Journey to Peru

My original plan was to spend the month of February in Peru but our plans changed and we now wouldn't be hitting Peru till March. So due to our time constrain we decided to skip the top half of Peru and head straight to Lima. The South of Peru is where all the typical tourist stops are, so we figured we would just stick to those.

To get to Lima from Ecuador we were going to have to take a 26 hour bus from Guayaquil straight to Lima. I personally wasn't looking forward to this since I don't sleep well on buses and get irritable after 6+ hours in a confined space but a plane ticket was going to cost us $400 each, so we opted for the bus route. There are a couple different bus companies that do this route but for such a long bus ride we decided to spend the extra money and go with Cruz del Sur which is suppose to be the top Peruvian bus company. We were really happy when we discovered that we could book our bus tickets online in English which was really helpful since this is a popular route with only three buses a week, so you need to book in advance and we were still in Montanita at the time.

Upon arriving at the bus terminal the first thing we were really grateful for was that they checked our bags right away for us. Normally you need to carry your bag around until you board the bus but that wasn't case with Cruz del Sur which was really good because we had an hour before we needed to board and wanted to eat without having to lug and watch our bags.

The bus itself was a double decker bus with seats that declined to 160 degrees for you to sleep. It also seemed like one of the safest companies, with seat belt on the bus. They also had a policy where the buses max speed is 90km with digital speedometers located on both floors so you can watch how fast the driver is going and if he goes above 90km it beeps. They also switch drivers every 4 hours which is good for a long drive like ours. The bus also had WiFi,  headsets, blankets, pillows and a stewardess that served our meals. The meals themselves weren't the greatest, pretty much your typical airline food but we had visited the grocery store ahead of time and stocked up on our own food for the ride. We actually stocked up on a lot of fruit and it wasn't till we were crossing the boarder that we realized we might not be able to bring fruit over but we never got in trouble so I guess it was ok.

We left at 6pm and after about 5 hours we hit the Ecuadorian boarder. On the bus they had given us all the forms we needed to fill out but we all still had to exit the bus and wait in line at the Ecuadorian boarder which took about 30 minutes. They then loaded us all back on the bus to take us across to the Peru immigration. The Peru immigration office was not what I would have expected, it was essentially a trailer off the side of the road and if we had come across on our own we probably would have missed it. At all previous boarders we were use to seeing lots of police or military but at this boarder we only found one and that was after search for any.

The worse part of the Peru immigration was the mosquito. They only had one immigration person for the 45 people on our bus and as we waited, we all got eaten alive. We then headed back onto the bus and everything seemed to be going smoothly until 2 hours past the boarder we passed a police check point. They made us all get off the bus, show our passports and searched our carry-on. They also searched the luggage compartment and pulled off 5 bags. The people who owned the bags were then asked to come forward while they watched as their bag get searched by the police and all the people from the bus looked on. The worst part about this check point however was the cockroaches. I have never seen so many cockroaches in my life and it was actually hard walking without stepping on one. So while the bags were getting searched, we just hoped none of them would crawl into our bag. Turns out there was nothing in the bags they searched so we were allowed back on the bus and our journey continued.

I do not sleep well on buses so I took sleeping pills hoping that would help and it seemed to do the trick because I was able to fall asleep. I think it also helped that the seats reclined too. Once I woke up I could tell we weren't in Ecuador anymore, the landscape had completely changed and we were now in the desert with sand dunes all around us. I also noticed the change in poverty level, with very sad looking shacks that the people lived in along the roadside. I'm definitely starting to learn how diverse South America really is.

Desert scenery

The houses