Getting from Lima all the way to Mancora wasn't the nightmare I had expected at all. It could've been because we were travelling the 19 hour bus journey with Cruz del Sur again and were very lucky to have seats in the front with individual tv screens that had so many movies to choose between. We left Lima at 13:30 in the afternoon and arrived to Mancora the morning after. The only bad thing about the journey was the food that is included in the ticket price. They ask if you want vegetarian or meat, and of course we chose vegetarian and asked if they could prepare a meal without egg and milk aswell, whereas the company said that their vegetarian meals are always made without egg and milk. What a load of bullshit. The dinner we got was rice with omelette and for breakfast we got a bread bun with cheese.. So much for dairy bad egg free.. It was good that we had brought our own snacks aswell!
We did manage to get some good sleep for ones on the bus so we felt ready to explore Mancora as soon as we got off the bus, but that energy soon went away in the heat.
The town is pretty small and there is a beach that is not the prettiest of beaches, with ALOT of people trying to sell all kinds of things to you and it is very crowded aswell, and pretty crappy to be frank. We had heard that there was a nicer beach if you just continues walking past the pier and started this mission straight away without spending more than 5 minutes on this main beach.
We walked for what felt like ages, through a really rough area where it just smelled of dead fish, the road was muddy and there were so many mosquitos aswell. We were just close to giving up and realise that we had probably heard wrong - it couldn't be a nice beach past all this shit - but then when we were about to turn back we found a little piece of paradise in Mancora. There were no people trying to sell us stuff, no garbage lying around and the beach was amazing. Because no one else was there!
We had just gone into one of the hotels along the beach and realised that it was completely empty, they had a pool and ice cold drinks to sell so we were sold on this place immidately. It was totally worth going through that stinky, long sweaty road for.
So already the first day we started a routine which we had for all the three days we spent here. I usually really don't like doing exactly the same things every day, but sometimes it is just really nice to do so because it were the most relaxing days we've had on our South America trip - and we really needed these days after everything that had happened.
So every morning we got up, did some yoga and then went to Cafe del Mundo in town, where they had a really good vegan combo deal; ciabatta with avocado, tomato and lettuce served with coffee and juice for 10 soles. Everything was just delicious! The juice was different everyday, the best one was the one with strawberry and banana, yum! The woman in charge there was so friendly aswell which made us wanna come back there even more.
The food in Mancora is pretty pricey (at least eating out, and they don't have a big supermarket, just plenty small ones. They don't even have a hospital or post office for that matter), being a tourist town and all, and so the only vegetarian restaurant that exist have the same sort of prices as anywhere else here really, if not slightly less expensive.
It's called Angela's Vegetairan and is located on the Main Street like everything else. On the Happy Cow app it says that this restaurant is only veg-friendly with one meat dish, but I couldn't find a single item of meat, apart from soy meat. They had so many choices, but it was quite easy deciding in the end anyway because most of the things on the menu was just over our budget (like 25-35 soles). But they have burritos, burgers of different kinds, pizza, pasta, curries, salad, sandwiches and even vegan desserts and gluten free bread!
I tried the pasta with spinach sauce and the second time I asked to add soy meat which was more filling and really amazing! We also tried the soy meat burger and brown rice with veggies and everything tastes divine! Just a shame that you don't get any fries or anything at all really with the burger..
The only fail was when we ordered the falafel as a starter and got this. Not really worth 9 soles. Both the falafel and hummus was just really dry.
But still, we felt happy going here every night to support the only vegetarian restaurant in town.
So it turned out to be the perfect classic holiday in Mancora; sun, swimming, relaxing and great food. After these days here we were ready for a long-ish bus journey with Cruz deal Sur again, this time to leave Peru and to get to Guyaquil in Ecuador where I am sitting and sweating so much that I feel like I just went for a swim. But I won't bore you with more details just yet.
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