Big Bus Fun Trip

Our “Big Bus Fun Trip” is underway and going strong (which is only easy to say right now because we’re not currently in a bus). To bring everyone up to date, we left Cuenca on November 28^th. We took a morning bus to an un-noteworthy town north of the Peru/ Ecuador border called Machala. From there we were able to catch a CIFA bus that crossed said border to another un-noteworthy town called Tumbes, Peru. This was our best option for crossing the border because otherwise it is supposedly a real pain in the ass requiring multiple bus/ taxi/ walking changeovers. According to other travel blogs the border crossing here is one of the most dangerous in South America (we had no real issues and were only consciously cheated out of $10). From Tumbes we hooped into a van-taxi (a vanaxi if you will aka combis) with about 10 other people and headed to Mancora, which is Peru’s beach town-of-choice. We got there around 8 pm which put us at about 11 hrs of travel for our first day. That night we stayed at a horrible hostel which I don’t want to get into right now because it’s still too fresh. However, we were able to get into another hostel the next morning and have a great couple days in Mancora. We spent those days burning on the beach, watching surfers, and drinking cervezas – officially we didn’t drink any beers on Sunday because it was elections and for some reason Peruvians aren’t aloud to sell alcohol during elections.

After two days of relaxing we were ready to hit the road again so we took a day bus to Trujillo. It was hard to find a good bus to Trujillo because most departed at times that would have delivered us to Trujillo in the middle of the night. We had only one option which was with the company El Dorado, which to say the least isn’t the best bus company. For starters we had an unscheduled bus change in Chiclayo not once but twice (we got off our bus for who knows what reason onto another bus only to find out 10 minutes later that the new bus was broken). We got onto the third bus, which the driver then scraped up against the huge metal exit gate, to figure out that there weren’t as many seats as the first bus and some kid ended up having to stand... for the next 4 hrs. The rest of the ride was uneventful except for when we drove through a cloud of smoke caused by a roadside fire.

We got into Trujillo around 8 pm again without any reservations (fast learners) but this time with an idea of where we wanted to stay. Our hostel was a couple blocks from the main square in an old colonial mansion – it had great wooden floors, quirky setup rooms, and courtyards. Trujillo is a really cool colonial city. We spent the next day touring Chan Chan – the biggest adobe built town in the world – and Huacas del Sol and de la Luna. All three sites were awe-inspiring but if I had to rate them Huaca de la Luna would be 1^st for it amazingly preserved painted friezes from 2000 yrs ago, Chan Chan 2^nd for sheer size (28 sq km), and Huaca del Sol 3^rd basically because it is just a giant mound of mostly-washed away adobe bricks.

We spent the next day hanging out around town and then got a night bus to Lima. We didn’t just get any night bus, we got the ‘realamente cama 180’ aka the ‘real bed 180’ – it was pretty sweet. We were also in the very front row on the second level of the bus so we could see out the windshield (for better or for worst). We arrived in Lima at 730 am, got a taxi to the airport, and were in a plane flying to Cusco by 1030 am. Now I know this is the “Big Bus Fun Trip” and we kind of cheated by flying to Cusco, but the bus ride would’ve been 24 hrs and we flew in just over 1 hr. You do the math. Anyways that pretty much brings us up to date. We are in Cusco right now and planning on going to Machu Picchu in a couple days. I will post some pictures soon. I hope everyone is well.

-Beacon