Day 7 – Danika arrives – Pictures to come

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Danika arrives very cold at about 4-30 this morning. I slept reasonably well but still not a great night’s sleep. I decided last night to start researching getting to Peru. I decided after my experience in Australia to avoid bus travel where possible or at least reduce it. So I found on expedia a 59$ plane ticket to Cuenca in the south where I believe we can catch a bus to or across the border. After Danika awakens I suggest this to her, in her tired state she agrees, we must catch the plane at 4:10 this afternoon, just enough time to pack up see one more thing and catch the plane.

We decide to see the cable car before the flight. The cable car goes up to 4000m and has amazing views of the city, Renata did it when I went to Mindo and said it was great. We set out upon advice carrying all our gear back towards the San Franciscan monastery to catch a cab. We get a cab to the cable car and pay our $8 each for our ticket. We get on the cable car with all our backpacks, squashed in the car with 4 Americans. About half way up we end up in a cloud, unable to see anything, and it started raining. Upon reaching the top, the same, pouring rain and no view and there really isn’t anything else here except a café. So we get on the car downwards. Upon exiting the car at the bottom, it is absolutely pouring rain, so we don our jackets, umbrellas and cover our backpacks and walk further down to catch a cab. After 15 minutes standing in the deluge and being refused entry by about 5 taxis, a man asks in Spanish if we wanted a taxi, Si! Was our response, he indicates that he has a minivan people mover so we squash with our wet backpacks into the back corner and he drops us at the airport for 5$. We catch the plane and we’re out of Quito and into dry weather at Cuenca. We manage to get to the hostel recommended by Renata, and it is fabulous, unbelievable food, beer, and music. But the only rooms available are the ones at the front. The rooms at the front are right on the courtyard where the restaurant is located (where they are playing the loud music) late at night they turn this into a nightclub/café and play loud music until about 3 am. Lucky we have earplugs and masks.

However my greater concern is crossing to border. I Google and everyone has bad stories or sever warnings about the border crossing. I can’t sleep thinking about the trip over the border and how dangerous it sounds. A French guy suggested we catch a bus to the Ecuador side, get our passports stamped, then walk the 2 km to the Peruvian side and get our passports stamped to enter Peru, and then catch a bus from that side. After googling for about 2 hours I came across this link: http://www.carrieandjonathan.com/category/travel/peru-travel/page/2/

This page says how to cross the border safely, it is recent and it even has pictures of the shop in Cuenca to get the tickets. I can now sleep comfortably.

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