Hotel Caballito de Mar Mancora

... mainly: a) there were waves, and b) I had a teacher. Two rather important parts of learning to surf I guess. Anyway, I'm happy to say that there were no catastrophic wipeouts and I got the hang of it pretty quickly! Really looking forward to giving it another go when we get to Jamaica in a few weeks time!

As is our custom, we 'splashed out' for a nice meal for our last night in Peru. It was incredible - surf and turf like you've never seen! The ...

... which point IŽll be setting off for Huaraz, a big hiking/trekking town nestled in the Cordillera Blanca. The plan for now is to spend a few weeks exploring the mountains and hopefully doing some trekking based out of Huaraz and perhaps nearby Caraz before heading off to Cusco for my October 23rd date with the Inca Trail.

Hope all is well with everyone back in the states!

Hasta luego,
Dan

... haste. After hooking up the ipod and cracking a few cold ones we sat out on the patio and discussed plans for the day and for the rest of the week. All that came of it was surfing and heading to the beach. So not wanting to have wasted good beer conversation we headed out to walk the beach and watch the kite boarders and surfers. The beach was beautiful and all the restaurants set up temporary patios on the sand, hard to tell where one starts and one ends but that ...

... Oh my goodness that was good. I really wish IŽd gotten one too, instead I just ate half of yours (haha). The food we got in Cuenca at the bus stop before the 2nd bus was also pretty good. That lady who kept giving us advice was clutch. The seats on the second bus were awful, but crazy that there were two Americans infront of us - one from Thousand Oaks near your dad! The police pulling us off at night to check our passports was pretty scary, but ...

... pretty off and there was now even 3 ATMs and loads of hostels and restaurants with eally cheap lunches (1 pound) and drink specials everywhere.

We just hung out on the beach fo two days and then took the overnight bus across the border to Guayaquil.





PS: Sorry, still no pics from Machu Picchu... Lost the usb plug for the camera and the one we borrowed didnt fit :( So will have to wait till we next burn pics - 60 left

... originally we were told to get out and get a bus across the road but as the bus was pulling away we asked did we need tickets for new bus so he stopped, looked at our ticket again and said get back on. We didnt have a clue what was going on and noone spoke english-we eventually came to the main bus station on the Ecuadorian side town of Hualiquiallas. We were waiting for a while and then were put in a taxi to go the border control which is funny as its a good few kms into Ecuador ...

... road and drive off. Jacque got off to guard our bags while I unchained our small back-packs, did a quick once over and followed her off the bus.

It was pre-dawn and very dark on the side of the road and Jacque was surrounded by a group of taxi drivers and pitching for her business. I tried to calm them down and tell them to back off while we collected our thoughts but my throat was hoarse from the cold and I was barely audible. Jacque had sent emails to a hostel and a hotel but ...

Took a night bus out of Ecuador and got woken up at 3am to get out of the bus and cross the bridge by foot into Peru & to get our passports stamped. They asked us for our entry cards that we were given when we first arrived in Ecuador, but Russ had put them into his Bermuda triangle pocket and he couldnŽt find it. I was freaking out a bit, but it ended up being not such a big deal. Stepped over the peruvians sleeping at the immigration ...

... My main gripe about the place was that they operate one of those cursed tab systems, which can lead to wanton spending. Also, the bar seemed to be haunted by some kind of poltergeist or something - I could've sworn I saw glasses and bottles moving around of their own accord, and even a bin bag at one stage. I guess I must've spent too long in the sun or something... Apart from sun worship and a little partying, we also fed ourselves rather ...

Just finished a weeklong stay at the Beach of Mancora, in the district of Piura. Spent the first two nights at Loki ' the gringo tourist hangout, but then found an amazing and cheaper hotel along the beach. Mancora overflows with young tourists from around the world, as I met and hung out with a Dutchman and 2 Swedish girls at the hotel, as well as Canadians, English, Irish, etc. Enjoyed observing the exchange between ...