Bordercrossing to Peru

On the bus across the border to Mancora I met Maria from Venezuela and Bianca from Australia. Our first conversation happened after Maria had to hold the bus for us at a toilet stop when the bus tried to leave while Bianca was still in the bathroom and I was buying a chocolate bar. We jumped on the already moving bus and had to laugh that of course the only two gringo girls almost missed the bus.
The bordercrossing itself was super easy by bus. I think the fact that makes it harder when you do it by yourself is that the immigration offices are not right at the border. So you have to go there first and then take a taxi to the actual border to walk across.
Our bus just dropped us outside the immigration office and the really innovative part was that they had counter to leave Ecuador and to enter Peru right next to each other in the same building. So you only got in line once and then went from one counter to the next.
Maria had been in Ecuador for 2 years working in s restaurant and was now making her way south to Arequipa in Peru where her father was waiting for her. She did have a visa for Ecuador but she overstayed it for 6 month. I expected this to cause some trouble or some few but luckily they didn't care at all.
After this we just jumped back on the bus that drove us to the actual border and straight over it. There was another checkpoint further down the route where they checked our bags but no one ever checked our passports. So I guess you could easily just go to the bathroom instead of to the immigration office and cross this border without being noticed.Read more