This weekend, we went to "the bitch"

Real life photo of our weekend at the bitch

Sorry, making fun of how almost every Spanish speaking person refers to the "beach".  It is a hard word to say, but the difference is very important...anyway, the point is, we went to the beach!!

We didn't just drive an hour to get to this beach like you go to get to Punta Hermosa, we took 1hour 20 min plane ride and a 3 hour taxi ride to get to it.  We went to Mancora!  Which is a beach on the northern coast of Peru about an hour or so from the Ecuadorian border.

We treated it as a postponed honeymoon, and it was amazing.   We paid for plane tickets and were lucky enough to stay in Carlos' uncle's beach house which is right on the beach.  Those chairs you see above are what is right in front of the house.  Tropical beach paradise.

Advertising and free welcome drink!

When we arrived to Piura, a city that is cheaper to get to than the actual closer city to the beach, they greet you at the airport with a free mini drink, Algarrobina (made from algarroba, or what is similar to carob) and free advertising to keep you cool in the form of a fan.  Awesome.  The drink was the best of its sort that I have had here, probably because most of the algarroba in Peru comes from Piura...

The airport is the size of a house, and you can see the front from the back.  As soon as you exit the airport you have taxi drivers hounding you for your business.  We had some follow us all the way across the (short) parking lot and out onto the street trying to get up to pay 250 soles for the trip to Mancora.  We finally managed to get two other kids who were also going to Mancora to split a taxi with us which brought the cost down a lot.  We ended up with probably one of the worst drivers.  He didn't work the accelorater well, would veer into the other lane, and attacked the curves at full speed only to lurch to a snails pace as soon as he realized it was a curve.  It also took him 3 hours to make a 150km trip, on a highway where you can average about 100km.

When we arrived to Mancora, Mancora, we had to switch from the nicely paved New Highway to the old Highway which is the equivalent of  a dirt road.  I hope that this old highway didn't run unpaved all the way down to Lima...even in a new car it felt you you were riding in a wagon on a well rutted road. We finally arrived at the house and got to stretch out our bums and the caretaker of the house met us and showed us around.  If i had a beach house, I would want it to look similar.  It had huge windows the looked out onto the ocean and wood and tiled floors and white cloth sofas.  It was beautiful.  We hit the sac and work up the next day on the shores of the pacific.

We spent 2.5 days eating seafood, hanging out on the beach, playing in the pool, and watching tv.  Amazing.  The beach that we at is called Pocitas, which literally means, Little Wells.  This is because in between low and high tides, the rocks cause the water to collect in little pools that you can sit and play in.  The temperature of the water is probably around 80 normally and in the pools it probably reaches about 85 with the sun.  The beach also has loads of marine life.  We saw tons of fish, pelicans, birds, crabs, and mollusks around.  Because we had technically entered down season, most of the beach was deserted and Carlos said it felt like we were on a deserted island.

the lower deck from the upper deck

the pool and the view to the upper deck

hanging out by the pool

riding a mototaxi!  great for towns, horrible for cities

ahhh the view......

getting ready to eat a pacay, or ice cream bean

playing ball with the pacay and...some other fruit

ta-daaaa alien fruit! bean thing

You eat the white stuff on the outside and throw out the bean.  It feels like wet cotton and is just sweet

later in the day these bits of water will fill more an become little pools

the beach...probably around 4km of beach like this

before we got sunburned