Goodbye Ecuador…Hello Peru

We made it!

We crossed the border on Wednesday, two days before our visa’s expired.  When we reached our destination of Piura, Peru we were all exhausted from a long week, but we still had a bit more of traveling to do.

The trip from Loja was longer than expected, and there were only 2 buses heading to Peru…one at 7 a.m. and the other was a night bus.  A 5:45 wake up call, an 8 hour bus ride, and another hour at the border made for a long day.

Lets recap…

-  We rode 6 buses in 9 days for a total of 33 hours on a bus

- We stayed in 6 different cities, in 3 different countries in a week

- Our passports were stamped 6 different times

Not a bad weeks work!

The trip out of Loja towards Peru was more of the same…rugged Andes mountain roads.  During the last hour the landscape began to change a little as we descending out of the Andes towards the west.  We could feel the weather warm as we descended into a tropical zone, the trees and plants look different than we had seen in months, and even the animals began to change.

As the bus pulled up to the Ecuador border office it began to rain.  From our bus there were perhaps 20 people that waited in line, each of us standing under the small eave that ran the length of the building.  A lone officer in a small office just steps from the river that separated these two countries processed our paperwork.  Getting out of a country is usually pretty easy…and this was no exception.  He took our passports, looked us up on the computer, and then gave us our exit stamp.

By the time we began the short walk across the bridge to Peru the rain had let up, and we strolled right up to the Peru Immigration Office.  There was only 2 guys in front of us when we made it to the window.  Again a lone agent was working, but he noticed us as we walked up and recognized us as Americans…or I assume he did because he began speaking English to us, very well I might add.  He processed the two guys in front of us and then waved us up to the window with a smile and enthusiasm.

He welcomed us to Peru and asked if we had ever been to his country.  He pronounced the kids names and joked with them and asked them where they were from.  Even with the smiles and chit chat the process took only minutes.  He handed us our passports, told us we could stay 180 days, and welcomed us again to Peru.

Wow, what a week!  The hour that just passed was both ironic and representative of how the last week had gone.  Getting into both Colombia and Peru was the most pleasant experiences, the immigration officers were efficient, polite, and in the case of the Peruvian officer…down right friendly.  The organization and demeanor of the Ecuadorian officers we dealt with at both the Colombian border and the Peruvian border were as damp as the summer rainstorm that just passed through.

As we waited for the remaining passengers to finish their immigration process, Gina ran into the Peruvian officer outside the office.  She told him that he was the greatest immigration officer in the world…I think that might just be true!

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