From Porto Lopez we continued our journey south, there were a couple of buses involved, a stop over in Guayaquil which was so insignificant it doesn´t get a blog entry, just 1 night in a cheap hotel and we spent most time watching TV. Sometimes TV is a godsend and others a curse, I can happily take it or leave it, I much prefer to sit and watch movies, I don't like having to flick through channels to find something watchable and then Haven to do it again every 30 minutes when the show finishes! Gini on the other hand would I think be happy to stay anywhere if there were a TV in the room where she can get her fix of trashy TV and bad sitcoms.
Now we have heard from a few people, actually most if not all people, that the border crossing from Ecuador to Peru is notoriously bad, in that there is about a quarter mile between the 2 immigration offices that has a market there and if you travel by night there is a very high chance you will be mugged. One guy told us he was with a guide who picked up their bags and started running as fast as he could to avoid the would be assailants. Once he was safely past the dodgy market he drew a finger across his throat to indicate that without him something bad would have happened!
And poor Beth, an English girl we travelled with for a couple of weeks had an episode where someone grabbed her rucksack and tried to wrestle it away from her. Now most rucksacks are between 13 and 20kg, not the easiest target for a bag snatch! Anyway the thief was unsuccessful and left Beth lying on the floor complete with her rucksack, like a turtle on its back. It has also been known for people to get into your taxi and demand you go to cash machines to withdraw money for them. You´d think border crossings would be safe what with armed guards at either side but hey, this is South America baby!
The funny thing is theres another border crossing about 100km away which is scenic and pleasant according to reports and The Book. Don´t get me wrong I´m all for adrenalin rushes and trying new things but I don´t see the point in putting us in any unnecessary danger, it´s pointless when for another hour or two on a bus you can be safe as Larry, whoever he is.
We went the slightly longer way. Our border crossing was at night but there isn´t a gap between the 2 sides, just different offices on either side of the road. This was a really good thing as we had taken some sleeping tablets about an hour before we got there, actually they may have been tranquilisers, not sure. The result was that we were slightly less than compos mentis when we had to get our passports signed. That's Latin you know, it means "in Control".
All was good and we arrived in Huanchaca at about midday. Gini describes Huanchaca as Blackpool beach without the lights. It´s a place for surfers to go, the beach isn´t great but the waves are. This was another place we didn´t learn to surf in, the water looked cold.
We spent a couple of days wandering the streets, looking at tat and eating in different places, it was quite sad really, there are lots of restaurants and stalls but the place was quite deserted and people resorted to almost begging to to eat in their place. The fella at a surf lesson place kept offering me weed every time I passed, like 3 or 4 times a day!
We had heard Loki was a good hostel and we weren't disappointed, with table tennis (which I love) a pool table and big movie room, we were happy bunnies!
Not really a great deal to report about Lima, didn't get out much, watched a lot of movies and veg'ed around a lot. We did go on the piss with some Americans to a club, drinking something called Pisco Sour, a cocktail made from Pisco, egg white n some other stuff, if it's mixed right it's ok, if it's not it's really bad! These were ok, we drank, danced and generally had a good time and got plastered.
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