We decided to horse it through the rest of Ecuador and into Peru to meet Ray and Louise. We jumped on a bus early doors for about 7hrs to Machala which is quite close to the Peru border, we arrived into Machala around 7 and the bus to Mancora didn't leave till around 10 at night. Looking through the guidebook on what to do in Machala for a couple of hrs we noticed the first line, "do not take night buses in or out of Machala at night as they are prone to hold-ups"> we decided we knew better and ignored the comment, but just to be safe we made up a robbing wallet and hid it under our seat. Brid attempted to phone the hostel in Mancora that Ray and Louise were at to see if they had room for us arriving in the middle of the night, after the conversation she looked like she was gonna cry as the woman didn't understand a word she said, whether we had a room or not im not sure.

We jumped on the night bus and luckily we didn't get robbed, although some of the borders in South America are a lesson in incompetence. Everyone just runs around like idiots not having a clue what's going on, people getting ripped us all over the place by thieving Peruvians, who try to charge you to fill out your immigration forms.

We eventually made it to Mancora around 3 in the morning and headed off on a rickety tuk-tuk style thing to the La Posada Hostel. Luckily Ray and Louise were still up waiting on us, we stayed up till about 7 in the morning chatting sh*t.

Mancora was hot, had a beach and a pool in the hostel so we all decided to stay here for a couple of days before heading of to Lima. First day we jumped farted about, stuffed our faces with breakfast and lay around the pool side. Ray had been surfing a couple of days before and fancied trying it out so we headed of to the beach to rent some boards.I wish I could say it was like the film point break but we were both pretty poop. We had the biggest boards in the world, like a floating door. We were probably breaking every surfer code in the book (if there is one) and like proper gimps we attempted to surf the waves all the way to the beach unlike cool surfers who stopped half way. It was a lot harder than it looked and the current was so strong we always ended up miles away from where we started.That night we headed off to a restaurant recommended by Ray and Louise. Had a decent sized fillet steak, the girls then bored us to death by wandering around the exciting stalls on the beach front looking at peals for most of the night. Stayed up again mostly chatting sh*t again.

Did nothing again today except laze by the pool and bronze. Walked around the stalls....again, and brid bought some pearls that will probably never see the light of day. A pretty lazy day, we collected some booze from the shop and sat at the hostel again.

Next day and again nothing exciting, bronzed, ate, safety nap. Headed into town and got a fine pineapple and chicken sandwich. Once AGAIN brid wandered through the stalls!!!! Went to a nice pizza place for dinner and stuffed our faces. Booked a bus to Trujillo as well, which is about half way to Lima, hopefully it will break up our journey to Lima before our Inca Trail.Once again we ended up back at the hostel with some alcoholic beverages. There were a big group of other people hanging around, Ray German friend who had tried to tag along with him and Louise the first night they were there, like evil b*gg*rs they ditched the poor guy, shame on you!!

Got speaking to a sound American guy from Boston for a wee while, he had almost redeemed our faith in Americans when the biggest dafty I have ever met in my entire life came out of nowhere. As soon as the dafty guy (I can't remember his real name) sat down the other American guy made his excuses and ran away. We didn't realize he was running away from dafty guy at fist but after about 20secs we did. He was one of those annoying guys that has always done something one better than the rest of the world. If you have sh*t in the desert the he has stood in it. Anything we commented on, Surfing, snowboarding, he was better than anyone, just the most annoying guy ever!! He managed to clear the whole hostel with his boring banter, we headed to bed early, just to escape him!!

Next day and we had to pack our bags as we are leaving tonight, nothing much exciting, went for a long walk along the beach and spotted some whales about a mile out diving about, also spotted some police burying some drugs on the beach for afters I assume. Spotted some weird shell creature thing which got some abuse before it buried itself in the sand.Fell asleep beside the pool for a while and then headed of to the nice steak restaurant for another fillet steak. Woman at hostel only charged us for 3 nights instead of 4 so we make a quick get-a-way to the bus station to catch our bus to Trujillo, we paid enough for the bus so we thought it would be quite nice, we were wrong!!