In Piura we boarded a cramped, hot minivan driven by an Ayrton Senna wannabe, destination Mancora. Feeling indifference to the fight we had just caused between the minivan ticket tout and the minivan driver, we just wanted to hit the beach.

Mancora is a surf spot on Peru's northern coast, not too far from the border with Ecuador. The terrain is dry and desert like, not dissimilar from the coastline of Southern Spain. Hell, they even speak Spanish here! Aside from the surfer's left hander beach break, there's a cluster of hostels, restaurants and the obligatory surfer bars. The best of the bars, Macora Surf Club, is owned by English gal Niovi and her Peruvian fella Jaime. We were to spend more than one evening in their company.

As we arrived on a Friday, we embarked on the tradtional weekend bender, enjoyed the high life complete with lashings of seafood. Indeed, the seafood here is of a particularly high standard. We even took to catching our own, when we hired a boat (term applied in the loosest sense) for Paul's 30th birthday. Jonny was the local lad who fixed it, his salty sea dog of a father the captain. I caught my first fish ever fish, and we bagged about a dozen or so in total, ranging from 4 to 8 inches in length. Jonny used the catch to whip up a so-fresh-its-still-flapping dish of Cerviche, shredded raw fish with lime, chili and corriander. We enjoyed this dish, right there on the boat, with some beers and the sunset.

On occassion we would wander into the Loki Hostel, which is a kind of Club 18-30 for backpackers. You may recall that I stayed in the Cuzco branch of said Hostel, and wanted to kill all of the occupants. This one wasn't so bad, basically because we weren't actually staying there. It was nice to watch the football and play ping pong here.

I decided to take a couple of surf lessons. The first I did well, managing to actually stand up on the board. But by the end of the second lesson I realised that I am unlikley to ever be a surfer, and binned the whole concept, opting instead for the beach, shrimp burgers and a couple of trashy novels.

Having spent 10 days drowning (almost literally) in surf, sun and shandy (sadly no sex) I took the executive decision to head back to the Andean Mountains. This meant leaving Simon, who was determined to learn how to kite board and needed an additional week or two, and Paul, who had got himself a bar job at Loki Hostel and was staying for god knows how long.

So, 10 days on the beach is plently for me, it's not as if it's Thailand or Bali, and I'll catch up with Simon again further down the road. Gotta get back to those mountains!