Peru

Day 15 : Mancora, Peru

Posted on by Brian and Marisha

Feliz Navidad everyone!
Mancora is a small (and we mean small) surfing town in the upper northeast corner of the country. About 2 hours south of the Ecuador boarder. We're spending 3 days here. Last night, Christmas Eve, we flew into in Tumbes, the closest airport. Here we met a great couple from Puerto Rico (Vanessa and Matias) and shared the 2 hour cab ride down to Mancora (ALL FOR THE BARGAIN PRICE OF $20). We arrived in town around 11pm (Christmas eve mind you) and still didn't know where we were staying.  Everything was booked. A lady from Utah, actually, who was living in Mancora for a year, heard us talking and offered to help us find a place - a Christmas Miracle; just like Mary and Joseph ...except not with the pregnancy or the baby Jesus part. 

Christmas eve Lodging. Looks quaint right? This is the place we contracted Guinea-fliculitous. Don't let its charm fool you...

A friend of hers she said had a bungalow right on the beach. Lady - "It's booked tomorrow, but I believe it is empty tonight if you want it".  Great right? Wrong. Remind us to never trust anyone from Utah. At night it looked awesome. A Cute little beach hut nesteled amongst the palms... single bulb for light.  Quaint,. Beachy.  

The next morning, Christmas day, We Woke to the silent majesty of a Christmas morn... the clean warm breeze of the holiday ocean air... a mortifying sight of our scorching case of bed bug bites - or "Guinea-flic-u-litis" as we now like to call it it. (Caused by bed sheets that have NEVER been washed. We mean never - like ...EVER). We had a rash or or bug bites from head to toe.  Still itching today actually. We took great pictures of it. Needless to say we were relieved that the place was booked - and we found a much better place down the beach.

And here is the bathroom in our little slice of heaven. Mostly dirt/mud walls where millions of ants have also made their home.

Oi! We still aren't sure if we were attacked in our sleep by bed bugs or ants from the clay walls.... Fliculitous. Hahaha so nasty.
Ga-Rosse! God, can't believe we're even showing you this! We're tainted.

Christmas day was spent in clean sheets, private hot shower, patio right off the pool...and lounging all day on the beach buying **** from whoever strolled by, eating pineapples and drinking pisco sours (Peruvian margaritas). We hung out with the Puerto Rican couple a lot who ended up staying at the same place. They died laughing when they heard about our "rash".
We Had a great time. Most of the people that live here are hippie surfers from all over the world. There isn't a whole lot going on, but what a nice break towards the end of our trip.

Happy Christmas to us! Christmas Day. Lodging of a better sort. We stayed 3 nights. We had a private patio, 2 pools...beach front...all for $40 US
Mangos on the porch. It's a good day.
Christmas day cervesa.
The great little pool which we had all to ourselves. We beat the rush by 3 days. The week of New years is very busy here with locals.
dorks...seriously, no idea what we were thinking. maybe we had a few at lunch.
The View from our room. Too bad we don't know how to surf.... yet.
Us with Vanessa and Mattias at dinner - our Puerto Rican friends. Christmas dinner...
Relaxing on the porch which had a hammok, a bed and a table. Loooved it!
We had a private beach area.
Christmas shopping. So, Brian hands me some Quetzales and says "Here go buy yourself a Christmas present. Something REEEAAL nice".
No one around! Fantastic.
Bri about to get hammered by a wave. It's a surfing spot, so they are pretty good size.
The main Main street in Mancora. Like we said, it's small, and not much happens here except hanging out and surfnig.

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