Busses, Besos and Borders

So I left off with me leaving Quito, Ecuador on Tuesday June 29th.... I am now in Arequipa, Peru and sooooo much has happened since the last update!

The night of June 29th was our first overnight bus experience and let me tell you, it was everything I expected: long, cold, uncomfortable, cold, nauseating and did I mention, cold? I somehow survived it, but it was one hell of a trip! We left our friends in Quito and decided we were going to head to Cuenca, a beautiful colonial city southwest of Quito. After arriving at the terminal, we bought our tickets and were told the bus would leave at 7:30, it would take 10-12 hours and it was a "comfortable" option. If only this were the case. Our bus was over an hour late, as we were sitting outside a cold, dark terminal, not knowing if we had somehow missed the bus or what was going on. When the old, rickety hot pink super-taxi did finally arrive we were not sure what we were getting ourselves into. There were swarms of Ecuadorians, all carrying large, oversized plastic potato-sac looking bags running to the bus like children on a mad dash to the icecream truck. Hmmm... By the looks of it we are either getting on a large drug carrier bus or everyone instantly decided to move to Cuenca that night! There were so many of these "bags" they were stuffing them anywhere they could fit- inside the bus, on top of the bus and even on the bus next to ours! After magically getting all of these objects in/on the bus, we finally took off! I planned on watching movies and falling asleep, however the t.v. was broken, the windows were squeakier than ever, the roads made me feel like I was back on a boat in the Galapagos during a heavy storm and there was a horrible draft coming in all the windows. For those of you who know my sleeping habits, I don't sleep much as it is and I definitely am not able to sleep when I am cold and restless and this was exactly where I found myself. I ended up not getting even a tiny bit of sleep that night, finding myself wide awake as we approached the terminal in Cuenca at 5:00, earlier than planned, which was a relief as I wanted more than anything to get off the bus, but also a pain because now we needed to find a hostel that had a room available at 5 am. We got in a cab and he dropped us off at a hostel we found in our ever-so-handy Lonely Planet travel guide. We paid him and away he went. Just our luck, the hostel was full and we found ourselves aimlessly wandering the dark streets of Cuenca with all our luggage. There were two other guys wandering around looking for a place to crash as well. At this point we had many options around us, it was just a matter of luck and luckily we had success before the boys, leaving them on the streets and us laying in a bed, at least for a few hours, before going out to explore!

We woke up after a short nap on Wednesday June 30th, and headed out to explore Cuenca! It was an amazing city! We had a delicious breakfast at a little cafe down the street and then went to visit the main plaza in town. Due to our lack of sleep we decided to find a bench in the plaza and people watch for awhile. We took pictures, ate icecream, met some local rastafari artists and laughed at a guy wearing a Mankato Minnesota sweatshirt (who had no idea what is meant)! We then went and took a peaceful walk by the river and met some men making jewelry on the central stairway back up to the city. We chatted with them for awhile, bought some bracelets and then headed out on another adventure!

This adventure surprisingly worked out very well for us, although having a somewhat rocky start. At the Loop, the restaurant I work at, I am good friends with one of the cooks, Augustine, who happens to be from Ecuador. While still back at home, him and I discussed how awesome it would be if I could somehow meet up with his family while I was in Ecuador. His family just so happens to live an hour out of Cuenca so after a few texts back and forth between him and I and him and his mother, I decided to attempt it! Laura and I jumped on a bus knowing only the name of his Mom, the name of the city, and that she worked in a market.... this could´ve ended up being a wild goose chase, but we thought of it as more of a scavenger hunt! So, we got on a bus to take us to the terminal and somehow not paying attention we missed our stop. We realized this as the bus came to the end of the road and we were the last two on the bus. The driver made us get off and jump on another bus going in the direction we had just came from. Once on the bus, I specifically asked the driver to tell us when the stop for the terminal was. Well, of course he didn´t and so again we missed the stop. We jumped off a few blocks late, walked rapidly to the terminal through a sketchy alley-way and finally found the bus that would take us first to Gualeceo, and then Chordeleg, two small villages up in the mountains an hour from Cuenca. His family is from Gualeceo but his Mom works in the market in Chordeleg.

About an hour later we arrived in a central park in Chordeleg and here began the scanvenger hunt. We got off the bus and first asked where the main market was. Easy enough, there is only one market! We got a little lost walking to the market but found it in good time. We entered the market and then began step two, asking for Carmen Reinos. We hesitantly walked in and began asking everyone we saw if they knew her. After a few attempts and feeling like we were playing a game of ¨where in the world is Carmen San Diego¨ we found someone who was able to direct us to her! There she was, making tortillas and pouring coffee for a guest! We found Carmen Reinos! I approached her, gave her a big hug and instantly got emotional! I was soooo excited to meet her! She seemed equally as excited as she began calling over friends and other family members to meet us. How rare that some random American girl that works with her son in the United States would show up at this little local market in Chordeleg?! She gave us coffee and tortillas and we sat at a table in the market for awhile just chatting. Eventually her daughter and grand-daughter showed up, as well as Augustine´s Aunt, cousins, and nephews. We left the market in his sisters car along with his Mom and 8-year-old niece, as they wanted to show us around the city. They took us to a beautiful park by the river, where we took pictures and got to know eachother. They then took us to a church and a couple little markets in surrounding cities. At the street market in Gualeceo we decided to have dinner. They wanted us to have a traditional meal with them, so we ate huge plates of potatoes, mote, which I would describe as a mushy grain of some sort, and of course cuy, or guinea pig! This would now be our second time eating guinea pig, however this was a WAY more cultural experience. We were literally sitting on the streets as women were roasted the guinea pigs the way you all were probably roasting marshmellows this last weekend for the 4th of July, on a stick, over an open wood buring fire. We actually watched the whole process and got to choose what Cuy we wanted to eat. As the food arrived at our little outside picnic table on paper plates and drinking out of dixie cups, it smelled amazing but Laura and I both looked at eachother and said, ¨this is a lot of street food.¨ We kept our fingers crossed as we ate it that we would not get sick! Surprisingly everything was delicious and we experienced no sicknesses! The ladies were so happy to have shared their family and food with us that they didn't want us to leave. Laura and I had already made up our minds earlier that day that we were not going to stay there, as we had to leave super early the next day to head to Peru, but we couldn't resist. They were such nice people and it would be a great cultural experience to spend a night in rural Ecuador with locals. So, even though we were paying for a hotel room back in Cuenca, where all of our belongings were, and with nothing on us excpet a purse and our clothes, we decided to spend the night with Carmen.

We left the market with the girls gleaming from ear to ear as they were so happy we decided to stay with them. I was under the impression that we were going right to Carmen´s house, but.... we showed up at yet another Aunt's house where we were greeted by Augustine´s huge family! They were just finishing dinner and then brought everyone into the living room where they immediately grabbed every chair they owned from around the house and set up a semi-circle, with Laura and I claerly being the center of attention. It was actually a little intimidating! We were asked an abundance of questions about ourselves, our families, our travels, our lives back home, Augustine´s life in the U.S, and many phrases in English, the most common one coming from the men and little boys in the family wanting to know how to say ¨beso¨in English, which is KISS. His Aunt then took out a photo album of Augustine growing up in Ecuador! It was so cute! They actually gave me a few pictures to take back to him and show people at work. I had a few pictures from home that I had brought of friends and family so I shared those with them as well. They loved it, especially the one of me and my Mom sitting in a suite at Target Field! After a couple hours of laughing, English lessons, kisses and pina colada shots we finally headed to Carmens house to sleep. It actually was kind of sad to say bye to these people, even though we had just met them, they were like family! His cousin offered to pick us up early at 5:30 in the morning to take us back to Cuenca as he had to go into town in the morning anyway, and it´d save us a lot of bus time.

We walked up a small hill to Carmen´s house which was very cute and quaint. She showed us the outdoor bathroom and the room we would be sharing. She was sweet, giving us besos and putting us to sleep like we were her own children. Laura and I said goodnight and found ourselves laying up in bed for quite awhile as there were chickens, roosters, dogs and crazy cats making all kinds of noises around the house, definitely a different kind of noise that we were used to as this was our first ¨rural¨ Ecuador experience. After what felt like only a couple minutes of sleep we were awoken by Carmen yelling at us from the room next door at 4:45; Javier was there to pick us up. Not sure what happened to the 5:30 am part but we jumped out of bed, gave Carmen a huge hug, still in our clothes from the day before and headed back to Cuenca with Javier. Due to the fact he had come so early, we again found ourselves arriving at our hostel at 5:30 in the morning! The owner of this place is going to think we are party animals! We again took a few hour nap, similar to the day before and woke up to start yet another adventure.

We left Cuenca at 9 am on Thursday July 1st, getting on a bus that would take us to Huaquillas, which is a town bordering Peru. We had decided that rather than fly to Peru we would cross via bus and walking, as it is a lot cheaper. This later turned out to be one of the most terrifying experiences in my life. The bus ride to Huaquillas was scary enough, as were pretty much balancing on the edge of a cliff for 7 hours through the moutains of Ecudaor. For those of you who have traveled in South America before you may understand when I say there is one lane of traffic next to the edge of a cliff where you must honk if going around the corner, as to warn drivers coming from the other direction that you are there. There were many instances like this and many times of helpers jumping out of the bus to direct the driver on how to safely back up without falling off the cliff to allow the other vehicles to pass. What a nightmare, but absolutely beautiful scenery! We made it through the ride and found ourselves being dumped off at the immigation center on a dusty road with no clear idea of what to do next. Here began the ever-so-scary border crossing experience.

Like I said we were kind of just thrown off the bus with our backpacks and a driver pointing in the general direction of where we were suppose to go next. It was here that Javier, if that is even his name, came into our lives, who would soon be our best friend and yet our worst enemy. We knew that the border crossing between the two countries was long and complicated so we were glad he was there to help us. We took his word and ran across the street to the Ecuadorian Immigration Center where they needed to check our passport and give us an exit stamp. So far so good. Then Javier informed us that we needed to take a taxi to the next part of the process, so we hopped in a cab with him and another driver and were brought to the part of the border where you actually have to walk through a crazy market of chaos to get into Peru. The area is filled with vendors and an abundance of people harrassing us to exchange money, which we later found out is fake so good thing we didn't do it! After walking awhile with Javier carrying our large backpacks and us carefully watching our surroundings and clutching our purses as to not get robbed, (as we had been warned of many robberies during this step). We made it through this step and were greeted by Peruvian immigration officials who checked our passports, warned us not to pay more than $2.00 for a taxi to the terminal and sent us on our way.

Javier then got us another taxi, to which we agreed only to pay $2.00 and took us to Peruvian immigration to get our entry stamps. This was quickly becoming the most hectic and overwhelming process we had been involved in thus far, and unfortunately it only got worse. These were all steps of the border crossing that we had researched previously and we knew what the next step was. We were suppose to take a taxi to a bus terminal to catch one of the frequent busses to Tumbes, the nearest city. From Tumbes we could get a bus to our next destination, Mancora. I specifically asked Javier how far we were from the terminal and he said it was two minutes away. A few minutes later we were driving rapidly down a highway in the country where there was nothing around us except fields, no other cars, no other people, just me, Laura, Javier and the taxi driver. I suddenly got extremely nervous and scared as I grabbed Laura's leg to express my uncomfortableness. I quickly confronted the taxi driver and Javier as to where they were taking us. They responded that it was about twenty minutes away still. I expressed my anger and concern as to why they told us 2 minutes and they responded by saying they had meant 2 minutes to immigration. That was clearly NOT what I had asked. My Spanish may not always be the best but terminal versus immigration is pretty clear! They responded by saying ¨Relax, chicas, we will be there in twenty minutes.¨-Red flag number 1-

Knowing there was nothing we could do at this point we sat back and hoped that they really were taking us to the terminal. 15 minutes later we pulled into a back alley with no one else around and the taxi driver pulled over. He turned off the car. My heart stopped. He got out and walked away leaving us alone with Javier, who said something about the taxi driver needing to get something. Laura and I stared at each other, silently wondering if we should run, knowing there was no one else around and we had no idea where we were. We waited. The driver returned after a couple minutes claiming that wherever he had been going was closed and we drove away again. We arrived in a more populated area and I began to relax a little, but unfortunately that relief was short-lived as the next time we pulled over Javier instructed us to go to the ATM and take out hundreds of Soles (the Peruvian currency) because there wouldn`t be any ATMs in Mancora and we wouldn`t be able to purchase our bus tickets to get there with a credit card. -Red flag number two-

Then he said that one of us should go with him to take out money and one of us should wait in the taxi. -Red flag number three- Yeah right, we are both going, together. That is our number one rule of the trip- WE NEVER LEAVE EACHOTHER ALONE! We walked to the ATM, with Javier following us but felt so uncomfortable with this situation so decided not to take any money out. We first wanted to know that we 100% could not pay with card at the terminal and that they weren't feeding us lies. Javier said that was fine. When we got to the ¨terminal¨ it was nothing more than a minivan with 12 seats and a couple of guys offering tickets on the street. It was clear that they would not accept credit cards, and our only way of getting out of this cab and out of Tumbes was to take out money with Javier watching over us. We again brought us to the ATM and I took out 100 soles ($33.33), which was far below their recommendation, and Laura took out 300 soles ($100.00) but hid 200 in her bra, letting them believe she only took out 100 as well. After returning to the ¨terminal¨ they said we each owed 200 soles. Yeah, right. After a lot of frustration trying to argue in Spanish we got the price down to 75 soles each, which was still a complete rip off because they had taken us all the way to Tumbes instead of just taking us to the bus terminal for $2.00 like we had asked. At this point though we needed to be away from them and away from that border more than we needed $25.00, so we paid, got in the back of a van and spent the next two hours trying desperately to relax after that terrifying, chaotic border crossing. Both hating Javier for taking our money and being grateful he actually did help us with the logistics of it all, we were still left wondering if they had really intended on robbing us or were we just being paranoid... Either way, it's done and we could not have picked a better night to splurge and let ourselves have a beach night. We needed this more than ever, Mancora could not have came at a better time!