And then it all started to go horribly wrong...

He’s not going to be in Mancora for my birthday. But when I first found out about it, I decided to be cool about it. He has to go to Lima with his boss on 1st February – the day before my birthday. I’d been looking forward to having my first summer birthday since I arrived in South America and realised the seasons were the opposite to ours. So at first it ‘kinda sucked’ but then I started thinking that some peace and quiet for a week or so would do me good.

So I think I took this piece of news rather well considering, until he proceeded to make things worse. We were on his motorbike and he thought that was a good place to discuss the situation. I said let’s stop and talk, he said we’d talk when we got back to Mancora. When we got to Mancora we went to his house where I started chatting to Victoria. Mario disappeared. For 3 and a half hours.

We’d made a date to cook meat at my neighbour’s house but by the time it got to 9:30pm, I was hungry and he still hadn’t reappeared. Selene invited me to Punta Bellanas Inn (Kasian’s hotel) for dinner so I thought fuck it, I’m done with waiting for that douchebag. I got to Punta Bellanas and Mario’s motorbike is outside. Hmmm... What’s he doing here?

As I walked in I saw him through a doorway up ahead. I walked towards him “what are you doing here?” - “what are you doing here?” - “NO! What are you doing here?” He said he was looking for me. How did he know I was there? Apparently he’d just been to the house and Karine told him I’d gone there for dinner. He went in to Kasian’s room where a couple of other people were lying around watching TV and smoking weed.

“Mario we can either talk about this here in front of your friends or we can talk about this outside”

“5 minutes”

I graciously waited the 5 minutes. “Right outside, now.”

We then proceeded to have the best argument ever. Why was it the best? Because it was all in Spanish.

I. Was. Amazing. I was so proud of myself I carried it on way longer than necessary.

These days, when speaking to the male half of our species – if I need to make a point I talk in bullet points. Like no more than 3. They can’t take in too much information at any one given time and if you go on and on about the same thing or just say the same thing in 7 different ways, they stop listening 5 minutes in. If you condense your thoughts in to 3 simple bullet points – sometimes 1 is enough, then you get a far better result. This kind of – I’m going to call it wisdom - comes with experience and let’s face it, age.

This was an exception to the rule however, this discussion was in Spanish. I even insulted him – “suerte con las chicas en Lima puto, porque to peni es muy pequeno ellas no siente nada”. Luckily he laughed.

My point was: I wasn’t happy with the idea of him going away for my birthday but I was understanding about it – so why make matters worse by not talking to me about it properly, then disappearing and worsening things further? Needless to say, after 30-45 minutes of epic international arguing – we made up.

The week Mario and I moved in together...
The next day - the day we moved in together - he tried to refuse signing the contract. Now I don’t like contracts either – I don’t even have a contract phone when I’m England so I wasn’t massively enamoured with the idea of signing my life away for 3 months.

Moving in together was his idea anyway, not mine. Obviously I was happy at the suggestion but being a sensible adult, I did triple check with the teenager that he was still up for it before the big day and he always said yes.

So I told him to take responsibility and sign. So we signed it, paid half each and moved in to the room I’d been waiting for, for weeks.

Then after a couple more days of bullshit and fighting and arguing and him creating ludicrous problems out of nowhere...

He dumped me and ran away. It was the same night that I met his mother for the first time – coincidence? I think not.

It was Thursday (4 days in) after accusing me of flirting with his friend & my neighbour, who's also my client for the marketing agency - Luciano - in front of him. He said I was lifting up my skirt at this guy. Please also bear in mind that not only am I with Mario, but Luciano’s married with a kid, his wife’s pregnant and I know her. So it's like: what the fuck? Who does that?

I was pretty stoned when this bizarre accusation was thrown at me. I couldn't chase after him as I'd left the door open and he disappeared. I got back to my house and called Luciano out and asked him if I was doing that - he said no. Luciano tried to find him to talk to him man to man, but Mario had already gone back to his house.

So the next day I woke up and I was pretty angry with him for accusing me of being a tart and then dumping me and running away. So I stopped speaking to him. I went for a walk on the beach and I saw him. I just walked straight past him and didn’t say anything. I went and lay down on the sand. After about 5 minutes or so he came over and said: “why charlotte why?” (In English) – I couldn’t believe he was still carrying this on in to a new day. I just said: no tengo la palabras en Espanol para ti ahorita (I don’t have the words in Spanish for you right now) no pasa nada (nothing happened) estas loco (you’re crazy).

Later that day was the wedding of Danni (gringa I don’t know very well) and Marco (some Peruvian guy I don’t really know). I wasn’t going to go, then Fiorella asked me to go with her and I was already Karine’s plus one so I thought fuck it, I’ll go.

So I went, alone – and everyone was asking me where Mario was. I said I didn’t know, probably at work. I did tell a few of our mates what he’d accused me of doing, and that he then dumped me and ran away. Why did I do this? Because in Mancora gossip gets around and I didn’t want them to make up their own version of events – so they got the truth.

He turned up at the wedding at like 11:30pm (after he finished work). We didn’t acknowledge each other. I continued to ignore him and he ignored me back. I found out the next day he got in to a big fight that night along with his friends, punched loads of guys and hurt them – nice way of dealing with emotions.

I continued to ignore him on Saturday morning, I had quite an enjoyable hangover which always heightens my sense of humour. By the afternoon, it sunk in – I was sad and I got upset on the beach. I couldn’t stop myself from crying so I went a bit further down the beach away from people, still couldn’t stop so I took myself home so no one would see. Unfortunately – someone did see: Gato. His cousin. He must have reported back to Mario because I’d been at home for about 45 minutes when Mario appears in my/our room.

He tells me that he’s moving back in as he’s paid for half the room and his name is on the contract. I really didn’t like the idea. How was I supposed to get over him and move on if he’s in my face – in my room – in my bed!!!??? So in the end I told him ok, just don’t touch me.

So that night I went to bed early. Even though it was Saturday night, I just wanted to sleep and start the process of recuperation. At 5:30am he came in wasted and got in to bed. I turned on the light and thank him for waking me up. He starts heaving as if he’s going to puke on the floor, so I turn off the light and angrily go back to sleep.
Now – Mario’s not a big drinker; I’ve never actually seen him drunk before, so it was unusual to say the least. Plus he’s normally bored by 4am.

The next morning he tried to cuddle me. I wasn’t having any of it.

Sunday night, he’s out drinking again, not as pissed as the night before but he still comes in late smelling of booze trying to cuddle me. No, I don’t think so.

The next couple of days he gets nothing from me. Except if he cuddled me, I started to let him, but I always resisted the urge to cuddle him first. I win.

Plus I was still getting free sushi from his brother Jhonathon. I win again.

The situation – sleeping in the same bed as me but getting nothing - was driving him crazy, I was in control and he was forced to face his feelings. Then on Wednesday morning he asked me what I wanted. So I asked him what he wanted. So he asked me if I’d like to be his chica again. (Never answer a question with a question). I told him I’d think about it. He said yes or no charlotte – I said maybe, I’d get back to him. Then I instigated some well needed sex.

As he left our house on his motorbike, he whispered in my ear: I love you charlotte, I love you. I told him: no creo.

Karma?
Then on Wednesday evening Luciano tells me he’s off to Lima that night and do I want to come with him. Now – this isn’t a random invitation, I told him that when he goes I want to come with him so I can speak to some DJ’s and bands for the festival. Andrea (his wife) had told me about a reggae festival that was happening at the end of the January and her cousin was something to do with it – they’d invited me previously and I really wanted to go – especially as that would be my birthday weekend.

It was all a bit sudden so I wasn’t keen on the idea of just fucking off to Lima. I have responsibilities in Mancora don’t you know. There’s the marketing agency and now the boutique – Dio Mio. But after speaking to Luciano a bit more, it motivated me to go to Lima, get the festival organised and make some goddamn money.

So I went off in to town to tie up my lose ends, dropped in to the Sushi bar to let Pedro know that Luciano wanted to speak to him and mentioned to Puto (Mario) that I was off to Lima that night. His response was: what? With Marco? I said yer and Luciano. I told Mario and Ped I’d meet them back at the house. And I did.

All was fine back at the house, but as soon as we were alone together in our room Mario got all weird and jealous about it even though I said I didn’t want to go alone with the two guys without Karine. So after talking about it with Mario for six hours and Karine decided she couldn’t go and as I didn’t want to go without her, I decided not to go that day.

After being asked what I want after such an epic romancing from the teenager (if you can count moving in to my bed and forcing me to deal with him as romance) I gave Mario another chance. After all, I’ve always been given second, third, fourth chances by everyone in the past, so it’s only fair.

After all that drama, we fell asleep. Woke up and everything was kind of normal. I think.

That night I headed out with Karine, Scrappy and Salvador. Who the hell are Scrappy and Salvador? Scrappy is Karine’s dog – he’s a big black street dog with one ear. That’s right, one ear. It’s kind of disturbing to look at sometimes but he’s very very sweet. Karine rescued him as a puppy and he lives in our house on and off. Unfortunately when he’s not at our house or at the beach – he hangs out at Loki of all places.

Salvador is half dachshund, half Pitbull. For those of you who don’t know – a dachshund is more commonly known as a sausage dog. Salvador is the best dog in the whole world (sorry Bob). He’s Luciano & Andrea’s dog really, but he follows me around everywhere so they’ve said I can borrow him. He looks like a sausage dog with slightly longer legs, but he feels like a Pitbull.

Anyway, I digress. The four of us headed straight for the sushi bar to say ‘word up’ to my puto. Got some free sushi – standard, then Karine and I headed for the beach, dogs in tow. The beach was pretty lame so Karine, me and a couple of other chicas headed for a sneaky beer in Hula Hula.

Mario shows up, sees that it’s a girl’s conversation and disappears. Then he comes back at 1:49am and tells me to be home by 2am.

WHAT???

Obviously even if I wanted to be home any time soon, I couldn’t possibly show my face for a few hours now that he’d said that. I would be back some time before 8am. After everything that’s happened in the last week, he can’t even last 24hours without being a douchebag.

I got in at 7am. He came storming down the stairs as I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. I was greeted by: “You know it’s over don’t you?”
I replied: “Again?”

Definitely karma
After more talking it wasn’t over. Yet. Well not for him anyway. I told him I am not being told to be in by a certain time. I will not be controlled by a man. He said he was joking. I said I didn’t care; I don’t like being spoken to like that. He got the point.

Later on I walked past the Sushi bar and popped in to say hi as always. He fed me and closed the restaurant. Once everyone else had left I got accused of ‘talking to boys on the beach’ the night before. Interesting. Yes indeed, words were uttered to males on the beach, but in this instance – barely more than 5 sentences. But that is beside the point: what’s wrong with TALKING to boys? Since when was that a crime?

Who? Nick? No. Jake? No. Finn? Yes him.

The night before I’d been in Hula Bar for 90% of the night and went to the beach twice, both times for about 15 minutes. We left Hula at one point to go to the beach to get people to come to the bar for a lock-in. However as we were leaving the bar, we bumped in to Finn. Finn’s an English boy from London and he ‘tawks a lil bit loike this loike – coz eez proper Laandan loike’. I’ve spoken to him a few times and I always thought he was ‘awite’ and it’s nice to hear the London accent again – you don’t hear it too often in Peru.

Anyway, Finn was on his own and ‘ee was a lil bit alf cut loike’ and I remember he touched my waist. In a moment of self-preservation I actually said to him: don’t do that. I explained that if anyone sees, they’ll tell Mario and he’ll get beaten up. Finn was not impressed and said no he wouldn’t. I assured him he would, but he was pissed off by the suggestion. I felt ashamed that my life had come to a new low – ‘don’t touch me or my boyfriend will beat you up’. Urgh.

Anyway, he came to the beach with us and I saw the girls - Victoria and Liz – and had a chat with them. They were sitting at a table and I was bending over to speak to them and Nick came up behind me and smacked me on the arse. I didn’t bother saying anything to Nick at that point but Finn called over from a few tables away and said: you’d better not talk to her mate or you’ll get beaten up.

It’s alright, they know each other – but I still felt like a twat.

We all went back to Hula Hula but both Nick and Finn left within 20 minutes, Karen kicked Finn out for asking her for coke and Nick wasn’t digging the vibe after that so he left. So it was just me, Karine and Belen (a girl from Lima that I met that night). Belen left – I took her home in a cop car. Then it was just me and Karen for the next few hours.

Hence why I told Mario I was with Karine all night and didn’t really see much need to mention anyone else. It was a pretty uneventful night.

Once Mario had calmed down he sat me down at a table in the Sushi restaurant and explained: “people in Mancora are bad. They think bad. And if they see you talking to any guys they will tell me.” He said if I go out without him, the next day I have to tell him everyone I spoke to the night before so when people come to him the next day he already knows about it.

What. The. Fuck. Shouldn’t he just trust me and if someone tells him I was talking to a boy the night before he should just say: so what? I trust her. This pissed me off but I appreciated him explaining things to me calmly. I asked him who told him ‘I was talking to boys on the beach’. He said 6 different people told him. How pathetic.

I’m not stupid; I know how the boys in Mancora work. They’re all jealous – it’s not just Mario – so they all feed each other jealousy by pretending they’re looking out for each other, when really because they’re lonely, single or not getting any – they’re jealous. And one thing I know about jealousy is: people who are jealous are jealous of people that don’t get jealous. Seriously.

Where the love is
I put the bullshit behind me once again. I’d had enough of it all and apart from the new bout of jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity and paranoia he had started making an effort to listen and understand. The rest of the day was lovely, I gave myself the day off work so we spent the entire afternoon together.

We went up to his land and watered his plants. The terrano is looking good now. As I was watching him with his plants, I saw him admiring the individual beauty of all the different types. He told me he loves his plants because they’re beautiful and he wishes he could give up working in the Sushi bar and just spend the whole day up on his land, watering them 3 times a day. It was that moment when I fell in love with him all over again.

The terrano is where the love first started. The first week we didn’t talk much, the second week we started getting to know each other and he took me up to his land and slept in the tent for the first time. We were always happy together when we were up there. The land has good energy, even better now the plants are there. We’d always wake-up happy and have a good start to a good day. Ever since I moved in to the house, we started having more problems and bad moods.

We still went up there after I moved in to the house. In the day and sometimes in the night; when we didn’t have a bedroom we’d sleep in the cabin with the night watchman (Victor). Not ideal, but still we were still happy. We’d climb up near to where the tent used to be and Mario would ask me where I thought he should build his house. I’d always say: in exactly the same place as the tent used to be.

We left the terrano that afternoon and rode back to his house on the back of his bike. I held on tight like I used to, tighter than I needed to. As we got closer to his house, I whispered behind his ear: I love you.

We were happy again. In an instant, out of nowhere when I least expected it - all the love came flooding back.

The last straw
Then the next morning he insulted me. I will not repeat what was said.
Over the last few weeks, I had spent hours and hours talking to him, helping him and trying to make him understand that being jealous, paranoid, insecure and possessive is a waste of time. I had tried so hard to make our relationship work because I love him, I understand him and I respect him. I had given him another chance... and within 24 hours he’d thrown it back in my face and due to more insecurity he had really insulted me.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about it and decided I’d had enough. That was the last straw. I’ve never in my life been spoken to like that.

On Saturday afternoon he popped by Dio Mio. I was dealing with some customers; he was on his motorbike and didn’t bother coming in to talk to me so I didn’t bother stepping outside to talk to him. He rode off.

Later that night I went out with my girls. It was a pretty standard Saturday night in Mancora. Lots of reggaeton and South American music. Victoria and I had a good old boogie. Mario sort of came over to join us but I wasn’t too fussed. I was still feeling insulted.

I thought he’d gone home, but much later on he appeared upstairs at the beach bar and asked me why I was being weird. I told him I wasn’t. Then I said: I’m going to Lima tomorrow with all my stuff. I also told him: My cousin has offered to pay for me to go and work in Mexico City with her. I said I might do that. I reminded him about the last time I left my stuff somewhere (La Paz) and I ended up in Argentina for the best part of two months.

(See - I learn from my mistakes. But in saying that – I wouldn’t have gone to Peru if I didn’t leave my luggage in La Paz. And I wouldn’t have met Mario... hmmm!)

Leaving Mancora
On Sunday someone came in to the shop and asked if I designed flyers – word was getting around. People I don’t even know are becoming potential clients. So when I left Mancora on Sunday evening I just felt like I wasn´t ready to leave forever: leaving my home, my house, my dog, my friends, my business, my job - all because of a silly boy.

In Mancora I just had so much to do and I wanted to get on with so many things but it was all impossible with all that Mario bullshit going on. It was taking 5 hours out of my day on average which meant I couldn´t do all the things I needed to do.

There is a whole lot of love between me and Mario. He told me on Sunday before I left that I’m the best girl he’s ever met and that’s why we’ve been together for ‘such a long time’.

Despite everything I am in love with him and he’s in love with me. I do understand him. I´ve been there man. All his actions are out of insecurity. He pushes me away because he can´t handle his feelings. He says there´s something bad in him that makes him say bad shit to me - but I know he just has a problem that he needs to sort out. He´s not ready for real love yet. Not until he learns the hard way and that can take years.

And I have to look after my head - I don´t want to regress backwards. But even I wasn’t that bad – I didn’t cause trouble for my ex-boyfriends every day. I actually checked with one of them and he concurred he did have the odd day off. No in all seriousness I admit, when I was younger, I was so jealous sometimes because I was insecure. And it was horrible, I hated feeling like that. And yes my ex-boyfriends suffered because of it and that’s why i think this is karma.

Egotistically I have always wanted to meet the boy version of me; and now I have met the boy version of me when I was about 22 - I’m horrified and slightly traumatised. Thank you universe.

What now?
Sunday was so hard. I got my bus ticket and said goodbye to Mario (twice) for ages. We were both really upset. I was a mess right up until the moto taxi arrived at the house. I was so scared of getting on the bus - I just thought I´d cry all the way to Lima. But I didn´t. I didn´t cry once. I slept.

So that´s it in a coconut shell.

I promised myself before New Year that I’d finish what I started. I didn’t want Mancora Fest to become yet another good idea that I don’t see through to the end. That’s why I told you about it. I wanted to make sure that I at least tried to do it. Now if I don’t, you lot will all think I’m a twat and I can’t come home with my head held high.

I´ve only been in Lima for a few days so I need to give things a chance here for a bit. But yer, I have all my luggage with me - not that I like any of it anymore, so I´m ready to get a flight to Mexico City if I want, or maybe I’ll go back to Mancora. No pressure.

I love Mancora - I made a life there and a business there. I just need to work out whether it´s worth going back there for it, despite Mario. Or whether to just get away from him forever. As I say - I´m in love with him, he´s not a bad person. He´s amazing in so many ways. He´s just not experienced in love or relationships because he´s 19 - he´s jealous, insecure and paranoid. But it´s so hard to deal with because it’s such a huge waste of time and it´s so unnecessary.

©