At Large in Peru

Exiting Ecuador, we decended from the mountains to a dusty, dirty, little border town, Macara.  This low elevation community was hot and we were immediately besieged by mosquitoes.  We surveyed the surroundings and became worried that we would not find any suitable accomodations.  A shopkeeper directed us to a hotel that was surprisingly clean and cheap.  What a relief, after another long day battling trucks on steep mountain roads.

To our surprise, the border crossing was very casual and relatively easy.  Brief visits to the migration office of both countries, the police station, and then the Peruvian Aduana (Customs)and we were set to jet.  The ernest gentleman at the Aduana pecked on the computer with one finger, and called for assistance numerous times for help to operate the copy machine before asking Jim if he did everything correctly.  Meanwhile, I took pictures of the crossing to the dismay of the police, who must have thought I was from the CIA.

Our goal was to travel to the City of Chiclayo, about 300 miles south.  Almost emmediately, we noticed a change in the topography, and soon transitioned from the beautiful mountains to the dry scrub, similar to West Texas, to the stark, barren, sand desert similar to the Sahara.  There has always been a noticble change in topography after entering new countries, but this change was startling.

We lost a couple of hours floundering in a couple of cities looking for an ATM, as we had no Peruvian currency, Soles.  To our embarrassment, we came to a highway toll booth with no money, and in desperation, produced a US $5 bill.  They looked at it with curiosity, and after a whille, decided to make the exchange, but rejected the bill as too old...for hells sake, all of our US bill were old and we were at a standoff...traffic was backing up behind us, and knowing they would accept US currency, decided to just sit there until they did something.  We ultimately won and were on our way.  

In Chiclayo, we dined on shrimp and octopus kabobs, excited to continue down the Peruvian Pacific coastline.