Clairy snapped this gorgeous shot of the clouds tumbling over the mountains.
After 5 hours or so we arrived at the Ecuadorian border town of Maraca. Everyone promptly got off the bus apart from us and German girl who was equally as confused as we weren't yet at the border, and we had been led to believe that this bus was going to take us all the way into Peru with no changes. We should have guessed really, it was time for the drivers to get their free meal!
Clairy and I duly got off the bus to stretch our legs and use the facilities. No sooner had we stepped onto the pavement we realised every surface seemed to be moving. All the pavements, walls, drains and gutters were covered in cockroaches. Clairy went to the loo and came out looking seriously horrified, describing it as 'the worst so far'...that being quite a clame to fame. We walked round the side of the bus station, where all the locals seemingly oblivious to the seething masses around them were cheerfully tucking into the presumably roach flavoured chicken provided by the seriously unsanitary looking bus company canteen that was next to the toilets. Here we found the air conditioning outlet that was just a huge black writhing mass of them. It was literally plague proportions.
At this point we decided we would eat our ritz crackers on the other side of the road, and try and ignore all the ones running around near our feet. In the end I couldn't even quite deal with that, so legged it back on the bus and we stayed there until the drivers were finally ready to move on again.
Soon we reached the border. It proved to be one of the sleepiest ones yet. There was not a single money-changer or dodgy 'helper' in sight clamouring for our business. It would have been genuinely refreshing if their were not still remnants of the roach plague about. Entering the Peruvian immigration section after completing the Ecuadorian part on the other side of the bridge, we had to dodge a few of them as they fell off the walls and generally pegged it about in a haphazard style.
After completing the forms and getting a disappointing dot matrix printout in our passports rather than a nice chunky stamp, we had to head into this security building where they noted our passport details and where we were going to and from. These two goats felt it was a nice place to chill out.
Leading up to the border and for a little while on the other side before it got too dry, the guide book had informed us that there would be these strange looking Cieba trees, unique to the area. They really were odd looking too, with vast bottle shaped trunks and an almost emerald green bark. Clairy tried to get some photies of them from out the window, but we were hurtling along by this point so it was quite a tricky task. Here's our best attempts.
Travelling through this mainly agricultural region right on the north-eastern tip of Peru, we were struck by just how different it felt from Ecuador. There immediately seemed to be a great deal more poverty. The houses were much smaller ramshackle affairs and there was huge amounts of rubbish not just in the towns, but scattered all about the about the rural areas. We passed through a town where massive hauls of Limes were being sorted and placed into big fruit lorries. It seemed a bumper harvest, but that didn't seem to have had an affect on the wealth of the inhabitants.
About 2 and a half hours after crossing the border into Peru we reached our destination of Piura a town mainly known as a place where people change transportation. We hadn't really intended to stay here, but as our next bus to Lima was going to be a big fat 16 hours, we decided we should stay the night. In the morning after a brief look round, we decided that although the town seemed nice enough, their really wasn't a great deal to do before our bus in the evening, so we headed to a town nearby called Catacaos for their Sunday crafts market.
Our taxi driver dropped us at what he knew as the market, and this turned out to be yet another proper local affair with masses of pretty much anything you would ever need for your day to day existence. It was loud and busy and we were definitely the only tourists there. Lots of people had a good look at us, but it didn't feel unsafe.
Calabashes for sale, carved into bowls or off the vine. Not sold as souveniers.
Soon we headed off to find the market that the guide book had mentioned, in a slightly different location. It wasn't far away and was obviously much more geared to tourists. There was a lot of nice stuff though, ceramics, bamboo and cane furniture, carved wooden knick-knacks, jewellery, and even a well freaky stuffed llama. We enjoyed having a little look round and bought Clairy a couple of very nice semi-precious stoned chunky beast necklaces for bargain prices.
The drive back from the market went through some of the more deprived areas of Piura. It was pretty desolate.
We were quite glad to be heading on our way on the overnight bus to Lima.
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