***Pics to come at some point… Apparently, Mancora doesn’t believe in consistent wifi access to allow my google drive to function. Hopefully somewhere else in Peru will***

*Edit: well done Cusco! Now with images 3 weeks late*

I’d been warned it was the border crossing to Peru less travelled. But I assumed it would still have normal paved roads. For a long chunk of day 1, it didn’t. And I didn’t think it was possible to realise that I love pavement! I felt like I’d travelled back in time to the years before concrete and I think it’s a god damn miracle I somehow made it to Chachapoyas without any shaking-induced brain trauma in spite of its absence from the roads in southern Ecuador. The whole trip felt like an adventure so I think this border crossing deserves its own post.

It was an early start from Vilcabamba. By 6am we were sitting on the side of the highway out of town waiting for a bus to Zumba. I’d gotten chatting to a Swiss girl the day before and it turned out she, her boyfriend and two other Swiss guys (I was surrounded by German speakers at that hostel) were heading to Peru the next morning and I had been thinking of doing the same so I tagged along.

The Sur Oriente bus came up the road just before 6.30am and we flagged it down, chucked our backpacks in the hold, got on and paid our $6.50 fare to Zumba.

There were some stunning views once the sun came up (and yeah, of course the day I’d spend entirely on a bus in Ecuador, it was sunny).

 

Vilcabamba to Zumba is supposed to be a 6 hr trip. Ours worked out longer than that because about 2 hours from Vilcabamba, we stopped for 30min in a place called Palanda (none of us knew why) and then missed the 9-9.15 timeframe for passing the roadworks that are going on just beyond that town. So, we sat on the bus, at the side of the road, in roasting sunshine for 1h45min, waiting for 12 o’clock to come around so they would let the bus pass. We may have been too European, or logical, in our opinions here but when one of the guys asked when we’d get going again (there was an element of time pressure because we had to catch one of the three daily buses to the border from Zumba), the bus driver said we shouldn’t have taken a bus at a time when they’d be doing roadworks which was an argument we saw several flaws in. So we waited. And waited. And were forced to listen to some really awful dance music on the radio channel the driver had selected. I drowned it out the best I could. It would have worked better if I hadn’t been in the seat right underneath the speaker so instead it sounded like a weird mix of Spanish pop/dance music and Swedish rock/pop. That’s a special breed of sound right there. Kent featuring Marc Anthony. At 12, the red traffic cone was moved and so did we. But what we didn’t know then was that 2 hours on a muddy gravel road, which was really only wide enough for 1.5 cars, awaited us. We got rather close to the edge a few times. By ‘rather’, I mean ‘extremely’. (Note: There are apparently night buses on this route. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on one of those).

Just after 2pm, we rolled into Zumba and got dropped off at the rather swanky bus terminal where we got our tickets ($1.75) for the next stage if the trip – 1.5hrs on a chiva to La Balsa. It left at 2.30, with all of us, our bags and 17 school children on board. It was quite the bone-rattling ride, as it bumped along the uneven (still gravel) roads through green hilly landscape (I took photos but not all are in focus. The fact that any of them are is a miracle of epic proportions and a testament to digital camera technology).

After 90min, we could see a river at the foot of the hill and paved road on the other side – a sure sign that we could see Peru! But before we got all the way down the hill, we stopped at the side of the road and the driver, with 2 helpers, picked a plastic hose out the back of the van and proceeded to empty the petrol tank into plastic containers, which they carried into the bush off the side of the road. Theories centred on the fact that petrol must be cheaper in Peru so they drive across and fill it there. When enquiring further, one of the other passengers explained that no no, petrol is about twice as expensive per liter in Peru than in Ecuador. They were just smuggling it across the border and selling it for a profit. They had just acquired about 12 witnesses to this act. No biggie, apparently.

Safely down the hill, we were dropped off right in front of the emigration office. It was just the 5 of us crossing the border but the emigration officer with a broken arm had to manually write all our details into an excel spreadsheet so it wasn’t the swiftest operation. We got our stamps, walked to the bridge, ducked under the bamboo pole put in place to indicate you are now leaving Ecuador and walked across to Peru. The immigration office on the Peruvian side was temporarily closed, the officer was across the road having a snack but saw us coming and came sprinting back across the lawn and started processing our entry forms. Once he’d made relative sense of a few of the Swiss names with unusual spellings and pronunciations (kunilia funshe was apparently not an issue for him), we had to go to the police officer at a building 50m along the road, get the forms stamped and then come back to get our entry stamps. We were each asked how many days we wanted and I went for 60, knowing all too well that I unfortunately don’t have that much time but I live in hope that someone will introduce me to a time machine soon so I can get enough time to do everything.

We’d been told there were colectivos waiting at the border that would take us to San Ignacio for the slightly high price of 15-20 soles. We ended up having to pay 17 each but got to leave straight away. This was where being in a group came in very handy. Because not many people were coming across that border at 4.30pm so if I’d been on my own, I either would have had to wait a really long time for the colectivo to fill up, or I’d have to pay more to make up for any unfilled spots. But in no time, we set off, on lovely paved road in northern Peru, where we quickly learned that our driver was living out some childhood fantasy of becoming a rally driver because we spent just as much time in the left hand lane as the right one and manoeuvred over speed bumps so fast I’m pretty sure we saw air. I learned some interesting things about Peru on that 1.5hr trip. Like, they paint the names and parties of election candidates onto the buildings (Wilson y Ramon 2015-2018 seemed to be running a particularly noticeable campaign) and there are a lot of things on the roads that shouldn’t be there – like rocks, donkeys, hens with their chickens and children. Lots of children playing in the road. Road+rally driver+children=slightly concerned tourist.

We got to San Ignacio without having caused any injury to any living things and then walked into town to find an ATM (I had changed dollars for soles with someone at my hostel in Montañita so was all set) and a hotel for the night. Checked in, we went for a quick bite to eat and a beer to celebrate having made it through day one of our border crossing adventure.

 

Day 2 started equally early, we left the hotel at 5.45 and took a mototaxi for 2 soles to the ‘terminal’ (aka dusty edge-of-town parking lot) for the ride to Jaen. There is very little negotiating to be had with colectivo drivers here so we ended up having to pay 20 soles each. But we filled the van so at least we had no waiting time.

It was a 2 hour drive to Jaen, which was an hour less than we had thought (despite our driver stopping to buy lollipops (breakfast of taxi driver champions?) along the way. Maybe he needed special energy to hit the horn when driving in the left hand lane, overtaking three cars in a row with oncoming mototaxis, buses and donkeys in his way. The scenery changed a little bit on this stretch, there were loads of flat valleys covered in rice paddies which felt like quite the unexpected sight in northern Peru.

In Jaen, we thought we could catch a bus directly to Chachapoyas but no one there seemed to think that this was the case. Instead, we were told, we would have to take a colectivo to Bagua Grande and connect there. We negotiated a deal with a taxi to take us all the way straight to Chachapoyas but when that involved 2 of us having to share the front seat we dropped that plan (because that didn’t seem a fun way to spend 3-4 hours). So instead we got extremely frustrated with the mototaxis who kept repeating the same information and didn’t listen to or respond to any of our questions. We tried to get them to clarify what they were saying but we were still at a total loss as to what was going on. It ended up being a 2 soles mototaxis ride to a garage with a colectivo and 7 soles from there to Bagua Grande. With no alternatives, we got in. They tried to charge us for an extra person because of our luggage but that wasn’t about to happen and instead I sacrificed legroom for my backpack.

In 45min, we made it to Bagua Grande and were immediately pounced upon by colectivo drivers sensing our final destination was Chachapoyas (I guess not many tourists opt for a visit to this little dusty town). We were hoping for a normal bus here, one with normal legroom, but colectivo seemed to be the only option. So again, we piled into the van, paid our 10 soles and braced ourselves for an uncomfortable 2 hr drive.

Uncomfortable it was, but at noon, we made it to Chachapoyas, our journey complete, a few hours ahead of schedule. Buenas tardes, Peru!

Today I’m listening to: Kent – ‘Sömnen’