20/07/2019 – Travel day Mancora to Lima, Peru

We had a nice lay in before having breakfast of scrambled eggs prepared by our host Virginia. We showered and packed our things away slowly, we were allowed to leave our luggage at the casa which was helpful as our bus wasn’t until later in the evening. We sat on the veranda and wrote the diary up and downloaded some Netflix to watch on the journey before heading into town. We ate a burrito lunch, a menu del dia for 15 Sol (under £4) before heading to our usual beach bar spot, with comfy sun lounger mattresses and a sea view. We got a coffee in the sun, trying to make the most of the hot weather, probably our last hot day for a while! I read my magazine and swam in the sea, Josh went to town to get some cash and to buy some toilet roll for the journey! In the evening we went back to our casa, where Virginia had made us a pizza dinner. I didn’t manage it all so she kindly put it in a box as a packed lunch for us! Virginia ordered us a mototaxi so we loaded our luggage and got driven to the Civa bus terminal, basically a small shack in the town opposite where the bus pauses very briefly! Our tickets got checked and our luggage tagged, and we quickly used the very basic bathroom facilities to brush our teeth. It is common practice now for us to look like the classic backpackers for these journeys, wearing what look like pijamas and socks and sandals, not very stylish but comfortable! The bus paused for at least 15 seconds whilst our bags got thrown in the luggage compartment (alongside boxes of live guinea pigs, chickens, sacks of rice etc) and we went on board and found our seats. We had strategically booked the top deck front two seats, and had upgraded from the last bus journey to 180° seats, pretty comfortable for a bus! The seats had individual screens (although understandably all films and entertainment were in Spanish) and the chairs had controls to make them into massage chairs! We got settled in and quickly put the ipad on. About half an hour in to the journey, the bus pulled over for about 30 seconds and collected the individual rice and chicken dinners that we later got served, they must have an arrangement with a local restaurant or casa. Before long the man across the aisle from Josh was snoring away, and by midnight we put our earplugs and eyemasks on and followed suit, reclining into our little pods for the night.