Mission: Moto Taxi!!

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of riding a Moto Taxi , you haven’t lived yet! It’s probably the crappiest mechanical jigsaw puzzle that sounds like it should be going 100 mph ...but doesn’t. Imagine a small motor bike, cut it in half, find an old back seat of a car and weld it together with any odd piece of metal. Complete the look with a sunshade over the top and ‘BAM!’, you’ve got a moto taxi! Probably the most fun you can have on three wheels for under a dollar.  My question was: “When do I get to drive one myself?!”.  Which is where this story is going...

Beautiful Mancora...

I was stuck in Lima for 2 weeks waiting for a new passport as my old one was rain damaged. So I opted to wait out of the city. I travelled to the north of Peru, a few km from the Equadorian border, to a surf town called Mancora.  I arrived in the afternoon after a short plane ride and an hour long taxi drive from the airport which included a free lecture about how dodgy Mancora’s men are and how crazy the town is.

It didn’t take long for me to feel at home. I was lucky to find ‘probably the best hostel in Peru’ Kokopelli ( www.hostelkokopelli.com) which is run by 4 travel buddies who dreamt of creating the perfect hostel and succeeded!

Kokopelli - Our Paradise Hostel

Mission Accomplished!!

 Partying 24/7 is hard not to do here and in doing so I befriended many including  3 particular travellers – Marelli , a girl from Lima who works and lives in Mancora. Ruben, a nutter, from Germany who was travelling South America and Ammon, the mathematical genius surfer from Oregon, who was on the lookout for the perfect wave. We were inseparable and they too had the moto taxi itch.  

Ruben perfecting his MotoTaxi skills!!

We had heard that somebody knew somebody who hired a moto taxi for a few dollars and drove it all day. We were mislead, of course. It wasn’t as easy as we’d thought. The four of us as well as Dan ‘the rock climber’ (another friend of ours from the hostel) headed downtown asking every Moto Taxi driver if they would hand over their vehicle for the day (note: there’s at least 2-3 moto taxis to every metre in this town). We were laughed at! We thought if we could offer the guy the same amount of money he would earn in a whole day then he would agree and he would get a day off to go surfing!!! The attractive offer didn’t work and it was getting late but we refused to give up! We almost ran out of town when we were finally pointed to the direction of somebody who might be interested. We found ourselves at the doorstep of a moto taxi driver’s house where we were greeted by his wife and kids. She had to make a few calls so we waited down the street full of anticipation, while enjoying a local ice-cream. It took us back to childhood.

                      

Helping Our Vehicle Move....

Finally somebody arrived with the moto taxi. We were in fits of laughter as the woman explained it had only one break and it was a bit tricky to ride. None of us were very experienced with motorbikes and this one needed an expert. Ruben was the closest to being one, so full of confidence he took it round the block for a test drive, stalling every five seconds. The owners looked a little apprehensive about handing it over, but with a little humorous persuasion, we were off! Of course, jumping into a moving vehicle to avoid the embarrassment of stalling again. It was priceless! 

Armed with a camera and a massive grin we set off to the next beach, far from police patrols and ongoing traffic, beeping at every person we passed just to blend in. The ride there was not short of laughs. In fact we could hardly breathe the whole time as we watched Ruben struggle to manoeuvre our vehicle, not forgetting to jump out at every slight hill to push it up the road. We probably spent more time out than in! It took us half an hour to get to the ‘5 minute away’ beach, but it was worth the laugh.

Ammon trying to explain why we have no dinner...

Happy Days!! :)

We had just got there when Marelli remembered she had work in 5 min! While Ruben was obliged to take Marelli to work, Dan joined them and Ammon and I decided we would catch our dinner. We had it all planned out from the start. Hire a moto taxi and drive around all day. Catch a hand full of crabs and have them for dinner! Easy right?  An hour and a few cuts and bruises later we were left with one crab and a crushed dream. Slightly defeated , we let the crab go and met up with the others to watch the sunset over this beach. The sunsets in Mancora are amazing, each day more stunning than the last.

The adventure wasn’t quite what we’d expected but it was amazing nonetheless. In fact we all met up that night, of course got drunk again and retold the story over and over as if it was new, not forgetting the most repeated phrase of the day : “¿Por qué no?”  . Epic.

Clare Borg for www.barephotography.net