It was another exciting 9 hour bus ride between the adorable, colonial mountain town of Cuenca to the dusty, run down beach-town of Mancora. Beginning bright and early at 7:15am, the trip was made even worse by a shady move, or so we thought, made by the bus company. They dropped us at the immigration check-in office to Ecuador, not Peru, which was where we needed to be. There was no way to stamp out of the country and enter Peru at this office.

Without an idea of what to do, we hailed a cab and directed him to take us to the Peru immigration office. He dropped us off five minutes later. When we asked the parking attendant about the bus that was supposed to be taking us into Peru, he mentioned it had left 25 minutes ago, and the next one wouldn't be for another 3 hours!

We gave each other an exasperated look at made our way to the immigration line. We were frustratedly discussing the 3 additional hours of our trip while filling out of immigration cards, when a bus rolled up.

When will we learn to stop listening to random people who have no idea what they're talking about? It can certainly be deduced that the Latin American culture in general, have a hard time saying "I don't know", and instead provide random, generally incorrect information. Hopefully, we've at last learned our lesson.

We cleared immigration and grabbed a seat outside and fixed ourselves some lunch while the rest of the passengers waited in line. Back on the bus, it was just 3 hours or so to the seaside town of Mancora. Or should I say, what should have been three hours, if we hadn't stopped for an hour and a half to investigate which one of the dozen or so shady looking customs officials lifted the laptop of the man sitting behind us. we were stopped at a Customs check point and ordered off the bus. After they looked through everyone's bags we were back on the bus and headed on when the guy noticed his laptop was missing from his backpack.

What followed was a long drawn out episode where they searched every inch of the bus looking for the laptop, while we all knew quite well it was in one of their trucks and not on the bus. They then stood around in a circle discussing the ins and outs of the case, but really just attempting to look as if something was being done about it, until finally the man threw up his hands and said "Just forget it, I'll buy a new one!"

That is the problem with issues like official corruption, there ain't no recourse. You're just plain screwed.

So an extra hour and a half was tacked on to our trip, but after we got going again it was only a touch over 20 minutes later, and we were dropped off on the side of the dusty road in what was apparently the town of Mancora.

Immediately after retrieving our bags from below the bus, I heard my name being called from behind. I turned to see a friendly, European-looking fellow smiling at me. We had booked in three nights at the Kon-Tiki hostel and Jurg, our Swiss host, was waiting the extra hour and half for our arrival to bring us to the hostel. I was a little confused as I was certain our hostel was in town, but I was definitely appreciative for the lift.

It quickly became apparent the reason for the ride, while the hostel was very much in town, it was located on the very top of a steep cliff that overlooked the entire village. It would have been a mighty feat taking on that hill with all our bags.

Jurg showed us to our bungalow. It was perfect. A large (although extremely hard) bed, bed side tables, a private bathroom with shower, plus our own patio with two chairs, a small table, and hammock overlooking the buzz of the town below, and the hypnotic pulsing of the ocean waves beyond. Maybe we need another day here...

We took in the view from our loungy chairs, until we decided to make our way down to the beach. It has felt like quite a while since we strolled down the beach with our toes in the sand; approximately 5 weeks by my count.

Kids were playing in the water, people of all ages were laying on the beach soaking up the last of the afternoon sun, while we strolled past cervezaria after cevicharia deciding which one was going to win our business. In the end, proximity dominated, and we pulled up two beach lounge chairs and settled into our first sunset happy hour in far too long.

The Mojitos and Cusqeñas went down just as easily as the sun did beyond the watery horizon. After we took in every last ounce of oranges, pinks, and purples the sky had on offer we decided to have a walk down the strip to see what sort of comida was available in this town.

As it turned out, there was really a bit of everything. Of course as in every town in South America, there is certainly your fair share of hamburger and pizza joints and, this being Peru, many Ceviche shacks of varying quality. However, they also had Thai, Japanese, Mexican, and even a Vegetarian joint. It comes as no surprise, which of these piqued my interest. And so we went on a hunt for the veggie restaurant. Up and down the strip we went, but found no veggie place. In the end, we settled on giving the Asian-fusion joint a try.

Upon receiving our menus, though the offering looked good, our hearts sunk just a bit in realizing, we were no longer in Ecuador. The prices have seem to jump up 25% overnight. Ah well, it's only going up from here... That is until Bolivia. Despite this, we had a nice meal of Japanese inspired grilled tuna salad for me and chicken curry for Adrian.

We stopped off at the market for a couple of cheaper beers and a fairly adequate box of wine I had tried with the EdVenture crew back in Costa Rica. We finished up the day with a long chat, while sipping our beverages, and eating a few too many pieces of the Ecuadorian chocolate I slipped into our supplies at the market.

In the morning, we were up around 8 and after a slow wake up, we threw on our workout gear and headed to the beach for a run. The weather was perfect, sunny and clear with a perfectly cooling coastal breeze. Our jog was a bit foiled, however, as our lie in put us down at the beach for our run at high tide. We were forced to scramble over rocks and concrete boulders until we got to a relatively long patch of sand. We ran up and down that strip of sand taking in the dead fish smell and flocks of surrounding pelicans. It seems this area of the beach (the only area with room to run) is the fish feeding zone. Mmmmm...

We ran for just about as much as we could stand and started heading back towards the hostel after roughly 30 minutes. The real workout was after the run. With tired legs, the climb up to the hostel was pretty brutal, but it was a good way to punctuate our efforts.

We took our very modest breakfast of coffee, juice, rolls, and strawberry jam in the dining area overlooking the overwhelming spans of the Pacific, which we have by now seen from many different vantage points, in many different countries on this trip.

After breakfast, we showered and relaxed and as soon as we had mustered the energy, we packed up some beach stuff, threw on our swimsuits and headed down to the beach for an afternoon of sand and sun.

By 2:30pm, our hunger had gotten the best of us and so we decided to trudge back up the hill to fix a late lunch. On the walk back down the sand and to the road back to the hill, I crossed paths with a guy I KNEW I knew. I stopped stared and said to myself, "That HAS to be him!" I stood for a full three seconds in front of him, until I convinced myself I had to be mistaken. I made my way up to where Adrian was waiting for me, and said to him, "Adrian, look at that guy. That is totally Dom".

Now, Dom is a former colleague of mine at CBS in Sydney. I hadn't seen him since I had left for Melbourne, over two years ago. That being said, I knew he was traveling, and despite Adrian's claim that he was too dark and too skinny, I had a gut feeling it was him. Think about it, 2 things that travel does to a person, makes 'em dark and makes 'em skinny.

With my confidence, also came a bit of doubt. I didn't have the courage to approach the man only to receive a look of complete idiocy. Instead, we made our way back up to our place and while Adrian prepared our lunch I waited as the painstakingly slow Internet finally revealed via Facebook that indeed, Dom was in South America. That was all the proof I needed.

Right after we finished up, we made our way back down to the beach. We grabbed a couple beers and as we approached the familiar face our eyes connected, his sunglasses were removed, and a mutual look of recognition was exchanged. We pulled up a plot of sand and joined Dom and his girlfriend for a "what a small world!?" catch up.

We spent the next 1-2 hours in that exact position, until finally the sun had dipped behind the horizon and a chill took to the air. We swept the sand from our bodies and made our way toward the center of town. Having set a time to meet up that evening, we bid each other an Hasta Luego and headed back up the steep hill yet again.

After showers and plenty of exchanges as to how random that meet up was, Adrian and I headed back into the village for dinner. In the light of day, we had finally found the vegetarian place and decided to dine there that evening. Dinner was, yet again, surprisingly good, and by 8:15 (15 minutes tardy) we met up with our fellow travelers.

We made our way back to the beach where the oceanside bars served cold beers and ever-lasting happy hour specials. By this hour, the club music was blasting at a completely unnecessarily loud volume. It would certainly make our catch up tricky, but our options of drinking holes were limited, so we acquiesced.

Beer after beer eventually evolved to cocktails, as the stories and travel tails continued to entertain. Eventually, when we were proper saturated, we bid each other good night and once again we embarked on yet another journey back up the mountain.

The morning quickly dissolved into the early afternoon before we were able to rile ourselves into action. By 12:30, probably closer to 1pm, we headed down to the beach to park our sorry selves on the warm sand and hopefully melt the remainder of our hangovers away. We looked around for our comrades with no avail until we eventually picked a plot of sand down a ways and quietly enjoyed lazily wasting away a beautiful day.

At close to 4, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and made one more attempt to spot our friends. We soon resigned and headed back up the hill for a shower. Back at home there is typically one thing I crave after a night of drinking, a burrito. And so without even discussing it was determined what we would be having for dinner.

Having skipped lunch, it was a struggle to wait until a non-senior citizen hour to have dinner. By 6:30 we were heading back down the hill. We pulled up a spot at the restaurant and surprisingly were not the first ones there, nor the second or third. We order the combo special veggie and chicken burritos, and to our surprise they were delicious, fairly inexpensive, and even relatively healthy.

We took in a short evening stroll and before too long retired back to our bungalow for a much needed early night of sleep.

In the morning, we were back at it. We threw on our running clothes and embarked on a run to whip us back into shape after a lazy hungover day. Instead of the south section of the beach, we headed for the north end where the beach stretches on for days. Because of our early night, we were up early and didn't have to fight with the rising tide. We ran and ran and ran, and were feeling quite good and were excited at the length of beach that lay before us, until a man standing all by himself on a deserted beach began to approach us. I initially was a bit sketched out by this lone ranger until I saw he was wearing a Policia vest. In these parts, because of widespread corruption, this can make one even more nervous. However, the man approached us and warned us that if we go any further down the beach, we would be robbed. "Oh, how lovely" I thought. Despite there not being a single human being in sight, we were forced to heed the officer's advice a run back the way we came.

We took another full lap back to the officer, before we ran back and made our way back to the fierce hill up to our room. We showered and decided we had a bit of housekeeping to do, namely to buy our onward tickets to the Peruvian mountain-town of Huaraz, find a place to stay, and do a bit of "business" online. The sun was being extremely timid on this day, so the arrangement worked out well.

Having run out of intriguing options in this small town, we revisited our Asian-fusion place as I had been craving that salad since the last bite I had 2 days before. We went back that night, watched one of our 6 movies that we own (I believe it was Moneyball) and slipped into a restful night's sleep.

We awoke the next morning, our final day in Mancora. We had until 5 pm to waste until it was time for our overnight bus to Huaraz to pull out of town. On the agenda today, another run, a shopping trip for dinner, snack, and breakfast supplies for our overnight bus ride south, and of course reading and relaxing in the sun.

We sucked up the little bandwidth available at our hostel to download podcasts and an episode of Game of Thrones, until if was time to head down to the bus station.

Though our ticket was for 5:15pm, it wasn't until about 6:15pm that we were aboard the two story bus pulling out of Mancora. It wouldn't be until 10-11am the following day that we would be at our destination and three inches from my head is a speaker BLASTING Latin American pop tracks in rapid succession.

Yep, I get the feeling that another hellish travel experience is about to unfold!