LEAVING ECUADOR AND ENTERING PERU

CROSSING THE PERUVIAN BORDER

Tumbes! Tumbes! Migracion! Migracion! Taxis! Taxis! Cally and I had just arrived in Huaquillas, a border city on the Ecuadorian side of the Ecuador/Peru border. We'd just spent 17 hours on a bus ride that should have only taken 12 hours. Because the Quito soccer team just won La Copa Libertadores, the town has been chaotic for days, and the bus ended up leaving the capital 3 hours late because of traffic. Then at 2:30am we were stopped by the police in the middle of nowhere so they could check the bus for drugs. A few hours later one of our tires popped, which put us back even further. We finally reached the border at 1:30pm, well past our anticipated 8am arrival time. There went our plan for reaching Pacasmayo, which would have been another 8 hour busride down the Peruvian coast to where Cally had friends running a marathon.

So we're in Huaquillas, and quickly we see that this is not the opportune place for 2 blonde gringas to be chilling out. Vendors were pulling us this way and that to sell their products and offering us rides to Peruvian immigration (which is located kilometers from the border, don't ask me why). We were a wee bit uncomfortable in Huaquillas, but luckily we were traveling with Ivan and Marcelo, two Quiteños that we met on the trip. Even so, we still stuck out like a sore thumb, even with two Ecuadorians at our side. We later read that the border crossing between Huaquillas (Ecuadorian side) and Tumbes (Peruvian side) is the most dangerous border crossing in South America.


MANCORA

Since we weren't going to make it down to Pacasmayo, we decided to continue with Ivan and Marcelo to a town called Máncora just 2 hours down the coast. A beautiful beach town situated in an ideal part of northern Peru, it is a hotspot for tourists. It is always summer in Máncora. It is paradise. For a mere 15 soles ($5) we had a private hotel room with a bathroom, tv, and warm water (halleluja!).

While Cally hiked a nearby hill, I spent my day on the beach. There I ate the best ceviche I've ever had. Squid...octopus...mmm yummy. The city is beautiful, yet at one point we looked around and realized that there were sooooo many people of gringo/european origin. After 6 months living in South America, this struck us as weird.


BUS RIDE FROM MANCORA TO LIMA

At 6pm Sunday evening Cally, Ivan, Marcelo and I boarded a bus headed to Lima. We chose the cheapest option for 65 soles ($23). After a while into the trip, we realized that the cheapest option may not always be the best option. Once again, a trip that was supposed to last 17 hours turned into 20 hours because of easily avoidable occurences. We were told by 3 separate people from the agency that we would stop for dinner, so of course I didn't have anything to eat before we set off. But apparently the dinner plans were a lie, so I was super hungry for most of the trip. However, instead of making one stop to eat, we made about 300 stops to pick up travelers on the side of the road. The bus seriously stopped every 10-15 minutes. This started to annoy many of the passengers, and after a while every time we stopped they began to pound on the windows yelling "vamos! vamos!" Being a heavy sleeper, I hardly realized that we were stopping so often, but you can bet that I woke up every time the passengers began to bang the windows en masse. As a grown adult, banging windows never occurred to me as an appropriate response to anything.

At 7am, one of the passengers decided it would be a great idea to stand up with his Bible and give a 45 minute sermon about how we will all go to hell if we continue to sin. Among talking about adultery, homosexuality, and use of contraceptives, he also said that if a woman is married she should never invite her friends over because they will want to sleep with her husband. Kudos to him for having strong ideas, but good lord 7am? He was followed by a magician and a nutritionist. In the end we had to listen to crazy vendors for a good 4 hours straight.

Despite what was happening inside the bus, what was going out outside was incredible. The luscious, green, curvy, mountainous terrain eventually turned into flat, brown, desert. As we made our way further and further south, the temperature began to drop slightly as this part of the world is currently in the dead of winter. The bus ride followed the Pacific coast, so we have been traveling at sea level for quite some time now. It will definitely be much colder when we go back up into the Andes for the rest of our travels.

FINALLY we arrived in Lima at 2pm, a good 20 hours after we set off. We are here at the house of one of Cally's friends, smelly and hungry and not wanting to be sitting. After so much time in buses (over 60 hours now) I realized that my circulation is crap because every once in a while I will lose feeling in my hand for no reason. I'll have to do some exercises before the next bus trip.


NEXT STOP: NAZCA

Tonight at 10:45pm I head even further south, down to Nazca. It is an 8 hour bus ride, so I will arrive in the morning. I will do the rest of this trip solo, leaving Cally in Lima with her friends and her mom who will arrive on Wednesday. So I will arrive in Nazca in the morning, and hopefully be able to catch an overflight to see the famous Nazca lines. Look them up, they're super cool.

So one day in Nazca, then yet another overnight bus trip to Arequipa.