Wherever you go, there you are…

Hey everybody!!

I finally left Lima with my newly purchased classical guitar.  Headed north on a 16.5 hour bus journey to the surfer town of Mancora.  I spent 2 days with these 2 locals from Lima.  A lady named Amparo, who is a travel agent and wanted to come check the place out so she would have some information for people who were going there, and her friend Henri.  It was pretty cool, I got to speak all sorts of spanish and the guy wouldn’t let me pay for anything although I sure tried.  He’s says I’m not in Canada anymore and here, the man pays.  Whatever you say!!  After they left, I got to make some english speaking friends and I never thought it would be so relieving.  It gets exhausting trying to always remember words for things but my spanish is getting pretty darn good. 

Mancora, in a nutshell, is a cross between Tofino Canada, Byron Bay Australia, and Jaco Beach Costa Rica.  Bunch o’ hippies and surfers and artisan markets with hostel after hostel after hostel.  Nice place but a bit of a fashion show of an interesting type.  Everyone surfs!!  I almost felt “uncool” because I hadn’t shredded any ‘mar’ lately.  Haha, nahh, I never feel uncool.

So… my plan, which changes every 12 hours or so, was to go up to Ecuador and take spanish school.  Well, I met a couple girls who took spanish school in Peru and it was even cheaper.  And the place they took it was in the town of Cuzco, which is where the journey to Machu Pichu begins.  Which is also in the exact opposite direction to where I was heading.  So I kept that in mind as I waited patiently in a hammock for something to tell me where to go. 

That something came in the form of 3 dudes who had driven a Ford Explorer all the way from Pennsylvania and are on their way to Buenos Aires in Argentina.  Not even joking!  It was late Sunday night that I met them, and by Monday morning I was the fourth passenger and we were heading south.  So apparently I have a new plan now.  And travelling in a vehicle is SO unbelievably WAY easier and more exciting than any bus where the seat fully reclines.  We drove right up to the hostel once we got where we were going and had to carry our bags for about 30 seconds until we got to put them down.  A whole new aspect to backpacking I tell ya.  So we made a 9 or so hour journey down the coast, through the desert, listening to Journey and White Snake and Boston (power ballads), got pulled over once for going the wrong way around a meridian and paid the cop off once again.  It’s the “no system system.”  Yes they have it here too.

Now we’re in a new beach town called Huanchaco, still north of Lima and plan on staying here for a few days.  Haven’t done much yet other than walking to this internet place but so far so good, and the sun is shining.

Miss you and Love you all!!

Sue

Well, here I am after spending a week in Lima, Peru.  It’s so good to be here!  Once I got off the plane and into a taxi to my hostel at 12:30am, huge waves of nostalgia set in.  Like I had been here before.  The heat, the sounds of the honking cars, the crazy drivers, the smell of a third world capital city, the adrenaline of getting off the plane, all too familiar.  I was quite happy to be here.  Still am. 

I’ve had an excellent week here, done a bit of everything really, beach, museums, discos, nothing in particular, it’s great.  The hostel manager, Frances, is great!  He likes to drive us around, tells us all the good places to go for whatever we want to do.  The other day he crammed 5 of us in the back and 3 into the front of his 4 door BMW and drove us around town.  We got pulled over… for speeding no less!!  $55 ticket for him but they didn’t say anything about the amount of passengers he was carrying.  Until we got pulled over again 20 mins later after we dropped 2 guys off at the airport.  This time we had 3 in the front and 3 in the back.  Apparently 4 in the back is more legal than 3 in the front.  Anyways, I got to witness my first bit of latino corruption.  10 soles to the cop got us free, which is about $3.50. 

February is Carnaval month and they celebrate it here with water balloons and squirt guns.  Mostly the kids get you while you’re walking down the street or if you have your car window open.  Not really a huge bummer if you get hit cause usually you’re sweating anyhow so a bit of a shower is a good thing.  As long as the camera is safe.  Another interesting thing I learned here is that they steal the powerlines in the night and sell the copper to different companies.  I imagine companies who make power lines???  Crazy.

Thursday I’m heading to a little surf town on the north coast near Ecuador called Mancora for a week or so in a hammock.  Only 14 hours on a bus!

Love you and Miss you!!