Concepción and Tumbes

So on Saturday we mostly hung out with the cousins.  I woke up with a migraine so that took a while to die down, and eventually we met up for lunch and to go to the huge mall near where the cousins live.  They live more on the edge of Conce, so I got to see completely different parts of the city than when I was there last, which was awesome.  

Anyway, at this huge mall there was a big arcade/kiddy rides/birthday party place with a haunted house in the back.  We all know I don't like haunted houses, but it had been a while since I was in one and my host siblings and cousins wanted to show it to me, so I went ahead.  Luckily it was relatively small--just a little corridor that you have to pass through in a single-file line to go through 5 different little horror rooms. We survived!  I will admit that it did make me a little jumpy, though... 

Then that night my host cousins (another 22yo girl, a 25yo, and her husband) and my host brother and I went out for a night on the town.  The DJ where we were dancing could tell I was a gringa and was trying, over the mic, to impress me with his English, which was entertaining for everybody. I had a lot of fun! Even though for a while I was the tallest person there...

Then the next day we all piled into the car to go out to the port area, to a little fishing town called Tumbes for a seafood lunch.  "Town" might be a generous word; it was more like a cluster of houses in a little dip in the mountains, with one main road along the beach that has seafood restaurants on one side and fishing boats/seafood vendors on the other side.  And a short pier.  We had seafood empanadas (YUM) and then one of the most fantastically/painfully filling meals I have had in as long as I can remember: (fresh as can be) fried fish, over a pile of french fries, onions, and eggs. This fries/onions/eggs combo is called a lo pobre (as in, "fish a lo pobre") and my host dad explained it's because poor people (the pobre) eat everything heaped in huge piles like that (stereotypically).  It was delicious but we all had some trouble even just breathing after that, so we took a walk along the dock to digest. A fresh sea breeze cures all! 

(little cousin, still a 10yo bundle of energy)

painting their boat, freehand!

she has crabs and she is not pleased about it

two guys were fishing off the dock... 

...and then putting their live fish into a plastic bag in a briefcase. alright.

but there were real I-use-a-net fishermen too!

  

proudly showing off his catch for the gringa. thank you sir.

Once we were comfortable breathing again, we got back into the car to return to Conce, but took a scenic hilly route.  On the way there we had driven through a naval base-the same one I saw when I toured the Huascar warship last time! But instead we passed this overlook, from which you can see the ocean and all the little fishing coastline and in the distance the skyscrapers of Conce. Good day!