We got up early, went to the bus station, got tickets for the first bus and headed to Ecuador. The trip started okish. The bus was 30 minutes late, but they were quite security conscious, fingerprinting and video taping every passenger. That was the best bit of the day. A 9 hour bus, turned into 12 hours. There were no stops for food or toilets, just brief stops nowhere to pick-up and drop-off and get our passports stamped. The security from Peru was lost in Ecuador when the driver stopped to pick-up everyman and his dog along the road and pocket some extra cash for his own benefit. This was ok until a dodgy bloke and his girlfriend got on. He took a dislike to us gringos instantly, constantly giving evils. After giving said evils he would get on his phone and then at each stop would look outside to see if the people he was calling was there. He did this for 2 and a bit hours. I thought he was trying to arrange some mates to rip us off, so I made sure he got a good sight of my knife. Anyways, we get to the station, which was quite secure, he gave us a last evil and disappeared. No harm really.
Things got a little worse from there. We arrived at our hostel, 3 hours late and at 9pm. There was a mix up with our booking and they didn't have a room for us. It took about 30 mins to sort this all out. During this time, we were on the street. The wouldn't let us in even just to sort things out and find somewhere else. So we were left standing in the middle of downtown Ecuador with all our kit and local neer-do-wells loitering around. What a shit hostel. In the end, we walked around for a bit trying to find somewhere else to stay, couldn't find somewhere suitable, so we ended up blowing our budget but having a little luxury at the Hilton. All in all, an interesting day.
The photo is of the bus station in Piura.
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