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After a busy period of moving from place to place every few days, we decided it was about time we took a break to recharge our batteries. While it's incredibly rewarding, travelling can also be really hard work; early mornings, long, arduous bus journeys, dealing with illness, careful and thorough planning - all this takes its toll and so from time to time you just need relax. And what better way to do this than by finding a nice beach to lie on for a week or so?
We decided to head for Mancora, a popular beach destination in the far north of Peru, near the border with Ecuador and most importantly, near to the equator. As we were well into April now, summer was a distant memory for the majority of South America but the further north you go, the warmer the weather is year-round. We flew from Cusco to Piura, via Lima. The journey consisted of two, one hour flights and was much more pleasant than the alternative, a 30 hour bus ride. After landing in Piura, we took a taxi into town to jump on a bus to Mancora. We had to wait around for the bus
to fill up and the journey took as long as our flights but by 9pm we'd arrived and were collected from the bus station by the owner of our guesthouse.
We were staying at Kontiki bungalows, a collection of bamboo roofed huts sitting on top of a hill overlooking the town, its beach and the Pacific Ocean. The setting was fantastic and the next morning we were able to appreciate just how special our location was; we awoke to the sound of waves breaking on the shore, granted there was a little traffic noise so it wasn't perfectly serene but as we stepped outside there was a clear, blue sky, golden sands and rolling waves there to greet us. This was exactly what we had been looking for and after breakfast we wasted no time in getting into our swimwear, slapping on the sun cream and making our way down to the beach. Mancora's beach stretches a good few kilometres and as we were visiting out of the high season, we were able to find a nice quiet spot away from other tourists. We lay in the sun for hours and had the odd brief dip in the sea
- the water was too cold to stay in very long! After a light lunch we headed back to continue our sun worshipping but the wind had picked up and we started to get covered in sand. Around 3pm we made our way back to our bungalow and I got acquainted with our hammock. That night we found a seriously cheap restaurant that offered two courses and a drink for $10 soles, that's about £2.50. Sonya started with ceviche, a raw fish dish we'd had in Cusco, and then had fried rice with prawns. I opted for the barbecue and had a marinated piece of fish with rice, chips and salad. We were looking after the pennies after splashing out on our flights to Mancora so we were pretty pleased with our find. After a few beers and pisco sour (Sonya's new favourite drink), we called it a night and went back to our bungalow.
The second day went much like the first; breakfast, beach, lunch, beach, hammock. In fact, this is exactly how I planned to spend the whole week but unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. That night we returned to the cheap and dirty restaurant
from the day before, Sonya and I both had the raw fish starter, ceviche. Then our order got mixed up with another table so Sonya was served a half eaten fillet of fish. We complained and another plate was bought out, although it was still cold so they'd obviously just replaced some of fish and chips. We made a swift exit, bought a box of wine and went back to drink on our patio. It was later that evening when our relaxing, beach getaway turned into a nightmare. Sonya began feeling unwell; in the night she was running to the toilet and being violently sick. This continued for her the whole of the next day but I felt ok. We stayed in and around the bungalow, I consoled Sonya as she was feeling rotten and I ran down to the shops to get some energy drinks and water. That night though, things took a turn for the worse for myself. I awoke in the night with terrible stomach pains. I knew this was the start of what Sonya had been going through.
To cut a long and quite frankly messy story short, the sickness continued for four days. We
spent the whole time stuck in our bungalow struggling to keep anything down. We tried to pass the time by sleeping, playing cards, reading books or going on the Internet. It turned out that a dutch couple staying in the guesthouse had also been really ill. Perhaps unsurprisingly they'd also eaten ceviche from the exact same restaurant, it was clear we'd all got food poisoning from the raw fish. After four days going stir crazy in our little hut, we began to feel better but decided to go to the doctors just to get some medicine to see off the bad bacteria for good. After a routine exam we got a prescription for antibiotics and were told to drink lots of water as we'd become dehydrated.
By now we could actually bring ourselves to eat something, although our stomachs had shrunk so eating a soup felt trying to finish a 36oz steak. It was also time to get back on the beach to top up our tans. We'd been in Mancora almost a week but because of sickness had only managed two days sunbathing. As a result, we decided to extend our stay to ten days so that we
were feeling 100% and to actually get some beach time we were so craving.
Thankfully, our last few days in Mancora passed without incident. We were able to relax in the sunshine and were even able to enjoy food again. There was a delicious vegetarian restaurant called Angella's that served amazing falafel and a huge, fresh bowl of fruit, yoghurt, granola and honey. It was so good we went back again on our last day and bumped into a really cool Dutch couple we'd met earlier in Argentina. La Sirena de Juan, a restaurant that was a little hard to find served up my favourite meal while in Mancora; baby goat in a red wine sauce with vegetables and rice - it was outstanding. Sonya had her own favourite, Tao, an Asian place where she had a tasty chicken Penang curry and where I found the nerve to eat fish again. I had a seared tuna steak and luckily I had no ill effects!
I guess our time in Mancora didn't live up to our hopes. There's the obvious reasons but also the place is quite a popular stop on the backpacker trail and sadly parts of the town have lost their charm. Beach bars insist on playing terrible dance music late into the night while there customers leave bottles and rubbish behind. It's a shame really. However saying that, our accommodation was brilliant. We loved that cute bungalow up on the hill with it's hammock and splendid views of the sea.
From Mancora we are back on the buses. This time it's 20 hours down the coast to Lima, the capital of Peru. Yippee x
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