Our super relaxing days in Mancora - the last stop in Peru

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.

When we finally made it to sea level - Lima

After leaving the high altitutueds and coming back to the coast I FINALLY start to feel like myself again, wihoo!

 

I don't know if a big part of me feeling better is a placebo effect since I am convinced that it's the altitude that's been giving me all that bad luck, but whatever it is it's good cause I felt like myself again after just a few hours in Lima.

We decided to cheat the fashion backpacker style and take a flight from Cusco to Lima and it saved us a lot of time. I almost screamed when we finally saw the ocean and the coastline. It felt like we'd been away from the sea for ages and it was like seeing a long lost friend again.

We only had a couple of nights to spend in this massive capital so we didn't have time to do that much. I think you'd need like a metro card to be able to see as much of the city as possible, but we limited ourselves to explore just a tiny bit by walking.

We stayed in an area called Chorrillos, which is meant to be a quite area and it's the area next to the more touristy areas of Barranco and Miraflores. Getting there from the airport was pretty hard though, I mean without getting scammed. There are no buses going from the airport, so if you want to take a bus you first have to take a taxi downtown and take the bus from there, same thing with the metro. So the only option really is to take a taxi and prepare to get ripped of. Even though there's a sign in the airport with prices for taxis to all the different areas, it's massively overpriced. To Churrillos it said that it would cost 80-65 soles and of course all the taxi drivers said that we'd had to pay 80, finally we ended up getting one for the lower price of 65, but it's still ALOT of money for a taxi here.

So after that we decided to use our legs and walk the way from Churillos to Barranco to find somewhere to eat, and it didn't take long, only 20 mins or so, and we found this vegetarian restaurant that is in like a train waggon; El Cultural Restaurant Express. It looked really cool, but was a bit disappointing vegan-wise and amount-of-food-for-what-you-pay-wise.

Guy ordered a pizza for 15 soles which looked like a pizza for a baby and there weren't many vegan options at all, so I only had a avocado salad which kept me full for like an hour so on our way back we had to buy popcorn to make us feel better.

Barranco is a really beautiful area, I think it's better than Miraflores which is crazy busy. But then again, there also seem to be a lot more stuff going on in Miraflores. 

Because we stayed in Churrillos we found an accommodation which wasn't too expensive. We looked and looked for decent places to stay around Barranco and Miraflores, but almost everything was out of our budget. So I'm glad we extended the search so that we could find Paipo Bed Breakfast and Surf - because this was truly a great accommodation! It was clean and tidy, good breakfast included (vegan margarine and bread!!) and the stuff were great. We especially loved the owner who even offered us a ride down to Miraflores in his car so we didn't have to walk all that way in the heat.

In Miraflores we went to the first vegan restaurant that had popped up on Happy Cow (there were LOADS of places to choose between from here, but all of them seems to be a bit expensive) - El Jardin de Jazmin. 

This restaurant looked much cooler and nicer than either the staff or the food was. I hate to get disappointed in vegan restaurants, but it wasn't great. The food was pretty average and again, you didn't get a decent amount of food either, especially since it wasn't cheap either we expected to at least walk out and feel full. Yes, there seems to be a pattern in the veggi restaurants in Lima!

But it still taste good. Guy had the lentil burger which he really liked and I had what was supposed to be a combo with aubergine steak and quinoa salad and a lemonade for 19 soles. And yeah, it was good. Not great.

After all the food fail where we had to go somewhere else to get full afterwards, we gave up and in our last night we created our own dinner, which is the best dinner we've had in Lima; wholwheat bread, avocado, olives and Oreos from the local supermarket in Churillos. 

What a feast eh!

We felt ready to leave Lima pretty quickly and got on the bus the next day at 13:30, which was gonna be our home for the next 19 hours, waived goodbye to Lima and feeling really excited about spending our last days in Peru in the little beach town of Mancora.

When I didn't survive the inca trail but found my love in Macchu Picchu

This photo below was taken about an hour before my body decided to break down and not do the inca trail, which I had looked forward to since October. 

I really tried to power through but after 5km I had to realise that I had to give up, I felt too ill to walk even the way back and could not have walked about 15 km a day for 3 days in that condition. I felt really sad and dissapointed that this bad luck that seems to hang like a grey cloud over me wouldn't just leave me alone. Not only that - I knew I had paid like 650 US dollars for this and that I would probably never see that money again. What I had to do instead was to go back to the nearest town to where the inca trail starts (ollantaytambo - which I never will be able to pronounce) and check in to a hotel for a few nights to just rest instead. 

However, I am very very very proud over my other half who actually manage to survive the whole trek. It wasn't easy for him at all (especially since I kind of had to force him to go on without me), especially since the weather on this trail is very unpredictable and can be very rough (which it was apparently, around 0 degrees at night and lots of heavy rain). 

After those 3 days in bed I did feel much better and could at least join our group and see my love for the first time in what felt like ages in Macchu Picchu.

I had to learn the hard way how expensive it is to visit Macchu Picchu without doing the inca trail. And to be honest, seeing Guy was the best part of Macchu Picchu, other than that I just think everything is way overpriced. I had to pay 68 US dollars just to get the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, also known as Macchu Picchu town. Then I had to pay 12 US dollars for the bus from Aguas Calientes to Macchu Picchu. I was meant to walk this road there, but my guide Jimmy protested because the rain was way to heavy that morning. 

You also have to pay for entrance and probably a guide aswell if you want one, but since I met up with the inca trail group and had already paid for the tour, at least I got to take advantage of the last part of the inca trail and experience the Macchu Picchu tour with them, where our tour guide showed us around.

About Peru Trek - this is the cheapest company we could find who are serious and have had good reviews and since I didn't actually do the trail I cannot say too much about them. But from talking with Giy we have agreed that the whole administration am side of it all and like the office people are pretty bad as they are not very flexible what so ever. You pay a deposit when you book the trek months in advance and you can do that via credit card, but you have to pay the other half cash - this is a lot of money to take out from the ATM since you cannot take out that much at the same time and since it charges a high fee every time you take cash out.

Even worse, when I asked for vegan meals they simply just said "no, not possible" because it was gonna be too complicated for the chef so I just thought, alright - I just have rice and veggies or whatever I can have. As you know it never came to that, but Guy said that he was the only vegetarian out of 16 people, so you may think it could've been as easy to do all of the vegetarian food vegan instead of doing 3 different dishes. I also find it hard to believe that they would have been so strict with their anti-veganism if intolerance to certain foods was the case..

Saying that though, the actual staff (guides etc) that comes with you on the trek are absolutely wonderful! We had two guides with us and one of them, Jimmy, became like my best friend when he helped me through my sick fase. He went back and got me a hotel room, took the train with me to Macchu Picchu town, showed me where to go and was a real rock in the moment I needed it the most. Thank you Jimmy!

Like I said, I still get dissapointed when I think about it all but I am happy that I got to see Macchu Picchu nestled between the mountains anyway, but like I mentioned, it does bother me how much you have to pay to see it. There is not really any ways around it. I actually enjoyed the view from Macchu Picchu more than the actual ruins (yeah I mean it is still really cool how this was just like a hidden abandoned city for many many years and all the history behind it of course)

The weather up here changes worse than the Swedish summer does. One minute it was raining loads and the next it was hot and sweaty, in that tropical way. Unfortunately it was really cloudy when we were here, so the views weren't as great as when you google time. But still, I guess it's pretty cool to be up on clouds aswell.

To be able to say that I've done some walking around Macchu Picchu, me and Guy took yhe tropical forest walk downhill back to Aguas Calientes, which took like 40-60 mins and got treated to a papaya juice for the effort from the their guide Freddy (probably because he didn't have to pay 12 US dollars for us to go on the bus back instead)

Aguas Calientes is small and it just screams of tourism. The whole town is evolved around pleasing tourists, there are spas, markets and restaurants everywhere you look and it is e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e because everything is imported from Cusco. 

We managed to find a restaurant on the outskirts of the busiest area which did a vegetarian set menu with starter, main and drink for 20 soles anyway. And it was probably one of the best meals I've had (probably because this was my first steady meal in about 3 days) - rice with spinach and avocado. It is always the most simple things that taste the best and that makes my heart go boom.

After many hours of just being bored again and waiting around in Aguas Calientes, we were finally back in Cusco for our last night on these high altitudes. I do blame the altitude for our bad luck and can already feel our luck changing here in Lima. But more on that later.

A vegan in Cusco, Peru

After a few days in Cusco, I think it's safe to say that this has been my favourite place we've been to so far. The town is so beautiful, with small cobbled streets and really nice open squares in the center. Also the fact that there have been no problem at all finding vegan food is of course a huge bonus. I mean it's almost like it's been too many choices!

Most people come to Cusco to learn more about the inca culture, see all the ruins and of course go to Macchu Picchu as this is the historical capital of the Inca Emporium. And so this is the reason why we've come here aswell; to chill out for a bit before starting the inca trail. Cusco is a good place to spend a few days before doing this, to get used to the altitude and all. To do the inca trail though, you have to book it faaaaar in advance. Unfortunately you can't just turn up in Cusco and expect to be able to do it. Not at all. We booked our inca trail with Peru Treks in October.. And for now I think they are fully booked until September even.

Many tourists buys a weekly pass which enables them to go and see all the museum, see all the inca ruins and everything culture there is the see here. But we thought that we're gonna see a lot of stuff when we do the inca trail so we passed on this pass and have had a few adventures on our own.

We went on a walk uphill to the Cristo Blanco statue for example. The view from up here is stunning, and may I add, free. We continued to walk a loop around the Sacsayhuaman, an inca ruin which is often referred to as a fortress up on the hills of Cusco. They charge you to get in on the actual ruins, but we found on our own walking tour that if you just take a loop around the whole thing you can see it really clearly and close up anyway. 

We also went to the Animal sanctuary in the Sacred Valley one day. The animal sanctuary arrange buses from Cusco out to where they are (about 22 km from the city), but we found it to be much cheaper to just get there on our own. We just took one of the local buses both there and back for 20 soles in total for both of us. You just have to be patience and wait a little bit for a bus to come by on the way back

The sanctuary have staff working there who seemed really happy to show us around a to all the animals. They don't charge any fees for visitors, but they do rely on donations to be able to do the work for the sick and/or wounded animals here. When we visited we saw an Andean bear cub that had lost his mum, condors, lamas, dogs and, Guys new best friends, the naked dogs.

Besides these things, we have strolled around on the streets of the town center (which are by they way the most slippery streets ever, be sure to ware good shoes. I've lost count on how many times I've almost slipped and fall!), we've seen the crazy fruit markets where all juice ladies are nagging you to buy THEIR juice cause that is the best one even though all of them seem to be exactly the same for the same price..

We've gone to the coffee museum (free entrance and you learn loads about coffee) and we've tasted chocolate tea and chocolate marmalade at the Choco museum (also free entrance, but if you wanna do a workshop it costs loads, so no thanks)

Oh, and the best thing is oficurse how I've started the days every morning here in Cusco; by going to the Yoga Room on Carmen Bajo street (in a bohemian area called San Blas that is so pretty). I bought a 3 class pass for 50 soles and I'm so glad I did. The yoga room only have a small studio, but the atmosphere is so warm and welcoming and Kat, who started it and who has been my teacher was really great! In the down stairs but they also have a juice bar which was unfortunately on holiday when I was there, but usually they have vegan ice cream and burgers etc, wow!

Just opposite the yoga room, you'll find my favourite place in town: Green Point - the popular vegan restaurant. As I mentioned in the beginning, being vegan in Cusco is a piece of cake (literally), but it's been hard to not spend too much money at Green Point. The prices here are pretty moderate for being Peru, but oh my gosh, the food is absolutely amazing and the staff is really friendly aswell. 

The big menu makes the food-decision-making almost overwhelming. They have breakfast, lunch and dinner and if I could've afford it I would've gone here three times a day, without a doubt. But unfortunately I've had to pick and prioritise. 

We went there for coffee one morning (yep, they have every kind of plant based milk you can imagine, so I tried the cappuccino with Brazil nut milk, yum). It wasn't that yum that I felt like paying 9 soles for it though, but still, it did the trick.

 

We've also had dinner there two times by now and both times we shared a banana, chocolate, maca, coconut shake (sharing it was really enough, they don't charge you 10 soles for it for nothing!)

For food we've had the lentil burger and the seitan sandwich and they are both divine. All the sandwiches and the burger comes with you choice of mashed potato, fries or mashed sweet potatoes or sweet potato fries. For only 15 soles I got pretty darned full, even though these were the cheapest main on their menu.

Next to the restaurant, they also have their store "Green Stop" with many different vegan items, books and more. We bought the tomato-onion freshly baked bread there one day (one loaf for 4 soles) and it was just bliss. Almost tasted like pizza!

Because of their popularity they apparently also opened up Green Point II in the San Fransisco area. They are only opened for breakfast and lunch though, so we haven't had time to go there just yet.

But if you want to find a little bit more wallet friendly vegan food in Cusco, it is not a big of a challenge (expect for Sunday's when many restaurants are shut). Another favourite restaurant of mine is El Encuentro. Now, there is two of them and I don't know if they are like a chain or anything. But the one we went to was slightly cheaper and is on Calle Tigre, just a few (read long and steep) stairs away from our hostel. 

This is a vegetarian restaurant so they do have a lot of cheese and eggs on the menu, but are very vegan friendly as well. It is here we have continued going for coffee every morning as they make lush coffee with soy milk. Like every other restaurant they have set menu for lunch (not only for lunch, you can have to set menu all day which is a two course meal with salad  buffet for only 6-7 soles! They offer about 2-3 options for main). But since I am a pastaholic, I immediately chose to go for the vegan bolognaise for 14 soles - a lot of food for a very reasonable price! Guy tried their vegetarian double cheese burger which he really enjoyed aswell.

One day we accidentally ran into another vegetarian restaurant; Mamma Mia. Everything is really cheap here aswell - you get a main for about 12-18 soles, they have pizza, pasta, burger etc and they do breakfast, lunch and dinner. We went there for a little breakky and had coffee (unfortunately no soy milk) and a tofu sandwich. Very yummy, but not too filling.

 

And for a Sunday dinner, when almost everywhere we actually wanted to go was shut, we tried one of the many small falafel gems (unfortunately we realised afterwards that we could've walked up the street a bit more for a much cheaper falafel deal, but oh well, at least the falafel was amazingly good) at El Durum. For 13 soles we got a filling falafel wrap each with both hummus in the roll and even more to top up with on the side. One cannot complain when one gets so much good hummus in one meal, right?

Now we only have a couple of days left before we get picked up at 4:30 in the morning to start the Inca Trail. So next time you hear from me will have to be when we're done with that. Hopefully we've succeeded as well. Love love and love to you all.