Chilling out in Mancora

So we’ve been in Mancora, Peru for a week or two now. We arrived here last week Monday after a series of small flight from Cusco, to Lima, to Piura, and finally to Tumbes. From Tumbes we found a van heading for the small coastal town of Mancora (an hour and a half away) and got a ride. When we arrived here it was immediately evident that this place was a great place to stay and relax for a while. Great beaches, lots of seafood restaurants everywhere, surf shops/schools, and plenty of cheap hostels.

We came to Mancora with the intention of taking a break from travelling. We had just finished a tour to Machu Picchu, a tour through the Amazon, and visiting a lot of cities in a row without any significant break in between. It was time to relax for a while and recharge the batteries. After travelling for over 4 months now, we become a little immune to seeing all kinds of new and interesting things, so we can definitely say that we need to get the travel bug up and excited again. When everything starts looking the same and you get feelings of indifference to things that are supposed to inspire and amaze you, you know it’s time to stop for a while.

We decided that we would rent a private home here for a month. When we last stopped for a month to live somewhere (in Sucre, Bolivia) we really enjoyed the time we spent there and we got to really know the place and settle down a bit. Living in hostel after hostel can get really tiring after a while. It feels great to set some roots somewhere, unpack your bags, and just live for a while privately. It feels great to have our own private kitchen, bathroom, and living area.

It look us around 24 hours to find our place. We spent the first night in Mancora at a hostel, and spent that evening and the following morning wondering around looking for places and asking locals for advice. We ended up finding a place on the Internet that looked ideal and was within our price range so after a quick visit we handed over the rent money and moved in right away.

The place is around 15 minutes away (via MotoTaxi) from the town of Mancora in a quiet area known as Las Pocitas. The manager here is also a MotoTaxi driver, so he shuttles us back and forth to town every few days for groceries. Our house sits halfway up the side of a hill right across the road from the beach. It has a really great patio with a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean. We have front row seats to a beautiful sunset each evening. The house is plenty big enough. It’s basically a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and a few spare beds. However, we spend pretty much all our time out on the patio. It’s comfortable, shaded, and we have great scenery all day long.

Our Home

The Patio

Sunset view from the patio

Being away from the town keeps us isolated here (the closest store is too far to walk to) but we don’t mind it. It keeps us focused on relaxing and working on some projects. Rather than focus on travelling tourist activities, we’ve resolved to spend this month working on ourselves. We spend an hour or two each day working out – jogging, stretching, yoga, strength training, etc. We cook really nutritious meals with all the delicious local vegetables, fruits, fish, and chicken available at the local market. We have vowed off all artificial ingredients, sugar, coffee, and filler foods like rice, bread, and potatoes for the month – except for Saturdays when we go to town for dinner at a restaurant. We’ve also each picked a couple subjects to research and educate ourselves. We’ve each read a ton of books here already, and we’re filling up notebooks with study notes. Aside from all that we make a conscious effort to relax as well. Every day we sit back and take it easy to watch the sunset and go for leisurely walks.

One of the other intentions of coming here was to learn how to surf. The Internet and guidebooks said there were waves here year-round, unfortunately there has been next to nothing here, so I think we’ll have to save that for another time later in the trip. I’m sure with Central America coming up soon we’ll find some good surf soon.

We (well mostly Joh) have also been focused on determining our travel itinerary for the next few months. We’re starting to realize that after we leave Mancora we’ll have less than three months until we need to be back home. We know we’ll probably go north to Ecuador next, but after that we are lost. We’re not sure if we’ll be going to Colombia or Venezuela. We may skip them and go straight to Central America. We’ve been researching all the countries in Central America, trying to determine where we want to go. It’s really difficult to do. We know we don’t want to travel fast and try see everything, as we know that not really our style. So we have to try pick a small number of places out of the vast amount of possibilities. How do you choose between Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize, and Guatemala? And what about the giant country of Mexico?... or the Caribbean Islands? We know we can’t go to them all, so how do you pick out the best? We are having a really tough time figuring it out. Any advice from you blog readers would be great. Have you heard of or been to any highly recommended places in this area of the world? Let us know. Where would you go?

We’ve also been entertaining the idea of purchasing a car after Mexico, and driving home through the US for the last few weeks. It’s just an idea at this point, but an interesting possibility. We could probably get a decent deal on a vehicle in the states, and then either sell it in Canada when we’re back, or maybe keep it for when we return next year. I’m sure there are a bunch of legal/tax/customs/licensing/insurance issues with this, so we’d have to do some extra research. If any of our blog readers out there have experience with purchasing cars in US, we could use your advice. Send us an email - if you don’t mind.

So we’ll be here in Mancora until at least June 2, and after that we’ll be off travelling around again. There probably won’t be too many exciting blog posts in the next few weeks, so please forgive us, and we’ll try get some good stories in June to make up for it.

By the way, our internet access here in Mancora is pretty decent, so if any of you have some free time over the next few days/weeks, we’d love to arrange some Skype chats. Let us know when you’re available and we’ll give you a call. We’re free to chat at pretty much any time. After four months it’s really starting to feel like we’ve been away for a long time. It would be great to reconnect with family and friends back home.