27th of May - Remote border crossing into Ecuador - 193km, 6h 24
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In the morning we left our nice hotel and headed north. The originally 45 min expanded to one and a half hour due to landslides, cleanup efforts and construction works on the road. Same mistakes like in South East Asia are also done here: Plantations built on the steep slopes which originally were held together by the fragile but well balanced rain forest with all its variants of plants, roots and vegetation. San Ignacio and the area around are proud of their coffee which by the way is exported to Europe and USA with each over 30% of the cake, but this is the price for it.
We had just finished our papers on the Peruvian side when Dana and Felix arived as well at the border.
Huuh...The Ecuadorian side looks even better :-) The migration office (10 min: done!) is the one where our motorbikes are. Where we stand is the customs office and here we got stuck for one and half hours. The customs officer had to transfer all the data by phone to an office somewhere which in return had to put all the data into the system and transfer back the final document which had to be signed from all sides. Since the internet line was not well...
So we spent our time with trying to motivate a grasshopper with a double to move again...
...or with talking to this two young guys from Holland who now continue their travel without money. E.g. selling self made hats....
Yeah, freedom again! This is the perfect part of the road.
We had to pass two military posts. The first one was ok, just registration, ok.
The second one behind Zumba, the first village on Ecuadorian side was worse. We had to unpack our things, 15 soldiers with guns around us, all serious with grim faces, one insisting on unloading our stuff, another one interviewing me, the next one interviewing Ying and asking me as well for my passport...all in parallel. At one point I said, sorry guys, one thing after another. And in between they were always pushing if we don't have drugs, why we don't have drugs, we just entered from Peru...does this implement one have to have drugs...?! I had to empty my pockets as well...look, a satellite phone..how much does this motorbike cost... Horrible. After half an hour we were through but it was tough.
Because we lost so much time at the border and additionally at the military check now the afternoon rain started. First slowly, then pouring down on us. And with each minute the "road" got worse. Landslides everywhere. Still more than 100km to go and in 2 hours the sun (HaHaa!) would be down. I tried to drive against the time...
There were parts much worse than this but we were not "in the mood" for taking photos...:-)
And when we hit the asphalt road again we really saw the sun once more... before it went down.
But before we had to drive over a pass of 3.800m. As usual fog and rain on this height and because we were running out of time I didn't want to put another pair of gloves on...I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I just wanted to come down from this mountain before the darkness would set in.
When we reached the Hostal Izcayluma, situated just 2 km before Vilcabamba, it was pitchdark. But we made it!
We had just finished our papers on the Peruvian side when Dana and Felix arived as well at the border.
Huuh...The Ecuadorian side looks even better :-) The migration office (10 min: done!) is the one where our motorbikes are. Where we stand is the customs office and here we got stuck for one and half hours. The customs officer had to transfer all the data by phone to an office somewhere which in return had to put all the data into the system and transfer back the final document which had to be signed from all sides. Since the internet line was not well...
So we spent our time with trying to motivate a grasshopper with a double to move again...
...or with talking to this two young guys from Holland who now continue their travel without money. E.g. selling self made hats....
Yeah, freedom again! This is the perfect part of the road.
We had to pass two military posts. The first one was ok, just registration, ok.
The second one behind Zumba, the first village on Ecuadorian side was worse. We had to unpack our things, 15 soldiers with guns around us, all serious with grim faces, one insisting on unloading our stuff, another one interviewing me, the next one interviewing Ying and asking me as well for my passport...all in parallel. At one point I said, sorry guys, one thing after another. And in between they were always pushing if we don't have drugs, why we don't have drugs, we just entered from Peru...does this implement one have to have drugs...?! I had to empty my pockets as well...look, a satellite phone..how much does this motorbike cost... Horrible. After half an hour we were through but it was tough.
Because we lost so much time at the border and additionally at the military check now the afternoon rain started. First slowly, then pouring down on us. And with each minute the "road" got worse. Landslides everywhere. Still more than 100km to go and in 2 hours the sun (HaHaa!) would be down. I tried to drive against the time...
There were parts much worse than this but we were not "in the mood" for taking photos...:-)
And when we hit the asphalt road again we really saw the sun once more... before it went down.
But before we had to drive over a pass of 3.800m. As usual fog and rain on this height and because we were running out of time I didn't want to put another pair of gloves on...I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I just wanted to come down from this mountain before the darkness would set in.
When we reached the Hostal Izcayluma, situated just 2 km before Vilcabamba, it was pitchdark. But we made it!
