Goodbye Ecuador, hello Peru

I can´t believe its been a week since my last post. So much has happened. I left Cuenca and headed down to a place called Vilcabamba, which is a small, tranquil village set deep in the countryside near the Ecuadorian border with Peru. It seems to be a favourite destination for ageing, long haired, hippy americans who go there to have cheap dental work. Still, I enjoyed it. Luckily I found a really good hostel as on Sunday we were forced to stay in all day. Everyone was. The whole country had to stay in. If anyone was caught outside their houses then they would be thrown in jail for 2 days! It was something to do with a census. I desperately wanted to go out to see what it would be like to be in a deserted country. No shops, cars, planes or traffic. Must have been eerie.

After the census, I caught the bus to the border with a great bunch of canadians (Ian, Andrew, Brandon and Jon) who i´ve been travelling with for the past few days. The border crossing was fairly uneventful. Just as we were going an old lady came and gave us all a stuffed teddy bear each as a present for leaving Ecuador. I thought that was a nice touch. Unfortunately as soon as we were in Peru her two ´brothers´ met us and said there had been some mistake and they´d have to take them back. It seemed strange, as they didn´t look like brothers to me…

A ten hour car, bus (which got stuck in a river) and motortaxi ride got us safely to San Ignacio in Peru, where we stayed at the best 5star hotel in town for only ten bucks a night. Bonus. This was followed by another ten hour day of travelling to get to our final destination, Chachapoyas, which is way out in Inca country.

We arrived on the night that a presidential rally was being held in town, so we decided to join in and most of the locals seemed to welcome us. The vice president even tried to set Andrew up with his daughter.

The next day we joined a tour and went for a 2hr trek into the countryside to ´shower´ at Gocta, the third highest waterfall in the world. And yesterday we went to Keulap, the absolutely massive pre inca fortress dating from abotu 500 AD. I think the most astonishing part of the past few days has been how often we seem to have our pictures taken.  I haven´t seen any other Gringos and it seems that we are minor celebrities around here. Outside Keulap we had to stand for about 30 minutes as a whole coachload of local tourists had their pics taken with us. I am not joking! I think I´ve had my photo taken more often than I´ve used my own camera. I wasn´t expecting that. At one point I thought the guys I´m travelling with must be some sort of famous canadian band, but then I realised that there aren´t any, so they can´t be.

Heading off to Chiclayo over by the coast today.

I hope you´re all enjoying the snow back home. Ahhhh, I miss the freezing cold, dark, winter weather. All this shorts, suncream and sunglasses is getting on my nerves.

ps two books read this week. The brass verdict and the lincoln lawyer, both by Michael Connelly.