Onwards to Ecuador

Our hotel room turned out to be the noisiest room in the world. Doorbells; shouting staff; cockerels and the A/C unit were silent whispers compared to the cacophony that started at about 6:00 am when the dolled-up cars in the car park right under our window all decided to rev their engines up to see if they worked.

Pit stop

Ears ringing, we decided to take a mini-van from Piura to Tumbes (in the far north of Peru - near Ecuador) and went at the speed of light. The lorry we passed, obviously had just gone a bit too fast.

Oops

We arrived in Tumbes about 5 mins before the next bus to Guayaquil (the biggest city in Ecuador). The bus was to take 5 hours, so we would arrive in town at about 7:00pm - not ideal, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The border between Ecuador and Peru in Aguas Verdes (where we crossed) is, according to the book, the worst border crossing in South America. I can see why. Most borders are short, straight roads with a big flag at one end on a building and another big flagged building at the other. With helpful signs like "Peru - depart" and "Ecuador - arrival" on them. Not so this one. Both of the buildings (the Ecuador one in particular) are reasonably nondescript and are not exactly close to each other.

Allegedly, taxis agree to take you across, but then dump you in the middle of a market and hand you over to some 'guide' who then charges 5 bucks each to show you where the border post is. etc...

We avoided all this by using an International company - CIFA. So we were taken from Tumbes to the Peru border to the Ecuador border and then on - so far so good.

What then happened is that our bus turned into some local bus, stopping every 10 minutes to let people on and off. It ended up taking seven and a half hours.

Light relief was obtained by the people who get on and off these buses at random times who try to extract money from you in various ways. Small, barefooted kids look at you doe-eyed; vendors offer all sorts of food, drink and ice-cream; people with sob stories and, the creme de la creme - some bloke selling powders that rid you of worms ("PARASITO", according to his papers). Priceless.

Eventually we turned into some dark back-alley in Guayaquil and stumbled along to find a taxi. After a journey like that, we decided to splash out on a Sheraton, cheap if you just walk-in. Even the live band playing outside our room didn't keep us awake.