¡ya llegamos en peru! we arrived in Peru!
after leaving Puerto Lopez we took an all day bus to Cuenca where we spent 2 nights in this beautiful colonial city. after meeting a swiss couple and a spanish couple in the hostal and borrowing their guide books for advice, we made a quick decision to head for peru on wednesday a bit earlier than planned. We’ve been in Peru now for a couple of days. We crossed the border in the late afternoon Wednesday. It was quite a zoo, very confusing and crazy but we made it across without any hassle or visa problems. We ran into a small hiccup in Huaquillas with exchanging dollars for soles in that we received some fake bills. But when we got to Tumbes we went to an exchange house where Annie exchanged the rest of her dollars exchanged for good bills in soles. Needless to say, we’ve learned to never again exchange money on the street, no matter how reputable the person appears to be.
That was the only problem we encountered when crossing the border. We both got 180 day visas for free. We made it to Mancora, the beach resort town of northern Peru safely later Wednesday night, found cheap lodging and ate breakfast on the beach the following morning. We went to the market and bought bread, mangos, apples and bananas all for less than $2 then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon relaxing and walking on the beach. That night we decided to leave on a night bus instead of staying the extra night and the hostal was nice to let us pay half the fee for the other night because we stayed in the room until 10pm. The exchange rate for soles to dollars is about 2.80 : 1. Everything is cheaper here and we like it a lot, except for the buses which are a bit more expensive than Ecuador. Al is proving to be better at math in his head when thinking of how many dollars is 10 soles for example. we round up to 3 to 1 and try to divide all prices by 3 to see how many dollars everything is. eventually we want to be able to think of things in soles but right now we have to convert to figure out if it is expensive or cheap.
Last night around midnight we caught a bus out of Mancora that passed through Chiclayo at 6am, and we caught another bus there to Cajamarca, where we are now, after 13 hours on bus today. Our legs hurt! This city is so gorgeous, it could almost be Mediterranean. This is where Francisco Pizarro captured the Incan Emperor Atahualpa. Tomorrow we are going to visit the house where Atahualpa was hiding before he was caputred. Sunday we’ll go to the Inca Baths and eat at a New York style pizzeria to celebrate Als birthday. Monday night we’ll be catching a bus to Trujillo and then take a taxi or walk to Huanchaco near the beach to see some more ruins and hiking. Trujillo is rumored to be more dangerous a city, so we’re going to stay in Huanchaco, a smaller town on the beach that is much safer and has Incan ruins near by. We’ll be staying there just about until we go to Pisco to start volunteering for a few weeks. We will only be passing through Lima in the bus station. Everyone tells us that there is not much to see etc., so we’ll just pass through.
we ate the largest lunch for the cheapest today, it was 3 soles which is about a dollar for soup, the main plate of a mixed rice with sausage, chicken and vegetables and eggs, and juice. que barato.
chao a todos!
Tags: cajamarca, Peru, Travel
annieandal
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