After a budget review (sheesh we blew out in Argentina!) many computer sessions and umming and ahhring we decided we had two choices- do Machu Picchu and Bolivia for a few days or go to the Galapagos Islands.
It was pretty much a no brainer for us, while I always wanted to do Peru and Bolivia I’d rather have ample time to explore them properly and thats something we just didn’t have at this point, plus after so many days inland both of us were dying to get to the beach and the warmth!
We flew from Santiago into Piura via a 8 hour stop over in Lima. Piura is about a 3 hour bus ride from Mancora, our final destination and it was a different sort of town…. definitely somewhere you just pass through en route.
Its pretty interesting coming into Mancora- you see pictures and think its an idyllic beach town but when you come through its like a little beach on the edge of this crazy desert that you bus though. We were pretty unlucky with the weather just in terms that it was howling onshore winds and our hostel was on the beach with not much cover and with no fresh water there we were pretty salty sea dogs for a few days.
They do however have THE BEST CEVICHE EVER! and its so cheap! Dom and I pretty much lived off this and fresh juice the whole time we were there- it was heaven in contrast to the heavy Argentinian food we’d been chowing back for the previous few weeks.
After three days of no surf and no fresh water showers we were done and keen for some greener pastures so jumped on a bus and made the mission to Montanita in Ecuador.