Travel from Ecuador to Peru took us 44 hours. It started at 8pm on sunday March 6th when we left the hostel in Quito and did not end until Tuesday March 8th when we finally arrived at Lidia’s house in Chepen Peru where we will be staying for the next two weeks.
We left the hostel loaded with all our bags and walked a 15 minute walk to the bus station. We loaded onto the 9pm bus and took off for the boarder. I was able to sleep fairly well and at 9am the next day we arrived at the boarder town. We unloaded all our bags onto the sidewalk and in two loads of 15 people we loaded into the back of a half ton and were driven back to the Ecuador immigration office to have our passports stamped. This took a couple hours and then we loaded into two 25 passenger vans and were driven across the Peru boarder. We were told to keep our windows shut or someone might try to steal our bags. We got across without incident. We again unloaded and lined up at the Peru immigration to get our passports stamped. We then reloaded and were driven to the next town and dropped at the bus station. We unloaded and waited for instructions. It was about 2.30 in the afternoon when we were told that the bus would not be running today and we would need to pack our bags to another bus station and wait until the bus would leave at 9pm.
We spent the day wandering around, getting lunch and snacks for the trip, visiting and reading and finally it was time to load the bus. I promptly fell into a deep sleep. At 11pm we were all woken and told we would need to get off the bus. I am still not sure what this was about as we were all very tired but it looked like a police chekpoint. While we waited someone went on the bus and with a flashlight looked around. We reloaded and slept on and off until morning.
9am on tuesday we arrived in Trahijel and unloaded the bus, for some this would be there final destination. We were taken to a church and fed breakfast of buns and jam. My team was again loaded into the van and taken to yet another bus station. Two and a half hours later we arrived in Chepen and taken to the church that we will be working at. We were given a wonderful lunch and then taken to Lidia’s to rest.
Chepen is one of the most interesting places I have even been, it feels like walking onto a movie set. The streets are narrow and close together, the cars are tiny three wheeled boxes or antique’s. I see lots of VW bugs and old trucks. We live near a busy center where there is a market or fresh fruits and clothing. As we walk to and from the church I see lots of interesting sights. It feels like we steped back into 1942. I will have to take pictures so you can grasp what this is like.
