It appears that Mancora is is the new year's party capital of Peru. As I said accommodation and transport were quite hard to come by and when I arrived I could see why - it was absolutely full of people! On the bus to MancoraI suffered my first significant loss of the trip - my wallet was stolen so my first morning in Mancora was spent calcelling cards and trying to fill out a police report. That sorted I headed to the beautiful and busy beach. I met an American guy (Jonathan) there and we decided to sort out a surf lesson for the following morning! We then decided we'd grab some food and beers and ended up on the beach drinking with some people from my hostel- however we did get an early night as we had an early surf lesson.

The next morning Jonathan and I had our surf lesson. It's not as easy as it looks (and it doesn't look particularly easy). To say I'm not quite a natural would be a massive understatement but I did manage to stand up so I definitely felt like I'd achieved something! Then we spent the afternoon chilling on the beach with Andrew (a guy from my dorm). Then the 3 of us and 2 other went for dinner and a few drinks on the beach again - only this time we bought a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke and sat and drank and then partied - we did have an excuse though as it had passed midnight and was there for new year's eve and my birthday!

So my 27th birthday was spent nursing a medium sized hangover, I did manage a stroll to the beach for a while in the afternoon. Then it was party time, the five of us headed out together again and met another guy in the first bar - we noticed his good style immediately (he was wearing a shirt very similar to mine). We laughed and he joined us. We had a really nice dinner in a Thai restaurant and then…..you guessed it went to the beach with a bottle of rum! The party on the beach was just mental - so so so many people, definitely the largest new year's eve party I've ever been to. There were people everywhere, fireworks, dummies being burned (Peruvain tradition that signifies the end of the old year). It was awesome. I managed to party until the sun came up - good times! New year's day was strange - I'm not sure if or how much I slept but I spent most of the day in my hostel room! Again I did manage a walk to the beach where I ate a burger (which incidently may have poisoned me). That night we went out for a really nice dinner to celebrate the new year in style. I got a relatively early night because I was knackered and had an early bus to Cuenca (in Ecuador). I didn't manage to get said bus because I didn't feel well (I blame the burger from above) and spent pretty much all day in bed - I did finally get up in the afternoon to sort out a bus ticket, this was significantly harder than I had hoped, I needed money but because I was due to leave Peru I had very few soles left, however all the banks in the town were out of money. One bank did have cash but only accepted visa cards (mine was stolen with my wallet) - eventually I managed to change some dollars - that is one of my best travel tips - always have some dollars with you! Anyway bus ticket booked, I bid my new friends adieu again and got an early night in preparation for my trip to Ecuador the next day (country number 7 of the trip).