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Published: November 23rd 2008
Las Peñas
Guayaquill, EcuadorSince we left The Galapgos we´ve been busy emptying our swimsuits of sand, being finger-printed & filmed on buses, and busy practicing our spanish - Uno cervesa por favor!
We flew back from Galapagos into Guayaquill, Ecuador, where we spent a day with Gavin & Sarah (our kiwi buddies). Guayaquill is a city of extreme contrast with its refurbished waterfront and touiristic Las Peñas both surrounded by poverty and chaos that resembles the 3rd world. The newly renovated waterfront, the Malecon 2000, was pretty interesting - about 60+ water features and enough security guards to play a football match (with reserves). Las Peñas is 444 steps of coloured houses and cobbled streets that lead up to a lighthouse and panoramic views of the city and river.
After much deliberation over our next move, we decided to ditch the kiwis and head into Peru. This plan involved us catching a bus to Tumbes with a few chickens while watching Charles Brosnon shoot up a whole town (dubbed in Spanish) in ´Death Wish 3´. We´re still confused as to why there is such a love of old American action movies on these buses, and why they have to play them sooo loud. We´re
Lighthouse
Top of the 444 steps of Las Peñas also concerned at the fact that we´ve caught two long-haul buses so far and during both trips we´ve passed two other buses that have either over-turned or crashed. Maybe we should try the sky....
Mancora - This is the life... we found ourselves a very cruzy little hostel at the northern end of the beach run by a Peruvian surfer. The hostel was loaded with Indonesian style bungallows, enough hammocks for the Guayaquill footballl teams and warm showers - a real treat. 4 days spent here were super relaxing; taking in the cheap and fresh seafood, trying our hand at surfing, wandering the local markets, trying to get some colour on our pasty-white-canadian bodies, sunsets, watching the kite surfers, cervesas - you get the picture... A side trip to the natural hot-springs saw us catch a moto-taxi (tuk-tuk) for 30mins on a...road, i guess you could call it. Once we arrived we were surpised to find a square hole, 1m by 1m by 1m, dug in the ground filled with muddy water and a family of locals. Interesting.....
From Mancora we pushed on and headed further south towards Trujillo with our new Dutch friends Jaap & Manon. Trujillo was
actually a really nice little town, with a very cosmopolitan and European feel. Not much to do though, so after a morning of hanging around the Plaza de Armas we headed for Huanchaco via the Chan Chan ruins and some ´hell dogs´ (see pix).
We arrived at Hostel Naylamp and didn´t want to leave. Cheap sleep, spotless rooms with ocean views, awesome food, great service and two pet turtles! A great little surfing/fishing town with loads of character and cool little boats called ´caballitos´ (fishing boats made out of reeds).
Despite the fact that we have tried to avoid overnight buses due to their reputation (unsafe, high fatality rate & theft) we had no other option but to catch one to our next destination, Huaraz. As we boarded the bus we were finger-printed and videotaped for identification purposes - comforting or disturbing? - you decide... To our surprise it was in fact the most comfortable bus journey either of us have ever been on - leather seats reclined to nearly 180 degrees, blankets, pillows, foot rest, food & drink service and no loud action movies!
We are now in Huaraz, Peru, which is located in the Cordillera Blanca. This is
Bed time Lotty
Mosquito nets at Mancora (lifesavers) our base for the next few days as we attempt to do some hiking.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Sounds like you're having a great time over there, thanks for the pics and stories, keep it coming :=) Travel safe ciao Luke