Peru has held a fascination for me for about 17 years. Ever since I heard and saw the white clothes and luxurious long black hair on the dashing men in Walisuma, a traditional Peruvian, folk music band in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall, I have wanted to see Machu Picchu at the end of the Inca Trail. I didn’t plan on it being so many years after I saw the band and so many knocks to my knees, however here I am, with a Peru stamp in my passport.
We changed guides at the border, Johanna stayed behind in her native Ecuador, F from Nazca will take us through to La Paz in Bolivia. Johanna is an asset to Intrepid and her country, we still miss her.
At the end of a hell-raising ride, reminding me of the appalling driving talents of Guatemalans, and one of the loudest courtesy of madman Manuel at the wheel we got to our first stop in Peru, Mancora. It is a deserty, dry surf town, reminiscent of Bali with tuk-tuks racing up and down looking for fares, surf shack hostels and fringe dwelling alternatives parading their not-so-glistening dreads. Our accommodation, Kimba’s Bungalows was pretty sweet – pool, lovely gardens, a bit behind the main drag, across a sandy ditch, and so truck, tuk-tuk and bad music noise was heard as if through a tunnel, rather than blasted in my ear. We thoroughly enjoyed cuba libres on the deck, dangling our feet in the pool and the free wifi, not one day, but each day we were there! I managed to grab a massage in my room too, always a good find after a bumpy bus ride.
We latched onto Angela’s Cafe pretty quick – vegetarian food, lots of it and a happy hour. When we are onto something good that accommodates the long list of dietary requirements in this group, we stick with it – saves a lot of time. Do yourself a flavour and try the quinoa soup.
Taking a very bumpy back road, thankfully not with madman Manuel at the wheel, we made our way up to a pier built for trawlers where brown pelicans, cormorants, decorative crabs like the Sally Lightfoot and regal sea turtles occasionally come close enough to gawk at the tourists.
Pocitos beach on the way home is crowded during high season, the beige sand, leaning palm trees, banana lounges and hotels sporting a whole lot of glass to capture that soft-focus haze of salt-air sea-spray. The water was cold, the sky was glum and the protruding rocks and washed up sea urchins stopped us going in past our knees. We preferred squealing like little girls when a wave washed above the knees and apparently did our worst jobs of the popular ‘jump in the air’ photo pose. Instead we look like zombies who need a loo. Classy.
