Planes, Taxis and Wheelbarrows!

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I still need to upload the pics for Macchu Pichu, not exactly sure when that´s going to happen.

There won´t be any photos from our travel day, but there´s a fun little story-let to share. Lizzy and I said goodbye to Erica, before heading off to Ecuador. Because it was significantly cheaper ($90 vs $400), we flew into the Peruvian northern border town of Tumbes rather than into Quito.

Tumbes is described in the tourist books as a hot and dusty town. Check and Check.

A little aside - whenever you arrive at any location by train, plane or bus in Peru, you will be accosted by taxi drivers seeking your patronage. At first it´s annoying because there are hundreds of them and ápparently they´re immune to ¨no gracias.¨ But after a while it becomes amusing because you realize you can just mess around with them.

Back to Tumbes. So Lizzy and I are looking around and wondering how we´re going to get from said hot and dusty town across the border and into Ecuador. It´s not as easy as it looks, and we were having a tough time trusting the information about buses that the taxi drivers were giving us. Fortunately, people are very friendly in this part of the world. On the flight from Cuzco to Lima, we got invited to lunch at the house of this big Peruvian businessman (had to decline because of timing unfortunately). And at Tumbes, we found this super nice guy who was also going to Cuenca in Ecuador, and decided to take these two confused gringos under his wing and help us on the five hour trek.

Now the crazy bit. So we cross the Peruvian part of the border, and into Ecuador. That´s as far as the cab driver goes. So we start to get out and pay the cabbie, and when we turn around our bags are being wheeled off in a wheelbarrow by this 14 year old Ecuadorian kid. We start following the guy through the most chaotic third world city streets with people everywhere selling stuff, yelling stuff, hanging out of everywhere window and door. Fortunately, it turns out that this is the standard means of moving bags from the taxi drop-off to the place many blocks away where we get the bus to Cuenca. And for his trouble this kind gentleman only charged one dollar. Local enterprise. Give a man some apples and he can feed himself for a couple of days. Give the man a wheelbarrow and he can feed his family for a lifetime.

So now we´re in Cuenca where we´ll probably be for a coupe of days. It´s Ecuador´s third largest city and is great for us, because it´s the first time we´ve been off the tourist path in a while. This is a city humming with local life rather than tourist activity.

Hotel Milan: $9/person per night - good deal.
Lunch of roast chicken and rice and vegetables: $1.50 - better deal.

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