49. 19-26th April. Boys just want to have fun in Peru!

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19/04/09
So Mat, Mike and I arrived in Trujillo around 6am and we had already read that its not a great place to stay. Its not the prettiest place in the world and seriously lacks things to do so we got a taxi straight tothe nearbye beach town of Huanchaco. We found a lovely little family run hotel and slept till midday. Overnight busses really do take it out of you. After grabbing lunch from the recommended restaraunt, My Friend, we went on a mission to rent surfboards. We found a place, agreed prices then Mat's board fell from where he had been leaning it against the wall. The bloke wasn't a happy man! Our worries were soon forgotten when we jumped onto the hot sand with our boards under our arms. It was surf time baby! The waves were fairly big and i only managed to ride one decent wave in the space of an hour. Good fun though and the sea wasn't to cold. We took a walk along the beach and found a small bar where we sipped on a few cold beers. There was a crazy man though who wouldn't leave me alone. He even introduced me to his friend as 'Pocahontus' and asked me if i liked her. I didn't dare say yes (even though she was hot!) as the bloke was freaking me out. We downed our beers and headed off to a bar with a roof top terrace from where we could watch the sunset. We found the perfect place and the sunset was impressive. We had an awesome fish dinner and i don't know how it happened but by the time we got back to the hotel we had come to a decision that Mike was going to cut my hair. Mike and I were sharing one room and Mat had his own upstairs. Can you imagine Mats face when he walked into our room. Let me paint the picture for you. I was sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the room in my boxer shorts and Mike was standing behind me, also in his boxer shorts, with his hands running through my hair. Yes, Mat had a very disgusted look on his face!ha His exact words were, "Thats very disturbing! I can't watch this, im going out to get some more beers!" Mike done a good job considering we both had a few beers inside of us and that he only had toe nail scissors to work with. It was very short though!


20/04/09
I woke up in the morning feeling awful and it wasn't due me missing my long golden locks!ha I had been up all night with man flu which we all know is the worst from of illness on the planet! The three of us went our different ways today. Mike had to go to the doctors to get something checked, Mat went off to do some more surfing and I went food shopping determined to fight off the sickness. I spent a few hours on the beach soaking up the sun as everyone knows you always feel a little better with a bit a tan. It was awesome to watch the pelicans flying inches above the sea level. It looked like they could surf the waves like true pro's! Mike came back paying a ridiculous amount of money for the smallest tube of cream you have ever seen. I spent the rest of the evening in bed reading and munching on oranges like they were popcorn. The boys went back into town to inquire about bus tickets to Mancora.


21/04/09
Mike and Mat left in the early hours of the morning to go on a day trip to a beach which has the longest left hand break wave in the world. I couln't go due to man flu. We got told there was going to be a strong current and seeing i had no energy i didn't want my Mum to get a phone call saying that your son was last seen drifting towards Australia!ha I spent the morning running around the town trying to find cable tv as Liverpool were playing Arsenal. After a wild goose chase i finally ended up at a...bakery! A bakery that was on the corner of the road where i was staying. Typical!ha The game finished 4-4 with Liverpool scoring in the last minute. I was jumping around like a mad man but i had got all the staff involved throughout the game so when that final goal went in we were all embracing and giving each other high fives!ha Getting impatient with my sickness i decided to go for a run with the attitude to try and burn it off. I think it helped but i was glad to see my bed when i got back! The boys got back around 7pm and Mat had managed to break another board but this time on the rocks. So not exactly his fault. They did say it was huge struggle so i was pleased i didnt go. Apparently they were way out of the depth and Mike said at one point he thought he was going to get smashed into the rocks but just managed to paddle himself out of trouble. Thank god i didnt go!ha We all watched the sunset on the beach before heading to the shops. I was in and out within minutes and arranged to meet the boys back at the hotel. I got back, cooked my dinner, ate it and spent a very annoying but rather funny 45 minutes trying to get the young receptionist to say my name. Could she say Barrie? Not in a million years! Without exadurating i think i said my "Barrie," about 200 times!ha Then, the lady that owned the hotel picked up the phone that was ringing, muttered a few words in Spanish with a confused look on her face and handed me the phone. With a confused tone in my voice i said, "Hello." Then all of a sudden a girl started to blabber away in broken Spanish. I didn't have a clue what was going on. It turned out to be a traveller looking for a different hotel who couldn't speak Spanish. And when i couldn't give her the details she wanted she started shouting at me! Once i told her i didn't actually work there she sooned appologised and hung up. A very unusual hour! The boys finally arrived shaking theirs heads. There had been a money mix up at the shop so the police had got involved. Turned out the boys had got confused about the change and accused the staff off short changing them. The boys were in the wrong. Mat did say, "I have to leave this town as im pissing everyone off!" He was also reffering to breaking two surf boards from the same shop. That night we stayed in playing poker and all agreed to leave the next day.


22/04/09
Our bus wasn't till 9pm so we had plenty of time to kill. We made some happy birthday message in the sand for my Mum but even that wasn'r without its dull moments. Mike was making the first message and almost got it completed when a freak wave came in and washed it all away. I thought he was going to cry!ha He soon had a huge smile back on his face when we heard "Ah, your joking!" Mat had also been making a message for my mum when the same wave came in a washed his flipflops away!ha We spent the next twenty minutes searching the beach. We finally found them washed up. We said our goodbyes to the family running the hotel and got a taxi to the bus terminal in Trujillo. It was only 3pm so we still had hours to kill. We checked in our large backpacks with the bus company and went off to explore the city. I can see why people say don't stop off here. there is nothing to do or see. Even the main square is dull. We ended up playing poker in the bus terminal until it came time to depart. We did have a group of local girls ask to take our photo in the terminal. That does no harm for the self confidence!ha


23/04/09
We arrived in Mancora around 6am. Mancora had been a beach town we had all been looking forward to. Its got a reputation as being a bit of a party/surf town. We jumped of the bus and were racing in Tuk Tuks within seconds. We checked into The Point hostel and decided to check out the beach before going for a sleep. We stepped onto the beach and what was the first thing we saw...a couple having sex!ha A party town...i think so!ha I was in a room seperated from the other two. My room was called Jaws. Even though I was exhausted, I layed in bed and all i could think about was what the other rooms could have been called. Flipper, Orca and so on! I got to know the people in my room before meeting up with the boys for beakfast. I had a Dutch girl in the bunk bed beneath me who i was instantly attracted to. At breakfast we shared a table with two English lads, Alex and William who were brothers travelling together. Who was to know at this point we would be travelling together as a large group for th next month or so. After eating breakfast the chef made an appearance. I wish he didn't. He was so drunk he was falling of hs stool but apparently that was normal and to be fair the food tasted good!ha We spent the day body surfing in huge waves and Mat was doing some impressive homework on some Isreali girl. That night we checked out the 'party hostel' called Loki. We ended up loving it so much we agreed with the owner to move inthe nex day. Our hostel was good but unfinished. We promised our hostel that we would be back for the 9pm bonfire. We were but it was rubbish. We spiced things up by going night swimming in the sea with a few of the girls. I was having fun till i heard shouting. I turned round to see Mike flipping out and pushing young Alex away. I ran over and Mike was shouting out, "where am i?" And "Get away from me!" I grabbed him, sat him down on the sand and calmed him down talking about our Fiji days. It done the trick and Mike finally came to. Turned out that he smacked his head on the sea bed. We were suppose to go out that night but we thought it was best to get Mike to bed and to check on him every 15 minutes. A bang to the head can be bad news. So a few of us stayed in the hostel bar. Dutch girl and I went back to our dorm room to go to sleep in the early hours of the morning. Everyone else in our room were still out partying. She kept saying she couldn't sleep so like a gentleman i asked her if she wanted to go for a walk along the beach. Off we went with my torch to lead the way and we had a very fun night. We did have a local lad sit down next to us whislt we were...you know. When we noticed he still sat there staring. God knows how long he had been there. We didn't get back till 6am. It had been an awesome first day..well not for Wee Man though. Thats Mike for the record.



24/04/09
Only in your dreams or travelling can you wake up in the morning and spend it having a laugh with a group of Swedish girls!ha Love it! We even met up with the two Swedish girls from our Amazon trip. To be honest i didn't want to leave that hostel. My Dutch girl was leaving that day anyway but the other girls there were a good laugh but the other lads wanted to leave. Turned out that Mat spent the night with the Isreali girl he spent hours with on the beach the day before. Was well pleased for him. We booked into Loki and spent the whole day hanging around the large pool and being surrounded by girls in bikinis. Our two Swedish friends came round later on that night for some drinks but i was exhausted and only wanted my bed for company. I had a very early night!



25/04/09
Today felt like we could of been in a hotel in Ibiza. Thats definately the feeling you get when staying in this hostel. The day was spent relaxing around the pool, admiring the opposite sex and reserving your energy for the night ahead. We did go out for dinner and brought back some alcohol into the dorm room. Makes it a far cheaper night. We played some drinking games which always does the trick. It was an 80's theme night so loads of people were dressed up. I did get a wee bit to drunk and spent the night with an Ozzie girl on the beach. It didn't feel safe though and in my defence i told the girl that and called a stop to it.



26/04/09
In the morning Mat had a story to tell us which i wasn't expecting. Mat got back to our dorm and fell asleep. He then got woken up by our new found English skin head friend who was punching him shouting, "I like you I do!" I saw the bruises the next morning! He was hitting him hard. After that Mat slept with his knife under his pillow. Mat honestly thought the bloke was crazy and was going to try and kill him!ha The five of us (as the English brothers joined us) jumped onto a bus around 3pm to take us to the Ecuadorian border. We decided to take the closer border crossing even though it was classed as the 'dodgy one!' But there were five of us so we decided what the hell. It was starting to get dark when we arrived at the border town when the bus dropped us off infront of another small bus terminal. We got told that our connecting bus would pick us up from this terminal. We walked in and the poeple there tried to charge us an extra fee for the next bus which we had already paid for. To cut a long story short it turned out that the bus dropped us off at the wrong place. We didnt know that till a strange looking lady knocked on the window of the bus terminal and asked us to follow us. All you can do is these situations is have complete faith in people and just have the attitue that things always work out. We followed her but all of us had huge doubts in our head to where we were getting led to. It could of been a trap but something in her eyes told us she was telling us the truth. And as always, things worked out. She showed us to our connecting bus and we all sat down with huge relieved smiles on our faces. The bus stopped for us to get our passports stamped and before we knew it we were in Ecuador baby! We didn't time it great though to do the border crossing. It was Election night and there were political rallies. We were driving through crowds of angry people at walking pace. People were banging agaisnt our bus and our bus wasn't the sturdiest looking vehicle on the road!ha We thought we had gone through the worst of it when all of a sudden, one of the bus windows got smashed in. Someone must have thrown a brick or something. Luckily nobody was hurt. We made a quick pitstop to fix the window and then were on the move again. We arrived at Cuenca by 11.30pm and got a taxi to our hotel. We checked in but had no electricity. We didn't care! We were just delighted to have reached our destination and to have beds to sleep in for the night. This is what travelling is all about though. It makes you realise how many things you take for granted back home. On days like these, ending up in a warm bed feels like winning the lottery.



So we had left Peru. A country that provided us with so many adventures and new friends. My memories from Peru are priceless and its countries like this that make traveling so addictive. Mike and I entered Peru as a twosome. We left as a group of five. There were going to be fun times ahead. Ecuador...watch out!ha

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Photos

The last photo i took for a while as my camera stopped working.
Alex.

Comments

[Jimmy Rutman]

Crazy!
thats some crazy stuff haha! http://www.workandleisure.co.uk