Oh I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside

We finally got to Mancora at 5.45 in the morning. We were supposed to get in at 5am and I have to say I´d anticipated the lovely people at the bus company being later than that so we arrived apprehensively but luckily there was a mototaxi ready and waiting to take us to our hostel. We were staying at the Hostel Sol Y Mar. Much as I hated the place, it was an amazing location. We had asked for beach front rooms and we had a little table and chairs outside of our room. Next to that was a high fence (to stop thieves I assume) and then the other side of that was beach. In fact we were so close that the sound of waves crashing on the beach actually kept me up!

We stayed up to watch sunrise and then went to bed just as the first surfers were emerging to ride the fairly safe looking waves. We got up again around 10 and had a lovely breakfast on the beach in one of the many fine food establishments you find there. After breakfast we got beach ready and then went to sit in the sun. However, Mancora is actually a pretty windy place so the combination of sand in the air plus my lotion slathered skin soon turned me into what Elliott entertainingly calls a ´sand monster´. Charming!

Had lunch on the beach too - more seafood and rice, which was beautiful. Elliott had a breaded fish (we don´t know what kind) which was delicious. After that I stayed quietly sipping water under a beach umbrella as it had clouded over and Elliott went to ´swim´. I say ´swim´because it was one part swim to three parts ´splash around in the surf like an idiot almost knocking over children´. It made entertaining watching!

You have the usual beachfront thing in Mancora of people trying to sell you necklaces or sunglasses every five seconds, which is waring. To escape this we walked up the beach to watch the sun set, which was beautiful. We topped the day off with a trip to a restaurant aptly named El Tono, where I had the best tuna of my entire life. I did not know it could taste so amazing!

The next day was cloudy so we didn´t do much. We swapped our room as our former room was located near some incredibly loud and early rising Peruvians, and it almost had an ant infested bed. We thought our new room, with its charmind bamboo roof, seemed much better. Little did we know...

We had food on the beach again. For lunch I had ceviche, a lime and chilli seafood dish. Elliott had tried it in Lima and I had tasted his and hadn´t high hopes but felt I should try it. I´m pleased I did but I think it´s a horrifyingly awful dish. Mine had giant chunks of tentacle which I forced down more out of guilt about leaving so much than anything else. To commiserate, we had iced cappucinos and sundaes on a beachfront place Elliott loved, Papa Mos. We then had a horrifyingly cold shower as our place had no hot water (we checked out some other hostels nearby hoping to move which all only had cold water so we assumed there was no hot water in Mancora. We later found out this was not the case!), and had dinner. I had a boring spag bol, and Elliott had an amazing langostines lasagne.

The next day we got up early, as we had a surfing lesson, only to be late for it as we realised the room was mosquito infested. And when I say mosquito infested, I mean that I had moer than 70 bites on my left arm and 15 just on my right hand. And I´m a girl who has pretty much never been bitten by a mosquito, an arrangement I found mutually beneficial! We spent a good hour killing them, me with a crazy vengeful attitude. I then looked hideous as I was covered with red bumps!

We went for our surfing lesson. We didn´t get a wetsuit as expected, I just got a ridiculous elbow length yellow top to put on over my bikini. I therefore felt very self conscious receiving our rudimentary tuition on the beach, consisting of lie on the board, lift your upper body off the board and then slide into a sideways position and stay on the board!

Elliott and I both had people to help us surf. Mine supposedly spoke English but I debate that fact! Anyway, we had a few goes. I was ridiculously pleased with myself when I rode in my second wave, and then my fourth as well! I was thinking I must secretly be a natural. And then it all went horribly wrong! Whether it was beginners luck or what, that was the best I did! It didn´t help that I cut my foot on a rock, then scraped my knee. The waves break best over the rocks, but I must say they make the least pleasant landing ground! Eventually we went in both because it was very busy in the limited wave space and because I was freezing from a lack of a wetsuit.

We had brunch on the beach of sandwiches followed by more milkshakes. My foot was now really hurting, me having managed to cut it right in the middle where the foot flexes most. I was limping around like an idiot and conscious I wasn´t doing the cut much good by constantly tramping round on the beach getting sand in the wound, but there wasn´t much I could do about it!

When we returned to our room there were 5 dead cockroaches. I don´t know why they came in to our room to end their lives but it was gross! Elliott has some kind of bug fear and I´m not fond either so we carefully disposed of the gits, then went to practice surfing. This time we had wetsuits and things covering our feet so it was better in theory, but I found it hard with my foot hurting and there were still a lot of people in the waves! We watched the sun set on our boards then headed in, to find more dead cockroaches! We escaped from our room from hell to go get pizza and returned to find lots of live cockroaches running around. I killed most of them by stomping on them in my boots, and then Elliott used a brush to push them out of the door.

We then slept under a mosquito net, which is surprisingly restrictive! I freaked out in the middle of the night because I thought I saw a cockroach on the net so we got up. More live cockroaches on the floor! We had a quick murder session of them. By then mosquitoes, which I´m starting to think are smarter than we give them credit for, had all flocked inside the net. Another brief murder session. Then it was back off to sleep with the resolution we would leave the next day!

Got up and had breakfast on the beach, me limping away. Had a quick shop around for buses and the best deal we could get was going with El Dorado to Trujillo, then changing and using another bus company in Trujillo to Huaraz (there were no direct buses). Okay, we thought. Another night bus journey. Not good! But we wanted to escape Mancora and our hostel from hell! We packed up and left our luggage with reception.

We had lunch then got a mototaxi to the mud baths in the Tumbes Wildlife Reserve, which was beautiful. The ride was surprisingly fun, as we were heading seriously off road in a vehicle not designed for it and being bumped around everywhere, at some points even getting stuck between big chunks of rock! Elliott was chatting away to our driver, who even stopped and took some photos for us and corrected El´s grammar! We got to the baths and they were more basic than I imagined. The changing rooms were some kind of bamboo slathered with mud, with a mud floor and no door! The bath was a big hole in the mud. I don´t know what I expected but it wasn´t that! The water was surprisingly warm and inviting. There were 3 people in the baths already - an Aussie, Lucas, and two Canadians, Katie and Jessica. We bantered with them and they were fun people. We put the mud on our faces, as it´s supposed to improve your skin. It´s sulphorous mud so it smelled dreadful! We had to wait until it dried and then rub it off with the water. In the process they told us about their hostel with HOT WATER! Argh!

After the mudbath, we had hoped to have a shower. Hopeless optimism as there was nothing there. However, we had no hostel so were now facing a night bus without being able to shower! Got the mototaxi back. The ride back wasn´t so fun as our guy was driving like a maniac, supposedly because his 10 brothers were waiting for him to bring back food for supper. Right. At one point we met a vehicle that was clearing the road and the piles of stones were so massive that El had to get out of the taxi as it couldn´t go forward, and then he had to push and hop on whilst it was still moving! Excitement!

We got back to Mancora and the taxi driver totally ripped us off, charging double what he said he would (as it was apparently a price there and one back). We were pissed off but couldn´t be bothered to argue. He then had the gall to try and drop us off at his friend´s restaurant so we could eat. We instead went back to where we´d had lunch and tried to eat slowly so the time would pass until our 9pm bus. They were frustratingly efficient! In the process we got talking to the Swiss owner of the restaurant, who was very nice, and he gave us a free Pisco and Cognac. Much unwelcome but who were we to turn down Swiss hospitality!

Finally got on the bus out of Mancora feeling thoroughly skanky. Had a fairly bad journey again, with much turning on of lights and toilet stops. Got to Trujillo about 7am. We´d heard Linea were the only people who went to Huaraz so we headed straight there. No buses till 9pm. Argh! Had to book it, fortunately could drop our luggage off there then, and then had the prospect of a day in Trujillo. Unwashed, tired and me limping, it was not a pleasant prospect.

I also had stomach trouble so we spent most of the day in and out of restaurants, me pointlessly eating pancakes to justify being able to use the bathrooms! We tried to see a few things like the colonial houses but they were closed, and the monastery was once again closed. A policeman stopped us randomly on the street and told Elliott that with me limping we would be targets for pickpockets and I should seek treatment. This put the seal on my already fairly unhappy mood! We did our best with plasters and antiseptic but I was still limping.

Later that evening we got talking to another couple who were also going by bus from Trujuillo to Huaraz. However they were getting the luxury bus and us the cheap bus! They had been travelling around and were planning to go to Bolivia but skipping it in light of recent troubles, which made me wonder if we were crazy for not doing the same!

Finally got a bus at 9pm and got into Huaraz at 8am the next morning after a fairly bad journey, having been held up by a bus on bus collision and experienced some fairly hairy bends.

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