CROSSING THE BORDER TO PERU BY LAND

After four great weeks in Canoa I left Ecuador and made my way to Peru. I wasn't allowed to stay in Ecuador any longer with my tourist visa – and it was time to continue traveling south as well. Since the direct night bus from Canoa to Guayaquil wasn't going anymore, I had to leave earlier and it wasn't as easy. Sunday afternoon I went by bus to San Vicente, the nearest town from Canoa, half an hour away. There I got on the bus to Guayaquil, where I arrived after a six hour bus ride around 9 pm. Unfortunately there were no tickets anymore to go directly to Peru. The advantage of a direct bus is, that it's much easier to cross the border. So, I decided not to wait for the bus to Peru on the next morning but took a bus at midnight to the border. At 3 am I got of the bus at the Ecuadorian migration office, 4 km north of the border. Since there was only one officer taking care of people from three buses, the line was rather long and I had to wait for about an hour. From there I shared a taxi with two girls from the Netherlands to the border. After we walked over the bridge we were in Peru. Again, the migration office was inconveniently three kilometer away from the border and we had to take another taxi. Finally at 5 am I was officially in Peru. The taxi drove us to the next town 20 km south where we were able to get buses further south. With a very uncomfortable minibus I went to Mancora where I arrived tired at 8am.