Clearly we didn't have any of this - just our passports and driving license.
The FCO also declared the Ecuadorian coastal areas to be a red zone and, of course, that was the route we were planning to take because it's nice to be by the seaside.
So our plans evolved and we found ourselves staying the night in nowheresville 18km from the Ecuadorian border and a good 2 hours from any other place in Peru. The accommodation didn't have all the facilities you would expect from a hotel and we shared our room with a large number of relatively small insects, probably due to this being quite a verdant part of Peru. But the garden had peacocks, parrots, a llama, wild pigs, deer and lots of other things. Quite Dr. Dolittle. Eating out that night was a mutual affair. We ate the inevitable chicken and chips but certain things also took a few bites out of Paul.
We also equipped ourselves with digital photographs of our Basic DBS certificates thanks to Herve back home. These we managed to print out at A4 and annotate with yellow highlighter.
Armed with these we were at the border for 0930 in the morning. We were the only 'customers' in the joint Peru-Ecuador border facility. It took nearly two hours! Impossible to contemplate what it would have been like if there were three or four vehicles or, God forbid, a queue or even a bus/coach. But we are now in Ecuador, however we are only given ten days to get to the border with Colombia, instead of the usual 90 day visa.
It's quite chilly here too. Possibly because of the altitude. It's also relatively hard work riding even if the roads are generally good, give or take the odd landslip. A 200km ride is non-stop bends and involves about 5,000m of climb and the same in descent. We don't understand all the greenery which seems to grow on electric overhead cables - we have been seeing it for some time now. Because our progress is quite slow due to the winding roads, our ten day visa is going to be quite tight to make it across the country and still have some sightseeing opportunities.
First stop in Ecuador was Loja. A couple of nice churches and an old gate to the city. Not much else, but it was where we could find accommodation after the border. However we have been told that the best coffee in Ecuador comes from Loja. Ecuador gives the impression of being more prosperous than Peru. There are expensive coffee shop chains in town and it seems generally cleaner everywhere. But these are first impressions.
It can get quite chilly and hotels don't seem to have any heating, having said that we travel on a budget. The hot water in the showers doesn't even get to tepid, let alone lukewarm. Sinks in bathrooms have shrunk to a miniscule size and only have a cold water tap, so it's getting more and more difficult to do our washing - we have to hunt for 'by the kilo' laundries with a turn around during the day at any place where we stay for a couple of nights. And if we can't find anywhere, we'll it's on to the next place and stay smelly for a couple more days. In some respects, lucky the temperature has dropped from the 30°+ on the coast to 16° in the mountains.
We are now in Cuenca. Cuenca is another of those places, like Trujillo, where there is an equivalent in Spain. Here the historic centre has 52 churches. The Cathedral is unfinished because the foundations couldn't take the weight of the two spires. It was as finished as it is ever going to be in 1967. They have regular earthquakes as we found out on the roads Showing the same Geological Fault roadside signs as in Peru exist - and similarly, they are not repaired. Here in Cuenca they don't really count as earthquakes unless they are above 7.0 on the Richter scale; there was a 7.0 one last year apparently. No damage to anything.
So there are churches, a historic centre and earthquakes, but what Cuenca is famous for is Panama Hats. Panama hats are actually Ecuadors. It would seem that when the Panama Canal was being built, the workers wore theses straw hats from Ecuador to protect them from the sun. When Roosevelt came to inspect the works, he saw the workers in their sombrero and wanted one for himself. He was photographed by the newspapers wearing his 'Panama' hat, made in Cuenca, Ecuador. Paul has had, and mistreated, a number of genuine Panamas. He took his latest one to one of the Cuencan manufacturers to ask about possible repairs. They were appalled at the state of it, but not as appalled as when he bought a replacement and told them how he would have to fold it up to fit it on the bike. It would seem the stories about rolling Panama hats to carry them are urban myths to sell them to foreigners.
Motorcycle culture is quite distinctive in most countries especially with bigger bikes. There are not so many big bikes here - or elsewhere so far in South America to be honest. The market is dominated by Chinese imports with a myriad different brand names but all fundamentally the same. Most of them look pretty good too. So, you would imagine, would the shops that sell them - especially as so much time has been put into styling the bikes. But no, it's not the case. It's a bit like Curry's. You buy your motorbike along side fridges, washing machines, kettles etc. Ah well, better swap the leather jacket for a pinny...
Cuenca is actually very nice. Plenty of other things going on here. The pharmacy selling a hangover cure drink that has people queuing up in the mornings. The nuns selling their 'have a good day' drink 'agua de pitima' made from rose petals, tea and valerian. The flower market. The food market - hog roast and black puddings, fish soup and coconut juice. We have to move on now as we have already used 30% of our Ecuador visa.
