We had promised ourselves a beach holiday. Mancora was the relaxed town we chose right on the northernmost tip of Peru. The beach you can see above is the picture perfect one where we spent the best part of ten days. It is a tropical surfing beach where the water is warm and and the waves big and bold.
Mancora is surrounded by semi arid desert, perfect for early morning hikes. While hanging around in hammocks and sharing salads we met a great bunch of travellers and relaxed completely. The woman in the picture above is Angela; an Austrian who has been living in Peru for seven years running a fantastic bakery and offering us a wealth of knowledge.
One of her tips was to take a collectivo to Puerto Pizarro, the fishing port you can see in the photo above. Once we arrived there we hired a rowing boat and headed out into the mangrove swamps for a day in another world. The oars may have only been planks of wood but this suited the world we entered perfectly. The wildlife in the lagoons was so abundant it was hard to look anywhere where there weren´t birds diving into the water, hermit crabs clumsily dragging their shells out of the way or fish jumping.
As we headed silently out across the water we were able to float into the narrow passageways between the mangroves; amazing trees that look otherworldy growing ontop of the stilts they put into the seawater, only becoming roots once they have hit the bottom of the lagoon. Eventually we came to the breeding center for the alligators that were at one time so plentiful in Peru.
We then headed back to one of the mudflats where a few tables on the sand enabled someone to serve food to the passing crafts. we stopped and were treated to one of the best ceviches we have had so far. Ceviche is a dish we have been treated to all along the coast of Peru: basically it is raw fish marinated in lime juice and chilli served with camote (a type of sweet potato), sweet red onions and plaintain or chocklo (a type of white maize). This marinade is left on the fish for about twenty minutes and soft cooks it – in effect curing it. Ceviche may not sound like the most inspiring dish in the world, but I don´t think I have ever been anywhere where the seafood is fresher or more varied, and any fish or shellfish can be put into ceviche. The amazing example below included minute baby squid, octopus, black mussels, scallops and a selection of different white fish. Suffice to say I think I ate ceviche almost every day for over a month and am still dreaming about returning to the coast even if only for the seafood…
As we headed back into the port we found that the tide had risen high enough for the fishing boats to be preparing to leave the port. Everyone was busily getting ready to go and catch whatever they could. Even the youngest kids were drafted into service ferrying things back and forth between the fishing boats and the port. Which itself appeared to be floating as many of the streets that earlier approached the water were now flooded and their inhabitants could only reach their front doors with their canoes.
Finally I cannot resist just one more beautiful shot of the sun setting over Mancora. The sunsets were so beautiful here that the beaches were often more crowded as the sun went down than at any other time of day…
