To Mancora Peru and Back!

Right now I am sitting in a CyberCafe in Vilcambamba, Ecuador. Quite possibly my favorite place on earth right now, especially relative to the towns and adventures we have experienced over the last week! Before I cover why I love Vilcabamba and may never leave, I need to get back to how we got to Peru, what we did, and how we returned.

On Sunday, we left Cuenca, Ecuador for the beach ¨paradise¨of Mancora, Peru. Days of long bus rides and spending hours upon hours riding various forms of transportation used to be known as "travel days". I have now mandated that these be aptly named "adventure days" as they never cease to provide extreme amounts of adventure, often unwanted adventure! Our 5 hour bus ride from Cuenca to the border town of Huaquillas was pretty uneventful really, other than providing great views of the Andes and going from gravel to dirt to pavement to ditches, all upon the great PanAmerica Highway that runs most of the coast of South America. The bus was incredibly hot as there was no air of any kind and most of the windows would not budge an inch, but we managed to make it all the way to the border. Just in time for the REAL fun to start!

For some reason, this border is called the "Worst Border Crossing in South America". And for some reason, we all agree that it very much deserves this title. I have to believe that the majority of the chaos was initiated by the fact that Ecuador decided to build their immigration center 3km north of the actual border. Well, Peru must have realized the cleverness behind this decision and followed suit. They built their immigration center 2km souther of their border! What does all of this mean? It means that you have to get off the bus, go through immigration so you can officially exit Ecuador, find a taxi of sorts to take you to the actual border, get out, walk across the actual border bridge and then find a "taxi" to the Peruvian immigration center. Once you take care of the formalities to enter Peru, you then are forced to yet again find additional transportation to where ever you are going. This most likely would be Tumbes, the next town of size down the coast about 30km away.

We had read the warnings from the Lonely Planet guide several times about this border and thought we were thoroughly prepared; however nothing could prepare three white people for this little journey. To start the crossing off right, we missed departing the bus at the Ecuadorian immigration point because only one person got off (still confused about this) and there were not even any signs on the side of the road saying we needed to get off there. So we got off the bus just before the border to find out we had to take a taxi back to immigration and then back to the border before we could cross. Don't get me wrong, could easily have crossed the border at anytime. It's not like you have to talk to anyone or even see anyone official to walk across the border. You seriously just walk across a big bridge filled with hundreds of people yelling and selling things, along with an awful stench that prevails in most little towns in the area. So anyway, we get out taxi back to immigration and have no issues getting our passports stamped and then finding yet another taxi back to the border so we can finally cross.

On our taxi ride back to the actual border, the guy that flagged down the taxi for us of course decides he needs to ride with us. So he piles in uncomfortably and proceeds to make suspiciously friendly conversation with us. He begins to tell us how we need to change a lot of money at the border so we can prove to the Peruvian border officials that we have money to spend in the country, which somehow will make it easier for us to enter the country. As soon as we get out of the taxi, several men start to grab at out bags to "carry" them for us. This, as everyone knows, is not cool...so we immediately put a stop to this. But once we had our packs on our backs and ready to walk into the sea of craziness at the border bridge, our new taxi friend introduces us to his money changing friend who begins to rattle off what a good exchange rate he will give us for our dollars into soles. I really only wanted to change a few dollars, enough to get us a taxi in Peru to immigration, but they gave me my $3 back saying that I needed to change at least $100 to get through immigration. These guys will stop at nothing to get your money and we decided we wanted nothing to do with them. They followed us, yelling in a mix of Spanish and English, the whole way to the actual border. Our taxi friend even said I needed to give him money to buy a coke since he had helped us so much. The funny thing about this whole exchange is that apparently these scammers do not keep up with the Wall Street Journal, because the exchange rate I negotiated was a good bit above the current rate (since the dollar has dropped so much lately). Of course their scam has other factors, but they were scamming themselves on the exchange rate.

Being practically the only gringos crossing the border, everyone in both countries wanted a piece of us as they saw a payday walking towards them. As soon as we walked into Peru, too frazzled to even get a picture of the Welcome to Peru sign, we were quickly approached by a taxi driver who wanted to take us to immigration and beyond. We knew we had to get to immigration, so we were cool with paying $2 for this (a price we negotiated down). Once in the taxi, the real fun started. He went on and on and on about how much easier it would be for us to get him to just take us all the way to Tumbes. Claire, sitting in front so she could do translation when needed, had obviously had enough of his ridiculousness and was getting visibly frustrated and angry. Once we got to immigration, we gave him his $2 and walked into the office. He followed us into the office and continues to yell at us as to why we needed to take his taxi all the way to Tumbes. After we somehow figured out how to get our passports stamped and enter the country officially, which was terribly difficult given that their are no instructions and no on to ask for help, we exited immigration in search of a way to Tumbes where we would catch a bus to Mancora.

As soon as we got our passports stamped, there was that same old crazy taxi driver up in our faces again. I even asked the immigration official if he was legit, which he of course said yes. I took this with a huge grain of salt as everyone in South America is on someone else's payroll. After another 10 minutes of confusion, discussion and searching for alternatives, we finally agreed to let this man take us to Tumbes for $7, which was negotiated because we did not change for any soles (Peruvian currency). As we drove under the "Bienvinidos a Tumbes" sign, the driver started up again about how the bus station was closed because it was Sunday and we would have to stay in this dusty borderesque town for the night in order to catch a bus. We told him that was not the case so he drove us by the "bus station" to show us it was all closed up. Indeed it was, but we were already prepared for this scam as Claire had experienced it in Costa Rica. We were not sure what exactly the deal was, but that was not the bus station we really needed to find. We asked him to take us to the real bus station and he acted very confused, followed by saying that we should just pay him to take us all the way to Mancora, which is about 2 hours from Tumbes. As soon as we heard this, screams of "NO" came from the back seat and we demanded he just let us out on the main street. He even tried to keep driving past it so I yelled "Aqui!" until he stopped. We got out, gathered our bags, reluctantly paid the driver, and then set out to figure out where the real station was.

Claire walked up to the first person we found and asked where the Tubmes station was; his response was an extremely confused expression that indicated to her that he had no idea what we were talking about. "Is this Tumbes?" Claire asked in Spanish. "No, it's Zuramilla" answered the guy. The fun hit an all time high when we realized that we were not even in the town at all that we had paid to be driven to, we were in a completely non-tourist town miles from Tumbes. Once again the only white people in town were mobbed by vendors, taxi drivers and anyone who could think of a way to lie to us to get some money out of us. We walked across the street and yelled at the guys to stop following us and then we started talking to a few little kids who we hoped we could trust to tell us where we were and how to get out. A few minutes after talking to them, the mother came up and kept repeating to us that we needed to be very careful. This of course only added to our anxiety levels that were already through the roof. Then, out of the blue, walked up two tall and well armed security guards dressed in black uniforms. They began to walk down the street with us and asked us where we were going. They informed us of where to get transportation and how much to pay for it and they even escorted us the two blocks to the real taxis. At this point, I was even suspicious of security guards...but these guys were honestly and truly there to help us and they recognized the need. They didn't even ask for money! It was amazing! They dropped us off at a collectivo taxi, which means it is cheaper because you share it with others. We shared it with a mother and her three children who all sat in the front seat, and away we went for Tumbes for $1 per person.

We arrived in Tumbes about 30 minutes later and were dropped off at a spot to get a cambe, or a 12 passenger van that drives to a destination while picking up and dropping off anyone and everyone at random points. While I watched our bags be tied down to the top like a hawk, the girls went with someone we hoped we could trust to find the ATM and get some soles so we could pay for the ride. It was $2 per person for the 2.5 hour ride. It started out ok, just a little hot. But with every mile we went we seemed to gather more and more people and before we knew it, we were stuff in with 20 other people into this little van! The ride took closer to 3 hours because of all of the stops and we all became even closer friends as we were literally on top of each other for most of the ride.

We finally arrived in Mancora around 8pm, after leaving Cuenca early that morning, and were ready to get out of the cramped van and find a beach side hostel to settle down for a few days. Once off the cambe, we hopped into a MotoTaxi (which is just as much fun as it sounds), piled in our bags on to the back, and set off to find a hostel. Our driver's name was Julio and he became a good friend for the duration of our 4 day stay. He was basically our own personal mototaxi driver! He helped us find a hostel with room for us for the night and we excitedly headed for bed after grabbing dinner at a good Italian restaurant in Mancora. Bed consisted of a concrete block with a very thin mattress on top and was honestly horrible, but we made do somehow!

At this point, being alive was what we're most thankful for! The fact that we were only scammed out of about $5 dollars that day and had nothing stolen was a giant relief. It took a lot of teamwork from the three of us to make sure we were even this successful in our insane border crossing experience!

I have just finished my hour long massage here in Vilcabamba, which cost a full $10, and now hunger is setting in. I think a fine $2 dinner is called for now, perhaps at a restaurant overlooking the Andes yet again. These are just some of the many, many reasons we are so glad to be here now and done with the hell that was our border crossing! In the next post, I will try to cover what exactly we did in Mancora (not much), how our crossing back was and how we came to be in Vilcabama.

Until then, we will enjoy paradise here! Adios!

Karl