Happy New Year - or not!

  Mancora, Peru Wednesday, December 30, 2015

At 2am today we rolled up to the Peruvian border. Many travellers take the night bus because the borders are less busy at night and it means much less waiting around and a smoother entry. And so it was for us. One hour later the whole bus was on the move again and we had permission to stay the full 180 days we had requested. We love it when things just work! Of course being night time we couldn't gaze at the new scenery flashing passed us through the window but there will be plenty of time for that another day. We arrived in Mancora at 5am. Off the bus in the main street with our bags and just a short walk to the hostel Bryan had pre-booked. Now he had booked the room for the night of the day we arrived. Technically speaking this was still the night of the day before and someone else could be in our room, which would mean we would have nowhere to go until our room became available. But it seemed our luck was holding out and we could take the room straight away.And there our luck ended. At first glance the room was extremely basic but we had stayed in worse. Then Jody got probing a bit deeper and when she looked at the mattress she nearly retched. It was shockingly bad. She dashed back to reception and stopped Bryan from checking in and called him back to the room. He agreed – no way we were staying here! So at 5:30am we had nowhere to go. What were we going to do? What we always do of course! Find a friendly taxi/tuk tuk driver and get him to show us a around. They have tuk tuks here but they call them motos. Even with the help of our driver we were finding it difficult though. Many places with free rooms were well out of our price range at $200 a night. (they were still quoting dollars here not Peruvian soles) Our moto driver found some cheaper places but they were all full. Eventually we ended up at La Pasada. It looked nice and they worked as a partnership hostel with Hostelling International so we thought it would be ok. We were quoted $35 a night but were basically trapped into staying for 4 nights minimum as it was over New Years’ Eve. We had no other choices at this stage and we took it.The room was nice enough and the bed was very clean and very comfortable. It seemed pretty quiet here too. And so we slept for hours – not waking until the afternoon. Gosh we needed that! Mancora is a nice little seaside town. It has lots of shops, hotels, nice restaurants, a large beach and souvenir stands for the tourists. It also has lots of traffic and litter! The coastal Pan American Highway runs right through this small town and it was constantly snarled up with cars, coaches, and lorries all trying to squeeze through the small gaps left by the cars which parked up and down the road. It was chaos. We were very disappointed by the beach too. Beer bottles, coke bottles, plastic bags and cups, polystyrene containers just lettered the beach everywhere. We had no way of telling if this was normal or was it just from the party goers who had descended on the town for the new years party. Well we had to ride it out – we were here for 4 days now.Bryan wanted to check out the diving whilst we were here. Apparently this town is home to the only Dive School in the whole of Peru so it would be a shame not to take this opportunity whilst we were here. He managed to get a dive booked and some tickets to a party for New Years’ Eve too. The party was in a hotel on the beach and started at 9pm. We thought we would give it a chance to get going and arrive at 10pm which gave us plenty of time to relax, eat and snooze before leaving our hostel. Well we arrived around 10:15 and we appeared to be the first ones there. They were not quite ready and we had to wait about 30 minutes for them to get organised. So we wandered onto the beach for a nosey around. It was madness out there! People had set up tents to stay the night and as the tide was in there was hardly any room left to move as there were hundreds of people on the beach already. In-between all these people, other people were letting off fireworks (yes on the crowded beach) and so we bolted back inside – and we were still the only party goers.The organisers were now ready and provided us with the bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label that was included in our tickets, along with a bucket of ice and 2 glasses. This was a fab idea we thought and definitely more cost effective staff wise, than running a full bar. All we had to buy was the coke to go in it. If we wanted it that is. By midnight there were still hardly any people here – just a big group of girls. The music was rubbish and the dance floor empty. A 10 second countdown commenced at 11:50pm and we stood there baffled! This was definitely a New Year like no other. There was only one thing for it – we hit the Johnny Walker! It’s surprising how much difference it made and how much more fun we had after that. We eventually rolled home around 4 or 5 am and the photos certainly show that a few more people turned up. Along with a load of balloons. Where did they come from??In the end we had a great night and it all turned out ok in the end even if it did start off a bit weird. On the 2^nd Bryan went for his dive which was under an old oil rig. He said it was a bit cold though which is probably why they don’t have any more diving south of here. All in all we were not really feeling the love for Mancora and our time now was concentrating on when we would leave. Getting a bus ticket and planning the next stage of our journey. It’s a shame that this is the first impression many tourists will get of Peru. It’s not the Peru Jody had experienced 10 years previously and that was the Peru we were keen to find again. Next stop – Chiclayo. Will it be any better?? We were off to find out!   [gallery columns="4" ids="13935,13940,13946,13950,13957,13961,13966,13971,13980,13985,13990,13995,14001,14005,14012,14018,14025,14028,14030,14038,14046,14052"]