Happy times in Màncora
But let’s catch up on Mancora. After Cajamarca, I decided that I wanted to get to my sun on ASAP, so my new traveling companion and I took three buses over the course of 14 hours to arrive at our final destination. At our arrival, in this podunk little beach town, I was feeling a little out of sorts and not terribly happy to be relocating once again. It got a little worse when we got to our hostel, which looked a little rundown with holes in the hammocks and our dark, dark little room with thin mattresses placed atop concrete boxes, complete with a grubby little bathroom. Ugh. Then we decided to take a walk through town along the panamericana (the only street in town) where we discovered the lunch menus to be more expensive (only by 60 cents, but hey, every cent counts—the dang dollar keeps on falling, and it is not helping my traveling budget!). Then we couldn’t find a real grocery store or a bakery. I mean, really?! This is so not my style. We went back to our hostel and hung out by the pool for a while, eating our purchases from the local “mercado central” which is Mancora’s version of Pike’s Place, minus fish flying through the air, minus imported handicrafts…okay, basically it’s produce with some canned goods, but there are probably 10 different kiosks selling fresh food, so that counts, right? Anyway, we sat by the pool eating some mandarins, then reading…not exciting. I felt a bit better that day when we finally walked to the beach (the first item on my agenda, and yet somehow it got pushed to the end of the day) and saw the waves, beach goers soaking up the sun, and lots of surfers and kite surfers. Perfect. Entertainment for beach time. Things looked up a bit more at dinner time when we went to one of the street venders for an “hamburguesa especial” which turned out to be a hamburger with cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, cut-up hotdogs, an egg, and french fries all smashed together—good luck to you if you can manage to keep it all on the bun. The greasy goodness of the hamburguesa especial, my first real adventure in street food, was enough to make my day, but then as we were walking back to the hostel we ran into none other than my platonic French friend, who as it turns out was staying in our hostel. Yay! Friends! That night Jennifer and I weren’t up for going out, so we looked out at the stars in the southern hemisphere (which still don’t look like the stars in the northern hemisphere, even if you turn upside down), then met our other roommate, a young Portuguese guy who, as it turns out, worked with software at CERN in Switzerland before leaving to go traveling. (What is it with me and the physics and software guys? I don’t even get it.) We talked much that night about language, we conjugated verbs together then read to each other out of our respective Spanish books as our bedtime stories. Aren't we just the most adorable darn roommates? : ) The next day was even happier, when we went to the beach, though I was a bit disgruntled to have so many vendors coming up trying to sell us things, not knowing what would be good to buy, not to mention which stories we could believe in and which were purely fictitious. One guy even said he was staying in our hostel, but I was pretty dismissive and didn’t even look at the jewelry he was selling. And one chick was selling bread on the beach for 3 soles each (about $1). Seriously, how can she sell it for that much? I know it’s specialty bread, but I can buy rolls 8 for 1 sol at every one of the three bakeries in town. Well, later that day when we went back to the hostel, who was there? None other than the jewelry man I had been a little rude to and the girl selling bread. Really, you just never know who’s going to pierce your perceived comfort bubble. I also met jewelry man’s wife, who gave me a piece of chocolate birthday cake that jewelry man had bought for her for her birthday (and jewelry man obviously remembered that I had not been particularly pleasant on the beach). That gesture of kindness made me feel even worse about my malhumor…however, I ended up in a discussion over this chocolate cake with a fellow sugar admirer, a delightful girl from Germany and we proceeded put together a group of fortune-hunters to search for the local cake store. Oh, we found it, alright, and we were overjoyed to discover that it’s 1.50 soles (50 cents) for a piece of the beautiful chocolate cake and 1 sol for the other cakes. Score! Then we wandered down a bit and found two more bakeries (double score), got more hamburguesas especiales, bought some cheap wine in a box, and spent the rest of the night in an animated conversation with our Portuguese roommate and three adorable Italian boys about the differences between the Romance languages, how ugly it sounds to hear Americans speak Spanish, the stupidity of the US’s refusal to use the metric system, the outrageous costs of taxis in our respective countries…and I was happy to sit and revel amidst it all, especially while listening to the Italian boys, hardly understanding a word they said but savoring the beauty of the language flowing between them. (Sigh!) Every day continued to get a little bit better, as I got to know more and more people in town. The people in our hostel came together to form an ever-changing family, headed up by the jewelry man (who I made amends with, I believe through my semi-failed attempt at making alfajores for the hostel family—they tasted good, but were a bit disastrous yet again, stupid butter…) and his wife who is one of the most beautiful people I think I have ever met. Aside from being physically beautiful, she has one of those inviting personalities that make you instantly fall in love with her because she’s so open and friendly, just the same as the German girl. We had family dinners with different people cooking different dishes from their respective countries and there was such a positive communal energy—the people residing in the hostel completely transformed the atmosphere that I had originally perceived.
Adorable Italian boys making pasta (and on the right, my favorite Italian "bombero" Tulio)
There was also a famous (?) Peruvian singer, Julio Andrade, who shot part of his latest music video in our hostel and stayed there for few days for vacation. He sat and played guitar and sang during dinner and though he was a little pompous, he was fun to listen to and a great addition to the hostel family collage. I was excited to listen to his latest CD and discover that I actually knew one of the songs. Yay!
And, as I tend to do, I met another boy. One day, my latest traveling companion, Jennifer, and I decided to go out to the local hot springs to relax for a bit, which was a bit difficult since it’s sort of a glorified hole in the ground with dirty warm water. When we arrived, everyone was adhering to the advice of the Lonely Planet and sporting mud face masks. I followed suit, alright, but I almost threw up in the process—the mud had tons of hair in it from previous visitors, and it smelled like sheize. But I held strong and finished my mud mask! Anyway, that’s where I first met Bram, my Dutchman. Or boy, really, since he’s only 21. Almost 22, but, hey, I’m not judging myself. Our moto-taxis raced back to our hostels (which were right next door) afterwards, though sadly we lost. Anyway, I ran into him again the next day and we were inseparable for the rest of our time in Mancora.
(Yes, Mike, on occasion I have been known to smile in a picture or two...but keep in mind that I do have an abundance of other pictures with weird Tina faces sitting here on the laptop. But I need to come up with some new faces I think...)
He lives in Lima and is this muscular jock-type that loves motorcycles, driving fast, downhill biking and karate, and his movies of choice are horror and action movies—adrenaline is his game. And he’s got that walk, like those guys whose muscles are a little too big for them and they can’t quite put their arms down against their sides. His voice is an exceedingly manly man kind of a voice, deep and macho. Uh, sound like my type? :) Eesh, maybe not, but...I don't know. He seems like he’d be this big scary guy, but he’s got that other side that’s like a giant puppy, sweet-tempered and easy-going. He's got a really strong sense of right and wrong, and he looked into my eyes one night and told me they were beautiful. Cheesy, of course, but then he threw in the addendum that he was able to look into them--some people have empty eyes, but he said he could tell that I was a beautiful person, a good person, by looking in my eyes. Well, that was kind of fun. :) I'll stick that one in my pocket. He's a really good guy, though I have to say, he kind of reminds me of a smarter version of old Marc--oy! I admit, I liked having someone to travel with, and it was a lot of fun to date someone in a beach town. We laid on the beach and played in the water all day, rubbed sun block on each others’ backs, wandered through the street-side markets hand in hand, drank lots of jugo de maracuya (passion fruit juice), made fruit salad together for breakfast, sat on the beach at night talking and drinking wine...
It was sickeningly adorable. No, seriously. I mean, it was a bit much. He’s the biggest cuddle monster I’ve ever met in my life which was, yet again, something I thought I would enjoy and ended up not liking as much. Turns out I like some space. I’m a student of life and am learning about myself and the world a little bit more every day. I have concluded (as others have quite likely done before me) that dating is one of my hobbies and is probably one of the things that keeps me most amused. It’s not that I do it purely for amusement's sake, I really do enjoy meeting new people and observing and experiencing the process by which two peoples’ personalities and energies react with one another. I tend to gage this interaction rather quickly, though, perhaps much quicker than others and when I discover that my persona doesn’t match very well with another person’s, I stop the dating action. When I was in high school, Jill used to say that I had a pick of the week. I think maybe I’ve slowed that down a bit to the pick of the month, but the concept is still basically the same. At the moment it’s a bit more exciting because now I’m on the international dating level, meeting guys from different countries. That’s kind of fun. : ) My next adventure along these lines? Not dating and forming purely platonic friendships with men, a concept I haven’t quite mastered. Anyhew…
Back to Mancora. Here are my top 10 things to do in Mancora:
1. Have a whirlwind summer romance. (He he, I couldn’t resist!)
2. Go to the beach and soak up the sun, then go get tossed around in the aggressive little waves.
3. Eat a “hamburguesa especial” after your long day in the sun.
4. Take surfing or kite surfing lessons. (Or, follow my example and just hang out with the kite
surfers--here we are, saving money, eating chicken feet:)
5. Go eat chocolate cake and drink some chicha (or freshly made soy milk) at Pamela’s Tortas yBebidas
6. Have communal dinners with your traveling family at La Posada.7. Drink jugo de maracuya as much as humanly possible.
8. Buy coconut on the beach, either the drinking kind which doubles as a handy, healthful snack
afterwards (comer y beber—comer y beber) OR the cocada kind, a cookie made of coconut
and honey. Both are excellent.
9. Go shopping for pearls (hoping they’re real) and travelers’ bracelets in the street market.
10. Buy fresh bread at 5:00 pm from the first bakery down the Panamericana.
I now find myself gearing up for the next trip--a three-day stint in Cuzco with my lovely friend Soo who arrives in Lima on Sunday and leaves next Saturday. Then it's on to the south for a week or so, then back to Lima, then to Buenos Aires...I spent half of my day yesterday in search of the South American Lonely Planet without success. The Footprint guide is just not as user-friendly...yeah, that's right, I'm picky about the format of my travel guides. And I like it. :)
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