Hola Amigos!

Hope everyone is well. Keep on telling us what you are all up to, we appreciate the messages!

Where were we? We stayed a couple of days longer than intended in Cusco after we had rather more success with our Saturday party night than we intended. We went out for something to eat (no guinea pig as yet) then wandered around checking out a few bars. We were then later enticed into a few nightclubs with the offer of free drinks and settled in Ukuku´s Bar until 5am. Our biggest party night so far and it certainly felt like that the next day when we changed our bus ticket onward and stayed in bed practically all day (watching cable TV).

We eventually tore ourselves away from Cusco on Monday evening for another mammoth overnight bus journey to Ica which is a town in the desert popular for trips to the Nazca lines (which due to our airsickness we had both decided against). We arrived in Ica about 11am after about 14 hours on the bus and immediately hopped on another up the coast to Pisco. We had heard that Paracas, a small resort outside of town was very nice so then headed on there. We may have been spoiled by Thailand (we have) but the beach at Paracas really is no great shakes. Neither of us went in the water and our stay there was a little disappointing in spite of a free music festival going on at the time. Betty also became ill after our first night there so that kind of summed up our stay. The highlight really was on the first day when we had to get a taxi back into Pisco for Liverpool v Barcelona! ;)

There are no banks in Paracas and we ran out of money quicker than we expected especially after we were unable to go on a tour we had planned due to Betty´s illness (she is now fully recovered). Rather than get a taxi back into Pisco then out again to Paracas whilst letting Betty recooperate we decided to try and stay in Pisco. We went on the net and found a great hostel with a swimming pool. It´s called San Isidro and I heartily recommend it (we were there 3 days!). We decided just to relax for a while and let Betty get well so we did it, wisely I feel, in the sun by the pool (a whole 3 photos of Pisco is some testament to our inactivity). We may have then somewhat over-celebrated Betty´s return to health and had to change our bus ticket again. This time not so easily as it involved running around Pisco hot and hungover looking for the Cruz del Sur office. All sorted in the end and back to the pool for a relaxing afternoon. At least that is how we planned to spend the day until one of our fellow guest trod on Betty´s glasses and we then dashed off to town with the guilty party´s very nice and helpful son provided the necessary Spanish to try and get them fixed. No joy but we will try our hand them in on our next stop.

We made the bus at the second attempt leaving at 9.30 for Lima. We arrived about 1.30 to make our bus that we had booked all the way up to Tumbes high up on the north coast for our crossing to Ecuador. All went very smoothly and we arrived 9am the following Monday morning in Tumbes feeling brave enough to continue on into Ecuador. The border crossing proved a headache and gave us our first opportunity to sample that traveller´s favourite of being fleeced for cash. Our lucky fellas were our taxi driver and a Peruvian policeman. The crossing is a little strange as after going through Peruvian immigration the taxi continues 2 km to a border town where you cross to Ecuador but are still in Peru. Upon arrival there our driver told us that there was a demonstration (isn´t there always?) and we could not cross without security. The security in question would be our friendly policeman (who just happened to be where we pulled up???) at a cost of $40. We were both pretty agast at this and we did our best through grunting and complaining to make ourselves understood that we were not going to pay. ´No pay no crossing´ was the line being taken so we paid up a reduced $20. We then had to walk through the town following our taxi driver, the security nowhere in sight. The walk was through quiet market streets, with not a demonstrator in sight (or sound) and we reached another taxi rank in about 5 minutes. Welcome to Ecuador. We thought all this very strange and complained some more to our now very disgruntled taxi driver and were whisked off out of town.

We had been nowhere near any immigration offices and were now leaving the Ecuadorian town of Huaquillas. Thoughts of murder, mugging and other nastiness were beginning to enter my head, but I kept them to myself whilst contenting myself with how I was going to get my hand on that bloody policeman. Bizarrely we arrived at an migration office about 3km out of town and checked into Ecuador a full 30 minutes after our unofficial arrival. The immigration officers seemed to have no problem with this so we then went back into town for the onward journey to Cuenca a further 5 hours north. We had by now been travelling for what seemed like days but apart from seeing an overturned bus on the way we made it safe and sound, but that, as I´m becoming increasingly fond of saying is another story.

Take care.

Love, Paul and Betty