After a lovely flight with LAN - including a tasty fish cake and ravioli crackers like always - we arrived to the Tumbes airport. It is the tiniest airport I´ve ever seen! It looked like a large ranch - style house. We got off the plane on a stair case...no sleeves there! and went to figure out how to get to Zorritos. Upon exiting the front doors of the airport, there are like 100000 taxi drivers with "set" fees... which obviously means you can negociate. JAJA. We got a taxi for 35 soles to Zorritos. When we got to Zorritos, we checked in to our "hotel."
Our "hotel" was navy housing. It was HUGE. Three bedrooms, two full baths, a kitchen, a laundry area, and a large dining room / living room. The living room had a TV with direct TV, a DVD player, and a nice looking stereo system. Two of the bedrooms had gorgeous views of the beach and the ocean. The beach, btw, was a "private" navy beach - and it was great! Clean, white sand, beautiful ocean... which was grayish blue, turquoise, and blue...LOVED IT!
We got there, checked in, wandered around teeny Zorritos until we found a little store that was open so we could buy snacks and something to drink. Zorritos, btw, is maybe a mile long...and is only on the 1 street. It was seriously teeny tiny! We headed back to the hotel and went to sleep, cuz we were tired.
We woke up on Saturday morning and saw the gorgeous view from the window - woo! Then Paolo realized he had forgotten his swimsuit... SOOOOO we decided to go to Mancora. Let me tell you, besides mototaxis, public transport isn´t overly frequent in this zone. After waiting for like 15 minutes, Paolo asked a moto-taxi how much it would be to Punta Sal (not quite to Mancora)... the guy said "50 soles" Paolo said no way! Then, like 10 minutes later, he came back and said "ok, 25 soles" Paolo asked how long it would take, the guy said a couple of hours. We did not get on. Then, like 2 minutes later, a bus bus came by and Paolo said, to Mancora? And the guy asked his co-driver, and then said 5 soles each. So we got on. We had the WHOLE bus to ourselves...and it was a nice bus! Turns out the driver was driving the bus to Piura to pick up a tour group or something and just wanted to make a bit of money so... sweet! It was a mercedes benz bus, too... jaja! Wooo Baby Tours!
Well, we got to Mancora in about an hour. Mancora was not nearly as nice as I had expected it to be. It was very dirty. There was garbage everywhere. On the beach, there were horses that were pooping. Delish. We ate at a restaurant called La Espada. It was supposedly the best restaurant there... ummmm doesn´t say much for the other restaurants in the area! JAJA. It was fine, but very greasy, and I wouldn´t eat there again unless it was my best option. The beach was full of surfers and kite surfers...which was kinda cool. Paolo did find a swimsuit, yay. After spending the day on the beach in Mancora, we headed back to Zorritos. We found like a "nice" combi type bus and hopped in. It was 8 soles per person. Not great, but not bad. We missed the sunset, though, buu.
Got back to Zorritos, saw what was left of the sunset and then went wandering around Zorritos. We magically ended up in another city. This little city was a bit bigger than Zorritos. We ate at a chicken restaurant. It was okay. Then we took a moto-taxi back to the hotel and just hung out.
Sunday morning, we woke up and got changed. We ate an early lunch at El Brujo - which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Peru. It was much better than La Espada. My french fries were tasty, and my chicken was fine. We got dessert... that was good... a pancake with fruit and "manjar" (a super popular dessert type stuff here... it´s kinda like carmel... kinda). Paolo really liked his seafood ceviche. El Brujo, at least, was a cute restaurant...clean and with a great view of the beach and ocean!
After lunch, we went to the navy beach and spent the afternoon there. We were playing in the ocean, looking for shells, and I made a sand chair, and Paolo made a tiny pool (kinda...jaja). My chair broke though, silly waves! We then packed our stuff, got a snack from a little store, and watched the sunset. Then it was time to go. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
After waiting for a bit, Paolo´s friend showed up and took us to the PARADERO (bus stop) in the next little city over, bc all the combis and colectivos were full. We got to the stop, and waited for - not kidding - over 45 minutes. Every bus or community taxi that came through got mobbed with the ppl trying to get to Tumbes. You could NOT get just a private taxi. It was crazy. Finally, we got onto a combi. It was empty, and they shoved 28 ppl onto it! It was fine, though.. cost 2 soles per person.
We got to the center of Tumbes, and some nice ppl from the combi took us to where the colectivos wait... and they told us...do not pay more than 3-5 soles per person to go to the airport. So Paolo negociated with the colectivo guy - and they agreed on 10 soles for us to go to the airport. We got it and went to the airport. When we got there, the colectivo driver gave Paolo the luggage and paolo gave him 10 soles. He then said to Paolo that it was 10 soles per person..and Paolo was like, no... and the driver said - I thought you were alone. JAJAJAJAJA yep... obviously. I was carrying the laptop, we were holding hands, I didn´t say anything, just hopped into the colectivo, the ppl we were with said we were 2...BUT! he thought Paolo was by himself. WTF! Gosh. Anyhow, Paolo said some choice words to him, and we went in the airport.
Tumbes airport tax is $3.75. The bathrooms are very clean, and there is actually toilet paper and soap! woo! Miss Peru was on our plane. She wore a lot of makeup.
We bought chifles at the airport (they are like banana chips... but not like the ones back home. They are really thin...and salty...like potato chips). They are my new favorite snack, I think! Our flight left on time... and it was a fine flight. We got our ravioli crackers and fish cake...though this flight Paolo thought it was more like chicken cake...jaja. Got to Lima on time. Paolo´s parents picked us up and it was back to Lima.
Paolo and I have decided that after living in Cyprus for a year, we are going to live in Zorritos for a year or two. Let´s hope that actually happens! YAY FOR NAVY LIFE! jaja
Perfect weather, gorgeous location, great company = FANTASTIC, RELAXING WEEKEND! Can´t wait to go back :)
Ok, so you went to tumbes, and yo did'nt go and see the border with Ecuador, you also didn't go see the Mangroves... sure they are not super amazing, but they are rare, there are also the mud bathes/ hot springs. Also, yeah , Mancora is way to busy, you should have stayed in Punta Sal, although the prices there are very high, 75 soles per person usually, but this included breakfast for us and the place had a pool as well, which noone seemed to use, the place was called The smiling crab, and is run by an austrian, very nice staff. It is a very private beach, and there are no vendors or anything, also no umbrella the beach is nicer than Mancora as well, very clean. I don't get why Paolo didn't tell you any of these things...
ReplyDeletebc we were only there for 2 days ;)
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