21st December 2005

Jorge turned up spot on time as usual and unusually we had managed to secure our breakfast.
After a stop at the chemist for some mosquito bite ointment for Salvador we headed for the mud pools, some thirty minutes away on an unpaved road.
A bit of bad sign posting saw Jorge take the wrong route but all credit to him he soon realised and asked someone which way to go.
We truly were in the middle of nowhere so getting lost would not have been a great idea.
It was a relief when we saw the sign for the ‘mud pools’ (Hervidores) with a greeting in perfect English saying ’thank you for your visit’.
An eagle lifted off screeching from the thatched roof of the entrance as we got out of the car and headed up the steps to be met with complete and utter desolation.
The Tumbes area hasn’t seen rain for three years, so everything is super dry and the mud baths have been completely abandoned to the elements.
Having the place to ourselves proved a bit dangerous though, as I took to the pools like a (very thin) hippo on heat.
I soon stripped down to my underpants and was wallowing in the warm pools breathing in a strong smell of sulphur.
It was like squelching in the thickest chocolate imaginable and the look on Esther, Salvador’s and Jorge’s faces as I submerged ever deeper in the mud was fantastic.
With the on-site showers not having been used in decades I had to rinse off in one of the other pools.
Jorge held Salvador as Esther helped me with a towel.
With no-one but the eagles, vultures and Esther watching I was able to allow my bony body to be as one with the elements, doing an impromptu nude dance of the one muddy towel for my tiny audience.
Thank God Jorge didn’t turn the corner with Salvador when I was doing my Mother Teresa on the back of an elephant impression.
The best birding on the trip followed after I got dressed as I spied a pair of Pacific Parrotlets sat atop a tree by the entrance.
Beautiful tiny parrots, with orange masks and electric blue under-wings, gorgeous.
White Tailed Jays followed, unfortunately so did a bin bag blowing in a tree that I got Jorge to stop for, well you have to investigate everything.
We got back to the hotel, happy after an unexpectedly enjoyable trip, packed our stuff and had a last trip to the beach.
Jorge collected us and after a spin around the main square of Tumbes, which looks like every other main square in South America, (but its his home town so we let him indulge himself) we caught the flight to Lima.
We arrived in Lima and my tripod had gone missing, it’s always something, after an hour they found it but by then we were pretty fed up with the whole thing.
By the time we had got to the house we were finished and glad to be back.
I have the lingering smell of sulphur around me to recall our mad morning and Salvador has a lovely bruised chin and diarrhoea to help him remember our holidays in Tumbes.