Vilcabamba, last stop in Ecuador

On our last night in Cuenca, we stopped by the local brewpub, La Campaña. The food there didn´t look all that exciting, so we decided to eat somewhere else. We walked all of 20 feet and found a little place called "Sandwiches and Other Things", as best as we could translate. The food was awesome. We got a shrimp sandwich, kind of like a po-boy, and a tamale. We liked them so much we got another sandwich and a humita. Then we went back to the bar to get a beer, what a disappointment. The beer was really sweet and not very good otherwise; we didn´t stay long.

The next day we got our bus to Loja, supposedly a 4 hour ride. It took about 5.5 hours instead. When we got to Loja and went to get our bags from the bottom of the bus, we found a surprise. Upon opening the door, the luggage guy saw a cuy try to escape (cuy = guinea pig, pronounced "coo-ee"). Another passenger had put a box of cuy in the hold, and they had managed to chew a hole and several escaped. It took some time to catch them all. [As an aside, we still haven't eaten one yet. They are big in Peru, hopefully we can find one for cheaper than $20 there.] In Loja we bought our ticket to Piura, Peru for the next Tuesday, giving us a few more days to spend in Ecuador. Then we got on another bus for the 1:15 ride to Vilcabamba, a town a little lower in the mountains (about 1500 m) and renowned for it´s special water that supposedly makes you live a long time. We got there a bit late but had made a reservation at Le Rendez Vous, a very nice hostel with rooms surrounded by garden.

Vilcabamba was nice. The town is very small and everything is within 2 blocks from the central square. We spent time exploring the local restaurants (most quite good) and did some walking in the hills around the town. It´s obviously a retreat location and there are subdivisions going up in the hills. Our last day there it rained pretty much all day, so we rented a TV and DVD player and watched a few movies.

Tuesday came and we got back on the bus to Loja. From there we got on our Piura bus, which they said would take 8 hours. It was raining again, and slow going. We came at one point to a town where we were dropping people off, and the whole town consisted of washed out roads. It must have rained heavily there very recently. In one street was a backhoe digging a giant hole in the road amid gushing water. The bus got stuck several times, and at one point we were backing down the road, blocking emergency vehicles and bumping into things. After an awkward 15-point turn, we turned around and started going the wrong way down one-way roads in order to reach the central square and let people off. After we finally left the town, the excursion had taken at least 45 minutes.

We drove some more and stopped for a military checkpoint about 50 km from the border. Not sure what it was for, but they wrote down our names and passport numbers. Back in the bus, we finally reached Macara, the border town. We stopped, again not yet at the border, for a "food break" which lasted another half hour. Finally we got to the bridge over the river which formed the border with Peru. All the non-Ecuadorians got out to do the exit procedures. There was something wrong with the computer (or its operator) and it took 20 minutes or so, each, to get our exit stamps. During this time we had the pleasure of being eaten by mosquitoes, despite deliberately wearing our permethrin-soaked jungle clothes. Add another week of Malarone! Walk across the bridge, and a guy with a stamper said "there you go". Peru seems easier so far. We got to Piura after only 9.5 hours of being on the bus.