The Other Road Less Travelled (The one with the pictures)

The House Move
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(Again I apologise. Most South American keyboards have an apostrophe someplace, but others seem not too. If you are offended by bad punctuation, please understand that sometimes its just impossible)

So there we were. Awake at 5am. Why? There are a couple of buses to Zumba every day, but in order to make our next journey take less than two days we needed to leave on this bus. The other thing was that the bus started in Loja, and the plan was to stop it on the road, so there was no set leaving time (Not that that makes too much of a difference in Ecuador!) Sitting watching the sun come up, we were joined by Steve,  from the UK, retired in his early fifties. I never did ask him what he did, so we´ll just assume he sold arms to the columbians. It´ll make th e story better I´m sure. Fortunately the bus wasn´t too far outside the time we´d been told (anywhere between 6 and 7am) and we were on our way out of Ecuador!

Curious Cows
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The bus journey was interesting. I hold the cartoon writer´s creativity of my youth in a little less regard. Surely all they did was take this journey? With the front wheels of the bus holding on to the dirt road as the rear wheels try (and often fail) to stay on the track I was reminded of countless cartoons...

The view on the other hand was awesome. Having the bus lean precariously over the edge of a cliff does give you an unparralleled view of the valley. The six hours are six hours I´d do again, being able to see mountains as far as the eye could see, lush green forests in the valley, and mist setting in. Seeing the tops of mountains poking through the clouds. All of it was good.

The Breakdown
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We got to Zumba about lunch time, and the wait for the next bus was two hours. We went off for lunch, and figured to use the internet (to start this story, or finish off all the other unfinished ones) to kill the time. Steve finished his lunch before us and beat us to the internet. In Zumba, there is one internet, and he had it... so we watched a bad soap on the TV instead and found out the the crododile man died due to  a sting ray.

The bus eventually arrived, and it was very similar to the one that we took to see the volcano in Baños. (Ñ we can do... but where´s the apostophe! :) A truck that has had the suspension removed and a couple of wooden slats installed as seats arrived. It was soon loaded full of cement, gas bottles, crates of coke, and our baggage. The guide book said an hour and a half. We were prepared...

The Shiny Customs Official
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Back to the slats that we were sitting on. They were covered in fake leather with a sheet´s thickness worth of stuffing inside, for comfort I presume, and there were some seats where the seat backs were similarly covered. The seat in front of where we chose was covered, and only after we started moving did I notice that the covering was worn away in places. Places approximately the same distance as my fingers in fact. It did make for a better grip :) but it was a bouncy journey. I know we shouldn´t laugh at other people´s misfortune, but at this point the misfortune hadn´t happened yet. I looked across at Andrea, and saw her a foot in the air, hair standing on end, a look of horror on her face as she tried in vain to grab something to hold on to. Unfortunately she landed badly and hurt her back, but, probably because I was getting amusement from this, I landed badly too. Legs akimbo leaning forward to avoid the nails sticking out the ceiling is not the way one would like to rejoin the seat. It thwacked up and, well, I wasn´t laughing much while I waited for nature to put the bits of me back where they were supposed to be!

Wonderful View
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Eventually, an hour and a half would have been merciful, we arrived in La Balsa. A one horse town with about 4 motorbikes. We had our passports stamped by a friendly Ecuadorian and changed some money at a good rate. The newly built vehicle bridge has the capacity for about 5 cars to pass at once, but on either side is a one lane dirt track. Thinking ahead the engineers were! We crossed it on foot, took about 12 seconds (only about 20m) and waited on the Peruvian side for the customs guy. Eventually some other kind soul went to find him and he came riding in. Where the Ecuadorian guy was in full uniform, shiny boots and brass thingies, the Peruvian guard was, relaxed.

Took us some time filling in forms and we got the stamps. And the next leg of this monster journey starts.

We were told by the customs agent that we shouldn´t pay more than 1 soles for a ride to the next town, and not more than 12 for a ride to the one after. Unfortunately the taxi driver was hearing nothing of this! Eventually we settled at his price of a lot for the 10 minute drive. Trying to negotiate when you can´t understand the other party is trying. Especially for someone who can´t negotiate.

Two minutes into the journey his car fails though. Not surprising given the state of all cars that I´ve seen, but inconvenient none the less. One of the leaves of the leaf suspension system snapped, and then the dampener seemed to explode. The result: the wheel wanted to rub the wheel arch, and the car wouldn´t really go. After a couple of minutes and some hilarious photos the other two passengers started walking, so we joined them. It was about 5pm and any thoughts of getting to San Somethingorother on the first day were quickly fading as we all lugged all our luggage down the road. We found a new hostel 40 minutes or so into the painful trek, and decided to overnight it there. A very pleasant English woman was running it, and gave us some good directions and booked a taxi for the next morning. But most important... there was a hot shower! The dirt and mud were everywhere!

After a good night´s sleep we set of on leg 4... Not that bad, in a car after all, and I thought that the worst was over.

Not yet. We needed to catch a mototaxi (little half motorbike with a carriage on the back. Think of a cross between a riksha and a motorbike) to the bus station, then on to a kombi. The kombi was a little top heavy. With our luggage up there there was also: a bed, a family of chickens, machinery - probably to create motorbike wheels, the usual anonymous sacks and a steel construction, the use of which I couldn´t imagine. On the way we also stopped to pick up another family of chickens, this time with young ´uns that wouldn´t shut up.

Next town, next taxi, this time rather pointlessly. We arrived at the outgoing bus station in our mototaxi to see the same kombi we just arrived in... harumph!

So the necessary negotiations and sign language out the way we are on the bus to ... There are so many places I can´t even remember. Probably Agua Grande. We arrive, and are ushered to a little cave of a shop, but before we can discover how long the wait is going to be, a kind pick up driver offers us a lift. At this point, after 20 almost solid hours squashed 5 passengers into a car, or 20 into a kombi, it looked like luxury. Bags in the back, us in the front, the driver thought it normal that he couldn´t change into fourth, we were at last on the last leg! Chachapoyus was almost in our grasp! The road was bad, but they all were, the driver was a teacher moonlighting with a borrowed truck and was very nice. He did manage to fill the back of the truck to bursting with other people, but he dropped us a block from the hostel.

What a ride. I was glad to be off the ´gringo trail´and to see a side of life that I don´t think we´d have seen in the gold plated tourist spots that make up the rest of our tour. To experience travel in countries where the infrasructure either doesn´t exist or is washed away was educational. It took us 22 or so hours to cover 400ish km, and it was an adventure, and one that I enjoyed in a strange kind of way.

PS. There are two of these. Andrea and I normally write about different bits of the trip, but this one seems to have been enough that both of us wanted to :)