The Peruvian Life: Beach Bum

Spring break after just one month of school may seem a little out of place, but it was much needed. It was weird for most of us to get used to the fact that as soon as we got to Lima we needed to start planning our Spring Break trip. But after a month of not only a different lifestyle, but a whole new world and language, we were exhausted and ready for a break.

Destination: Mancora, Peru
Duration: 8 days
Directive: The Final Spring Break

I have ridden a bus more in the last two weeks than I have my entire life. 18+ hours to Mancora and back makes for an extremely long trip, but by upgrading to first class (yes there is first class on a bus) we made the best decision we could have. All the seats had little tablets in front to choose a movie (some in English with Spanish subtitles and vice versa), games and more. Also with only 12 seats in first class, we had 2 poor other souls destined to sit in a group of young American girls that always have things to talk about...okay we weren't that bad but come dinner time we were pretty loud trying to figure out everything we were served (a lot of smelling and guessing went into this).

Another great decision we made was to rent a house in Los Organos (a town about 13 km away from Mancora) so that we could all stay together. We cooked here, we had a private beach, private neighborhood pool, a stereo and an amazing view of the ocean from our many balconies. So much bonding took place here over our many card nights. The bad decisions that came with this was us taking mototaxis to Mancora for the first few days which cost an arm and a leg. Luckily a kind local told us about the bus which was about 239% cheaper than the mototaxis and much safer. We love kind locals!!

Our beautiful house

From our balcony you can see the pool and the beach which was only a block away

Mancora itself was very much a laid back beach town and was packed with tourist shops and Cevicherias. We did a lot of shopping and I am pretty proud that I only bought a tapestry, a shirt and 2 bracelets...the necessities, ya know? Fresh seafood was amazing, although half the time we were not sure what we were ordering (seems to be a reoccurring problem for me, at least). For example, one time Marki and I decided to share a plate of Langostinos al ajo, which obviously is lobster and garlic, right? Wrong. Out came a plate with 6 shrimp in a lumpy yellow-garlic sauce. It was good, just not what we expected- it adds a little bit of excitement to our already hectic days! I only went out one night to Mancora and that was enough for me. It was not like Lima at all and was way too crazy. All the bars along the beach were packed and it seemed fun at first until all the guys started getting creepy and one girl almost got her purse stolen. Everything ended up good, but I figured I would just wait to get back to good ole' Lima before I go out to the bars again.

The best calamari I've ever had

First and only night out...but a good one!

Activities: As much as I was lazy and sat around by the pool or on the beach all week, I was somehow pretty busy as well. Playing in the waves took up a lot of my time and energy. I have never really spent time in the Pacific Ocean before, but I can definitely tell the difference between Pacific and Atlantic. The waves were a lot bigger and the currents a lot stronger, there were many times I was tumbling under a wave or having trouble standing back up from the current. But don't worry, I was never out there alone, and I deepest I went was my hips (although the waves sometimes made me not able to touch).
Banana boats= danger. Some of us decided to enjoy a fun ride on a banana boat while hanging out on the beach. It looked like a blast! Little did we know we would be pelted with water drops, have to keep our eyes closed, and swallow half the ocean. It was a lot of fun and we laughed a lot, but that also could have been us covering up how uncomfortable we all were. There were quite a few times where someone almost fell off, I thought I got a concussion from slamming my head into Mariah's back (I didn't, don't worry). To make our crazy ride even better, as we were crossing the last wave before finally reaching land again, our banana went airborne from the huge wave and threw us all around, and the jet ski that was pulling us flipped in a 360. When we finally recovered to struggling off the banana onto precious land we realized the entire packed beach was staring at us. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see.

The happy before picture

I went scuba diving(!!!) for the first time ever and I am so glad to say I can check that off my bucket list! I dove with Claire and an instructor and he was always with us to make sure everything was going well. We dove around an old oil drill sight that was abandoned and pulled ourselves along by a rope. All my practice snorkeling always told us to never touch the coral, but the rope had coral on it and there was not way to avoid hitting the pipes, I scratched my hand up a little bit. We only went down about 35 feet, but what I saw of it was amazing. What I didn't see, though, was even cooler. For some reason, I decided to make my goggles tight, like I used to when I was on swim team (so annoying when they would fall off in a race)... little did I know that was the wrong thing to do. About halfway down my eyes started feeling heavy and were hurting, I just figured it was the pressure and it happens to everyone. It got to the point where it was hard to focus on things and when our instructor pointed out an octopus and I realized I could not see it at all that maybe it wasn't normal. I told him my eyes weren't feeling well (with the cool scuba sign language, of course) and all of a sudden we were swimming back to the rope very quickly and began ascending. After we went up a few feet I figured out he was telling me to blow out my nose, this immediately helped a lot! For the rest of the dive I had to hold onto my goggles or they felt like they would fall off but the sights were amazing. We were in the middle of a school of fish and I stopped to look at this blue fish and he stared right into my soul. Even when I turned my head he followed it! Then we ascended to the top and my instructor informed me how scared he was about my eyes. According to him and Claire, my eyes were purple and extremely bulging out. This terrified me. I am fine now and my eyes are back to their good ole' working-selves, but for the next day I waited for the bulging/puffiness to go down and the redness to go away. (Disclaimer: please do not google what my eyes would've looked like because I made that mistake and almost got sick, it is not a pleasant sight but I am sure mine did not look that bad)

Here is Claire about to jump in and I am next!

My little Blue Fishy Friend

The company we dove with had awesome murals around town!

Here is the oil rig and the sea lions that were hanging out there

...hopefully more Scuba pictures to come!! :)

Back on to good times...the next day, most of us went on a day trip. If you have read my blog, you may have noticed that a common occurrence is us signing up for tours and not knowing what it really is, well you will be happy to know that this has happened once again. Turns out we paid 40 soles to go to 3 other beaches and go see a crocodile sanctuary-thing. The beaches were cool, but very similar to the beaches by our house and Mancora, the crocodile thing was filled with a bunch of sizes of crocodiles and it smelled a little (it was not the cleanest park I have seen). This was another day with 4 hours in the car :(

The amazing pyramid/castle Abby and I made (we even got a stranger's compliment!)

Yurina as a Mermaid

So many birds!!

On a little boat to see the crocodiles

This was only one of the crocodile areas, so many more! (I thought they all looked dead)

I took a lot of pictures of the boats, they were just so interesting!

The last day I surfed. The last day I found my passion. The last day I pet a turtle. The last day was the shortest, and one of the best. I am a little angry I waited until our last morning to try surfing, because I would've done it many more times if I had the chance. This experience was absolutely amazing! I caught a lot of waves and my instructor was very nice and helpful (and bonus: spoke a little English). The thrill of standing up and riding a wave was exhilarating and was definitely worth the paddling it took to get out to the waves. And the paddling sucked a lot if you were wondering. And one time while my instructor and I were waiting for a good wave a sea turtle swam right up next to my board!! I swam with it a little before it went away but that was such an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yes, we could've paid to swim with sea turtles which would have been cool (we could not because it rained too much so the tours were cancelled when we wanted to do them), but having one swim up next to you without having food in your hand or paying to (specifically) see one was better than I can describe. Unfortunately, I was informed it was sick which is why it was that close to the shore, which made me very sad and wishing I could help in some way but I couldn't. :( Anyway, surfing was so worth it and even though I face planted (...a few times) I was able to sit down on my board without falling after I rode a wave, which made me feel like a pro. A few of us have decided that we will be surfing in Lima in order to become a lot better by the time we leave in a few months. I think it is a great hobby and I love the ocean, so what better way to make all my muscles sore?

At one point my instructor flipped me off my board thinking I wanted to swim

Overall spring break was amazing and I wouldn't have wanted to spend it any other way or with any other people. I got plenty of relaxation time, and times of being busy. I am now back in Lima trying to decide if I should start my homework for tomorrow yet or not, wishing I could still be on the beach. This past week has reinforced that I will be living on a beach in my future, even if I have to deal with constantly being covered in sand- you win some, you lose some, right? This was easily the best spring break I have ever had.