Mosquito nets, blazing sunshine, suffocating humidity, no hot water and no need for it…I wanted to get away from the dark British winter nights, and by heck my wish has been granted in spades.
So then, one country down, several still to go. Ecuador is beautiful, but one aspect in which it really falls down is the quality of its taxi drivers, who are collectively about as much use as a bag of pork scratchings in a Jewish health farm. None of them know where anything is. Even when you give them a full address, in writing, they just stare at it and scratch their heads. I suppose I can’t grumble given how cheap they are – in Loja any taxi, from anywhere to anywhere else, is $1. (So I could have had a free ride if I’d found that dollar in Loja instead of in Cuenca (see last time)).
From Loja I got a long, slow and spectacularly scenic bus ride to Piura in Peru. The first half of the journey was a dizzying series of swoops up and down misty mountain passes; the second half was a slow trundle across endless flat straight roads, through semi-desert scrublands. It all gets a bit post-apocalyptic in the Peruvian countryside. The main national pastime appears to be fly-tipping, and there is political graffiti everywhere, exhorting people to vote, as long as they vote for the incumbent of course.
Piura seemed like a bit of a shit-hole, and it also served as my introduction to the terrifyingly chaotic maelstrom of savagery, brutality and hatred that is a Peruvian traffic jam. I’ve never seen anything like it. It makes Bangkok look like Henley Regatta. No wonder all the taxi drivers have religious icons and pictures plastered all over the insides of their cabs: they need all the help they can get.
One particular taxi driver in Piura made a concerted effort to short-change me by 10 soles (about £2.50), but he stood no chance. He clearly wasn’t expecting to be tangling with someone like me. My chief weapon is excellent maths skills. Excellent maths skills, and extreme tight-fistedness. Two chief weapons. Maths skills, tight-fistedness, and an inherent distrust of foreigners. OK that’s three chief weapons. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Sadly my Spanish is still quite poor so I couldn’t verbally abuse that driver the way I wanted to. I just sat there in the back seat and glared at him, refusing to move until he handed over the rest of the dosh.
I stayed only one night in Piura. (It may be a shit-hole, but it redeemed itself at lunchtime yesterday with a steak straight from God’s very own celestial grill). I then headed out on another scenic bus ride to Trujillo, founded in 1534 and named after Metallica’s current bass player. From Trujillo I took a taxi to Huanchaco, where I am right now. See photo. Lovely place. Sun, sea and sand. Just like Sunderland, in a way…
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| Huanchaco |
