Viaje a la Playa

Relaxation, going with the flow and enjoying the journey, this was the theme for my Christmas and New Years vacation, and are all themes of my time in Peru. Many of you know I could use a little more of these things in my life. Traveling in a group for ten days, over the holidays, without anything planned was good practice.

I had some time off of work for the holidays and so traveled to the beautiful and warm north coast of Peru with some friends from the US living in Lima.

Christmas day in Huanchaco

We started in a beach town Huanchaco outside of Trujillo. We arrived on Christmas Eve and the place empty. Christmas Eve is a day spent at home with family. It came alive on Christmas day though. People stated arriving and parking their cars and vans on the beach at 7 am and the party didn’t end until after midnight.

Traditional fishing boats lined up on the beach

One of the Christmas traditions in Peru is to eat a treat called Paneton. It is a large bunt shaped bread with gummy candy bits cooked inside. EVERYONE I have talked to in Peru LOVES paneton. At first I could not understand what could be so delicious to captured the love of an entire country (several countries I would later learn. Paneton is originally from Milan Italy and is eaten in many western European countries as well as many in South America). I believe it is part of the whole experience. Paneton only comes out during the holidays. People hunt down their favorite bakery or brand, buy several, but then save it for Christmas or New Years. What is that saying? Hunger is the best spice? Then anticipation is the second best. We heard about paneton, spent weeks talking about it and how it can’t be that good, but we HAVE to have some for Christmas. Once in Trujillo we began assessing bakeries to make sure we got the best one, until finally we pilled the trigger and brought home the prize. The result was delicious. The three of use exchanged gifts, watched the sunset drank Trujillo beer and ate an entire paneton. This ended up being our Christmas dinner of champions.

Devora eating paneton like they do on the commercial 

Christmas paneton dinner

Next we took and over night bus to Tumbes and made our way down the coast. Finding a place to stay was always and adventure. From Tumbes three hungry, tired people made it through a near adventure to Ecuador (we didn’t end up going), a taxi driver trying to over charge us, and decision making when to stop and choose a hotel for the next several nights. We ended up in a beautiful beach town, Zorritos, in a lovely hotel. Here we spent our first full day on the beach, learned to play Casino (one of my favorite card games), and visited mud baths.

Only a few kilometers outside Zorritos were medicinal mud baths. There were three baths, each with a different type of mud said to help different ailments. One for your bones, one for arthritis, on for your skin. We spent the afternoon caking ourselves in mud, drying, and then repeating in the next pool. I now understand the appeal of mud bath spa treatment.  We also had the plus of a beautiful outdoor environment and scenery.

From Zorritos we ended up in Punta Sal for a few more beach days, and then Mancora New Years. Moncora is a party surf town, not usually a place I would pick for vacation, but I was enjoying the journey and it ended up being easily the best New Years party I have ever experienced. Easily over a thousand people packed onto the tiny Mancora beach. Liquor stores around the corner sold bottles of liquor, mixers and cups, while the bars on the beach only blasted loud music. Despite the rowdy appearance of the scene the crowd, up until midnight, was a mix of ages, families blended in the majority of young tourists. At midnight, instead of a countdown to a blast of celebration, there was a solid 45 minutes of cheering and fireworks lit off from the middle of the crowd.

Punta Sal

Punta Sal

We also learned about a few other South American holiday traditions. The first is to wear yellow underwear for financial good luck in the New Year. This picture is of Devora and I buying my pair on the street. Mine had grapes on them; another tradition is to eat 12 grapes at midnight. The last tradition is burning of Muñecos, life sized dolls stuffed with straw. The tradition is to burn them at midnight to signify ridding yourself of the bad in the past year to cleanly enter the New Year. I am not use to seeing burning figures of people in the street, but I tried feeling the cathartic energy to for the New Year.

Buying New Year good luck yellow underwear

Mancora Beach

After one last relaxing beach day we returned to Lima, and then I to Cusco, relaxed and ready to get back to work. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday.

Happy 2014!