Drive to Peru

It was a very early start for the 200km drive to the border with Peru.  Everyone was a bit subdued.  Some of the girls were sick overnight - they put it down to dodgy milk in a coffee shop yesterday.  Most of the rest of us hadn't slept well due to a really rowdy group staying in the hotel.  Britt and Greg rejoined us after their successful sojourn in the Galapagos, so we were back up to 23 on the truck.

Nikki had bought breakfast for us as we were too early for breakfast in the hotel.  They did send us on our way with a takeaway coffee, though, so that was a bonus.  To eat, we had yoghurt, fruit, and a cream cheese roll. 

We drove out of the city and up into the mountains.  After a toilet stop, the landscape became rocky and barren, but then, just as quickly, we found ourselves driving through lush green scenery once more.

As we dropped to sea level, we drove through mile after mile of banana plantations. 

We reached the border with Peru at around 1pm.  First impressions were promising.  We got the truck out of Ecuador without any problems.  Then, we all had to get off and join the queue to exit Ecuador and enter Peru.  We didn’t move at all for over an hour!  Eventually, we were stamped out of Ecuador and joined another queue to enter Peru.  The two desks were next to each other in the same office!  Once we were all successfully stamped into Peru, we thought we were home and dry.  Unfortunately, we were mistaken!  We still had to get the truck through!  Ritchie had to queue for a long time while we all waited patiently in the shade.  When, he got the truck stamped in, the authorities instructed him to drive around the block without us, approach immigration again, and get us to take our bags off and put them through a scanner.  Most of us were allowed through without question, but Mark got pulled aside and had his bag opened and searched.  They were querying the amount of drugs he had in there.  Fortunately, he was able to show his prescription and tell them about the length of our trip.  We still weren't in the clear, though!  Immigration officers boarded the truck and took off all of our day packs to be scanned!  Still not satisfied, they then sent on sniffer dogs!  Finding nothing amiss, finally, after four hours at the border, they sent us on our way!

Sadly, the delay meant that we didn’t get to our camp for the night until just after the sun had gone down.  On the way there, we passed lots of large, flat fields of crops until we turned off and followed the coast road. 

Unfortunately, our first impression of Peru was of the enormous amount of rubbish everywhere 😕.Read more