Best place in Ecuador & the scariest place in Peru
Trip Start
May 07, 2009
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10
26
Trip End
Sep 04, 2009
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Tumbes,
Peru
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
3:30am wake up for the 4:30am bus to Machala. Pretty sad to leave Cuenca. We stayed one night at El Cafecito – a funky little place but there was a club next door which shared a wall with our bedroom – not too much of a problem that night as we were dead tired but I knew I would hate it the night after, so we moved 3 doors up to a funky guesthouse/restaurant/art gallery where for an extra $1 a night we got a really nice room with an ensuite. I remember commenting that in Melbourne that place would be at least $150 a night but here it was $16 US. Crazy.
Such a surprise to walk downstairs from our room after checking in to see Ambross sitting having lunch. He had also just checked in and that night we all went out for Mexican at a jointce that wouldn’t look out of place in Brunswick St, Melbourne.
After dinner and an ‘Al Pacino’ (jug of beer with whiskey and Amoretto) we went to the Retro Bar next door and watched a montage of every Michael Jackson Film Clip. So Sad.
The next day was post office day, a mammoth effort with out limited Spanish (which is getting better though). Milli and I purchased 3 framed prints that were on display at the guesthouse – The artist came to meet us and we negotiated a great price. She’s 21 and not actually an artist by trade – she’s studying law and said her grandfather just gave her some pointers (at least that’s what I think she said…. Limited Spanish and all that…) but still, the paintings are great..
Cuenca 1
very Tim Burton.. Talented bitch. So all the art and presents for people came to $100 in postage, so no more presents. Sorry, but I’m broke. The next day we had to leave so farewell drinks were had then off to bed.
Machala is nothing, just a bus connection town, so we didn’t stay long, and before I knew it we were at what Lonely Planet describes as ‘The dodgiest border crossing in South America’ – apparently the Peruvian Immigration officials are quite partial to a bribe or two – we didn’t experience any of this luckily and once through immigration proceedings we were on our way to our next stop – Tumbes, 30 km from the border. I wish we had stayed on the bus. Tumbes is an impoverished town with no exports and high unemployment so we (and our bags) were eyed off constantly, but hey, it was cheap accommodation and and interesting introduction to small Peruvian towns. Just crossing the border it was very apparent that Peru has a lot less wealth than Ecuador, which hopefully will reflect in cheaper prices (see the bit above about spending $100 on postage)
The next morning we took a colectivo taxi (a van that waits until full then leaves) to Mancora – Peru’s premier party beach town. Sweeeet.
Milli says:
We loved Cuenca so much, and really had a lot of fun. We moved from the hostel with the loud music (plus the thumping night club beside it) and found a very new, gorgeous funky hostel that was much quieter.
Cuenca River
We took our things and walked the few doors down the road. Then felt a little silly when we went back a more than once to the hostel for food and drinks. The wifi was our weak defence but the place and music were cool – so Shane told them we had to move accommodation as he was trying things out ‘for an article’. Seemed to work as they were nice and helpful afterwards..We walked down to the river which was quite rocky and swift, must be coming from the mountains nearby. While things were mostly shut on the Sunday (except of course for Payless Shoes…you never know when you’ll need a pair of cheap shoes I tell you!) we had a nice meal and saw lots of the churches and squares which were beautiful. There was a rock/salsa/Latin band playing which we watched for a while, and we had a delicious dinner back at the hostel (HUGE spaghetti for moi and a FANTASTIC ceviche for Shane) complete with Mojitos…mmmm….
Monday was busy and things were open, we met the artist whose work was throughout our hostel, and bought some of her cool quirky pieces. We then went to through the always troublesome ‘posting of items amassed by us’ routine. Finding the post office, getting more money, finding boxes and bubble wrap from random shops, putting it all together and then crying as we pay huge amounts we don’t have and hope it all gets home ok. We’ll see.
We then went to the bus terminal to see where we had to go and how much it would cost to get to Peru and the coast.
Cuenca 2
Easy enough, we then bought tickets for the 4.30am bus so we could have the oppourtunity of deciding where to get off and not have problems if there were delays or immigration issues. Oigh.Over the few days we were here we had bumped into three people from Secret Garden, and the one guy we specifically tried to find we didn’t. Always the way!
That done, we relaxed a little and went to our now favourite restaurant with lots of funky décor and had a nice lunch. We had tried the amaretto and whiskey in beer (so good yet dangerous!) so we had the tequila and lemon in beer this time. After that we had a nap (this crazy lifestyle needs some down time every now and then!) and later went out for dinner with Ambros and an Austrian girl who’s friend had just gone home with her now not-so-ex-boyfriend, and a Swiss guy who worked odd jobs in Cuenca and had a beautiful Ecuadorian girlfriend. The Austrian girl had wanted to try the only Austrian restaurant in town – possibly any country not Austria really – and as you can imagine it was expensive. Us long term backpackers ordered salads and cheese sandwiches and other cheap/not Austrian foods and then Shane and I went to bed as we had to be up at the insane hour of 3.45am.
We were up and at the bus terminal and all went smoothly. As the morning came we saw we were passing some amazing mountains and following a river to get out of Ecuador. We drove through clouds and half of the mountains looked like the moon with grey rocks and not much else.
Cuenca 3
Then the landscape changed and became much greener, really lush. The odd house and town went by, with chickens and dogs pottering around. A group of school children in uniform got on at one stage and were deposited later on, I saw them walking down a track into vegetation so it seemed to be a small school. We left the mountains behind which was sad, and things flattened out. We had to get off this bus at Machala which was a quite big but blah town near the border of Ecuador and Peru. We then had to take a taxi to the bus station line that would go across to Peru. We got tickets even though an old man and the lady selling them both spoke rapidly and not very positively while we tried to buy them – and kept saying ‘Manana’. We got them anyway as it seemed crazy that the 8 buses we had read about per day going to Peru would have all been and gone by 9.30am when we arrived. We had breakfast and then went back to wait for our bus as the ticket seemed to have the correct date and time. When another guy looked at our ticket and said ‘Manana’ we really started to be puzzled but after waiting a while our bus came so we can only conclude that ‘Manana’ also means ‘later’. Sheesh.
The bus took us to the border and as a few of us got off it drove away. A Peruvian woman was livid, speaking English she told us this never happens (which was comforting but we had experienced this at the Costa Rica/Panama border so expected the same thing). We exited Ecuador easily and then instead of walking across the border like with Costa Rica, we had to wait until it came back.
Cuenca 4
We then drove over and it dropped us at the Peruvian immigration. This time it waited. Lots of people were rushing around trying to enter and exit, messy queues were beginning and breaking into groups, and some officials bothered to try to help. Others just stared or watched the TVs on in the corners of the rooms. There was one room checking for Yellow Fever cards but this didn’t happen to us – probably when leaving. After all that we were off again and upon speaking to the Peruvian woman she advised to try and stay on the bus straight to the beach town of Mancora. We were going through a lot of no mans land which didn’t look too exciting, but had organised to stop in Tumbes, one of the first big towns so we could get off the bus and just be in Peru. So we thanked her for her help and information but got off at Tumbes. Silly of us, as the place was a little seedy, dusty, not much to see, and expensive. We got to our hostel and went to get some Peruvian Soles. The buildings are colourful, the squares are big and there are lots of statues and art around but apart from having our first Pisco sour in Peru it didn’t grab us here. Shane organised our transport out for early tomorrow morning and we went to bed.
The next day we walked to the minivan that would take us to Mancora, and once it was full we were off. The driver put on some Latin music and we arrived at the coast quite quickly. Lots of little towns all seem to have a big stage area with mosaics and creative sculptures I noticed as we passed. The dogs seem more mangey than Ecuador which is strange. The journey then stayed on the coast going down, with the brilliant blue but strangely flat water on our right and the very dusty arid landscape on our left. We went through some hills and some small towns, picking up a few people on the way. One Peruvian man who spoke English gave us his card with his mobile number on it and said for us to call him if we had any problems. Very sweet Peruvian people so far!
