It had been a long, strange trip indeed. In search of gainful employment I had circumnavigated the globe in six months. My itinerary read like this: Bogota; to Caracas to L.A. to Hong Kong. Two months of work, then off to Baghdad, Basra, and Nasiriyah, Iraq. Four months later: Kuwait, London, New York, Lima, Bogota; and home. Along the way I was offered more work in Afghanistan, Uruguay, Valladolid. The saying is that it’s a small world, maybe sometimes not small enough, after logging twenty or thirty hours of flight time at a stretch.

I was badly thrashed and in serious need of some down time. Nightly bar-b-ques, a fishing trip downriver, and a few hours drinking beer on the plaza and catching up with the local gossip filled that need well and truly. Absolute Heaven. Two weeks later, an idle thought occurred, small talk was made around the fire and the deal was done. Off to the coast of Peru. A working vacation as it were (a wink and a nod will suffice here).

Just as an interesting aside, the night before we left, the next door neighbor caught a baby 3-toed sloth (pelejo in the local dialect) in his backyard. I meditated upon the Zen of it all and, in light of the fact that the morning after the baby was freed we caught sight of her mother considered it an appropriate omen and very good Karma.

The real trip begins in Tumbes, Peru. As always, for me, it’s the road as much as the destination. The Pan-American Highway.

The very name conjures images of times gone by - DC-4 passenger planes sporting the same name, men in white suits and Panama Hats, cigars, rum, parrots and dusky skinned maidens in flowery summer dresses. The ballads of Jimmy Buffet come to life. I’ve often been accused of being a dreamer and a romantic. Sometimes, anyway.

The Departmento of Tumbes is located just across the border from Ecuador and astride the border lays the Manglares National Park - a vast estuary made up of floating mangrove islands. 

Just south of the Park is Puerto Pizarro, a small fishing village, where accommodations can be found or, if you prefer fancier digs, the regional capitol of Tumbes is just a little further south.

Southwest from Tumbes, through roughly 20 miles of rice paddy and banana plantations, is Caleta Cruz, or to be historically correct Caleta de la Cruz Del Pizarro, where the intrepid Spaniard first set foot in Peru and planted a Cross for King and Country. Here began the Conquista. 

Here too, I remembered my Baby Sloth Karma and so stopped for three days of beach, beer, seafood and almost-work. That almost-work part consisted of looking for living quarters for several hundred people for an upcoming project. Easily accomplished in less than an hour - there aren't any. However there is one very good beach hotel, and only one, and that has thirteen rooms.

In the village of Caleta Cruz I am assaulted by an almost overwhelming sense of déjà vü: thirty-five years ago on Rosarito Beach, Baja California. The resemblance is something out of the Twilight Zone. Indeed, this entire strip of coast, the villages along the way, the inland journey to Piura, all are reminiscent of a disappeared paradise across the US border south of San Diego. Proximity to Big Brother has its disadvantages. This too will disappear in time. Further south lay the tourist towns of Punta Sal and Máncora with their garish hotels and resorts.

Máncora is home to sun, sand and surf.