We had to wait 'till around 2:15 am for the bus to Mancora to turn up. It was just us, an American, 2 Peruvians, the security guard and a cat, waiting in this freezing cold bus terminal. We amused ourselves by playing kiss, marry, avoid with increasingly bizarre options. The American bloke must have thought me incredibly strange as I insisted that I'd like to kiss an Afghan Hound... Anyway, we got on the bus eventually, settled into our luxury, first class seats and managed a few hours sleep. By 8 am we had arrived in Piura. Not sure if there was anything to see here, we just got a cab to the next bus station and tried to get on the 8:30 bus. It was full – the next one was 10:30. we sat down in the second bus station of the day to wait for 2 hours. This was boiling hot, packed full of people and the same American bloke who shouted, “We meet again!” at us. We were too knackered to amuse ourselves now, so we sat and watched Peruvian Saturday morning kids TV.
The bus was OK by Peruvian standards, the usual screaming children and men trying to sell us dietary supplements. We got to Mancora in about 3 hours, got off with the other couple of Gringos from the bus and were immediately surrounded by mototaxi drivers. The mototaxis are like the Thai 'tuk tuks' and we hadn't been in one yet but we had been told that this was the way to get around in Mancora. After they argued with each other for a bit, I chose the one who was shouting the least and we sped up the road to our hostel at a cost of 1 sol. Hostel Kokopelli looked very new and was run by someone who sounded Dutch. While we waited for our room to be cleaned we had a little look round and it seemed very nice. There was a big pool with bar and stuff, ping pong table, dart board, computers and a tiny little kitten who was very friendly but couldn't have been more than 8 weeks old. Our room was kind of bare but it was clean and new.
After a bit of a rest, I went out to find some lunch. Enticed in by the promise of home cooked wholemeal bread, I ended up getting some sandwiches from Angela's vegetarian restaurant which were nice – the bread was like stotty. We spent the rest of the evening just chilling in our room, Bindya felt a bit dodgy and we were both tired anyway so we played a game called 'Zuma' that I had downloaded in Huanchaco. The object of the game is to shoot coloured balls from the mouth of a stone toad in order to get groups of 3 or more in a row. We justified spending the amount of time we did playing this game by the fact that it was slightly Inca themed. We got through 8 levels in these few days and even invented a new language between us to help us complete levels - “gap it!”, “it's OK, you've zuma'd” etc.
I still was feeling a bit dodge when suddenly Neil realised that there was no water coming out of the taps and the toilet and shower were also not working. Neil went down to speak to someone who said the whole town had run out of water and that lorries were on their way but would not be here till tomorrow morning. Me and my belly were not liking the sound of that! While Neil went out to get some dinner I was trying to rest when I got a knock at the door to which a Peruvian man (speaking only Spanish) greeted me with a bucket of water. Though I understand what they say now I still struggle with explaining myself well back in Spanish. He was asking to fill up the toilet for the night, but due to my dodgy belly I didnt really want him to do this so attempted to carry and pour a huge bucket of water myself, I failed miserably. Neil came back and we had dinner (Pizza) watched TV (X factor.....why can't people understand that Rapping is dated especially when it sounds like a school concert!) and had a good night sleep.
The next day we decided to explore Mancora as I was feeling better and had a walk around the town, it is pretty place which feels and sounds like a beach resort...so we felt like we were on proper holiday. There are lots of stalls selling tourist items like shell decorations for your lights, flip flops, t-shirts, bags, braclets etc. After walking for a bit we headed towards the beach and stopped for lunch at a small shack which was full of people....especially Gringo's so we thought it can't be that bad. For the price it wasnt but we just watched the locals sit around and drink beer while ocassionaly getting up to deal with a customer at their shop near the shack. We then got to the beach and sunbathed for the rest of the day.....lush! Then we headed back rested up, drank some rum (getting to become a bit of a habit) and clean up for dinner.....but the lights went out! Neil went out to check what was going on and the guy said the whole town was out...great yesterday no water and today no electricity. We were starving and so still headed out and went to the only place with their own generator...it was a little thai and chinese place that did the most amazing food....we were restricted as we had little money and could not get any of the ATM due to the power cut. We headed back and still no electricity...apart ftom a few false alarms during the evening.
It was our last day at the hostel and we liked it in Mancora so much we decided to stay a few more days before the hardcore sightseeing and travelling all the way to Cuzco. We got up late, and headed into town and found a place to stay for cheaper with a balcony and a fridge and TV (luxury...as we can now keep the beers and cocktails cold!) and it was next door to the old hostel. After finding this we headed to the beach, not a great day as it was windy and chilled as we watched people kite surfing...Neil was very interested in this but decided against it. We made sandcastles, buried each other in the sand...this was then copied by other tourist on the beach who decided to outdo us a women buried her husband fully in the sand! Again we headed back for the night and chilled, drank and headed to now our favourite resturant that little thai/chinese place for dinner. After a bit of Zuma we went to bed.
Now I am not going to bore you with any more info but we moved to the next place and for the next two days did pretty much nothing except get up late, drink cocktails, watch TV, play Zuma, chill on the balcony and read...pure bliss. The only strenous thing we did was book our tickets to Lima which would be a 18 hour bus ride.
Apologies for the lack of photos – we were very lazy for these few days – fair enough really, considering we were about to head off to do a 50 km hike up and down mountains, at altitudes reaching 4200m.
We got to Lima at around 1ish in the afternoon – the bus was not bad at all, it was on time, comfy, food was a little strange (purple rice flavoured with olives and a sort of chicken swiss roll covered in yellow flavoured sauce). The bus company was Oltursa instead of our usual Cruz del Sur but it was just as good, if not better. The seats were enormous and we both managed to get a decent amount of sleep. We arrived at our hostel, Link Hostel, just in the north bit of Miraflores. We were well excited about this hostel, even bragging to the taxi driver that we were only paying 30 soles per night (about £7.50) for a big double room. As per usual for us, the hostel had no record of our booking but it didn't matter as they had the double room free anyway. Our excitement waned when she told us it cost $30 a night. We protested for a bit that we had been promised 30 soles but when she showed us the room we agreed that $30 was about right and we said we'd stay anyway. Even the dorm beds looked really good, big, comfy, clean fresh laundry etc. Our room was massive, had a bed which was wider than it was long and was possible the comfiest bed we have ever slept in. The shower room was big with a hot, powerful shower. It was just very nice. A few minutes later the lady from the front desk came up and said that she'd spoken to the manager who felt bad about the mistake on the website so would give us the room for $20 instead – bargain!
We booked our 'plane tickets online then had a quick walk into town to get some food (we'd missed the fast food of Lima so had a Burger King). There was some sort of big book fair going on with hundreds of stalls out in the park. We wandered around, trying to find one that sold English books as we were both excited about this. We eventually found one and the bloke let us buy some bargain reduced books at an even better rate of 10 soles per book. Normally English language books are around 60 soles here (15 quid) so we were well pleased. We checked to see that the Parque de la Reserva was open as it was closed for refurbishment last time we were here (apparently but we reckon tourisat information know nothing) and it was.
We decided against getting a tour company and DIY to the park and so decided to get a Taxi to the park and pay thr minimal fee (4 soles) and get a taxi back. Now in Lima there are hundreds of Taxi's on the roads and me and Neil both think, “do they really need that many?”...well the answer to that is yes they do as it took us over 30 minutes to get a taxi who firstly was willing to go in that direction, knew where the park was and offered us a good price...as we are accustomed to bartering for this now. During the ride we thought the taxi driver was taking us to some dodgy part of the city when actually it was correct and the park was there. We went in and it was beautiful, very busy though with lots of god darn children and families there aswell as the Casanova's who must take their first dates there, you can tell as the women are holding a red rose! We walked around the park took in the various multi coloured fountains, various shapes, sizes and heights of the fountains (see pics ).
The most popular fountain was the largest which had a fountain show, where the fountain literally dances to the music (firstly classical – Swan Lake) with a holographic image of a ballerina dancing to it....then it changed to traditional Andean music with holographs of condors flying in the sky and people dressed in traditional clothing doing what I think is traditonal dancing (me and Neil did find this a little amusing though...the video may explain this a little more).
The most popular fountain was the largest which had a fountain show, where the fountain literally dances to the music (firstly classical – Swan Lake) with a holographic image of a ballerina dancing to it....then it changed to traditional Andean music with holographs of condors flying in the sky and people dressed in traditional clothing doing what I think is traditonal dancing (me and Neil did find this a little amusing though...the video may explain this a little more).
We had a lovely time and were glad we went to the most visited place in Lima and then headed back for dinner (Pizza, Beer, Wine and Chocalate cake) and watch some TV before settling in the best bed I have ever slept in....EVER!!!!!!
We had to get out of the bed the next day as we had our flight to Cusco at 12. The taxi didn't get to out hostel until around 20 to 11 and it took around 40 minutes to get to the airport. So we roll up to the check in desk half an hour before the flight but the woman behind the desk isn't fazed. She tells us that we should try to get to the boarding gate an hour before the flight and hands us our passes. We think we're safe as all we have to do is go and pay our airport tax (South Americans and their travel taxes...). We get to the tax desks and there is a massive queue. We start to panic a little more. We stand in the queue, checking the time evry few minutes, quarter to...ten to...We see a sign for the prices and realise that we can only just scrape together enough money to pay. We get to the desk and the cashier takes her time counting out our money - the time is now 5 to 12 – we grab the tickets, run to the boarding gate and it is still open. We jump onto the waiting bus which then stands there for another 10 minutes while we gasp and try to get our breath back. Next time we are going to do as it says and get to the airport an hour before the flight.... The 'plane was really small, about 100 seats, but it was half empty so we had plenty of room. An hour and a bit later, we were in Cusco.
Pictures of the fountain park
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=240743&id=547011402&l=ac9d5a21aa 