An 8 hour bus ride in a really nice bus, big comfy seats, some food and movie after movie. They were also helpful with the border formalities and we had another nice and easy border crossing into Peru. We stayed in a little beach town called Mancora, whose claim to fame is a nice surf beach. We got into Mancora fairly late so we had organised a backpackers that was recommended to us by someone we met at the hostel in Guayaquil - this guy also gave us a love letter to give to a girl staying at the hostel, jurns out she had a boyfriend there. The backpackers was really nice, with a pool, bar and restaurant.
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| One of the small side streets and the massive sand dunes behind the town |
We ended up staying for almost a week as we had planned to visit another town on the way to Lima but were warned against travelling by bus from Mancora to Trujillo as you are almost guaranteed not to leave the bus with everything you bought onto the bus.
We spent the whole week between the pool, beach and hostel, lazing about. We had a surf lesson which was really fun, although really hard work after basically four months with little to no exercise. We planned on doing a few more lessons before we left but the surf became im-gonna-kill-begginers massive and we had to settle for playing in the waves.
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| The main street, there were more moped's than people |
LIMA
The bus ride to Lima was 18 hours, but this bus was like flying first class. Almost vertical seats for sleeping - they were awesome. This trip felt shorter than alot of the 7 or 8 hour trips we had already done. If South America gets one thing right, it is there bus service! Although, Steph's backpack spent the 18 hour bus ride marinating in fish juice as someone had packed some seafood not so well in the bus storage. She spent the next day or so trying to rid the smell from the backpack with a combination of disinfectant, dishwashing detergent, carpet cleaner, bi carb soda, and vinegar....The bag still smells of vinegar a bit.... but it's a lot nicer than fish!
Lima is your average big city, and we stayed in the 'gringo' part of town called Miraflores. We stayed in a nice hostel again, this one alot quieter than most. The suburb has a park in the middle called Paruqe Kennedy. We refferred to it as cat park as there were cats everywhere. We counted 15 in one garden bed....weird.
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| Cat park - Spot the cats (there are only 6) |
We didnt do a hell of a lot over the 3 or so days we were here, I got sick and spent a whole day in bed. Steph spent a bit of time de-fishing, and the rest of the time we wandered around the sights. We ended up visiting some ruins not far away and went to see a movie, in English of course. The Hangover 2, or should I say the Spanish title "Que Pasa Ayer" or "What Happened Yesterday".
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| Huaca Pucllana ruins |
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| Sacred Peruvian Hairless dog. Apparently they absorb sickness if you sleep next to them |
