Escape to the border

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Matt Writes-
A quick 1 hour bus ride after we bidded our farewells to Gavin and Alma (who chased the bus grinning her waves at us) we were back in Loja bus station. We waited for our bus in a chicken joint with images of Ecuador and poultry adorning the walls, one in which a woman (face heavy in make up) was holding a chicken leg the size of a turkey far too provoctiavely for my liking.

Aboard the overnighter to Piura a leg stiffening 8 hours away was the first clear night in ages. The moon was brilliant against the ominous blackness of the mountains around us, street lights twinkled below as if we were looking from a plane. As we were in Quito, and then on Cotopaxi, it felt like the top of the world.

Crossing into Peru was amusing in itself considering it was at 2am. Stamped out at Ecuador, cross a river into Peru where the customs official was too busy struggling with sleep to check with documentation. He literally looked at your face then down at your passport and there the eyelids remained, head sunk until you banged on the window, with a jolt and a rubber stamp you were admitted. This process repeated until all passengers had been processed.

We chased the sun into Peru with a desert backdrop. Piura was 2 hours away with its haggling hassling taxi drivers. A quick transfer and we were 4 hours from our beach destination of Mancora driving through barren landscapes and through townships that reminded me more of Africa than the Amazonian lushness that I had pictured of this country.

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Photos

Sunrise in Piura
8 hour journey from Loja nears its end.