crossing the border at La Balsa, peru > ecuador

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Vilcabamba, Ecuador...Ron

Hello, folks! We are over the border now, in Ecuador, on our way to our eventual meeting with an airplane on Aug. 28th to carry us over the Pacific to the Galapagos!

We flew out of Iquitos on thursday afternoon (Aug 15th), my desire to take another boat from Iquitos this time up river to Yurimaguas, having been out voted in favor of flying to Tarapoto, which is about a few hours past yurimaguas by bus. Tarapoto turned out to be pleasant and we stayed there 2 days at the El Mirador, which is how The Book describes it, although the rooms in the annex are more expensive than the older rooms. The desayuno, was wonderful, with a thermos of coffee, eggs, cheese and pan, along with fresh juice, too. All served on the rooftop with a nice view all around! And, of course, the everpresent welcoming of the abuela is very warm to be around. We tooked a minibus (15 seater) from tarapoto to Pedro Ruiz (~6hrs for 29 Soles each) and then switched to a collectivo car for the journey to Jaen (. So,we awoke the next morning (it was raining-very feminine like) and took another minibus to San Ignacio (20 Soles each) and then switched to a car collectivo (you have to take a motortaxi across town to the place where the collectivos leave) for the trip to the border (la Balsa).

Crossing the border was a breeze! Theres just not many travelers crossing here and the fact that it isnt paved for about 2 hours on the Peru side and about 5-6 hours on the Ecuador side is probably the reason ("So, you think so?", says my highly intuitive wife, reading over my shoulder. But this area is so beautiful and undeveloped, it was a shame that we had to go right through and not stop and savor this section while it is still savorable (Is that a word?).

Back to the journey - At the border, we were able to get a ride out in the back of a small pick-up, which squeezed 2 other guys into the rear (Mind you, we have 3 big bags plus our instruments plus our day bags) so it was tight. But it was great to be out in the fresh air and have beautiful views of the landscape. The pickup took us to Zumba, still on dirt road, where we were able to catch a full-sized bus to Vilcabamba (That bus took about 5-1/2 hours, mostly on an incredible dirt road! The paving work is being done, albeit slowly!).

Vilcabamba is a a cute small small town (we stayed at the Hidden Gardin Hostel, which was nice, with interesting rooms around a garden and a cold swimming pool and a very good restaurant - $36 a nite for the three of us!). We spent the day exploring the Rumi-Wilco preserve, which is very close to town. That was a good place to stretch our legs!

We spent 2 days in Vilcabamba before leaving today at around 10am on a bus to the Loja, and then we easily caught a bus to the beautiful Cuenca. We took a taxi to the La Posada del Rio (which is rite down in the old city near the, you guessed it, river) but they were filled up but the woman showed us to a hostel almost right next door to the del Rio (Hogar Cuencano hostal - they charge $8 per person, which isnt so bad for us. We 've been paying about $40 a nite for the 3 of us and all of our rooms have been clean and very half decent. We found a nice and cheap place today for dinner (the Moliendo Cafe, rite around the corner from us on Vasquez. It reminded me big time of a Indian Taco with some kind of columbian bread on the bottom, then smothered with beans and meat and a sprinkle of cheese on top.

This brings us up to date as to where we are at the moment (countdown to our Galapagos flite on August 28th from guayaquil. We still have a lot of retrospective blogging to do (our exciting train trip from Lima to Huancayo on july 27th, the infamous cargo boat ride from Pucallpa to Iquitos that lasted 7 days and, of course, our 6 days in Iquitos hanging with the Clown trip and seeing many of our camp winnarainbow friends, including Patch, John, Lars, Kate and Morghan, in addition to meeting an entirely new group of clown friends!

So, that's all for now, Folks!

I wanted to mention again that rumi misplaced his i-pod touch in Iquitos on our next to last day so for all his friends that he was in contact with, its no more until another device can be had! Cant he download the Instagram program on his kindle?? I readily admit that i dont know much about it...

Lisa is feeling a lot better now than she was 10 days ago! She had some nasty lung thing going down (shades of India 4 years ago and her battle with the swine flew!!). But she is feeling better now. Cuenca is at about 7K feet so it feels like home...

And Rumi has been a great traveller, especially through some of these long bus, boat and train rides that we have been experiencing...He says a big hi to all of his friends out there...

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Comments

[Jeff Jenness]

Thanks for the updates!
Hey guys, your trip sounds amazing! What an experience. I can't wait to hear about the Galapagos!