four degrees south

We’ve spent the last few days on the small beach town of Mancora, Peru, four degrees south of the equator. The weather is perfect. The waves are perfect. The seafood is perfect. The company is perfect. I’d complain, but I can’t think of anything to complain about.

After a terribly sad and bewildering week of separating from Bolivia and our lives as Peace Corps Volunteers, we thought a few days of relaxation and contemplation would do us good. Boy howdy. It has. Tom and I and nine of our friends from Peace Corps Bolivia took a sixteen hour bus ride from Lima to the northern beaches of Peru, and here we’ve been for the last week, soaking, talking, swimming, taking in the sun, mulling over the past, tossing around ideas for our future, and enjoying the now. It’s just what we needed.

Bolivia, though still shaky politically (looks like we were not evacuated for naught), has calmed down a bit, and we’ll be able to go back next week to be in Oki for a few days. I wonder what it will be like. Sad, probably. Good, I hope. I can’t imagine not seeing that place again, not explaining to friends why we’ve had to go, not having coffee under our mosquito net a few last times. From there we’ll head to Buenos Aires, get our butts handed to us in this marathon, and rock out with Tom’s dad and brother Patrick who are coming down to cheer us on and play with us in Patagonia.

Life is good. This is not what we expected, but I’m grateful for the amazing year we spent in Okinawa and the new opportunities opening up to us.

Here are some pics of the last week in Mancora. Awesome place.

chilling on the beach. The place where we´re staying is right on this beach, and it´s five bucks a night. Rough life.

sea slug. Lots of good nature here. Marlise and Naya and I went swimming with two huge dolphins the other day -we were just a few feet away from them. George says he thinks they were a kind of killer whale. Oh. That´s not as good of an idea as swimming with dolphins, but they didn´t eat us, so that´s cool.

backpacking along the beach. Feels pretty good.

mototaxi that took us to the mud baths

Ryan and Tom getting thrashed. We do this for about six hours a day.

ceviche is amazing.

the hookah.

Took a day trip out to some hot springs and mud baths, which was really just a trough in the middle of a parking lot full of warm mud, which was awesome.

me

Tom and George

Ben Ranz

Emily

our good crew of eleven.