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.

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.



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.












