Fuckityfuck. I just wrote about half of everything that I was going to write and somehow I deleted it all. I blame Nadja. HA!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Ok. No more eloquence, I'm just going to get down to stuff that happened.
Cuenca was our last stop in Ecuador after Baños. We got there quite late on a Sunday afternoon so it was pretty dead during the time we were there, but we enjoyed it all the same. Lots of nice colonial architecture, and Alex and I have decided to live there as well, after (or before?) Quito.
The next day we decided to make our way to the Peruvian border and here stupidness ensued. It wasn't anything big, but we're supposedly experienced travelers and all that, so the whole episode annoyed us quite a bit. The immigration procedure was pretty complicated and involved getting our passports stamped at the Ecuadorian customs office 3 km away from the border, taking a taxi to the border, Alex and Charles changing some dollars for soles, taking a taxi-ish thing across the border and to the Peruvian customs office another 3 km away and getting our passports stamped there too, and finally taking the taxi-ish thing to the town of Tumbes about half an hour away. During all this, we managed to get hold of a fake 50 soles bill (divide by 3 for US$) and had to pay the taxi-ish driver $5 each to Tumbes when it should've been much cheaper. The really idiotic thing was that we were in no position to haggle because we were in the middle of nowhere and it was already dark (stupid, stupid, stupid). However, we're alive and well and perhaps a little bit wiser.
After spending one night in Tumbes, which, though nice enough, didn't seem like an overly special place, we took the bus to Máncora, a backpackery but very pleasant beach town. We spent a night and two days there swimming, surfing, breakfasting on the beach and getting burnt. It was great.
The next bus trip we took was about 19 hours long, from Máncora to Lima. We sat in the luxurious cama section of the bus and watched bad movies, but 19 hours in a bus is pretty uncomfortable no matter how much you pay, which we were to become aware of later. We didn't think we'd enjoy Lima that much, but we really did. Richard and Dorothy, two circus people who had been on the same bus as us, offered to take us to a suburb called Barranco, near the famous Miraflores suburb, and we couldn't have stayed in a better place. The houses were really cololurful and cool, people were extremely friendly and we watched some live bands both nights we stayed there. We also celebrated Monica's birthday the day we arrived, eating at Tony Roma's at a fancy mall where they also sang happy birthday to her, hanging out at a plaza in Barranco with the people we met and seeing them do their circus tricks, and finally watching an excellent Nirvana/Rage cover band. We also got to see some of central Lima while we were there, walked around the posh Miraflores and checked out a really cool little designer store that Monica fell in love with. Lima's 3rd on my list of places to stay here, but only if I can live in Barranco.
This afternoon we arrived in Cuzco, the tourist heart of Peru, I guess. The trip took 22 hours this time, was double the price of the previous one and was about twice as cold until they decided to turn on the heat at 4 a.m. We're all pretty dead, but Alex and I have been refreshed by some excellent massage. We'll probably stay another 2 days in Cuzco, looking around the city and the Inca ruins surrounding it, and then we'll embark on an alternative to the Inca trail to Machu Picchu (haven't decided which one yet) since the latter has to be booked months in advance. Oh, and we'll end it with another massage, it's already decided.
And yet again I've forgotten my camera cable, so no pictures this time either. However, internet is pretty cheap in Cuzco and since we'll be spending some days here I'll try to get them up soon. Hideyho.
