Mancora

From Bogotá on a very long journey (via Quito and Lima) to Mancora, for Christmas on the beach.

We had imagined a glorious sunny beach holiday with surfing for Christmas and it sort of... half delivered. We were thrilled when we arrived at 11pm to find that we were living above a very friendly pizzeria, in a lovely room with a private terrace, right near the town and the beach. So good so far, did a bit of exploring, sorted out some Peruvian admin on Christmas eve, and made plans for the next day (surfing, trying to find somewhere nice for Christmas dinner).

The Peruvians celebrate Christmas with large amounts of fireworks so at midnight there were explosions all around and firecrackers being chucked on the street.

For Christmas day we had breakfast on the beach and then headed out for a surf - only to be scuppered by some big waves and strong current, which ended up with us both being dragged off and, thank god, the lifeguard helping Elli back in. Slightly more high octane than planned, to put it mildly. We then ended up as the only people in the fancy hotel restaurant where we had pisco sours, ceviche, fish and chips for Christmas Dinner.

Two days later and things really ramped up when, as we were eating more ceviche on the beach in the morning, the waves started getting stronger, until the whole beach, the bar that we were in, and most of the main street were flooded. Apparently this happens about once a year and sods law that it happened while we were there. It was still very dramatic, and noone seemed to be hurt (all the locals were quite excited about it and told us all their stories / showed us their scars) but with a red flag and a half destroyed beach, no more swimming for us that week.

Notwithstanding all of that, it was still an experience, a very unusual southern hemisphere Christmas, and a nice few days chilling out looking at the sea. We decided that fate was telling us something about not getting in the sea this week and decided to leave before New Year and head south to Lima for New Year's Czytaj więcej