Sun, surf and six months of sand!

We left Huanchaco around midday and caught a local bus (yes, we crammed ourselves and ALL our stuff on with the locals and their kids, aunties, uncles, grandparents, pets, livestock and produce!) to the nearest big town, Trujillo, about 30 mins away.

Trujillo is not on the coast but is the transport hub for the area and has many connecting buses. We were warned by people we have met and the Lonely Planet that it is not a very safe town and our aim was to get a bus out as soon as possible.

Towns in Peru don’t just have one big terminal for all buses (except for Cusco) butinstead they have different mini-terminals for every different company – and they’re not always near each other. We caught a taxi to the bus terminal for El Dorado buses as we had researched and learnt that they were the only company that had a direct overnight bus to our next destination, Mancora. We went up to the desk at 2pm to buy tickets for the 9pm direct bus only to be told it was full… great.

The lady behind the counter said we could catch a different bus, at 11pm, to a town called Piura (another very dodgy transport hub/town in Peru) where we would need to change buses to get to Mancora. The worst part was the bus would get there at 4:30am and we would need to buy our tickets and wait in the “terminal” for two hours before the connecting bus left for Mancora…. it really is never easy in South America!

As we had no other choice we bought tickets for the 11pm bus and decided to have a quick look around the town. We left our luggage at the El Dorado terminal free of charge, which was a pleasant surprise as they usually try to get money out of us for everything!

We started to walk down the street when two taxi drivers asked if we wanted a lift. We said no thanks and then one of them said “No caminar, es muy peligroso,” which in English means “Don’t walk, it’s very dangerous.” We looked around and realised the streets were empty, dirty and the only people we could see were not the type you would want to mess with so we decided to get in one of the taxis.

We had no idea where to go so asked the driver to take us to the Plaza de Armas, which is always the centre park in any Peruvian town. We took a few photos in the plaza, which was actually very pretty…

It wasn’t long before we were sick of being hassled for money by every second person. The vibe wasn’t positive in the centre of Trujillo, so we flagged another taxi and asked what we could do for six hours. He suggested a local shopping centre with a cinema, and we decided that sounded better than anything else we could think of doing.

We walked around, had some dinner and watched some kids playing a giant Scaletrix game in the middle of the centre.

We saw the only movie that was playing in English, Friends with Benefits. It wasn’t brilliant but it wasn’t terrible, and it helped to pass the time!

The bus trip ended up being quite uneventful. We slept most of the first leg and spent the time in between buses being horrified by the way animals are transported as cargo in Peru. There were boxes and boxes of baby chickens, chirping away…

But the thing that made us both really sad was this poor goose tied up in a shopping bag, being moved around like a suitcase…

We arrived in Mancora around 10am and found a lovely hostel called Kokopelli Beachpackers. It was like a resort, with hammocks and lounge chairs around a great pool with a swim-up bar!

It also had a dart board for Bevan.

He played that while Mel tried her hand at giant jenga!

Mancora is a backpacker haven. We ate like kings while we were there. We had sushi one day, amazing Mexican another, falafel burgers, spinach and feta pastries as well as real Italian pizza and juicy steak (well, Bevan enjoyed the steak and Mel had barbecued, buttery veggies!)

The town is supposed to be the best surfing town in Peru but while we were there the waves weren’t fantastic. The beach was nice, though and the water was warm enough to swim for hours.

We didn’t get up to much more than relaxing, swimming, reading,playing darts and eating and we both enjoyed every minute!

We were in Mancora when the earthquake in Japan happened and, as we were right on the beach, there was plenty of excitement to be had with the approaching tsunami.

The local police made all the beach front restaurants close for the day and anyone staying in a hostel in the ‘red zone’ had to evacuate also – which included the entire Loki party hostel of 70 plus backpackers! We were lucky enough to be staying on the main street which was up the hill enough that we didn’t need to evacuate.

The locals were pretty sure it wasn’t going to be too large.. the reports predicted up to 1 metre higher than normal (which was almost spot on) but they quite as good at predicting the time it was supposed to hit. Many people from the town, and most travellers had made their way up to the cliffs behind the town and spent most of the afternoon and night there.

We decided to be stupid (sorry mums!) and go down to the beach to see what would happen so, along with a friend we had made at the hostel, Kevin, we walked along the laneway to the beach and waited with about 30 other locals and surfers.

The beach was usually full all day, every day… but not then!

After about 20 minutes the police came along the beach and told us all to move along…

So we did… through a hole in the fence and onto the balcony of one of the restaurants owned by a funny old American couple!

The place was called Papa Mo’s Green Eggs and Ham and is a definite need-to-visit place if any of you ever go to Mancora. They “technically” weren’t allowed to serve food and drinks but the lovely lady said that if we happened to walk to the fridge, take out a beer and leave the money on the counter then she wasn’t serving us and that was fine!

We sat on the balcony drinking beers for four hours with some others from our hostel and local gringos.

We decided to call our little adventure a Tsunami Party, except for the fact that the tsunami didn’t seem to want to show up.

We were told it would come at 6:30pm, then that changed to 7:10pm, then 7:41pm… by 8:30pm we gave up and headed back to our hostel. It did come, at 9:24pm, and did flood all of the beach front restaurants and hotels. There was no massive damage but it was enough to fill the places with sand and move chairs around a little. We were just upset that we had waited that long and then missed it!

Mancora was a great little beach town to stop for a few days, although it was super touristy. All this beach time has helped both of us to get nice and tanned, especially Bevan!

Gotta love those tan lines!!!!!

Mancora was our last stop in Peru, after six months in the country. We celebrated both of our birthdays, our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Australia Day while there. We have a lifetime of unforgettable memories and wonderful new friends to show for it – Peru definitely exceeded our expectations.

It’s time to say goodbye Peru (for now) and hello Ecuador!

On the road again…

We finally managed to pack our bags and leave Pisco Sin Fronteras for good… at least for good on this trip anyway. The last two weeks were spent trying to make sure we did all the things we wanted to do before we left.

We found it really hard to put what we were doing there into words, hence the serious lack of blogs for the last four and a half months. We will post more things about the experience – and try to include something at the end of each blog – but for the moment we plan to continue writing about each city we visit, like we did before.

We left PSF after dinner and caught the four hour bus to Lima, arriving around midnight. Mel cried for the first half an hour of the trip and then we both fell into heavy sleep, so heavy that we didn’t realise we had arrived in Lima and woke up alone on the bus after everyone else had already left!

We caught a taxi to the hostel and went straight to bed. Again, we slept so much. Bevan woke up at midday, just as they were putting the free breakfast away, and Mel didn’t wake until 2:30pm! We realised we were both completely exhausted from our four and a half months at PSF – and not just physically, but emotionally as well.

We let ourselves have some movie therapy, and watched a couple of old classics. We bought some gourmet cheeses and wine and had an eating session in front of the TV, before another early night.

We decided that we should get moving as quickly as possible again as we were both feeling depressed about leaving PSF and needed something to distract us.

We packed our things and headed to the bus terminal, not 100% sure about where we were actually headed… we knew we wanted to go north and make our way to Ecuador. We decided on a little surfing town called Huanchaco, about 10 hours north, bought the tickets and were on the way.

Huanchaco (pronounced Wan-chuck-o) is a lovely little beachside town.

It’s a hot spot for surfers and definitely on the Gringo Trail, but is missed by many travellers making it quiet and relaxed – just what we needed!

The view from our room was pretty nice.

The weather was great, it just keeps getting hotter at the moment as we head towards the Equator! Huanchaco is on the Tropic of Capricorn, but the weather was not as muggy as it is in Queensland. It is still in the desert region of Peru, that’s probably why it still felt dry.

We stayed at a hostel that felt more like a resort.

As you can probably imagine, there was plenty of this…

And this…

We saw yet another AMAZING sunset over the ocean…

We visited the old cathedral on the hill.

We played with the pet tortoises at the hostel…

And laughed at their dog-like behaviour of sneaking into rooms when doors were left open…

Even if people were sleeping!

We checked out the reed boats that the fisherman still use (although they are definitely there for the tourists these days as well.)

There are many archaeological sites around Huanchaco. We visited a pre-Incan site called Chan Chan, where they have unearthed palaces made from adobe. The outer walls were ridiculously high!

The people who lived there formed the walls with adobe bricks before rendering everything.

They decorated the walls with different animals and patterns.

Huanchaco was a nice little town to visit. The weather, waves and relaxed nature of the locals made it the perfect remedy for our exhaustion.

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PSF Memories

Okay, so we said we’d put a little but about PSF in with each blog entry…

This is Pete, Charlie and Bevan posing with a picnic table they made to go into a community area that was being built in the poorest neighbourhood of Pisco, El Molino. Some volunteers had put their own money in to build a concrete football/basketball court, a community centre that they hoped would one day be a school, and a park area for the community, complete with picnic tables, benches, swings and a see-saw.

The community area was built back in November and early December and by the time we left in March, the swings had been cut down, the slashed tyres that had been concreted into the ground under the see-saw had somehow been removed, the benches had been broken and some of the panels in the community centre had also been broken.

I know what you’re probably thinking… why help people who behave like that? And we had the same thoughts. The reason I guess is because not everyone who lives there has that same attitude, many of them appreciate what we do and are desperate for any help they can get. We help that area because we want to help the children, babies and older people who have nothing and nobody.