strange hotel | Strolling South America

We’d heard travellers’ tales and internet forums warning of dodgy happenings at the border between Peru and Ecuador and I was a little nervous (I even started planning how to hide cash in my shoes!). In the end though, as our journey took us to Chachapoyas, we crossed the border at La Balsa, the one place we’d heard was safe. It was an uneventful two days, if a little surreal.

Jose at Chachapoyas Backpackers drew us this map and outlined the route we should take. Using a combination of combi (minibus), taxi, mototaxi (rickshaw), ranchera (truck-bus hybrid) and bus. we travelled from Chachapoyas to Bagua Grande to Jaen to San Ignacia. We stayed the night in a cheap hotel and the next day travelled to the border, crossed, and continued on to Zumba and finally Vilcabamba.

Here are some things that stuck in my head about the trip.

In Peru it was dusty and hot. In Ecuador it was humid and hot.
None of the bus stations are located anywhere vaguely useful. That is to say, if you don’t bring food with you, you will be stuck with whatever you can buy at the bus stations (which was not good) because there are no restaurants or shops nearby.
On the plus side, transfers between buses are fairly easy because the bus stations are close to each other. Or, there are mototaxis waiting to drive you from one station to another. Buses also run frequently so there isn’t much time spent waiting around.
Not having much time to wait around means finding a bathroom is tough. Once you’ve found a bathroom, depending on how clean it is, you may not want to use it.
There were roadworks all the way from Bagua Grande to the border (August 2013). For future travellers this is great. It means the road surfaces will be improved and the roads will be wider, making the journey quicker. For us it made the journey much, much slower. And dustier. Did I mention Peru was dusty?
It’s disorienting to turn up in San Ignacio and not know where anything is and have to ask a taxi driver to take you to a cheap hotel. It’s also confusing to try and find something to eat after dark because wherever we ended up was kind of deserted. It was even weirder to finally sit down to dinner only to be told all dishes with beef were off the menu. It was bone-crunchingly bizarre to order fried rice and find pieces of chicken diced up but still on the bone. I don’t recommend doing anything in San Ignacio except getting the hell out of there.
But to San Ignacio’s credit, it has at least one very cheery and helpful mototaxi driver who was the only person on the streets at 4 am.
You don’t need to be at the bus station in San Ignacio by 5am. You probably don’t even need to be there by 6am. Nobody started to do anything until the sun rose. And then they put your luggage in a taxi and wait for more people to join you so they can get the full fare.
The border doesn’t open until 9am. Or rather, the official who has to stamp your passport on leaving Peru doesn’t start to cook his breakfast until 9am. He will communicate with you through a closed door and tell you he’ll open up in half an hour.
While you’re waiting, there is a restaurant where you can eat breakfast. You should do this while you have the chance because on the other side of the border they are eve more ‘relaxed’ and you will be stuck because nothing else is open.
You can exchange money too, but you might be lucky and find a pair of Australian cyclists who are crossing over from Ecuador and willing to exchange their dollars for your soles, without charging commission.
You need to get a policeman to fill out some kind of form and stamp it before you can go though Peruvian immigration. The police station is a little way back up the road form immigration, and down a slight slope towards the river.
After crossing the bridge you find the Ecuadorian immigration official who cheerily gives you your entry stamp.
Then you wait. Despite a restaurant being open and taking your order of ‘chicken’ (which is the only thing they say they are serving), you wait until midday without said chicken materialising, only to finally jump on a ranchera which is the first transport you’ve seen on this side of the border.
The ride is scenic, if bumpy. You also have to squash you bags in between yourself and whoever’s seated next to you and their luggage (which could be a live chicken in a bag or a giant sack of produce). You also have to get off and show your passport at a police checkpoint. Try not to bang your head on the hard roof of the ranchera as you climb in and out. If you sit on the outside of the ranchera, you’ll be able to get in and out easily, but you’ll also get much wetter when it rains.
The station at Zumba is pleasantly modern and with luck you’ll be able to transfer straight onto a waiting bus (with air-conditioning, no less) and head to Vilcabamba. You’ll be exhausted and hungry when you arrive, but you will be in a familiar hippie-traveller environment and getting food and a place to sleep for the night will be easy.