Ecuador - Peru Border Crossing

After arriving back in Guayaquil from Galapagos we decided we would get the first bus possible and head across the border to Peru, hopefully reaching Mancora, a beach surf town a few hours south of the border. Well that was the plan anyway.

As always in Ecuador, the land with no bus schedules, there is always a bus leaving "in 10 minutes", but that actually means about half an hour - A bit like Africa time.

This time however, the bus was leaving immediately and we we're heading south to Peru within an hour of our plane having landed. So far so good.

The bus trips are always interesting: at checkpoints and informal drop off points village sellers jump on board each with different food, drinks or products - we were offered ice cream (where the seller unwraps the ice cream and presents it to you on it's stick), cool drinks, empanadas (fried food), large pineapple slices on tooth picks, meat skewers, plastic airline tooth brushes and other food that we couldn't recognise.
Although we were on a major road, villages and towns are built right onto the road (presumably for better sales opportunities), so you can see exactly what's going on from the bus - beef joint from the butcher displayed, a group readying cocks for a cock fight, more nativity scenes and every type of pavement special dog imaginable!

On arriving at the border it was just us, the driver and one other person still on the bus. We hopped off to get our exit stamp from Ecuador thinking it would be super quick as it seemed there was only one family ahead of us. But the system went down. An hour later and we were still waiting. Thankfully our bus driver decided to escort is through the process and when the system did come on he pushed us through to get our exit stamp. But the Peru sides system was still down. At this the bus driver had a chat to the man behind the Peru counter and then told us to come. With no stamp. We nervously followed him and got back on the bus., concerned we may have been entering the country without an entry stamp in our passports... We drove a little further through the border where he pulled up at another office who then manually processed our entry in to Peru and we got stamped - relief! We've since chatted to a couple who were left to sleep the night on the border office floor as the system was down and they didn't have such a kindly bus driver. We lucked out and would recommend C.I.F.A after our experience. Wassie did thank the coach driver referring to him as Papa Noël (Father Christmas).

We made it to Tumbes across the Peru border where we were dropped at the CIFA terminal but were too late to make a connecting bus to Mancora. This was clearly in a dodgy area. We're given the option of sleeping in the station and getting the 6am bus, but as it was only 10pm decided to head into town and get a room. Had to make my first Spanish phone call to book a room. Successful!

An interesting tuc tuc ride into town (we seemed to have the same conversation 20 times and felt like he was stalling for something), then checked in to the "hotel". The manager/security guard/porter/receptionist awoke from his nap on the couch to book us in and was notably amused at our surname as there was another Maguire that he knew in the town. He recommended some. Late night pollo for dinner and we were in Peru!