I was awoken at 05:40 hrs. by the sound of Rupert and Helen clumping down the wooden stairs to the shower. My new German alarm clock went off at 05:50 hrs. while I was packing up my stuff. Rupert and Helen were catching the 07:00 hrs. bus to Loja so we got the local bus to the Terminal Terrestre together.
We had coffee together before we split. I jumped aboard the Machala minibus which left promptly at 07:00 hrs. We picked up more passengers on the way out of town. At an alternative bus depot on the outskirts of town Indians lined up for a tatty but colourful bus in a waterlogged yard while others passed their uniform sacks of belongings up to the conductor on the roof of the bus.
The driver had a “tasteful” gear stick knob which was a gold crucifix set in amber (orange plastic). At each of the multitude of police checkpoints the driver handed over his paperwork with a 20 Sucre banknote tucked discretely underneath.
The road followed a valley with scenery that wouldn’t seem out of place in the English Lake District. A local Indian led a pig on a rope lead along the side of the road. Soon we came to the extensive banana plantations on which Machala based it’s trade.
I had to get off the bus for a passport check and had to smile conspiratorially as the soldiers manning the checkpoint mimed what they would like to do with the voluptuous Peruvian girl in front of me!
At last, we pulled into the hot, dusty non-descript town of Machala. I transferred straight away to a bus destined for Huaquillas on the border with Peru. It cost 120 Sucres but the conductor let me off 10 Sucres as I only had 110 Sucres left.
Huaquillas is on the border of Ecuador and Peru near the coast. It's separated by a dirty river from its Peruvian counterpart Aguas Verdes. It's dirty, noisy and busy. Most travellers only come here because they have to.
I dozed for most of the journey passed the dull, flat, grass terrain, stopping for another passport check along the way. We arrived at the border between Ecuador and Peru at 13:00 hrs. Huaquillas was bustling with Ecuadorian shoppers and money changers. Urchins offered to carry our bags and fought each other for the custom.
We waited for the Customs Post to open at 14:00 hrs. and I chatted to a pleasant French couple. When it opened, we were quickly stamped out of Ecuador, and we walked across the bridge into Peru. The route was lined with market stalls selling consumer goods and there was a general holiday market atmosphere.
Peruvian Intis were the currency of Peru between 1985 and 1991. The Inti was named after the Incan sun god and was introduced in 1985, replacing the Sol (sun) at a rate of 1000 soles to 1 inti. The Sol had lost a lot of value because of high inflation in Peru.
I changed $5 U.S. dollars into Peruvian Intis with one of the moneychangers as I was too suspicious of these characters to change up any more. There were 1,000 Soles to 1 Inti and there were 105 Intis to $1 U.S. dollar.
At the other side there was a cursory passport check and we paid 10 Intis at the Peruvian Customs Buildings. The South American Handbook 1988 advised crossing this border just after lunch when the officials were drowsy and unlikely to take much notice. This proved to be an understatement. The passport official was slumped over his counter snoring.
We had to wake him up and he quickly filled in our details in a ledger so that he could return to his kip (sleep). The Immigration Officials couldn’t even be bothered to talk to us. They gave us a Tourist Card to fill in and stamped a 90-day visa in our passports, hardly bothering to look up. Custom Officials were not in evidence.
We boarded another bus to Tumbes for 15 Intis with everybody regarding each other suspiciously. Several of the men had exceptionally long fingernails on their left thumbs. Historically, having at least one long nail is associated with being upper class - an indicator of wealth and elegance for a man. No one molested us and we disembarked safely in Tumbes.
The Protocol of Rio de Janeiro signed in 1942 with Ecuador legally confirmed Peru's previously de facto rights over Tumbes after a victorious war.
Located near the border with Ecuador, Tumbes is a city in northwestern Peru, on the banks of the Tumbes River. It is the capital of the Tumbes Region, as well as of Tumbes Province and Tumbes District. It is located on the Gulf of Guayaquil along with Zorritos. Tumbes has its origins back in pre-Inca times when it was inhabited by a cultural group of natives called Tumpis.
The French couple went off to get a ticket for the 22-hour coach to Lima and after a short search for a hotel room I booked into the Hostal Florián opposite the El Dorado Bus Company Office. From the street it looked like it was a hotel under construction, but above the building site I got a clean, comfortable room with a toilet and a shower for 325 Intis.
I then had to go out and change up some more money. I bumped into a fellow offering cambio (“change money”) almost straight away, changing $40 U.S. dollars at 105 Intis per dollar. I then walked around the two main plazas, one with a good statue and the attractively painted church, the Church of San Nicolás de Tolentino.
People with donkeys were coming across the bridge over the river from the seemingly grassy wasteland of the far bank. A lot of young soldiers strolled around. A pleasant, modern pedestrian precinct led from the Plaza de Armas to the river.
I met the French couple at the TEPSA Bus Terminal and chatted to them until their bus left at 18:00 hrs. It cost them 908 Intis for the ticket to Lima. I bought a ticket for 490 Intis for tomorrows bus to Trujillo.
Trujillo (Quechua: Truhillu) is a city in coastal north-western Peru and the capital of the Department of La Libertad. It is the third most populous city and centre of the third most populous metropolitan area of Peru. It is located on the banks of the Moche River, near its mouth at the Pacific Ocean, in the Moche Valley. This was a site of the great prehistoric Moche and Chimu cultures before the Inca conquest and subsequent expansion.
I went back to my room to write up my travel diary and listen to the radio. There were a couple of good Peruvian radio stations playing Western rock music, with less American crap than Ecuadorian radio stations and a few more European songs. A few mosquitos pecked at my ankles. It is quite warm here.
By 19:30 hrs. I was more than ready to eat. A lot of Peruvians were out on the streets for a Saturday night out on the town. I walked down to the Plaza de Armas and went into Curich’s on the corner. Here I had my first Peruvian beer, a big bottle of Cristal, to accompany my meal of fish and chips. The bill came to just over a $U.S. dollar.
Cristal is an American-Style Lager brewed in Peru since 1921. It is Peru’s number one selling beer in Peru and the number one U.S. import from South America for the last 8 years. With a very light yellow colour and white head, Cristal has notes of apples, lemons, and a sweeter malt. Cristal is the pride of Peru.
The pedestrian precinct was packed with loiterers and a big crowd was gathered around a couple of street performers who were prancing around. I was still hungry so bought chicken and chips from a roadside stall and soon had a group of dogs around me waiting for scraps. I rounded my meal off with a bottle of Coca Cola and went back to the hotel for a shower. There was no need for hot water tonight. I went to sleep almost immediately.
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