Our Andean Adventure: Mancora

On Friday night in Lima, we thought we had a problem. We had arrived in Lima from Cusco mid-afternoon, and since checking into our hotel, Tim had been using the top-notch wifi to search for a place to stay in Mancora -- a beach town in northwestern Peru. Mancora would be our final stop before returning to Lima and flying back to the States.

But Tim wasn't finding any available hotel rooms in Mancora. So many hotels were sold out, and he was getting nervous. He submitted several inquiries, and we hoped for the best.

Saturday morning, Tim woke up to emails from two hotels stating they had room for us. He confirmed with one place -- Hotel Casa Barco (https://casa-barco-mancora.hotelmix.es/) -- and we headed for the Lima airport.

After a nearly two-hour flight, we arrived in Talara, the town with the airport nearest to Mancora. To us, Talara looked like remote Afghanistan; driving through, we felt like we were in a war zone. We drove for an hour before we had our first sighting of the ocean. In all, it took us about 75 minutes to reach Mancora. Once in Mancora, we turned off the main road onto a dusty, bumpy, half-dirt, half-paved road, and a handful of minutes later, reached Casa Barco. On the way into Mancora, I remember thinking to myself, "Where the heck are we?" It just felt so different from any other beach town I've visited. (We did not pick this town randomly; it had been and is billed as a resort town.)

Welcome to Mancora.

We climbed out of the car and rang the bell at Casa Barco. Felix, the hotel's owner, let us in and showed us our room. In his 70s, Felix has been running hotels (he's got one more in Lima) for 28 years. He was a great help while we stayed in Mancora, pointing us to restaurants and surf spot service. One of the main reasons we came to this beach town was because of its surf (for the surfer in our family).

We spent Saturday afternoon playing at the beach, swimming in the Casa Barco pool, and getting a feel for Mancora. We walked 40 minutes into town (it's a mile and a half away) and marveled at/questioned the commotion there. Felix had let us know that we were visiting during Peru's summer, and so things were generally busy. But on a Saturday, town seemed kind of crazy. Tim and I could not figure out the draw to this place; we settled on warm water. The Pacific Ocean is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit here -- Mancora has the warmest water in all of Peru. But the town is gritty and, at times, outright depressing.

We've witnessed poverty during this trip, but it's a different kind of poverty here at the beach, perhaps because you can see it more easily. Sadly, we've come across a handful of homeless families during our visits to town. I was gutted seeing these families. I've got one father's haunting eyes burned into my mind; and the kids are so little. We watched as a couple of the parents panhandled in the middle of the Panamerican Highway, which cuts through Mancora. You just wonder how these families can be helped...

On Sunday, Tim and I debated leaving Mancora early. Being here felt stultifying, and we knew we wouldn't be spending much time in town. But the cost to change our flight amounted to more than $400...and the kids were having a ton of fun.* So we let the idea of leaving early go, and we embraced the upcoming days of total downtime. And now, as I write this post on our last night in Mancora, I'm so thankful we stayed here and didn't try to return to Lima early. Taylor and Wyatt absolutely loved swimming in the ocean, splashing in the pool, hanging out in the sun, walking on the beach -- and turns out, Tim and I did, too. We've had some extra quality family time over the past five days. Here's what else has been going on:

1). I got to do laundry! In the ocean! It's been a couple weeks since we've been able to visit a lavanderia, and it was high time for clothes to get washed. I managed to wash some of my clothes in the hotel shower, but I packed a bag with a few of Taylor's and Wyatt's most desperate clothing items and washed 'em all in the ocean. It kind of worked.

2). Mosquitoes are here, gosh darn it. We tossed our bug spray back in Iquitos; I thought we wouldn't come across another mosquito after leaving the Amazon. But I was wrong. Mosquitoes are in Mancora and they got my legs, like, big-time. You'd better believe I bought a can of bug spray at the local mini-market. I also spent way too much time googling Zika virus, because I'm fairly certain it's here as well.

3). I've been able to run in Mancora -- not on the beach, but on the dusty, bumpy, half-dirt, half-paved road right behind our hotel. And wouldn't you know it, but one morning I ran into two dogs, one of which started to chase me. Flashbacks to Montañita came fast, and I started yelling at the dogs and slowly walking backwards away from them. Eventually, they gave up and left me alone.

Don't let their size fool you.

4). So this road...as I've shared, it's bumpy and dusty and can get crowded. Most everyone gets around Mancora in tuk-tuks. We've been doing the same, and let me just say, I'm quite thankful for my mask; it cuts down on some of the massive dust intake to and from town.

Don't mind us. We're just outside our hotel, hoping to flag down an empty tuk-tuk.
Check out the video below and join us on a tuk-tuk ride.

5). Thanks to Felix, Tim got connected to another surfer named Harold who drove Tim south along the coast on Tuesday in search of good surf. While they drove around, Tim asked Harold some burning questions about things we'd seen in Mancora. For starters, we'd seen sailboats out on the ocean, and it appeared like perhaps these were fishing boats. Harold confirmed that, yes, these were fishing sailboats and there's just one fisherman on board each boat. He said these boats set out in the morning, fish all day, and then in the evening, hope the wind is such to push them back into Mancora's port. Generally, this plan works, but at times, some of the Mancora fishermen sail instead to the Galápagos Islands (!). We'd also seen people, including families, sitting atop of cargo carried on large commercial trucks. When asked, Harold said it's probably Peruvians just hitching a ride around, but that Peru has seen an influx of migrants from Venezuela -- and these people and families literally jump onto the backs of large trucks barreling south down highways; they are beyond desperate to get out of Venezuela.

And that's what we've been doing in Mancora.

Our time in Mancora has afforded us space to reflect and reminisce on the past two months. We've rehashed funny moments and talked all about our favorites (favorite town/city, favorite meal, favorite activity, etc.). Interestingly enough, we've spent dinners here explaining what's happening in Venezuela and Russia and China, and the kids are hungry for more information; evidently talk of despots is enthralling to the upper elementary crowd.

Tomorrow, we fly back to Lima and really start to wind down this adventure. (I'm not ready!)

*Our initial reaction to this beach town is clearly a result of our still-intact Western biases. Sure, Mancora may not be the beach scene we're used to, but we also have to check our privilege. This place is wonderful for so many who flock here.