The Last Border Crossing

I knew, even before I got on the bus, that it was going to be a long day.

The plan was simple: a night bus from Huaraz to Trujillo (9 hours), then directly on to Chiclayo (4 hours), go see the `Lord of Sipan´museum (amazing) and then hop on a bus to Piura (3 hours) in order to catch another night bus to Loja (8 hours) arriving in Ecuador only a day behind schedule.

That´s 24 hours on a bus altogether; long, but bearable. Unbearable, however, is spending the first two hours of the first bus ride cringing over Tom Cruise´s acting in The Last Samurai. But wait, it gets better. The second bus ride begins, and today´s movie... The Last Samurai. Again. By now I´m catching myself quoting scenes, and cringing in anticipation of the ludicrous plot. If the third bus had shown TLS instead of Underdog, I would have walked through the desert to Ecuador, seriously.

On the third bus I was surrounded by a salsa band who listened to the same song over and over for hours, as ¨practice¨-- this included playing drums on the seatrest and singing aloud. And the fourth bus... the couple across from me was bringing a puppy across the border, a very cute white puppy with diarrhea. So periodically a wave of stench would wash over the bus, accompanied by some unearthly puppy shrieks.

But I made it happy and safe into Ecuador. The first thing I saw there, right in the bus terminal, was a 24 hour diner; Waffle House appeared before my sleep deprived eyes for a moment, but sadly this was no Waffle House. They had coffee, but no milk. And to eat, they had chicken; everything else had been finished off already. Then some blackberry milkshakes appeared, and just as I made to order one, I was told they were the last ones. Nothing left.

And so to celebrate, since I couldn´t fly to Quito because the company´s website was down, I got on a twelve hour bus to Riobamba; that makes for 36 of the previous 46 hours on a bus. Makes you realize how precious time really is.