warm. This is winter and shorts and tee shirts were plenty, even in the evening. Shorts, tee shirts, flip fops are the uniform
of the day. Many of the ladies like to wear bikini tops and long flowing shirts. Thankfully, many of them wear MUCH less.
Mancora is the location for an international surfing competition in the summer months (summer here, not where you are) of October and November. Just google Mancora and surf and see what comes up. There is also a ton of stuff on YouTube.
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