Five sunsets....

We´ve been in Peru for just over a week now...

This will be my first blog post, just so you all know, my writing style is much less colorful than Tony´s...so bare with me.

Spent the first couple of days in Lima, I was sick...which I`m mostly better from now, just a residual cough and...some ear issues. Last Thursday was tough, spent most of it chilling in our hostel...it`s really hot and humid in Peru, much more so than Chile. Tony made us some potato leek soup in the hostel, while I watched Zodaic in the livingroom. Friday I felt a bit better, so we ventured out into Lima and ended up making a flight reservation for the following day to Tumbes. Had lunch at a krishna restaurant that gave me a massive heap of yummy veggie fried rice. Went to a pretty epic dinner at a place called Las Tejas. For some odd reason (paranoia) we didn´t bring our camera out with us, so there aren´t any photos. My meal consisted of veggies, some potato dumpling thing, yucca fries, fried banana and some crazy corn on the cobb, the kernals were way bigger than what we have in the states and much sweeter, super good. Tony had some fish and veggies. After our meal, we went to see The Watchmen at the movie theater....ummm...yeah, not really sure what to say about that.

Saturday we went to a lunch not really worth mentioning...then caught a cab from our hostel to the Lima airport. Our short flight from Lima to Tumbes was relatively uneventful, aside from the last bit being a bit painful...for me anyway. When we arrived in Tumbes, it was hot, really hot and really humid...and there were these maniacle mosquitos that are truly out for blood. After getting our packs we took a hair raising two hour cab ride to Mancora. About fifteen minutes into the cab ride my right ear finally popped and could really hear....the left one still hasn´t fully recovered. The cab ride was INSANE! I was very relieved when we finally arrived safely in Mancora. We stayed at a Hostel International affiliated place called La Posada, the room was clean and very dark. Woke up on Sunday morning, knowing we wanted to find another place to stay, we went out to find some breakfast grub...the first place we see is called ¨Chill Out¨, we take this as a sign. I must share something and if any wonderful Chileans are reading this, please don´t take offense....Peruvians know how to cook some eggs! With the exception of one fabulous omelette we had at Tinquilco Refugio in Huequehue Parque in Chile, prepared by the owner Patricio, I didn´t have very good egg experiences in Chile, Peru has been an entirely different story. After having a great breakfast we walked along the beach in search of somewhere new to stay, we found a place right next to where all the surfers were catching waves, we negotiated a price and went to fetch our bags. We spent one night here, as it´s a surfers paradise...and not so much for the non-surfer. The beach here is over-run with pushy vendors. The next day after another fantastic breakfast at a place called Green Eggs and Ham, we went to another, (much more secluded), part of the beach, which is reached by a five minute taxi ride from the town of Mancora. We´re now staying at a place called Sunset, it´s a bit more expensive than we typically pay for accomodations ($60 per night), but totally worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight will be our sixth night at Sunset, we´ve made a point to catch each sunset, each one spectacular and unique. The view from our second story room private balcony is awesome, there´s a very small wading pool outside and supposedly the best restaurant in all of Mancora, which we´ve yet to experience. We have had two lunches at the hotel, Tony had some fried seafood thing which he raved about, I´ve had a couple salads there and some rice, which I believe one of the salads (from Thursday) made me sick. We won´t be having lunch there again. The first sunset we saw in Mancora was exceptional, it´s the one with Tony and I together, there´s no way pictures do it justice, of course, I´m very happy to have had that experience. Mancora has a lot going for it, The beach is amazing, the people are quite friendly and there are good food options. There´s a vegetarian restaurant called Angela´s Place, Angela is an Austrian woman who´s been living in Mancora for eight years, we eat at Angela´s often. The mexican food place in town, El Aji is decent and there are two fancy pants restaurants we´ve been to, one for Tony´s birthday, El Tuno and the other we ate at on Thursday night, Sirena.

As I´m sure many of you know, Tony´s birthday was on Tuesday...in order to make his birthday somehow more special, I woke up in the middle of the previous night and spelled out ¨Happy Birthday Tony¨ in toothpaste on our bathroom mirror. Unfortunately there aren´t any photos of this, as we believed we had to move that morning to another room, Tony quickly wipped it away when the cleaning people arrived...turns out we don´t have to move and get to spend all ten nights at Sunset in the same room. It´s been great getting to put clothes away in closets and not be living out of our packs for awhile. Tony´s birthday was spent much like the other days we´ve had here....relaxing, watching the waves, swimming and then going out to a great meal at El Tuno. Tony had tuna (their specialty) cooked in a fig balsamic reduction, with asparagus, glazed baby carrots and a potato soufle, I had gnocci with pesto. Yep, I tried out eating some wheat...and nothing happened. I´m not going to make a habit of it, I don´t want to push my luck, but it´s nice to know that I can, on occasion, wander into the world of wheat. Baby steps... Tony finished off his dinner with mango cheesecake.

The morning after Tony´s birthday we spent hanging out next to the ocean, reading, listening to music, and generally relaxing in what we thought was a very shady area. Heading into town for lunch, I looked down at my legs and felt betrayed by the coconut trees that I thought were providing us with shade, let´s just say I spent a large portion of the rest of the day with cold compress towels on my legs, they´re still a bit achey, but nothing like I imagined they would be. That same day Tony booked our next and last flight in Peru. We leave Mancora next Thursday, April 2nd, flying to Lima. We´ll be leaving Lima the following day, flying to Cusco, where we´ll spend seven days taking in The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, flying back to Lima on the 10th. We were hoping to spend more time in The Sacred Valley, but Easter threw a wrench in our plans, turns out it´s a really big deal here and all the flights out Easter weekend or the Monday afterward are either booked or very expensive. So we opted to spend a couple extra days in Lima. We fly out of Lima, back to San Francisco very late on the 14th...we´ll be home on the 15th, after a layover in Miami.

Well that´s all folks...hope all´s well with you all.

love,

melanie and tony.