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Published: April 19th 2012
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Friday 23rd March - Cuenca
Cuenca was indeed an attractive city having not been sure on first sight and it has a nice laid back feel to it which encouraged us to book an extra night at our hostel. We went in search of crafts markets looking for more souvenirs but only managed to find people selling pots and pans. Having lashed out on a 20 dollar meal at Cafe Austria the day before we decided to take the rough with the smooth and indulged in a couple of bread rolls each for dinner laced with layer upon layer of ham and caked in mayo and finished off nicely with a sprinkling of cheesy crisps. The daughter of the hostel owner who often worked the reception, treated us to a glimpse of her life by telling us how miserable she was that her dad had forced her off to college in New York to study law and how she was begrudgingly heading back there the following week. She said she'd much rather be staying in Ecuador, I'm sure just like many other of her fellow countrymen who are also spoilt for choice.
Saturday 24th March - Cuenca
I'd
read about an Inca site just down the road from where we were staying so made us trudge down the hill in the burning midday sun to take a look. Low and behold it was all but a pile of rubble and I´m sure something for the avid anorak sightseer to salivate over which unfortunately isn't us. I can only hope Machu Picchu lives up to the hype. Off we went again in search of Magnum ice creams, something of a delight that it's hard to put a price on when you're halfway round the world and looking for some home comforts. In the evening we had a nice tasty lasagne in a cafe in the square and yet again marvelled at a street seller who wasn't prepared to negotiate at all on the $5 price tag for an eclectic CD containing the likes of Celine Dion with pan pipes which he swore blind was an original despite having 20 or so copies stacked up. He must be recording more often than Cliff Richard. It's not the nicest thing to say but you can see why some people are sat on a rug on a pavement selling CDs and trinkets
with only their beligerance for comfort as they try to fleece yet another tourist.
Sunday 25th March - Cuenca to Loja
It was time to start heading towards the border with Peru haing spent more time in Ecuador than any other country since America which is both ironic and telling given it's one of the smallest we'd been to. I couldn't help but laugh at the smallest of rackets at the Cuenca bus station where you pass your bag over a makeshift security barrier where not a lot of security goes on and you pay a little old man 10 cents for the priviledge. 5 hours later and after another nice drive through the mountainswe were in Loja and in another deserted hotel.
Monday 26th March - Loja to Piura, Peru to Chiclayo
Up at 6am and ready at the bus station for our 7am bus to Piura, Peru which would last a total of 10 hours. We were joined on the bus by some other gringos, the obligatory Germans who are seemingly everywhere in Latin America and a British couple who at first glance seemed nice and cheery but after a chat we quickly realised were incredibly smug, conceited and too far up their own posteriors. I'm obviously swayed a little by being with someone who's from north of Watford but it's no coincidence that nearly everyone we meet from the south east is a bit of an arse to put it politely, not including of course yours truly 😊 Some of the best people we've met on this trip, who I failed to mention previously, were 2 lads in Quito from Burnley, Luke and Dan. I really hope we bump into them again in Peru or Bolivia. To put it in golf terms, contrast how Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter come across and look where they're from. We arrived in Piura, Peru about 5pm and some 2 hours or so after crossing the border. Unfortunately it's unbelieveably dirty, the worst we've seen yet and an immediate indication of the huge divide between rich and poor here. We jumped on the 1st tuc tuc we saw and headed to the 1st bus company we could find to get us out of there. A little over 3 hours later and we were at Chiclayo, the next major city south along the Panamerican highway and maybe marginally nicer than Piura. We jumped in a taxi and headed for the Hotel Paraiso who's sharky receptionist tried to make out they only had their most expensive room available. After threatening to walk out and picking up our bags she relented and said she had a room available for half the price. Nice. We managed to dodge the many scally wags standing around on dark street corners late at night and got our 1st proper meal of the day, a large plate of chicken rice before finally getting some sleep.
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