So basically what reminded me to finally create this thread was when I read G's post in the
Asia, Peru thread where he brought up Mancora.
I almost died in Mancora.
That was the first time in my life where I KNEW I would die (it's still beyond me how I didn't) and resigned myself to actually dying. I had completely given up and was ready to meet my fate.
So I was in Mancora with a couple of friends I had traveled with from Ecuador. I stayed at the INFAMOUS
Loki Hostel, which is without a doubt the coolest, nicest, and wildest hostel I've ever stayed in. That shit looks and feels like a damn resort and a bed is only $9 a night!
For those who know, it's also right on the beach. Perfect location and the best place to stay in Mancora.
So I'm a guy who loves to swim when I'm at the beach. The thing about Mancora, though, is that it's a surfing beach, not a swimming one. You don't even see swimmers in that beach.
I was up early one morning from an intense night of partying and couldn't get myself to sleep again. Everyone was passed the F out so I decided to hit up the beach for a swim.
The only people on the beach were surfers (traditional and windsurfers) way the F out in the water. There were no people around on the shore but I went in just to go for a little swim.
As soon as I entered I could feel the intensity of the
undertow. The currents were mad strong and drew me in deeper. I'm a good swimmer so I didn't mind. I just went out for a swim. Before I know it, I am DEEP out into the water. I look at the shore and it's far as hell so I think to myself, time to start swimming back. The moment I try to swim back I feel an extremely powerful force keeping me in place. I immediately realized I was caught in a
rip tide.
Now, I've been in rip tides before, most notably in Costa Rica (before the Mancora incident). If you remain calm, you can just swim horizontally and escape. What made this one impossible to escape was the combination of the strong undertow and the rip tide. No matter which direction I tried to stay in, I couldn't move. That's when I thought to myself, I'm fucked.
I couldn't see anyone around except for some surfers far away but they looked like ants from where I was. I only did the most sensible thing one could do in that situation, yell for help. I yelled out "ayudame, ayudame por favor." lol. It didn't seem like anyone could hear me. I yelled out as loud as I could a few more times, but was interrupted by the occasional wave that would sarge over my head. That's when I realized I was probably going to die. I didn't panic. I just accepted it.
I actually thought about my family and friends back home and wondering wtf they would think if they heard I died in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru. Keep in mind that kind of story is way out of scope to the kind of people I grew up around. Then I wondered if they would ever even find out.
I probably had 2-3 minutes left to live tops. I had already expended all my energy trying to swim out of the tide so I had nothing left. I turn my head towards the direction of the shore one last time and I see a small canoe full of indigenous looking folks coming towards me. I couldn't believe it.
Within moments, they arrived to where I was and tried to lift me onto the canoe. I'm a big strong guy and had no energy left so they couldn't pull me on and instead had me hang onto this weird-looking flotation device.
I rode that thing all the way to shore. To my surprise, a fairly large group of people were there with cameras taking pictures of me. One guy even recorded it on some video and asked me in Spanish how I felt. I didn't say anything to anyone. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Everywhere I was in Mancora for the next few hours, I was stopped by people I never met asking me how I felt. Apparently, the word got out to the local community that some black guy almost drowned at the beach. I was probably the only black guy in Mancora at that time so I couldn't just pretend it wasn't me. They already knew.
By the end of the day I knew I had to get the hell out. I couldn't take it anymore. I booked the next "Cruz del Sur" bus to Lima and never returned.
Quite an experience!