The Adventures of PSquared: Bus, Kind Strangers, Bus, Bus

At 8:00 AM Friday we boarded our first bus for our travel into Ecuador. It was a little 3 hour number from Chiclayo to Puira. Pam tormented me with a bananita until I gave in and ate it. The picture is fuzzy, but you can see the crazy look in her eyes.

From all accounts and guide books Puira is not a tourist destination – merely a stopover on your way to or from Ecuador. We found no evidence to the contrary, though the weather was beautiful and there were several nice parks.

After our bus arrived from Chiclayo at 11 AM we walked up to the office of the bus that got great write ups for the border crossing at Macara and bought our tickets – for the 9 PM bus. 10 hours to burn in a stopover city – oh boy! We dropped our packs at the bus station and took a motorcycle cab to the Plaza de Armas. We were hungry so we hit a local joint where we had chicken soup, meat and rice, fruit salad, and pineapple juice for 10 soles - $3.65 total for both of us!

Now we only have 9 hours to burn. We walk to the big grocery store and provisioned up for our next bus rides and then to a little park to people watch until we are totally bored. Now we only have 8.5 hours to burn. We walk some more and find a casino with slot machines so we cash 30 soles –like $10, and lose it all over the next half hour. Now we only have 8 hours to burn.

Off we continue with no map and no really good idea of where we are going. We walk another half an hour looking for a pub to while away our time when our first piece of luck happens.

We find a great little restaurant called Embarcadero 41. They have a great patio area, clean bathrooms, and large bottles of the local lagers for sippage. They quickly hand us menus but we stall as long as we can. We have a total of 3 large bottles of beer and it’s now 3PM and we order a dish to split. The dish is called Tacu Tacu, and it is a Peruvian dish that starts with rice and some white beans mixed together and formed to a canoe shape. This particular Tacu Tacu had steak that was perfectly cooked and a demi glace reduction that would make any French chef proud.

While we nursed our food we started talking to the table next to us, and met a Danish guy named Michel and his lovely Peruvian wife Maria Teresa.

Michel was so excited to speak English with someone that they invited us to hang out with them and even go to their house to wait for our bus. Never lose belief in the kindness of strangers. We took them up on their kind offer, stopped at the grocery for a good bottle of wine and off we went. Maria Teresa doesn’t speak English, but she makes great popcorn and we had a great time. The rest of the day passed quickly.

Bus 2 begins at 9PM Friday and travels to the border of Peru and Ecuador at a town called Macara. They stop the bus, you wake up and start hitting the immigrations booths. There are 2 for your enjoyment on the Peru side and one in Ecuador. All under a bright full moon.

Why the Peru officials can’t do both stamps at one desk noone knows, but we were amoung the first through both sides and won the right to sit on the curb and wait for the others to stumble through their paperwork. Once everyone was done we boarded the bus and continued to the town of Loja in Ecuador. Loja has an equally good reputation as Puira so we were glad to see there was a 6 AM bus to Cuenca when we arrived at 5:45.

The sun began to rise as we got going towards Cuenca and we were thrilled to see green – trees and grass and plants! Peru is great but the drive from Arequipa all the way to Puira is a desert. Green is great. The advertised 4.5 hour trip took a full 5. Cuenca is worth the wait and the whole 27.5 hours it took us from Chiclayo to finally arrive at our hotel in Cuenca.