Surfing, sushi and heading south

Mancora is the first main stop off that people entering Peru from the north come to. It’s a sleepy surfing town designed more for yoga and chillaxing then anything else. After getting a few hours of kip post the night bus, we wandered along the beach towards the centre of the town. The beach is pretty pristine and not what you think of then conjuring up images of Peru. We did get caught out by the tide though – which was embarrassing for us being sailors at heart – so we rocked up in town with slightly soggy shorts. Nothing a drink couldn’t solve though so we grabbed a beverage at the nicest looking bar overlooking the beach and watched the surfers practicing in the water was a bit manic and at points there were at least ten people going for the same wave, but it all seemed to work out in the end.

Our thirsts quenched, we wandered into town to try and find some food. The weird thing about travelling at this time of year is that bey few other travellers are out and about. This meant that lots of places were closed for the season so we settled on a place called Buddha Bar. In hindsight, trying to get this cuisine in Peru should have been a warning sign on its own. The meal was a disaster and we jumped in a motor taxi home feeling thoroughly ripped off. However we got an early night and hoped our luck would be better tomorrow.

The next day we’d decided was going to be a relaxing one. Nothing more than book reading and working on our tans. After breakfast we wandered to the beach. This time we went away from the town as we’d heard it was more secluded. On the way we saw fire and smoke, and smelt burning. The ,coals explained to us that the police were evicting 300 squatters from an illegal settlement further up the road, so we moved on before it got dodgy and found a place on the beach to relax.

One hour later and we were baking, so we had a quick swim and headed back to the hostel, noticing that the eviction was ongoing. We spent the rest of the day reading and writing blogs before once again wandering down the beach, dodging the incoming tide, and grabbing another refreshing drink at the bar in the beach. We watched a young surfer absolutely tearing up the waves – definitely a future champion in the making – before heading to a sushi bar we’d read good things about (we’d done our research today). The meal tree Doug to be astonishingly good and we were both amazed at the quality. Apparently Japanese Peruvian crossover is well known and we washed down amazing Maki rolls with Pisco Sours. We rolled home – we actually we got another $1 motor taxi which rolled home for us – and watched another west wing before bed.

After breakfast the next morning we packed up our kit ready for our trip south to Lima. Having done some research the previous day we decided to fly from the local town as we didn’t much fancy an 18 hour bus ride through the Peruvian desert. We grabbed the bus to the airport – only an hour or so away – and looked forward to seeing some of the arid vistas that this part of the country has to offer. Instead, all we saw was rubbish. Piles and piles of it stretching for miles and miles. Peru was to become our least favourite country so far in this regard. The people seem not to care about where their rubbish goes and it was absolutely filthy, which was a real shame given the beauty of the countryside. The bus ride couldn’t finish quickly enough and we got another motor taxi the short ride from the bus station to the airport and checked in for our flight (not before I managed to break one of our iPhone chargers in the
departure lounge).

The flight to Lima was quick and smooth, and we looked down onto the sprawling city as we touched down. Our Uber to our hostel an adventure in itself. Not only did it take us 20 minutes to find the driver, we then spent a hair raising 60 mins dodging in and out of the Lima rush hour traffic. They seem to fit 10 cars into a space designed for 4 and accompany their driving with liberal use of the horn and hand gestures. We were glad to finally make it to our hostel alive.

Our hostel turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Without going into too much detail, it was one of the last available in the city due to a big football match going on. It had good reviews but a series of errors by management meant we had a pretty terrible couple of nights, culminating with them moving all our things to another rom without our permission. Needless to say we were livid and the manager made himself scarce less he should have to face Hoff’s wrath – although mine wasn’t far off hers. We felt sorry for the girl on reception who got the brunt of our anger but we learnt some valuable lessons about hosteling.

Lima itself was alright. It certainly had some pretty parts along with old buildings to see, but apart from that it was too busy and dirty for our liking. We did however manage to book our bus south, organise a tour to see Machu Picchu and get a 5* dinner for half price so it wasn’t all bad. We spent too much time running to and from ATMs and trying to work out which exchange rates were better for us, and I felt sorry for the girls trying to sell us dinner that night as we were tired and not sure what we wanted (we ended up going for sushi again). We reluctantly went back to our hostel again – there was nowhere else free – and got an early night as we were being picked up at sparrows fart the next day to start our bus ride towards Cusco and Machu Picchu.

Next up – Hoff will take you through our journey south to Arequipa and the start of our first hiking trip in Peru.