Mancora in Peru

Mancora was the best beach we visited in Peru. It is squeezed up in the north of the country near the Ecuadorian border and the Amazon forest. For backpackers doing Peru Mancora represents beach down time after trekking up Machu Picchu, seeing the desert in Huacachina and Nazca, sampling the colonial culture of Lima and just generally getting a belly full of culture. We went August to Peru. It was cold at times. I was longing for warm sea and sunny beaches.

We spent one night in a backpackers that catered too much for its prime market. The dorms were expensive, cooked meals too, the place was a long walk from shops and amenities and worst of all they hosted a ‘pirate party’ for our night there. Not in my honour I might add. It was a half-hearted affair with a couple of American lads taking on the rum drinks deal.

The next day we found a hotel room in the more central south part of the beach. It was less money with air-con and TV, just 1 minute from the beach. We divided our time between smoking and watching episodes of Two and a Half Men on TV with swimming and going down the market food stalls for cheap eats.

At night the market has a bit of life and local colour with the risks and temptations that brings. Better, if more potentially hazardous, than a pirate party.

It is a long beach with recognized breaks. Plenty of backpackers give surfing a go as it is a cheap activity. By this time I’ve already decided that surfing is too much effort. Floating in the sea and taking in the sight of thousands of gulls having a feeding frenzy was enough fun for me.

The town was a dusty street that held a photographic charm. It wasn’t a place full of cafes and bakeries designed to please tourists; rather one of those sleepy Peruvian towns.

Looking back: I quite miss Mancora.

Brazil-istics Part Two

The other half of the South American continent, Brazil, feels like a continent in itself. Despite many similarities with their Spanish speaking brothers and sisters to the South, West and North, Brazilians are different. The heart of this difference lies in the smallest details. I started listing those details in Brazil-istics Part One. Below are my concluding observations about what makes Brazil so Brazilian.

1) Something that is so obvious but it is still worth mentioning is music. Whereas, the rest of South America is going crazy to salsa music every weekend, the Brazilians love samba, reggae, bossa nova, maracatu and afoxe. Music seems a lot less clichéd and more surprising in Brazil. It is not just about losing yourself and getting laid (although it’s that as well); it’s about finding your roots. The African influence in afoxe, maracatu and the drumming of Salvador are evident in the hypnotic rhythms and the trance dancing and the euphoria and the spirituality which connects the musicians to the audience. I remember waiting in Belem bus terminal for three hours and watching a band bang out tune after tune of maracatu. They had their own dancers but other waiting passengers frequently joined in the elaborate man and woman dance pairings. And the strangest thing was that despite the frenzied and erotic dancing on display nobody was getting drunk. It seemed the music was doing that for them.

2)    Brazil could have the highest concentration of surfers per capita outside of Hawaii. Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador are big cities with access to surf beaches. On any given weekend at any beach with surf you will see 100s of young people twisting and turning in the waves, displaying awesome board skills. They often dispense with wetsuits and cords on their ankles: just a board and bright beach wear is all you need for hours of fun in the surf. From the head of the Amazon River in the north all the way down to Porto Seguro is one great long beach with barrels and breaks and pipes for those in the know.

3)    The cold drinks seem colder in Brazil than in other South American countries. Even those countries in the north blessed with equatorial sunshine couldn’t, if my memory serves me right, produce a beer or a coke that spins you out with its dangerous but refreshing iciness.

4)    Brazilians are the fondest in South America of the football top. Football is a South American religion and in Brazil they wear their religion on their back. The most popular tops are the yellow of the national team, Adriano and Ronaldinho. Surprisingly we spotted a Tevez in Manuas and a Messi in Trancoso. 

5) Something that you can’t fail to notice about Brazil, especially northern Brazil is how racially mixed up the people are. Nearly everyone is a shade of brown or black. It is the white people who stand out, but somehow they don’t stand out because they fit in. As you get to meet people and their families you notice that blood crosses the racial divide. In fact perhaps for many there is no real racial divide. You fancy who you fancy and skin colour is probably no more important than the colour of the iris. What separates people is not colour but money. Brazil for me felt like the future – when racial prejudice has gone what remains will bear an uncanny resemblance to Brazil.

6)  No list about what makes Brazil stand out would sadly be complete without mention of armed robbery and serious crime. The day we arrived in Rio a helicopter was shot out of the sky by a gang with machine guns. And that felt like a typical news item. Every time we saw the news on TV there was always a section where they displayed for the cameras all the guns and drugs the police had managed to uncover. It is perhaps the saddest irony of Brazil that for a country where 99% of the people are friendly and honest no one has been left untouched by the violence. Everyone has experienced a gun or knife pointed at them by a crazed and desperate youth demanding money. Everyone advises you to just pay because the desperation of your assailant will not make them think twice about killing you. We heard stories from travellers and locals about armed robbery, rape and cons that I don’t want to even start to relate. The locals warn you, the guide books warn you, the movie City of God shows you – violence is rife; night time is a time for caution. Just to put this in perspective – in 2002 a study was carried out by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute. The unpublished results found that homicide was the leading cheap cause of death for persons aged 15 to 44. 

7)     My last observation will go some way to counterpointing the grim reality I have just stated. And this observation is that Brazilians are some of the most helpful people you could hope to meet. From our first day in Brazil we experienced kindness that surprised us. From the start we were caught off guard by how expensive the buses were. From the Venezuelan border we could only afford a bus to Boa Vista. In Boa Vista bus station we looked to change some dollars at a fair rate (obviously that’s not going to happen at the border). We walked into the tourist information in the bus station and the man struggled to comprehend my grating Spanish, but once he did he found a newspaper, discovered the official rate of exchange, made a phone call and within 5 minutes we had exchanged at a small shop in the terminal – we pretty much emptied the woman’s till, but she smiled and said you’re welcome. And that set the tone for much of the rest of Brazil (except for Salvador where people cuss you out, beg and try to short change you). Locals were forever guiding us on to the right bus, helping us reach our destination, running off to get ice, ready to go that extra mile to show genuine hospitality. A hospitality that is not to do with politeness and formal manners but rather indicative of a practical mind that knows how to apply help and is willing to do so for nothing more than a thank you.

Huacachina

Huacachina (pronounced something like waka-cheena) has a great name and is one of the most recognisable icons of Peru because it´s on the 20 (or is that the 50) Nuevos Soles Note. It is the picture postcard perfect oasis, something out of Lawrence of Arabia. There are, however, very few berbers and camels around. In their stead are Peruvians on benders and days out (especially at the weekend) and party backpackers and a few surf dudes looking to surf the massive plunging sands that encircle the tiny town.

It is a town entirely for tourism. Meaning there are no proper shops, post offices etc. just hostels, bars, restaurants and tour operators. The accommodation was mostly expensive by Peruvian standards, and the cheapish dorm beds we found were next to a bar. There is obviously a quick turn over of guests in a generally very anonymous fashion.

On the positive side, we found a place selling 5 soles set meals.

For all of that, the oasis is special and as soon as you climb over the first dune you are in the desert which stretches to the horizon.

We stayed one night. Waka went for a kip after lunch and I climbed a sand dune and watched the continuous stream of dune buggies taking tourists on hair raising drives through the desert; and also the people sliding down the dunes on beat up snow board looking things.