Cuenca & Border Madness

We passed almost a day in the very European colonial city of Cuenca, Which is Ecuador's 3rd largest. We arrived Sunday afternoon and the whole city was completely empty for the rest of our stay. Only lost looking tourists and churchgoers were mulling around, so we took the opportunity to bench and admire the huge cathedral of the old town. It seems like there is a church and plaza on every other block of this city, and after eating at the blue moon cafe (obsessed with evil not-allowed signs) we went to sleep in our little courtyarded hostel.

The morning after we were meant to panic and catch the early bus but we ended up going for the midday one due to late laundry and an excellent breakfast in the sun on our terrace. That wasn't exactly the smartest thing to do cuz we reached the amazingly sketchy border to Peru at dusk... where a bunch of things happened.

I have never seen a seedier, more chaotic place in my life. Ecuador and Peru aren't exactly the best of friends, as their president told us with a scalding speech against Peruvian ponchos... but I digress. They've fought over the southern border countless times and this has resulted in the very real non-existance of a border between the two.

Our bus to the border abruptly let us off in a desert stretch of road with a little white building saying 'police - immigration' so we got our exit papers stamped for ecuador and then we took a taxi 5 km to the perivuan border office, another small building in a desert expanse. There we did our thing and managed to get overcharged by the same taxi (its a long story, but basically he was an ass). Between the two we decided to change some dollars into Peruvian Soles, getting a great souvenier of a counterfiet 50 Soles (17USD) note.

By then it was night and we stopped at a deserted gas station where our great driver wanted the money up front. By then I had the sneaking suspicion that if we'd give it he'd leave us here and maybe behead us in the process, but everything was ok and we continued on to the town of Tumbles where we spent the night, dejected and disgruntled.

The next day, travelling to the beach resort of Mancora we passed the official Peruvian customs & immigration- 50 km from the previous day's border.