Bienvenidos a Ecuador...adventures in crossing the border.

So after a very early morning, my Mom, Prima Elen, Emilio, and us headed to the border city of Aguas Verdes (Peru)/Huaquillas(Ecuador). We were sad to say good bye, and at the same time excited to see a different country, and continue this little adventure of ours.

Looking over the bridge that divides Peru and Ecuador. If you don't care about having your passport stamped you can basically just walk right in to the next country.

Going through customs in Peru, and Ecuador so far has been a much less stressful experience than going through it in the States. The immigration agents are very friendly, and simply ask you: "Is this your first time in Ecuador? How long are you planning on staying?" and then they stamp your passport. One thing to note if you are ever visiting both of these countries, you need to make sure that you get a stamp showing that you have entered, and left the country you are visiting. For example, while crossing the border we first had to go through Peruvian immigration, where they stamped our passports showing that we had left Peru. If you failed to do this, you could face fines if you ever want to come back and visit again....I am so glad Wyatt checks this type of information online. I probably would have simply crossed the bridge to Ecuador, no stamp, nothing....

The border towns are not the most beautiful of places. They are more exciting if you are looking to do a bit of shopping. Huaquillas was like a super large Mercado. You can buy shoes, dresses, fruit, goat's milk (from the goat!), household goods, just about anything really, but since we continue to travel with just one backpack each, these stops are not as exciting to us.

Huaquillas was such a large mercado type area that after my Mom said goodbye, we started to wander around the little stalls, and accidentally got lost, and ended up back in Peru! I think it was Terran who said..."I think we are back in Peru" and after Wyatt checked google maps, sure enough we were back on the other side.

It was a pretty rainy day...

Part of the reason why we got lost was because we decided to follow this guy and his goats around for a while....lesson learned "Don't follow the goats!"

This transfer from city to city was the most difficult for us. One of the many wonderful things about Peru are their bus companies. We had gotten used to going online, and booking our tickets, and seats with at least a couple of weeks notice. We tried to follow this system for our journey from Zorritos to Loja, but there was no way to do it this way. First of all, very few bus companies in Tumbes went from Zorritos, and actually crossed the border into Ecuador. We only found one; CIFA, and they went to Guayaquil.
Second of all, there are a couple of bus companies at the border that go from Huaquillas to Loja, but only a couple had web pages, and non of them offer the option of buying a ticket online....or showed their schedules, or prices. When I finally got a hold of one of their offices in Huaquillas, the lady said all I need to do was come 10 minutes before the bus left. My sweet husband, being a very cautious individual, had us there 5 hours before, in case they did not have enough seats, or we had to take a different bus....well we learned our lesson, 10 mins before would have been sufficient....yes, we all need to learn to chill ;) We ended up going with Transportes Loja, their big selling point..."our buses have air conditioning!"

PS: Funny update....a couple of weeks later...now in Loja...I was channel surfing on TV, and found a reality show called "Fronteras Peligrosas *Dangerous Borders*"...it was all about the daily life of Canadian Border Service agents....oh those dangerous Canadian borders!