Peru

I spent most of last week in Peru. Since the farm I was volunteering at was in the Southern part of Ecuador, I figured I should dip into Peru, it being so close to the border and all. And not to mention it was only a $10 bus ride to get there. Who could refuse that? Anyway, I planned to just spend a couple of days in Mancora, which is a touristy town on the beach where people from around the world come to surf. Honestly, the waves were lacking and I found it difficult to believe that people actually go there just to surf. I met a traveler from California who said he flew there specifically for the waves. I could see he was disappointed that there wasn't much action in the water.

Mancora was an interesting place for sure. The first day I arrived, I was really exhausted from the bus ride. The first leg of the journey took about 9 hours (rode on an overnight bus) then I had to change buses to get to Mancora and that ride was an additional 3.5 hours. Within the first 5 minutes of arriving at the hostel (which is the nicest place I've stayed at to date) I met a new friend. A German girl named Nora, who said she was 23 years old and in her last year of school studying Dentistry. She had come to Peru with a group of friends from Germany to volunteer for two months with the Red Cross to do free dental work for the locals. Her friends had decided to go to Bolivia for their last two weeks abroad and seeing as she only had one week left she decided to spend that time relaxing and reading on the beaches of Mancora. She had just arrived a day before and she said that she was lonely and bored and asked if I wanted to hang out. I said sure and so began my friendship with Nora. I learned all of that information about her before I even had a chance to set my belongings down.

Nora, the cutest German I´ve met to date

We met two other German girls that day and below is a list of some of the activities in which we partook during our stay:

-Relaxed on the beach
-Ate lots and I do mean LOTS!
-Hung out at the bar
-Played Beer Pong with the owner of the hostel (to which I only observed....and played "cheerleader" which was actually quite fun)
- Read/Took naps on the many hammocks
-Walked the touristy strip, shopped a bit and spoke with some of the locals
-Flirted a little with all the young Aussie surfers
-Tried to practice our Spanish with each other as well as everyone else we came into contact with

All in all, it was a really nice time. I do have to say though that I was really surprised to see that the Northwest coast of Peru was like a desert. Super dry and sandy. Like Ecuador, there were a load of mountains, unlike Ecuador they were far from lush!

My last two days in Peru were spent in Trujillo (the third largest city in Peru). I didn't do much there, spent most of the time near the main square. I ended up connecting with a friend there that I had met previously in Vilcabamba. An Irishman named John who had been riding around South America on a motorcycle. He's really into movies as am I and to our surprise there happened to be a nice movie theater in town. We saw a new film called Abduction which was actually pretty good.

Me, John and his motorbike

I just arrived early this morning to a city called Cuenca in Ecuador. It's a colonial city with a lot of churches (52 according to Loney Planet). I am meeting up with another friend that I met while volunteering at the farm. I'll tell you all about my time here in the next blog :-)