5th November- Chiclayo, Peru

Hello everyone!

Our journey is finally underway! On Wednesday night we left Zumbahua and headed down to Latacunga, where we caught a night bus to Cuenca, in southern Ecuador. It's the third biggest city and we liked it immediately- pretty cobbled streets, colonial buildings and a very pleasant climate, given that it's only (!) at 2500m altitude (to Zumbahua's 3500). It was also the 'day of the dead' and a day or so later the city's festival, so we were lucky to find somewhere to sleep. We spent two days there seeing the sights, munching on various treats (bread babies and 'colada morada', a sort of thick, fruity, non-alcoholic mulled wine, which is typical all over Ecuador in November). There were also parades and fly-pasts, and it seemed as though half of the pensioners in the USA had retired there to sell wooden ornaments and run bookshops.

However, our visas were about to expire so on the 3rd we headed even further south to Loja, the last big city before Peru. We didn't arrive til the evening so we didn't get a chance to see a great deal, and the following day we had another very long journey (9 hours) across the border to Piura in Peru.

We crossed the border without any problems, and by this point the landscape and climate had changed completely from Zumbahua- from rain and treeless mountains to baking hot, almost desert. In the afternoon, after a few more hours of driving through a flat desert, we arrived in Piura, which perhaps isn't the best introduction to a country- big, noisy and not particularly attractive. It was also Sunday night, meaning that we ended up eating something which I'm sure Adele will comment on more, flobbly pork fat on a mountain of wet popcorn. They'd also decided to bloack Adele's card (unsurprisingly), which meant a nice, long, expensive phonecall to some call centre!

We bid a fond farewell to Piura this morning and took another coach for three hours across a real desert- it looked like the Sahara in  places- to get to Chiclayo. Before leaving somebody walked throiugh the bus filming all the passengers, which was odd- we asked why and he said it was for 'security'. Chiclayo is another big city, where we tried some very spicy and very good Peruvian cusisine, and tonight we're getting another night bus up to Chachapoyas- there are some pre-Inca ruins there, hopefully they'll be worth the journey!

Love to everyone,

Ross (and Adele)

Ross forgot to say that in Piura we slept in a brothel basically and that a all the people were really but really horrible! I m very happy we left!
Cuenca e`una citta bellissima e molto pittoresca con edifici coloniali con belle facciate e strade con ciottoli,  tanti bei posti dove mangiare. Credo che noi ci siamo accaparrati l unica stanza senza finestre della citta che pero era anche l ultima e la piu economica. Non posso certo lamentarmi, soprattutto dopo aver visto la staza dove abbiam dormito ieri notto, in pratica in un bordello con materassi di plastica. Per fortuna che la sifilide non si trasmette per semplice contatto :) e per la scabbia porto sempre con me la crema scabbicida. Ben a portata di mano nella tasca esterna dello zaino.
Non voglio dilungarmi molto sulla telefonata lunghissima che mi e`toccata stamattina a uno dei miei amici intimi di Barclays che mi hanno ovviamente bloccato il bancomat appena messo piede fuori dall Ecuador...
E nemmeno della cena esosissima a base di pezzi di pelle di porco, pezzi di grasso di porco, popcorn bagnato e briciole di banana.  .
Adesso pero tutto mi sembra roseo soprattutto le 10 ore di pullman stanotte dove sfuggiro per un pelo la trombosi venosa profonda (speriamo!) ma almeno non prendero`una malattia venerea e io e Ross abbiamo gl ultimi 2 posti vicini. Ojala`che sia vero che questo posto dove siamo diretti, che si chiama Chachapoyas, sia secondo in bellezza solo a Macchu Picchu.

Queridos Amigos Ecuadorianos, una otra vez gracias por todos, ja los extraño mucho a toditos!Lo s traemos en el corazon, Dios les paghe!!