The Undeveloped Charm of Lobitos Vs The Gringolandia of Mancora

---

This is a little bit of a catch up entry, so it's not just about the beaches, but also includes a brief stay in Lima and a trip to a fantastic musuem in Chiclayo on my up the coast of Peru.



Heading North

I landed in Lima from Iquitos and following some haggling, I scored a taxi to a recently opened hostel near the historical centre of the city. I'd chosen to spend the night in 1900 Backpackers purely because it's location near the centre of the city, meaning it's nice and far away from the bland Miraflores, but the hostel is actually one the best I have stayed in anywhere. It is inside a large restored colonial building and has retained it's ambience whilst being converted into a hostel. The ceilings are high, the dorm rooms spacious, bathrooms clean and the furniture decoratively antique in their suiting of the building. I don't write many recommendations in my writing, but I do recommend this hostel to anyone who visits Lima and would like to stay somewhere excellent that is nice and close to the sights.

I only spent one night in Lima this time round. Two English girls I met in Australia were heading to Mancora and I was hoping to meet them. I spent the evening in Lima playing pool with a couple of guys who had just arrived in South America and the following morning I showed them around some of Lima before they had to leave to catch their bus. I spent the afternoon playing pool with the manager and catching up on some typing before I left to catch my night bus to Chiclayo.



Chiclayo & Lord Sípan

I jumped off the bus in the morning, hobbling with my bags (both feet very much still in recovery from my dislocations) and stopped in a cafe en-route to the central plaza. Two men were having breakfast in the restaurant and started speaking to me. My Spanish is still poor, but thanks to my time on the boat it is much better and I conversed a little with both of them. They seemed so happy to meet a gringo who spoke a little Spanish they paid for my breakfast against my mild protests. Speaking a little Spanish changes everything for a traveller here.

I reached the central plaza where a Catholic ceremony was taking place. A large crowd of people were gathering around the entrance of the Cathedral, through the entrance of which passed a huge large statue of the Virgin Mary held aloft the heads of the crowd who moved it from the Cathedral. I watched the procession with talking to a lonely Canadian expatriate who'd moved to Peru in hope that an internet relationship would blossom for real, but hadn't. The statue was carried from the plaza and out of view; it was to be carried around the city for a week, never touching the ground. I wish I knew a little more about the festival.

I took a collectivo to the next town over, Lambayeque, and walked to extravagently named Mueso Tumbas Reales de Sipán. Normally I don't bother with museums in South America as for the most part they've been hugely disappointing, but this one was reported as being the exception to the rule, and I wasn't let down.

In 1987 a local archeologist, Dr Alva, noticed an influx of strange objects on the black market and so began questioning sellers as to the origin of the items, which eventually led him to the Sipán mounds. These huge mounds simply appeared to be hills, but were in fact tremendous adobe pyramids that had been covered over by the elements. Some were obviously being looted, but fortunately many weren't and the area was quickly secured and archiological diggings began.

The most exceptional of the pyramid was a Moché tomb which is believed to be have been the tomb of a major leader of the Moché people; due to the extravagance of the tomb, the man inside gained the title Lord of Sipán by researchers. The artifacts of the tomb are enshrined in the musuem found in Lambayeque and consists of an enormous number of ceramic and metallic artifacts, many of which are incredibly beautful and ornate. The museum also includes a history of the Moché people and the paths of the civilisations through the era, everything is interesting. However the most impressive part of this world class museum is the replica of the crypt that housed Lord Sípan, complete with the real artifacts. The man himself was buried inside a wooden coffin which was surrounded by hundreds of gold and other semi-precious items, along with his wife, a boy, two girls, a flag bearer, a military chief, two guards, two dogs and a llama. I understand the elaborate tomb for someone important, but I never found out why so many people were buried around him, were they killed to be buried at the same time? Having seen sacrifical children in Argentina, it wouldn't be surprising.

The museum was every bit as good as I could have hoped, but I didn't spend much time inside. Unfortunately the days movement was rendering the levels of pain in my toes to a ridiculous proportion, so I moved through the museum rapidly, heading back to Chiclayo and straight onto a bus onwards to Piura where I changed buses once more and made it to Mancora.



Peruvian Gringoland, Mancora

Mancora is Peru's most famous beach and surf destination for backpackers. I had been in Huanchaco before but the weather had been poor so I was hugely looking forward to spending some time on the beach here. There can't be any better place to recover from feet injuries than a lazy beach town. At the same time I was conflicted, I imagined Mancora as being a massively overcrowded gringo hell hole. I had visions of the over travelled beaches of Thailand with a young, drunken and idiotic crowd. It's fair to say that I don't usually enjoy these places, but I did like Mancora, quite a lot.

I arrived in Mancora under darkness with a pair of French guys and we checked into the first hostel we could find, a run down local owned place that perhaps had seen it's best days ten years previously. I had a top bunk in a bed that was missing 5 - 6 of the wooden supports meaning that my mattress sagged down and through the gaps in numerous places. Unsurprisingly we checked out the following morning, the French moved to another place close by, I moved a little further away to Kokopelli's. I don't often take hostel recommendations, but my Dutch friend Fleur recommended this one and I knew her opinion would not let me down. The hostel has two points that elevate it above most other places hostels; they have a table tennis table and even better, a help yourself scrambled egg breakfast. Magic. They also had a kitten.

There isn't much I can really write about the beach and the time I spent there - tales of sunbathing are not interesting ones. I found Lindsay and Julie, my English friends on the beach one day and we caught up and spent time hanging out and eating. In the hostel I played a lot of table tennis and tried to rest my toes. Most evenings, because it's that kind of place, we drank and went to the bars.

Mancora beach itself is a beautiful one, although I would say that the backpacker area is a little compressed. The beach stretches on for a great distance, but for some reason the three or four main bars/clubs on the waterfront are all next door to each other and all vomit out different music over a small space where the different terrible musics blend into an even greater unidentifiable mess. I was hoping in the evening the bars would be on the beach, candle lamps and a little hippyish, but it's not that sort of place.

We spent halloween partying at the Loki hostel, a hostel I was very glad not to be staying, but one that was good for the crazy gringo fest where the few locals who were present chose to stand on the sides and watch the costumed carnage of the tourists. My night ended outside the entrance of Loki, sitting with Lindsay and her friend Steve surrounded by dogs who adopted and decided to wrestle me. In South America I appear to have become a dog person.



Over the Cliffs and Far Away in Lobitos

After Halloween we left Mancora for Lobitos. It was couple of bus trips, but less than three hours from Mancora and somewhere I am hugely appreciative that I went to visit. Lobitos consists of a small number of scattered buildings which are out-numbered by the volume of petrol wells pumping away across the landscape. It's not a clean settlement and is a generally a mess, but for some reason it has a charm. From what I understand it suffered something of a death when the border dispute between Ecuador and Peru was at its worst and it's hardly recovered since. Lobitos also suffers from being in the Peruvian desert, far from any clean sources of water. For this reason the towns water is pumped from over 40km away and often runs out.

So, why did we go to Lobitos? To check out a place that will surely explode onto the tourist scene within a few years due to its growing reputation as a world class surfing town. We checked into a small shack where we met a bunch of surfer volunteers. These people spent their time teaching English and taking part in community projects whilst spending all their free time surfing, a very cool crowd.

For me to say that I'm not much of a surfer is a vast understatement, the only place I have surfed before is in Lombok. None the less it is a sport that I am increasing finding hypnotic and I wanted to try my luck in Lobitos. We took boards out the following morning and began the long walk to the beach from our hostel. Shortly after we left the walk turned in a war, the wind had picked up and began to throw itself against our boards, virtually turning us into helpless kites. During a monstrous struggle we reached the beautiful long beach, walked under and pier and finally made it to the point. Considering the towns lack of population, the number of people on the beach and in the sea with boards was surprising and despite my incredibly limited knowledge, I could tell that the point was providing great waves and that some of the skills of display were more than impressive.

Sadly when we took to the waves our efforts were anything but impressive. I caught the crest of one wave and gripped the edges of my board to attempt to launch myself into the upright position, to get that truly incredible feeling that only riding an element can give. Unfortunately when I tried to throw my body upwards, my crippled and swollen toe couldn't bend upwards to support my landing and instead crumpled in a crunching mess causing me to yell out in agony and collapse off my board and into the sea. I left the water in hope the pain would subside for a while to no avail. I go back in for a couple of brief and ill advised periods, but retired unsuccessful and in pain. The others in my party were not hugely enjoying the experience either and so we all sat on the sand watching and appreciating the efforts of those far more talented than us before we retreated for lunch.

We relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon before heading to the pier for a mind blowing sunset. The clear orange sky was a beautiful way to finish the day, with the sun setting over the sea out of which poked the wooden poles of the former pier where pelicans and gulls gathered atop the points.

The following day we decided against surfing, it wouldn't have been a great idea. Instead we decided to see if we could find some caves that we'd been told about. Following some incredibly vague instructions, we took Lobitos moto-taxi, (which are tiny nightclubs on wheels) and headed to a petrol-well atop a cliff.

From here our young driver pointed for us to start walking over the top, following the cliff edge until we found a rope down to the sand.

The cliffs were a light smooth and sandy colour, carved by the weathering of the winds. We stopped to take photos of an arch that stretched into the sea before we found a rope down, off the edge. We climbed down a first section before finding the rope for the second section in several pieces. The second section was a sheer drop and we considered heading back to the moto. We didn't want to go back disappointed though and continued to walk across the cliff until we did find a second rope leading down a much more pleasant incline to the sand.

Moving carefully down we noticed thousands of red spots on the sand and as I reached the ground they started moving. The beach we found ourselves on was so unfrequented by people that thousands upon thousands of small red crabs had called it their home. We had a facinating time walking through the red sea of claws to the entrance of a cave system through which we walked and crawled to a different exit. Myself and Lindsay sunk to sand and crawled into a section where endless miscellaneous items had been washed up by the sea before deciding we should probably get out. Having crabs crawling around your legs is a strange feeling. The whole experience of crossing the cliffs, wading through crabs and being in the caves was beautiful I had a genuine feeling of being an adventurer in a place that we knew nothing about, it was magical and exciting. It was a little sad that our time was so brief and that we had to head back to the moto.



To Ecuador!

The following morning we packed up and left for a final night in Mancora. We decided to spend our final night at The Point hostel, appropriately named for it's location 15 minutes walk away from the main backpacker area of Mancora and at the end of the curve of the beach. It was beautiful secluded spot and we ran into the sea out of the cool breeze and drank sunset beers before retreating to the hostel to play cards, swim and play pool. It was a pretty perfect final night to an incredibly varied, but superb time in Peru.

The following afternoon we took a bus towards Ecuador and were blessed the entire way by views that only the Pan American Highway can grant. Under the night sky we crossed the border into Ecuador before our bus was taken into a military police base. Here an indigenous lady was removed from the bus along with 36 huge bags of garlic. We had no idea what was going on, but the strangeness of the incident told me that I am going to like Ecuador.

---