Hello again everyone and a very happy New Year to you all. Today we are in Chiclayo, Peru and catching up on our emails, facebook, and blogs! Since my last posting in Quito, we have progressed through Ecuador via. Baños, Cuenca, and Loja, to this place in the Peruvian coast. We crossed the border into Peru at 5 a.m. yesterday , Macara being the border post. We took an overnight bus from Loja at midnight on the 1st which took 8 hours. We arrived at Priura and then changed buses for Chiclayo, another 3 hours further on!
We loved Ecuador although we did encounter alot of rain, but this did not spoil our enjoyment. Us backpackers are well equipped to deal with all types of weather!!!? Quito was great and 5 days there seemed long enough to enjoy lots of wonderful sight-seeing, etc in and around the city. The old town was particularly interesting with magnificent architecture, cathedrals, etc. We spent a quiet Christmas together in our hostal but had an enjoyable Christmas Eve with fellow travellers at a nearby pub. We joined the South American Explorers Tourist Club on the 23rd Dec and they invited us to the bash. We are supposed to get good discounts at hostals, restaurants, etc throughout S.America but haven't had too much success yet!! We tend to follow the Lonely Planet guide for accomodation,etc, but I believe we will do better in Peru and Chile.
From Quito we ventured to Baños, 3 hours south by bus, and stayed there for 3 days. Fabulous place surrounded by the Andes mountains and volcanoes. Highlight was seeing the active volcano, Tungurahua - 5016m - and enjoying the local hot volcanic spring waters. Managed to wash off alot of our suntans, though as we stayed in the waters for a long time!!!? It was well worth it though!
From Baños we went to Cuenca, 3rd largest city in Ecuador, and stayed a further 2 days. Quite an impressive place and we stayed in a hostal overlooking the main cathedral and old monastry gardens. We were on the 6th floor and had a great view. Very clean and enjoyable place to hang out in. We then moved on to Loja on the 31st Dec and spent one night there before moving on to Peru as mentioned above. Quiet New Year and nothing particularly remarkable about the place and we solely used the stopover for the bus arrangements across the border.
We are in much warmer weather now as we have decended from about 3000 metres above sea level to ground level now as we progressed southwards but I have to say we saw some wonderful scenery on our bus trips and were well impressed with Ecuador. The indigenous people were fascinating.
We leave here tomorrow and head down towards Lima via. Trujillo and Huaraz, and expect to arrive in the capital city on 11th Jan. Will update from there plus I will try and put a few photos on in the meantime. Off to lunch now! Bi for now, everyone of you. J.
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