Ecuador´s Southern Coast and Peru

Hey everyone,

Sorry I have not been able to post in awhile. So much has happened in the last few weeks. Kyle, Nathan, and I continued on our travels down the coast of Ecuador. We finished our visit in the Puerto Lopez area with a hike through the coastal national park named Machalilla. The 3 hour hike through the dry coastal forest was awesome and offered some fantastic views of the coast and along with several secluded coastal beaches and rock coves to explore. The hike finished at the best and most secluded beach in all of Ecuador called Los Frailes, with prestine white sand and a perfect setting on the edge of the forest. Overall an awesome experience. We then caught a bus to another beach town named Montañita, a surfing town with a great atmosphere and fun crowd. We meet a lot of other american travelers on extended trips through most of South America. It was a really great experience to talk with them all about their travels. The backpacking crowd is awesome and you meet some really interesting people from all over the world. After enjoying the beach for a few days we then headed to Quayaquil, Ecuador´s largest city. Quayaquil had a really nice refurbished riverfront scene that we were able to check out. From Quayaquil, Kyle left us and caught his flight back to the US. It was kind of sad leaving him after all the three of us had been through all summer.

Nate and I then began our trek down to Peru. We ended up basically busing for three straight days ( sleeping on buses three nights in a row and swithcing buses in a number of towns) It really was not too bad and the scenery along many parts of the trip was spectacular. We had a little trouble on the boarder crossing into Peru tho. The bus was supposed to take us across the boarder into Peru to a town called Piura, Peru. We were supposed to get off at the boarder to get our passports stamped and then continue on our way...simple enough. At the border crossing, there were a number of offical buildings and checkpoints on the Peruvian and Ecuadorian sides. However the bus basically drove past all of them into Peru. So, Nate and I told the bus driver we needed to get off and go back to get our passports stamped while the bus waited for us. So, we walked back across the boarder into Ecuador and had to explain to the boarder guards that we needed to get stamped to ENTER Peru not leave. After we finally figured it all out about a half hour later the bus had already taken off (with our big bags) and left us! So we basically had no choice but to hire a shady boarder taxi driver (all Peruvian taxis are shady as their is really no gov. regulation on who can officially be a taxi) to take us to Piura and hopefully run down our bus and get our stuff. (all of which he assured us he could do in 30 min, but actually took more like 2 hours plus a bus ride from a bus terminal in the next town over where he dropped us off at. Not in Piura) Then of course in Piura there is no Central bus terminal, so we had to ask around until we finally found the small bus companies station where they luckily had our stuff and commented on how we never returned to the bus near the border. Overall a crazy few hours, but we made it to Peru in the end (with all of of stuff) We then bused to Puno and the Lake Titicacca area where we met Kim, Nate´s girlfriend who had been working with ETHOS in nearby La Paz, Bolivia. We did a tour of Lake Titicaca which was really cool. There are some indigenous people who live on a number of beautiful islands on the lake (some of which are man made floating islands made of reeds) A really strange sight. Lake Titicaca is really pretty (the largest and highest navigable lake in the world at over 12,500 ft) and it was a fun trip. We then all took a bus to Cusco which is a really cool city and from their made our way to Machu Picchu. We visited the ruins today and they were simply amazing. We were some of the first people in the park and hiked to the top of the nearby Wachya Picchu, the mountain that serves as the dramatic backdrop for the ruins. The views were literally breathtaking and it was an awesome experience. We spent the whole day, almost 11 hours in the park exploring the ruins of the Incan city. I already am planning my next trip back to see it all again.

Tomorrow, Nate and I are going to visit some other Incan runis in the Sacred Valley nearby around Cusco and Kim is travelling back to La, Paz to fly home to the US. NAte and I will then work our way back to Lima, Peru and fly home first thing Monday morning. It has been a crazy adventure so far and I am already planning what I want to see on my next trip to South America. Sorry this update was a bit long for those of you who made it this far. Again sorry for not being able to add any photos (I will have lots to add as soon as I get home) Hope all is well back in Ohio and I will see everyone soon.

Until then,

Mark