My first day was completely “me” time, since I was sick and my stomach couldn’t handle any food or substance put in my body except Soda crackers. I walked around, sat on my balcony, and met the roomies. There were a young woman and man, who worked with the popular (but kind of expensive) South American airline LAN and the other guy was a bar manager, who just came back for the job. Both of the air stewardesses had no dorm room etiquette. Early in the morning, the airline guy’s phone rang and he answered it. He continued to have the conversation without whispering while lying down in his bed and didn’t think (or care) that he would wake up his other dorm mates at 8:30am. Finally, the bar manager yelled at him and the guy left the room. This created some tension between everyone.
Later that night, I crawled out of bed realizing I needed to eat something of somewhat substance. I hunted down some Won Ton soup and had a side of some plain sticky rice at a recommended Thai restaurant by a reception staff member. I felt SO full afterwards and my stomach paid for it the rest of the night. When I came back, I crawled back into bed, and the bar manager burst in the door trying to get me to participate in the PUB Quiz Trivia and be “social.” He continued to say how anti-social I was being at that trivia you don’t need to move much, so I should come down to play. After telling him 3 times “No, I really don’t want to play and I suck at trivia,” he was starting to bother me. Like I understand that he HAS to promote the bar events, but calling me “anti-social” and not letting it go was just irritating and aggravating. I think people who know me can vouch that I am social and friendly. Anyway, once the guy left the room, the sound carried through the windows and I could hear the Pub game so clear I felt like I was down there anyway. It’s all fun and games until there’s an annoying drunk girl, especially one who keeps yelling the (wrong) trivia answers and being bossy, which is what happened. I even considered going down there to see what this girl looked like for reference on who to avoid tomorrow. The game became quiet and the bar manager came up to the room to count the scores. He said that difficult girl didn’t win. I was content after that and tried to fall asleep with ear plugs after he left. I said a little plea to make the next day better and a more “social” one, just to show that prick bartender. Zzzz.
I woke up decently early, since I went to bed at like 10pm. Not even joking, the male flight attendant’s phone went off AGAIN and he answered it loudly AGAIN. After some more cursing from the bar manager I tried to be super quiet leaving the room. Every morning there is a free “continental breakfast,” which includes the usual hostel standard of bread (half stale), jam, butter, tea or instant coffee. I was actually hungry and grabbed TWO buns with jam. I was sitting at the table already feeling the heatwave of the day already starting and looked over to see Zach, a tall, skinny, and awkward guy with long hair from Texas I met in Huanchaco days before. He told me him and Tony got in this morning. It was nice to see a familiar face already. Later, I ran into this total surfer guy named Ben from New York, who I met in Huanchaco too. He was one of the guys that stopped to watch Blue Crush at the burger place on the beach. Again, it’s crazy how you run into people on the same path.
I got my book ready, lathered up with lotion, and my music booming while I laid on a beach chair by the pool side. I felt the burn starting already by 1pm. There were 3 people playing volleyball in the water, so this was my “social” chance. The bar manager started his shift and was in the area; the 2 flight attendances’ were sitting eating lunch. I am proving my point in a passive aggressive beach bum way. I got up out of the chair, threw my stuff beside the pool and jumped in wish a (sassy) splash. “Hola! I came to make the teams even, let’s play” I said. “Yes mami,” the guy next to me replied and volleyed over to me. It was good fun, until we got out of control. I mean, we weren’t pro and why are there tables next to the pool. The ball definitely fell on some guy’s lunch and he looked pissed. Even more when it happened again. I don’t think us laughing helped the situation. This guy Shawn didn’t know how to “lightly” hit the ball and continued to fist-pump smash the ball over. It even hit the 2 flight stewards… ha! More people were now joining in the fiasco of pool volleyball. What a sport.
Finally we realized the scene needed to calm down a little after pissing off the bar bystanders, who became our unofficial targets. I leaped out of the pool and Shawn mentioned going body boarding. Still my stomach was uneasy, but I was excited to crash into waves, feel like a kid, and fill my surfing void. The waves weren’t the best so far. People are trying, but there too many people going after one wave. Throwing out some terminology now; “there is no swill.” So body boarding was a good choice. We met up with his 2 friends, who were sisters, Kate and Jane, from Oregon, USA. Shawn grew up with them and then moved to Hawaii and is super white. I thought he was lying to me, but he does something intense with computers all day. He later mentioned going to Google events. So now I believe him. Body boarding was super fun and definitely took less skill than surfing, but you still get the thrills of riding waves. You even get a little rash from the board! The water was warmer than Huanchaco for this time of year. There were no rocks or sea urchins piercing your foot. The sand was thick and the sun was UV rays were pumping. I paddled out farther than people thought was "the best spot" to get on a wave, but I had my eyes scouting out the patterns and figured I was in the right place. I saw one coming and took the chance. I got on my board and caught the best wave of that afternoon; I rode it until I was on the sand like a beached whale. People cheered, creepy old men watched. Aaahhhmazing.
We took a late lunch break, which meant they went to get lunch and I ate crackers on the beach beside our boards. This guy came over and we started to chat. He was getting quite burnt, but only really bad on one leg, which was funny lets be honest. It turned out he was from Lima, Peru and took a week vacay from his corporate job. This was his first time staying at a hostel, but judging by the photos I posted, this place does not look like a hostel. We made plans to meet up later, but it never worked out, since I became very ill again. We body boarded for a bit longer then took our favourite nap break/ “siesta”. Love ‘em. I was on the hammock reading my book for about 2 minutes and passed. Out.
I woke up to the gang hollering at me for pre-dinner drinks. I had red wine, red wine, red wine, and then pizza.Then had to take pills Kate gave me to save my stomach from exploding with pain. Seriously, if you don’t get sick in South America… that’s a lie. Anyway, they told me stories until my eyes were closing. Jane was a writer and working on a book. Kate was a singer/ songwriter with Shawn.
The next morning I ate breaky with Ben, his buddy and his girlfriend, who just came. We shared a mango and joked. The girl gave me a high five for travelling by myself. It was nice to get little sparks of encouragement, because it’s kinda intense/ scary at times, but you meet such awesome people along the way, you (mostly) forget about that and have just an awesome time.
I body boarded again, laid in the sun, read and finally did a little shopping. A beach dress I was eyeing finally made it's way into my travel wardrobe cycle. In a typical beach town, vendors were aligned side-by-side displaying colourful clothes and accessories. Although the items got repetitive to look at, I couldn’t help but inspect each thing; even though I just saw it minutes ago. Looking up after eyes-closed beach bliss, the sky was covered in colourful large flags. They were so many kite-surfers out! It was so beautiful and captivating. I just sat there and watched them. It looked awfully hard, but super fun! I think it would be awesome because you could surf, feel good, but stay up waaaaay longer and be (kind of) in control. I had to rush back and grab my camera. It’s actually difficult to take pictures of everything you see or do because you don’t always bring around your camera, since it’s valuable and could easily get stolen with one blind back turn. Anyway, I was in awe of the kite surfers.
I realized my time was getting tight on my trip and there was still SO much to do. I HAD to get back south and do Machu Picchu, maybe even Colca Cañon in Arequipa. Someone convinced me to have a day in Chiclayo along the way and do some cultural stuff, so I took the advice, since it was going to break up the long journey back.
I met up with Shawn, Jane, and Kate for a snack and drinks on the beach. We went back to the hostel and played some pool before dinner and drinks. That night, the bartender roomie was being nice and I was actually having a proper conversation with him, until the end when he asked me to donate money twice. I mean that’s a nice gesture, but stop asking me things. I had to call it an early night, since I was still not feeling 100%, my bus was leaving really early in the morning and (of course) my stuff was sprawled out and not packed. So that concluded my night.
I got to see Zach before I left and stalked up on buns from breakfast for the journey.
Goodbyes to all, off to Chiclayo!
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