The Holidays

After landing in Guayaquil on our return flight from the Galapagos, we had a little more than a week to make it to Lima. We spent Christmas in Cajas National Park – it was a lovely day adjusting to the altitude, hiking around the largest and closest lake and pulling together what we could for Christmas Dinner.

After a few days in Cajas, we made our way to Cuenca, what was supposed to be our last stop in Ecuador before crossing into Peru.

We got a late start leaving Cuenca, and had the impression that the border was closer than it was, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Now we’ve known since extending our temporary permit that canceling our vehicle permit out of Ecuador was an important step to avoid fines if we ever wanted to enter the country again later. So when we arrived at the border we knew we needed to find the Ecuador Exit Aduana. At the Ecuador side we asked a guard and he told us that it was at the next set of buildings about 5k ahead. When we arrived there we looked around, asked a few people and then waited in a line to get our stamps to, we thought, exit Ecuador. Turns out it was the line to enter Peru, from there we asked someone else and they told us we needed to go back to the other set of buildings 5k back. We jumped in the car, drove back to the first set of 5k buildings, and there they told us we needed to go to another building another 5k back. We drove another 5k to a set of ramshackle buildings and asked yet another guard if we were in the right place. He confirmed that we were and so George waited in another line. When he got to the window, they told him he needed a copy of his paperwork. So he ran across the street and made a copy and then came back, the guy then told him that he was in the wrong place and needed to go to the buildings 5k ahead.
At this point it was getting late and close to dark. We were running the risk of getting stamped out of Ecuador and not being able to check-in to Peru, thus leaving us parked on the side of the road in no-mans land for the night. We opted to find a place to stay close to the border, for which options are never good. First try was a gas station, it ended up being under construction which we decided was dangerous. Then we both saw it at the same time; a love hotel.
Since Mexico, on the outskirts of every town we have been seeing love hotels. They have great names like Casa de Amor, Corazon, Tiempo por Amor and the classice, Love Hotel. They were all private and secure looking. They have big walls around them, all the views from the road are blocked, and each “accommodation” has a garage that the client pulls into. The fancy ones have a bedroom attached to the front of the garage with a bathroom and a shower, the not so fancy ones have only a bathroom. At first I was horrified at seeing them, thinking it meant that everyone had a mistress and therefore every town needed them, but then the more we learned about family structure and families all living together, we understood that was the only place many people could go for privacy. Either way it wasn’t on the top of my list for places to stay, but we laughed back in Mexico that it would only be a matter of time before we had to stay at one. Our card was up, and thankfully this one fit the van inside and was tall enough for us to pop the top. Since they charge by the hour, this would be our most expensive campsite to date.

We were almost asleep when throughout the entire building the sound track to porn started playing. It was so loud and so terrible that all we could do was shake our heads and laugh. Chalk it up to another day living in a van, driving through South America.

We departed first thing in the morning, on our way out the little old lady that worked there gave us a gift of a huge bowl of mangoes, she clearly understood that we were not the typical customer.

We made it through the border and the insane traffic in Tumbes and pulled into crazy Mancora. With the loads of people in Mancora for the holidays we decided to check out Lobitos, on our way there we came across a surf competition and talked to a few people that convinced us to head back to Mancora. We were stoked to run into our friends AdventureOnTap that we met back in Ecuador and that night we had a great dinner out on the town with them.

We motored across a crazy desert, stayed at a farm with seven dogs, and spent New Years in Huanchaco. We enjoyed amazing ceviche and met a fabulous British family of four driving around in Mercedes 508D – an ex-German military ambulance, you can check out their amazing tumbler feed here. We cheered the New Year with them, went to bed, and attempted to sleep while the party raged on around us.

The next morning all the locals urged us not to drive, they told us that there were too many drunk people on the road and that it was very dangerous. Weighing our options, it seemed more dangerous to stay right where we were, in the middle of the drunken party. Turns out the whole country got the “don’t drive memo” and we had the roads to ourselves as we made our way to Canon del Pato. No hangover and the open roads to ourselves - it looked to be the perfect start to 2015!