We had the pleasure of attending the Carnivale festivities on Isla San Cristobal the day before we left the Galapagos. There was a parade, lots of live bands, some delicious street food and the President of Ecuador was even there!! We were sad to leave the Galapagos because it was such a great experience but the rest of the world is calling and we still have a long way to go. After departing the Galapagos we returned to the Guayaquil on Ecuador's mainland. We had a full day to kill between arriving in Guayaquil and leaving for Peru on a long distance bus, so we decided to take in a few sights. We walked a solid 40 minutes from our hostel to the Malecon and spent a good part of the day strolling along Guayaquil's massive boardwalk along the Rio Guayas. An absolutely beautiful area, the Malecon has something for everyone. There are hundreds of small shops selling everything you can imagine from knick-knacks and trinkets to doo-dads and whats-its. The views across the Rio Guayas are also very stunning and for a small price one can hop on a river boat gambling trip for a couple hours to see the city. However, we prefer to keep those types of events in international waters where anything goes and the sky is the limit. The next day we jumped on our international Cruz Del Sur bus at 2:00pm to arrive in Huanchaco, Peru the next morning at 7:00am. We were really excited as the Cruz Del Sur bus was the top of the line with huge reclining leather chairs, food on board, and a bathroom all the makings for a comfy ride! We were a bit nervous for the Tumbes border crossing as we had heard stories about robberies; however, we were completely safe and sound and back on the bus in no time heading towards Huanchaco. After about 40 minutes from the border the bus backed into a compound in Tumbes, Peru where we saw two other Cruz Del Sur buses. The bus driver then came on over the loud speaker and told the bus in Spanish (so we didn't have a clue what was going on) that due to fishermen protesting and blockading the main highway we were spending the night in the bus compound until the next morning when they thought the road blockage would be over. Luckily we met some really nice people on the bus who translated for us. Unfortunately the next morning the road wasn't open so their next idea was to drive the bus we were on to the protest, where we'd all get out and walk across the protest lines then on the other side we'd be picked up by another Cruz Del sur bus. Their grand idea was to leave here at 11AM the NEXT morning (at this point we realized we would be spending more than an entire day in the bus terminal) and to walk across the picket lines. When we first agreed to this "plan" we were told the walk was approximately 200m, then a couple of hours later we heard it was 2 km, then 5km, and finally right before we were going to bed 12km. We thought it was nuts (and somewhat dangerous as 3 people were robbed walking it the day before) that everyone had agreed to a 12km walk carrying our large bags. What really blew our minds, was that everyone from South America was OK with it! They obviously haven't done any long distance wilderness hiking before, otherwise they would have thought twice about agreeing to walk 12km in blistering heat carrying large bags. Unfortunately we were more or less stuck. We were told by many people that Tumbes is very dangerous (being a border town) and we shouldn't walk around so going to find a hotel was not really an option unless we could walk with a local. As you can imagine sleeping is the bus for 2 nights was was difficult... we had no air conditioning (the driver left with the keys), people were snoring and knowing we would have to walk 12 km in that area scared us. When we were woken up at 5:00am by the bus being turned on (AH! finally some air) we were told the road had been cleared and we were finally leaving the compound, we were very relived. After spending two nights in the Tumbes bus compound we were very excited for the 10 hours of actual driving to arrive in Trujillo where we met our Spanish teacher and were taken to our homestay in Huanchaco. All in all our 17 hour bus ride turned into 53 hours. It wasn't too bad as we met some really nice people and will always remember our time in the Tumbes bus compound :) Here's a few more pictures to keep you entertained...
5 Comments
|
Get updates by email!
Archives
January 2014
Categories
All
|