Mike Barkey once told me, "avoid the ´lonely planet´ trail, that unglorious, well-trodden road of white, western backpackers if you really want to get a glimpse into another way of life."

I think he is right, so.... with my new friends, Louise and Anders, we decided to take the road less traveled from ecuador to peru....

As I write this, I havent seen another white person in almost 4 days. :) Neat. Right now we are in a small city about 100km south of the ecuadorian border. Its called Jean (Map)

Now, to get here.....

I left Montinatia to meet Anders and Louise in Cuencha (which, BTW, is an amazing city). We asked around a lot to see if anyone knew a route to peru other than the two main routes near the coast. Most people, including many seasoned guides, the owners of the hotel, and people on the street, told us we were crazy to go through Zumba, and that it wasnt possible. :) Excellent.

Between us, we have four guidebooks. The most recent one, footprints peru, makes a 4 sentence entry that there is a new border crossing called La Balsa near the ecuadorian town of Zumba Map). So whats the worst case scenario? We loose a few days, its not like we´re going do get hurt. Badly.. :)

To get to zumba, we traveled to Loja, a big city south of Cuencha (5 hours)
From Loja, to Zumba (7 hours)

Our timing was impeccable. Never more than a 40 min wait for the next bus, and we made it the full distance in one day.

Zumba is a cute little Military town. We awoke (at 530) to the sound of the military screaming down our little street.... oh well. An early start, and yet, SOMEHOW, even given that early start, we missed the bus to the border (800, 230, 400) shit. If we wait till 230, we will not get very far in a day...

HELLO ASCII!! A very nice native man from Chimbarazo offered to take us the 1.5hour drive for 20$US. Expensive, but we did it! (Pictures).

Dum-da-dum-dum.. the BORDER....

Given our recent experiences with the military in ecuador, the scary predections from the people in cuencha and loja, all the james bond movies i have seen, and a general fear of boarders... we expected a very harsh boarder experience.

Boy, were we wrong. :)

Nothing is easier than crossing the boarder at La Balsa. It was actually fun!!

The ecuadorian side was a joke. One stamp, move on.

Once across the river, in peru, we started to have fun. Manning the border outpost were 2 guys. One immagration official, and one national police. When we got there, they were sitting outside on a bench chatting. They greeted us with handshakes and well wishes. First to immigration, where he did all our paperwork for us, and offered us chairs to sit down at. hehe. THEN to national police, where, while dancing to salsa (mp3s off a net connected computer) he gave us HIS stamp... THEN back to immigration. DONE!

Sweet. I AM IN PERU!!

From here to San Ingaco is about 1.5hrs in a 3 dollar (10 sol) ride. Then we waited in San Ingaco for a bus here, to Jaen (10 Sol).

Tada! We´re here!!

Go look at the pictures!

Miss you all. Write me comments, i love them.

More soon.

ciao

sp