Mancora 8/21/12 - 8/23/12

We boarded our first bus of the day in Puerto Lopez at 5 am.  14 hours later, 3 buses, 1 tuk-tuk, and 1 minivan later we made it to Mancora.  The bus ride of 8 hours had no air conditioning and stopped quite a bit, so the day felt very long.  On a different note, the border crossing from Ecuador to Peru went very smoothly which was a pleasant surprise.

Mancora is a small surfer town that is pretty chill. 

There isn't much for us to write about Mancora except about the hostel itself. We stayed at the Loki hostel on the beach, which was much more like a resort in Cancun for 19 - 29 year olds.  It was about $11 a person, and a good spot to break up the long trip ahead.  Our main activities were eating, hanging out, laying out, and Matt played some pool volleyball.  It was nice to take it easy.

After a needed two day break on the beach, it was time to move again.  We hopped on a bus to Lima Thursday evening, which ended up taking 20 hours.  It was quite an impressive double decker bus though.  The seats were comfy, the air was a good temp (meaning there was a/c), it served dinner and breakfast, and played a variety of movies.  Kristin was most excited about the first movie they played- Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 :-). 

We made it to Lima around 1 P.M. and stretched our legs.  Matt never left his seat for 20 hours, I didn't know it was possible for him to sit still that long.  At the bus station we decided to go ahead and get where we wanted to go and not spend the night in Lima.  So, we booked a 15 hour bus leaving for Arequipa that evening at 6:30 P.M..  By the end of the day we were professional bus riders!