Wednesday, 29 February 2012

A bug's life


The last few days of the holiday club, before the week-long  break, were business as usual except for a trip to the pool in El Porvenir with the kids, and then their ‘graduation’ from the holiday club on the last Friday. Each year group put on a performance representing a country. A lot of effort and creativity had gone in to costumes, make-up and even scripts and line learning for some of them. I was pleased to be (somewhat) involved in the occasion, having made all the certificates that the children received.



From Friday afternoon, it was more or less a beach holiday – a night in Huanchaco with some surfing, then on the Saturday night we travelled over night up to Mancora, a renowned surf beach near the Ecuador border. Five of us shared a sea view, balcony room for around £4 each. Sounds idyllic? It was until The Curse of the Big Black Beetles descended each evening. This was bed time in ‘Hostal Sol y Mar’ or 'Sun and Sea Hostel' (skip to the final minute if you’re in a hurry)


Accurate for the quantities of both sand and beetles.

Beetles seem to LOVE my rucksack – I won’t be surprised if a couple turn up in my things later on in the trip. The highlight, after constantly crunching them under foot (both with and without shoes), was probably waking up with a beetle in my hair. Big Beetle. In my hair. 

 It’s hotter further north on the coast with more bugs generally, but the sea is warmer and the stretch of sand is bigger. I was travelling with 4 Americans – 2 male, 2 female; 3 from Colorado and 1 from  Oregon. At times, there may have been as many language barriers with them as there are with Spanish speakers. Sometimes it’s just easier to adopt Americanisms. Even so, they observe that I'm 'obsessed with tea' (don't they know that it solves everything?!)

On the first night, we ventured out in two ‘moto-taxis’  to some nearby hot springs/mud baths. The taxis took a lot of negotiation – several were competing to take us from outside our hostel, while the super cool, somewhat amused hostel security guard said we were mad for going in the evening because there are no lights there. It turned out that going in the evening was brilliant. After a bit of a mishap on the taxi ride where one of them went the wrong way, causing the 2 parties to lose each other for a worrying 30 minutes , we walked the last mile to the baths with an impressively colourful sunset and mountain scenery. It was already dark when we arrived at the pool -  a rectangular, muddy hot bath with thick silky mud all over the bottom. I try to avoid thoughts about how fresh the mud and water were.



The walk back to the road was very dark, with only the lights from the taxi drivers’ mobile phones to help  us. I say taxi drivers, they were more like guides in the end; and very good although they found it hilarious to flash in one of my photos taken at the baths in the dark. Swift delete.

Mancora is very much a beach resort so we spent the evening getting in to the swing of that, then we headed over to a quieter beach on the second day. We saw some turtles at the fishing port and then walked along the deserted sandy beach to a spot with a natural rock pool, intensely salty ‘hot tub’.



We didn’t have a lot of luck with the moto-taxis. A flat tyre, a break-down and a route mishap all in 2 days, plus a thorough shaking on one of the trips down a rocky track so one of the drivers could stop off at his mate’s to pay a debt with our taxi fare.  I hasten to add that this bone-shaking detour happened without our prior knowledge or consent.

The surfing in Mancora was interesting..it’s great if you’re great. I’m not great, so once I’d sussed that there were a lot obstacles in the form of rocks and other surfers, and weighed this up against my inability to control which direction I go or how I fall, a quiet paddle around on the board was definitely the best option. The 3 more experienced of the group either cut themselves on the rocks or damaged their boards. Good call for me and my fellow beginner. For £2 per hour, a surf board is a perfectly good lilo-kayak.

I decided against Ecuador. I parted company from my 4 American travel buddies, spent a relaxed final day in Mancora and headed back to Trujillo on the over-night bus. Since I can work as and when, I’m going to work on the annual report for the rest of this week and have a few extra days to travel at the end. This avoids any more book-throwing type frustration over the sheer size of this country and extra time required for things like altitude sickness. It also provides ample time for Cusco and Machu Picchu before going home. So, a quiet house in Trujillo while most people are away travelling and still plenty to see and do in between working.

I’m pleased to report that my Spanish is steadily returning to the standard it was 7 years ago. When the locals start asking how and where you learned, it’s a very good sign. No more French words creeping in and fewer mental blocks. They would have to have different words for some things here (different from Central America) though, just to confuse matters. 

A quiet few days now (well that’s the plan!) before people return on Sunday and the new volunteers arrive. I’m nearly half way through already!

No comments:

Post a Comment