Mancora and the Northern Desert

Gillian and Mariana in Narihuala




We spent 3 days in Mancora, which is in the Northern desert of Peru. Our plane landed in Piura and we drove south to Catacaos for a look around. Catacaos is famous for filigree silver and gold work and it's beautiful. The girls and I checked out the jewelry while Marcio reminded us (constantly) that this was his part of the trip and shopping wasn't what he had in mind. We looked around for a bit and headed to an artisan community called Narihuala, where they work in straw (paja). We met a Peace Corps volunteer who was helping the women catalog their work and prepare it for sale. She also made a flier that was left at the tourist information site. They were so happy to know that we received one and that their advertising system was working. Gillian and I bought hats for the beach (no bargaining...the Peace Corps volunteer had taught them well.)


I also took photos of the dyed straw and the sign that shows that these houses belong to the association.


We also found that this area has a little museum because of the pre-Columbian site that was discovered.
It's registered and we had to pay to enter.
Very interesting and old. I loved the church that was added later and two boys followed us around and wanted to be paid for being tour guides. Luis said ok, but tell us what you know. They proceeded to explain about the carvings of interesting sexual positions, etc. and we loved what they had memorized. We paid them.

We also found a family of owls out
in the daytime...don't know the species or why they were out in the day, but they definitely belonged at the site and were not afraid of us at all.