Border crossing

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Disaster! What a mission yesterday was....

We left Cuenca at 10am on a bus and arrived at the Ecuador-Peru border at about 3:30pm. We got off the bus and were hounded by money changers and many ¨amigos¨ trying to ¨help¨us. First they took us to the ATM to get out some money (we didn´t get any), then they took us to their friends to change the money into soles (we didn´t change any), then they took us to a uniformed policeman (not real) to convince us that they were legit, we were not convinced. Then we got taken to a ¨taxi¨(someones car) and driven to the peruvian side of the border and then on to the nearest peruvian town, the ¨taxi driver¨wanted $30 for his services, we payed him $5.

We then got into a collectivo (a van that acts somewhat like a bus), and went to a place suggested to us by another traveler ,´Los Organos´, but couldn´t find the lodging she suggested. By this time it was about 7pm and dark. We couldn´t pay the van because we had no Soles and they didn´t want US dollars, so we backtracked to Mancora, a more touristy town, and the price jumped from $10 to $25!!!! Needless to say we argued for a long time, they didn´t speak english we don´t speak spanish! Very frustrating, but there´s not much you can do about it when its dark, you dont have the local currency, you can´t speak their language and you don´t know where you are! In the end we made it to a hostel in Mancora....

In Mancora we unpacked and found some items of importance were no longer in our possession... Julie´s wallet and our camera had been relieved from her bag at some point in the day. We think the guy behind us on the bus swiped her bag from beside her feet while she was sleeping and helped himself to what he wanted. Boohoohooohohoohohohoooohoooohhohohooohoo! So we´ve lost some photos from our last stop and there´ll be no photos for a while kids...

Oh well, it is all part of the fun, I guess.

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