After the flight from New York I went straight to a hostel in Ecuador for a rest before a day trip to Peru! Found a cool hostel about 15 minutes from the airport and was well needed my own bed after the previous few nights out!! The following day woke up to get the bus to Mancora for Halloween night. I’ve never seen a bus station so busy. I reckon there must have been 10’s of thousands of people in there. Massive queues. People pushing etc. Luckily I’m bigger than most Ecuadorians and got to the front of a queue pretty quickly and got myself some tickets. I met a Swiss guy coming on my bus that had also just arrived off the plane all the way from Switzerland and unfortunately he had just gotten robbed straight away. Ecuador and Barcelona are the worst places I’ve heard about people getting robbed. Always seems to happen. Someone had taken his iPod out of his pocket. He figured he knew who did it and asked the see his bag etc. The guy showed up but obviously just didn’t show him the iPod.
We arrived into Mancora that evening, a nice beach town on the coast of Peru. At the start it was chilly compared to NY but it got nice and sunny and hot everyday! The place we were staying in was like a resort. Literally the type of place I don’t go near when I’m in Spain but this was kitted out for backpackers so loved it. Never even needed to leave the complex for days. They had a big pool, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, ping pong, games, competitions, parties, bar, restaurant, movies, Internet etc etc. You name it it was there. Plus it was full of all sorts of backpackers from different countries. It was on the beach as well. The food and drink here was so nice and so good priced as well. Adrian had spent the whole week there, ate there most days and did all his drinking there and at the end of the week his bill came to $140 including accommodation. Couldn’t get over the prices. Whoever did the business plan for this hostel knows what they were doing! Keep people in. As I said most people didn’t even leave the place. Took me two days before I went to see what the outside of Peru was like! It's a chain of four hostels around Peru and Bolivia and I think three or four Irish guys own it along with two others. I've heard the profit they make is incredible as well. Def a way I'd base a hostel on if I was to own one!! It’s very very much a party place so I’ll save most of the stories for the uncut blog!!
Was a shame when we had to leave cause there was a group of nine of us leaving, most of who I’d known for a few weeks but we still were waiting for two Canadians that we’ve known since mid October to come down from Galapagos as well. Unfortunately we didn’t know what day they were arriving, so after a very indecisive should we stay or should we go we decided to move onto Lima on a 19 hour bus ride through the desert. The further south you go the better the buses get. Am still looking forward to these Argentinian buses I’ve heard so much about but the Peru luxury ones are still amazing. Had one of the best sleeps ever on it. There’s a waiter in a waistcoat serving us dinner and breakfast. Non stop movies. And so much space. Am writing this now as we drive though the desert watching the sun rise!! So good not to be worried about getting robbed on the buses anymore either. In Ecuador everyone including the locals literally has their bags on their laps, strapped around their arms and still people get robbed like that. These luxury buses they actually take a video of everyone getting on board and their seats for security!
I like to judge a book by its cover in a way. And on this trip first impressions have always been the best. Within the first few minutes of a new place I seem to have judged it and the majority of time that will stick with me. This goes for new countries, cities, hostels even. Like by day on in Colombia I realised it was one of my favourite places and 7 weeks later it had just gotten better and better. My first few minutes in Quito I realised I wasn't too big a fan and that also stuck with me. But anyway Lima, we arrived in and before we got off the bus I realised it was going to be a good city and after 5 days there we just had to get out it was so good!! I'd had no great expectations at all for Peru originally but right now it is totally nothing what I thought it would be like. In one way I had thought it would be a lot cheaper and poorer. Didn't realise it would be so built up and modern. Like Colombia there are so many things that are so much more modern and newer than in Europe of America.
A lot of coastal Peru so far as reminded me very much of California. Parts of it with vineyards, lots of desert along big huge cliffs with surf below. And a very similar climate as well. Warm, sunny and dry but not humid. Even Lima seems to get the similar June gloom to San Diego just not in June. Lima is massive. Over 8 million people or so. Loads of different neighbourhoods like in LA or San Diego. It's not without its slums or poor people but that's a side we didn't see. We saw skyscrapers, posh shiny hotels, casinos, cool shopping malls and big ass highways full of traffic and big cars. It seems to be definitely a mix between LA and San Diego. A bit cleaner than LA and a bit dirtier than San Diego!! It also is on the coast so the surfing beaches were two blocks from our hostel.
It's also the type of place where you need to know someone to get somewhere. The lads had met two really nice girls in Mancora from Lima who were willing to take us out and show us around. They seemed to know everyone and have loads of cool contacts to get us onto lists of big night clubs and past bouncers that we wouldn't have had a chance at getting into otherwise. First night, Thursday we started out in Miraflores and then split up to go to separate night clubs. The girls had called ahead to the place we were going to, to get the bouncer to let us in for free and they brought the other guys to another big place! Thanks girls!! On the Friday then we found out Fat Boy Slim was playing in Lima. A lot of big concerts seem to come here. Fat Boy Slim was never the type of music I thought I would be into. Had absolutely no interest in going to his concert but we were in Portugal last summer and about ten of my friends were going so I joined them and it turned out to be the best concert I've ever been to. Plus I love the fact that he plays all night. There's no stopping him!! So I decided to go to it again and it didn't fail to impress. I'd recommend anyone no matter what type of music you like to try him out if you have the chance.
On the Sat after very little sleep and quite a hangover day myself and Adrian decided to go for a quite drink at this bar we'd heard about at 4 O'clock. At the door there was loads of bouncers and we could see inside. They wanted to charge us in and Adrian, in English which the bouncers didn't understand too well started saying we were on the list! They said there was no list and he repeats, my name is Adrian check the list were on it! Like I said Lima is about who you know. They got the gist of it and let us in for free. Of course there was no list and we weren't on it. He later talked his way into the VIP area for us when they were trying to charge us 20 soles extra to get in!! So we go into this bar and can't believe our eyes. It was like Spring break had hit the place. The most beautiful women I've seen dancing all over the place. People dancing on tables and chairs, people drinking like mad. It was popping. And I don't mean strippers dancing, more uni students and the young rich kids of Lima I presume!! It was amazing. And people were so friendly. Got chatting to a good few people and got a load of numbers of people who wanted to take us out that night. Asked them was there something special going on but apparently it was just a normal Saturday! By 8 O'clock it dies down and people go to other bars, or to eat and change to go back out again. The street outside it at 8 O'clock was like 3am in Dublin on a Sat night. We went back to the hostel to get the others, some people not making it out at all due to the lack of sleep. The guy who owned our hostel a French guy brought us to a French house party and then me and the girls and a Peruvian guy went out to the night life area of Miraflores. Again this guy Miguel was so friendly. He wouldn't let us pay for any taxi's or drinks but I managed to sneak a beer in anyway. He is head of Sales for Sony for south America. Really nice guy and gets to travel over! Tried to talk him into getting me a job in Buenos Aires Sony office when I get there!!
On Sunday the Dutch girls, English guys and Irish guy we've been travelling with moved onto the next place but myself and Adrian decided to wait on to meet up with the Canadian girls that we'd been travelling with previously. Tough thing about travelling in this part of the world is that everyone is on a different time limit plus there's so much to do we keep getting split up. At least in Asia or something like that most people are on the exact same time limit. But we hung back for the girls for a day and then on Monday followed the others again onto our next stop!!
Photos up at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=254125&id=509199014&l=795076d0d3
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