The road to Ecuador

Some last views of Mancora - apologies for the fascination with tuk-tuk's but now we are in Ecuador, they are nowhere to be seen. The one in the first photo is towing large pieces of bamboo without any problem - we have seen a real assortment of cargo this week.

Was sorry to leave Mancora - really enjoyed the heat and the beach - and now they have water, electricity and everything.....

First leg of the journey was a tuk-tuk from the hotel to the 'bus station' - combined weight of our rucksacks and the three of us meant we had to get out and push it up the hill on to the main road.

Tina at the bus station!

The first bus journey lasted around 2 hours, stopping for us to go through the Peru border where the TV was on for the England match - only saw 2 minutes as there was no queue - still enough time to see England miss a good chance but why couldn't the queue have been longer!?

Quite bizarre after getting the Peru exit stamp - the bus continued into Ecuador for a few miles before we actually had to go to the Ecuador immigration check. In the meantime, the bus had to make it's way through a market with the driver's assistant moving market stall items to get the bus through! (that's what the photo below is all about in case you wondered!). The other photo is to show how Tina is starting to turn a little latino - note the wild, volatile brown eyes (come to think about, I've seen that look before she came here!)

It's quite surprising how as soon as we were in Ecuador we knew we were in a different country. Straight away the road was lined with mile upon mile of banana plantations - some had the Fyffes sign so in a couple of weeks when you are buying bananas in Tesco and they come from Ecuador, we may well have seen your banana! Was getting too dark to take photos but hopefully we will get the chance again soon as there were some great scenes of the plantations with wooden shacks on stilts in the midst of it all.

Other things that were different - the small roadside shops have security bars up and serve through the gap - i.e no-one is allowed in the shop. Reason why - robbers or shoplifters? - I like to think it is the latter! Much greener landscape and thicker vegitation - bet that means more rain!

The second bus journey (in an asthma-suffering, rattling, coughing and spluttering bus) lasted over 5 hours - shame it was dark as am sure we missed some good scenery and would have taken our minds off the strange sounding brakes and gearbox! We were told the bus did not stop until it reached Cuenca but it must have stopped at least 20 times at the roadside for passengers that had no tickets and paid in cash! Cash here is totally US dollars.

Quiet day today exploring Cuenca - third largest city in Ecuador and with it's fair share of Spanish colonial architecture (getting used to the sight of that!).