This weekend we finally got to be tourists! It was a fun change! It started kind of rocky. We took a van to Tumbes which is about 4 hours North of Piura. The ride was tight and not super comfortable but the people made it enjoyable. We've got a great group of volunteers that make every moment of this trip so fun. Once we got to Tumbes, we took a moto taxi to the random house that we stayed at. Im not really sure what the connection was, but I think it was our landlords brothers friend? Anywho, we stayed there for a night and let me tell you, I have never seen a more strange place in my life. When we first arrived it was a relief to walk into a house that looked super nice, but then I started looking around and realized how strange and odd the place really was. It seems oddly nice for the area we were in and nothing really worked together. Maybe that was their style but the decorations were different. I have a joke with myself (sad, I know) that they just found/stole everything and put it all in a house together. There was a random life size Santa Clause just chillin in the family room. The even crazier thing is that I totally had dejavu in that house (not about Santa). I don't know how to put my thoughts about this house into words but just trust that it was an interesting experience. They only run the water in the morning so if we had to go to the bathroom we just dumped a bucket of water in the toilet and it would all go down. Not sure how that works, its a mystery and a funny memory. Moving on...so we got settled in and then went out to get food. We stopped at a random restaurant, and it ended up being the worst food experience since we arrived in Peru. The food was pretty bad. All the meat was cold like it had been sitting out all day and it all just seemed kinda dirty. Luckily no one got sick *knock on wood*. After dinner we set out for the main street/square where they were celebrating the 30th year of something. They had some performances (all cultural dance) and music. We hung around for a while, avoided creepy people, and killed mosquitos before they attacked us.
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| Mangroves near the border of Ecuador. |
The next morning we woke up and took a bus to a place where we got on a boat to explore some mangroves near the border of Ecuador! It was so beautiful, and felt like we were in a movie! On the boat ride we stopped on an island that had a bunch of caged crocodiles, and yes, you better believe I jumped in there and touched one of them. I didn't tell my parents until after. My mom nearly had a heart attack. In the end though, I still have all 10 fingers and toes. After that we got back on the boat and went to a different "island" called bird island. It was insane. You could see it from pretty far off in the distance. There are 6000 birds on this island and I have a photo below. These birds were literally everywhere, and was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It's not exactly an island that you can walk around but we perched out boat right up on one of the bushes/trees so that we could just sit in amazement for a moment.
After bird island, we went to another island where we got off and beached it for a couple hours! It was so surreal. In that moment, I could only think about how blessed I am to be able to have this experience. I feel lucky to even be here in Peru, but to be able to live here for 3 months helping the people and serving them, on top of having weekends to travel and be a tourist?! I don't know how I got so lucky. It sounds so cheesy and cliche but I couldn't have done it without a lot of people. I'm only 3 weeks in and we've done so much! The island was so beautiful and I love the beach more than anything. On top of this, the whole experience only cost me like $10. Holla! We ate lunch on the island and ordered some fried shrimp. Soo good. After that, I took about with Cecilia and we walked around the island looking for seashells, taking photos, and exploring. The only downside was that I realized that the material on my swimsuit was basically gone so I had to stay covered up. Its literally a mystery. So I need to find a new swimsuit while I'm here.
After the whole boat tour, half of us decided to take off to Ecuador since the border was only 30 minutes away and a couple people had to renew their visas. For some reason the airport only gave them like 30 days, but Im cool with that because it gave us an excuse to go to a different country! So it turned out that the bus we needed left about an hour before we got to the bus station and the next one didn't leave till the morning. That wasn't going to happen. We got a taxi (which turned out to be some random man that just got off of work and decided to be a taxi driver for an hour) and he drove us to the border. I didn't think we would be able to find someone because taxi drivers only do short distances here. The only thing was that he wasn't allowed to drive across the border so he had to drop us off and we walked across the border because he kinda took us to the street. Im pretty sure what we did was illegal because technically you cant really cross the border unless you go through the security first so they can check your passport. Long story short we got our passports stamped, drove past the giant statue of Jesus, got a bus to Machala (the closets tourist town to the border) and found a place to stay. The hotel was nice! It even had a WARM shower! Not sure I'll get another one of those for a couple months. We got settled in, found a place to eat and then walked around the park in front of our hotel for a bit. Ecuadorians are super nice! The people at the hotel loved talking to us because we knew Spanish and even ended up making us breakfast for free the next morning! They thought we were funny because we were asking questions like "Wait, there are 4 beds? and a shower? like in the room? and a toilet with toilet paper?" Im sure they thought we were crazy but it was better than we were expecting and only $12/person (they use American dollars in Ecuador). In the end, Ecuador was fun. We walked around the market, explored, went to church, renewed our visas, and took a bus back to Peru. One of the funnier moments in Ecuador was when we were in the market getting ready to leave and I called my friend Sean's name so that he knew we were leaving. Once I yelled it, some random guy on the street starting saying his name too, except he didn't pronounce it right and it sounded like Chan. Two seconds later, the entire market started saying "Chan! Chan! Chan!" Needless to say, he finally hear us and we headed out. It was a short trip, but very worth it.
On the way back to Piura, we stopped at Mancora beach which is a super touristy area. There were so many white people it blew my mind. It made me want to come back to South America and backpack for a month or something. We ate dinner, walked around the beach, shopped a little, then took a bus back home. We were greeted right when we got home but the cute little family that lives below us. I love them so much. It is so nice to be back and it truly feels like home to me now. I loved being welcomed back and loved by the little boys.
And of course, photos purely for the eye:
Hope you enjoyed this post! Keep following for an update on this weeks projects! P.S. I may or may not have gone mosquito hunting. Makes you want to read my next post, eh? Ill be back soon!
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