Sadly Lima didn´t quite give us what we were looking for. There was a beach but it was dirty and had lots of rocks and was cold! Lima was just another big city with bars, restaurants and not much else.. i.e. lots of money spending! However it did have something very unique.. one of the parks right in the centre was a cats haven, there was around 200 cats there that people went to play with in the sun and feed. They were all incredibly tame and obviously felt safe in their little park, sadly there was a lot of cat flu around :(. After seeing Christoffer and Martha off to the airport we headed off the next day in search of the sun again! We ended up getting on an 18 hour bus North to a town called Mancora which is just below the boarder to Ecuador, and we were not disappointed!

Mancora was perfectly hot, with a warm sea and a nice front of quiet little beach bars. We stayed in a quite hostel back in the hills with our own little hut and an amazing view. The next day we finally got out surfing and picked it up quickly this time, after spending all day in the water we trudged our way back up to the hostel and got in a cold shower before realising the back of both of our legs were bright pink and incredibly painful! That night we set off on an overnight bus which was not an enjoyable experience considering the condition of our legs but we powered through, crossed the boarder to Ecuador and went North to another beach town called Montañita.

Montañita was very similar to Mancora but a little bigger and a much crazier nightlife. We stayed back in the hills again at an ecohostel where where we were the only guests. On the first day we napped and applied Aloe Vera all day feeling sorry for ourselves because of the burn then decided to hit the town! Many many cocktails later and dancing into the night we made it home and slept through. Nothing like the sun and the sea to kick a hangover, we got up early and went to rent some boards. Our first time moving onto hard boards and we were successful, managing to get up on more waves than we had done before.. practice was finally starting to pay off :D. Another early night in Montañita as always after surfing and an early start the morning after to our next beach stop!

Four (very local) buses later and we´re in Canoa. This one is a really sleepy little town and after ditching our bags at a hostel we found a quite beach bar in the shape of a boat called Suki Bar to have some cocktails. After enough drinks to be merry we went home and slept well. Another amazing days surfing the next day on even smaller boards and big waves. On our last day in Canoa we relaxed on the beach and watched the biggest waves we´ve ever seen (the news reported 4m!).

To get to Quito we had another early start at 6am and an all day bus (our favourite....). We´ve been in Quito for 3 days now but sadly we´ve both been stuck in bed the whole time with very high fevers and achy bones. We´re not sure whether its Flu or we´ve caught Dengue Fever but either way we´re both slowly on the mend. Sick or not tomorrow we have to get moving as we´ve got 5 days to get to Northern Colombia to make our boat trip... GO GO GO!

Love Alice & Andy xx