After asking some of my Peruvian friends for advice regarding the best beaches in Peru, we were recommended to head towards Máncora in the north of the country. So we caught a flight from Arequipa to Piura and afterwards a bus for about three hours from Piura to Máncora, close to the border with Ecuador.
Máncora is a small coastal town situated along the Panamerican highway. It is known to have some of Peru’s best sandy beaches, and it is also famous for surfing. This part of Peru offers year-round warm weather, so we could tuck away our jackets and finally start wearing our sandals and shorts.
We stayed at a hotel called Máncora y Sol, which is a nice family-driven hotel close to the beach as well as the center of town. It offers rooms with air conditioning and a terrace, hammocks as well as a charming pool. The owner is super friendly, and he even offered us a free ride to the bus station in his van when we had to leave.
The hotel lies only about 100m from the closest beach, where there are plenty of seaside restaurants and bars. It is also a nice spot to watch the sunset. However, there is a more beautiful beach called Punta Sal that lies about 20 minutes away by minibus or taxi. It is much less crowded than the main beach in Máncora, and it offers several kilometeres of white sand.
When it comes to restaurants in Máncora, we can recommend La Sirena d’Juan. They offer delicious Peruvian fusion dishes such as tuna in red curry or grilled tuna with pepper sauce. There is also a good asian fusion restaurant in town called Tao, which serves Chinese, Japanese and Thai food with a Peruvian twist.
After a few relaxing days at the beach in Máncora, we headed back to Lima for a couple of nights before returning to Norway in due time for Christmas.
See also our post about Lima.
