Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 22 - Mancora, Vilcabamba (Peru, Ecuador)

After Rhys had finished his first day of Spanish homework he was too fried to go out for dinner so I ended up heading into town myself and ate at a lovely little café away from the blaring bars along the beach road with a good book and cuba libre for company.

Our second day of Spanish classes started at 9am for 3 hours. We couldn’t have picked a better location, sitting in the hostel common area with views over Mancora and out to sea and a 4 month old puppy called Lola to distract us. (Lola became our best friend after staying at the hostel for 6 nights and took a liking to running into our room and stealing anything she could find from toothpaste to socks, flip flops to Rhys’s pants and running off with them to the reception area. One morning when we’d slept with the door open because of the heat she came in to wake us up by biting Rhys’s feet, oh how I laughed!). After Spanish Rhys headed into town for tacos while I studied and we spent the rest of the day relaxing outside our cottage in the sun. We headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and some happy hour mojitos.

Spanish lessons on day 3 started getting more complicated with past tenses and the like. It’s amazing how tiring 2.5 hours of studying a language can be. Before the lesson, Rhys stayed in the room playing computer games while I went to the beach to watch the surfers and to make the most of the sun – every day we were in Mancora it was blue skies and in the region of 32C. I headed into town for dinner by myself again while Rhys played on the computer and went to a little place serving BBQ fish.

We were both glad when it got to the final day of Spanish lessons, I don’t know how people do 4 hours a day for 5 days, it was really hard. The last day was mostly conversational though so we started to put what we’d learnt into practice, role playing going to the market and buying bus tickets. I spent the morning before the lesson on the beach while Rhys stayed in the room with the computer but that afternoon Rhys came out with me for a walk around town to buy bus tickets and we had a super healthy dinner back at the hostel of red wine and Doritos.

Our last day in Mancora was Spanish free. On the advice of the girl working at the hostel we caught a local bus to Los Organos, 15 minutes south and then a tuk tuk the last couple of kilometres to a working fishing pier at a place called Nuro. Nuro is a small handful of smart houses along a desert like strip of beach. We paid 5 soles (£1.25) to be allowed on the fishing pier and to be able to jump off and swim with the green sea turtles. It was incredible. There were only a few other people there as it’s not in any guide books (yet) and most of the time it was just me and Rhys in the water. At one point when the fishing boats came in, there must have been about 20 turtles swimming around us and nudging us, each with a shell a metre or more across. They were after the fish discards that the fishermen were throwing in – so it smelt pretty bad and you didn’t want to get the water in your mouth but it was so so worth it to be able to swim with so many turtles. After the turtles we got a tuk tuk back to Los Organos and had lunch at a restaurant on the beach before hiring surf boards for an hour. The waves were not for beginners, when you caught a wave but lost it before you could stand the power of the waves made you feel like you were in a washing machine, it was a bit scary. That night to say goodbye to Mancora we went back to the Mexican restaurant and ordered a ridiculous amount of BBQ chicken wings.

We were up early on Sunday for a direct bus to Loja in Ecuador, only when we got to the bus terminal we were told there was a problem with the bus and it wouldn’t be running so instead of the nice direct bus we had treated ourselves to, we were taken to the Eppo bus terminal and put on a bus to Sullana where we had to get a tuk-tuk across town to another bus office (the address of which no one in Mancora seemed to know). We dug around for the last few Soles we had to pay for the tuk-tuk before being told by a woman at the bus office that we couldn’t board the bus without paying 50 cents. We didn’t have 50 cents, just a 50 Soles note that they wouldn’t change. Eventually they accepted a US dollar bill and let us on to the bus. The border crossing was thankfully easy although we were running extremely low on water. Rhys ended up running off the bus at a stop on the Ecuadorian side to grab some from a stall. The bus finally arrived in Loja and we bought a ticket to Vilcabamba, 70 minutes south. Rhys went to get cash and got chatting to some people and we ended up missing the bus and changing the ticket for the next one 30 minutes later. Arriving at Vilcabamba in the dark there were no taxis at the bus station and we were told there would be no taxis at this time of night. After despairing for 15 minutes a taxi pulled up and we finally made it to Izhcayluma, a hostel retreat 2km out of town owned by German brothers. We were so happy to get there and the guy on reception was kind enough to ask the kitchen to stay open for us as we hadn’t eaten all day. The Bavarian goulash was incredible. After dinner we headed to bed to recover from the journey.

The next day we had a chill day. We had pancakes for breakfast and a huge fruit salad before walking into town to explore. There’s not much in Vilcabamba itself, people tend to go there for the hikes and the horse riding in the surrounding national parks and hills. It is however full of American expats. We shared a BLT for lunch and had some anti toxin juices (yuck) before buying a carton of wine and some supplies for the following day and heading back to the hostel. We moved rooms into a huge 6 person, 2 floor dorm and spent the afternoon relaxing in the hammocks overlooking the tropical gardens, drinking wine and playing cards with our dorm mates. After dinner (more Bavarian fair, this time stroganoff) we headed to the bar where we played pool against the owner and his friend and Rhys met his match in table tennis. Rhys also managed to get bitten by a dog (no actual damage to him, just his jumper) when he startled the old dear while she was asleep.

The next day we decided to go on a hike in the surrounding hills. The hostel has mapped out about 8 walks and gives you a print out of the trail with detailed instructions of where to go. As you walk around the trail they have even gone to the hassle of spray painting boulders and branches so you can’t get lost. The walk started following a creek across the valley before joining a country road which we followed up hill for about an hour and a half. Although not the prettiest bit of the walk it’s always nice to actually see how the locals live, to see their houses and schools and the like. After the road met the new highway we started climbing, under a barb wire fence with permission of the land owner and through a local farmers pastures until we reached the ridge line. We spent about an hour then just walking along the ridge at the top of two valleys, it was stunning although a bit precarious in places. The rain started just as we started our descent and all of a sudden the path was slippery and we had to speed up and really concentrate to get down into the river bed without any injuries. The last part of the walk followed the river bed for an hour, ducking under barb wire fences and climbing over tree branches as we went. The walk was supposed to take about 5 hours but we were back at the hostel in 3.5 hours. We spent the rest of the day relaxing before playing cards and a new game Dobble with our dorm mates. Turns out Rhys gets quite raucous playing Dobble.