A blurry few days

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The next few days were a little crazy.

After a six hour journey from Cuenca we arrived in Loja. A town where there isn´t really much to do but book a bus to the next place. We found a bus to Piura, our first stop in Peru leaving that night at 11pm.

We successfully wasted a day in Loja by drinking a few drinks very slowly, emailing and sorting out the all important bus snacks.

We arrived at the terminal, a little scarily searched for weapons, drugs etc before getting on the bus and then headed off.

The bus stopped at the Ecuador / Peru border for us, where we were to get stamped out on one side, walk across the bridge and get stamped into Peru. However, the guards computer had different ideas and unfortunately the 6 "gringos" that had been on the bus found ourselves at the back of the queue just in time for his computer to break. There we were at 1am, in the pitch black, middle of the jungle waiting, with the Peruvian flag just insight on the other side of the bridge. Still, two hours later we were soon back on the bus with a bunch of very unhappy locals. Ooops.

The next day we arrived in crazy Piuru, PERU! People, cars, ric-shaws, buses and half dead birds being sold at the sides of the street. We headed straight to another bus station to book our next bus direct to Lima and spent the day in a little cafe with a girl we had met on the bus.

That afternoon, we were on another bus heading south to Lima. But this one was special. The steward on the bus muttered something in Spanish whcih I´m sure mentioned about stopping to eat. Sure enough, 10 mins later we pulled up at a restaurant. We all piled off, were seated at a table and fed a pretty nice meal! Boris... you´re missing something here!

We arrived the next morning in Lima, where we spent the day with Jasmine from Switzerland. It was jam packed day again. We headed to Miraflores (the posh part) and saw the sea which was pretty murky and with huge waves. We then were directed onto a small collectivo and taken to the centre of town! I´ve never seen so many people in one place. We did the normal touristy stuff, the squares, the markets and the streets and even stopped at the Gran Hotel Bolivar on Plaza San Martin for a traditional Pisco sour. We even sneaked a peek at one of the hotel rooms! Lima isn´t a place you stay for long but nevertheless it´s a coolcity. Very metropolitan on side and sadly poor on the other. We walked our little feet off exploring and in the evening, jumped on a bus back to the hostel, witnessing a guy being robbed whilst on the bus talking on his phone. We had a lovely dinner and drinks that evening along the pedestrian street in Miraflores.

So, we didn´t stop for long and the next day we kind of cheated and opted for a flight from Lima to Cusco. 1.5hrs compared to 30hrs, I think you can understand why. However, the flight was amazing, right over the Andes.

We arrived in Cusco pretty soon after.

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