Week 4/5: Spring Break (Peru Style)

I'll be the first to say I've had some pretty great spring breaks in my day. In high school, it was usually a ski trip and in college, a couple of road trips to Panama City Beach, Florida. As a senior, though, I can say I saved my best spring break trip for last. It's the first and only time I can say I spent my spring break in a foreign country on the beach for a week. What more could you ask for, really?

Our trip began with an 18-hour bus trip from Lima to Mancora, which was a walk in the park compared to the 20+ hours my friends and I have driven the past two years to Florida. The bus had seats that recline into a bed and each seat had its own television screen where you can take your pick of movies, so I was set. I even slept on this bus ride, which was a welcome surprise. When we arrived it Mancora, we got a ride in moto-taxis to our beach house in Los Organos, approximately 10 miles from Mancora. Moto-taxis are basically just motorcycles with carts attached to the back that people sit in. Very sketchy contraption and prone to rollovers, but "when in Peru," ya know.

Home base for the week.

After my first moto-taxi experience, we arrived at our house and I knew almost immediately that it was going to be an amazing week. The house was everything we could've hoped for with a pool outside the front door and the ocean a short minute walk over a sand dune. If I'm being honest, the days all kind of blur together between trips to the pool, ocean, and town of Mancora, but I'll sum up some of my favorite moments. The second night of the trip was National Pisco Day in Peru, so of course we decided to make the trip into Mancora that evening to celebrate. The nightlife scene there is almost surreal because the discotecas are on the beach open to the ocean, so you're basically just barhopping on the beach. It's definitely a different experience than the cement sidewalks in Nebraska and a whole lot sandier.

Celebrating Peru's National Pisco Day.

One of the days, we were casually hanging out on the beach before we decided to ride a banana boat tube on the back of a jetski into the ocean. Naturally, I was beyond excited because it reminded me of the lake lifestyle back home, but I quickly changed my mind. The waves when we went out were high and only getting higher, and I vividly remember thinking for most of the ride that I was going to break my right leg and be left to fend for myself in the Pacific for the rest of my life. Eventually we went back to shore and the waves were so bad that as we pulled into shore the guy flipped his jetski. Great way to end that ride, bye.

Our second to last day, we went on a tour of beaches north of Mancora all the way to Tumbes, which is only about 16 miles from the Ecuador border. I would have liked to cross over just for the experience, but unfortunately we didn't choose that package. In Tumbes we got on a small boat and went out to a crocodile exhibit. I have never seen so many crocodiles in one area in my life. I'm not sure how many there were in total, exactly, but it seemed excessive. Crocodile fun fact: they don't have tongues that move because they would swallow them whole and they open/close their mouths to control their body temperature. That leads me to our last day and, hands down, the best day of all.

"If there's sand that you ain't wrote your name innnnn..." (Keith
Urban voice).

Our final day, Claire, Shelby, and I decided to try surfing. I was somewhat skeptical because I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to learn in the course of one day, but I decided to do it anyway. I'm so glad I did because it turned out to be one of the best experiences I've had since coming to Peru. For my surf lesson, you get 20 minutes of instruction on the beach and then an hour of instruction in the water. Well my surf instructor was M.I.A. for 15 of my 20 minute lesson before we took the board out into the water, so my expectations for how well I was going to do were fairly low. I mean I was basically going into it blind but off we paddled, my instructor told me to stand so I did, and to my amazement I actually stood up on my first try and rode the wave until I got close to rocks and jumped off my board. It was the COOLEST THING OF MY LIFE and I think I may need to pursue surfing as a hobby. Also during our lesson a sea turtle swam right up next to my board and I got to touch it, so now I can say that I surfed with sea turtles. It truly was an amazing experience.

My surf instructor Favio and I. He said I was an excellent student.

After my lesson, I finally took the plunge and went and got the tattoo that I've wanted for years now. It's simply the word "fearless" on my side, but it means more to me than I could put into words. Anyone who knows me knows how much I like love adore Taylor Swift. She has been my idol since my freshman year of high school and gotten me through some of the most difficult times in my life. On the front insert of her "Fearless" album, she has a quote that has echoed in my head for years. Coming to another country and having to speak a foreign language was the scariest thing I've ever done. I wanted to back out so many times, but I set my fears aside and got on that plane, and it was the best decision I've ever made. So often we live our lives scared; scared of rejection, failure, walking away, growing up. Having this word in my handwriting serves as a constant reminder to have the courage to do the things that scare me the most and live without regret. That is fearless to me. 

"Fearless is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death."--Taylor Swift

After our last day, we got on the bus to head back to Lima and I had to put my "fearlessness" to the test fairly quickly. On the bus ride back, I watched the movie "San Andreas" which, for those of you not familiar, is a fictional movie about a huge, deadly earthquake in San Francisco along the San Andreas fault. So please keep that in mind. Sunday night, thanks to my insomniac self, I was still awake at around 3 A.M. when I felt my bed start shaking, and then the whole house. I instantly panicked because I JUST saw a movie about this and what are the chances?! It must be a sign. I was 100% prepared to get out of bed and run up to the roof, using my recently acquired earthquake knowledge I knew it's better to be higher up, but it was over after only a few seconds. Turns out it was only a "temblor," like a trembling of the ground, of 3.9 degrees (so not actually an earthquake), but needless to say it didn't exactly rock me to sleep. So here I am writing my blog :) Sorry it got so long this time, but I was having a hard time choosing what to include and what to omit. Also, I realized I took barely any pictures during this trip so I wanted to write a little more than usual so I wouldn't forget some of my experiences. So if you're still reading, thank you. I have another crazy busy week ahead and time seems to just be flying by! As always, sending love from Peru!