Peru/Ecuador Border

Day 155 – The long way up

Despite this journey being billed as a two day trip, we decided that we were brave enough and stupid enough to attempt the journey from Chachapoyas to Vilcabamba (in Ecuador), plus a border crossing in one LONG day, mainly in order to enjoy time resting in the lovely sounding Vilcabamba and give Anna at least one day on her holiday without transport.

Up at 4.30am, we were catching our first shared taxi to Bagua Grande (2hrs, S22) at 5am. Following this, the journey went something like this:

• Bagua Grande to Jaén: 45 minutes and S9 in another shared taxi;
• Jaén to San Ignacio: 2.5 hours and S15 in another shared taxi, plus transfer from ‘in’ transport area to ‘out’ transport area in motorcycle taxi;
• San Ignacio to La Balsa: 1.5 hours plus a wait of one hour, costing S12 plus S10 to pay for the shared taxi to just go without the share part.
• La Balsa… wait outside immigration door for someone to notice us, exit Peru border formalities, answer “No” to all questions regarding the carrying of firearms or drugs or attempting to launder money, cross border bridge on foot, entry Ecuador border formalities, drop packs, search for food, cross back into Peru for said food, wait three hours more for truck to Zumba with beers, cards and good friends, watch pouring rain, hope dirt road doesn’t close, hope we don’t get stuck in Zumba for the night.
• La Balsa to Zumba: 1.5 hours and USD$1,50 on wooden bench seat on back of truck.
• Zumba to Vilcabamba: 6 hours in dodgy road coach for USD$6.50 each.

We arrived in Vilcabamba at a bit after 2am, knocked on the door of Jardín Escondido (Hidden Garden) and were kindly granted some rooms. We passed out after that.

Scenery somewhere in Northern Peru.

Yay, we’re off to Ecuador.

Waiting at San Ignacio. After about an hour and too many chocolate Sublime bars (hey, we had to spend our small Peruvian change on something) we just paid the driver to go. We had a schedule to keep!

Peru/Ecuador border bridge. We decided to take the country back way after hearing about the nightmares at the main entry point further west. Still pleased with our choice, despite the long day.

The place we didn’t choose for lunch.

Beers at the border, just before it began to pour with rain.

Mucking around on the truck.