Jens's Travels to Peru

Here's a report from Jens on his very long journey over the past two days to the AVP meeting place in Peru. In another message, he explained that the Internet service he was using and the keyboard did not make it easy for him to send all this news, so I'm glad he succeeded somehow.

-Spee

I am in Peru, and boy, did it take a long time to get here. Cuenca to Loja [Ecuador] was pretty nice, though like elsewhere there were places they were working on the road. It was a slooow bus, everyone seemed to wish they had taken another company. I arrived in Loja and found out that the bus to the border was leaving in 15 minutes (4:00 p.m). So I bought some water and bread, the ticket, hopped on and off we went even more slowly than on the Loja bus. The road to Vilcabamba (a town famous for having a larger number of centenarians in the population than is normal) was great, and the views wild and wonderful. Then the pavement ended and it was basically a one lane dirt road going down down down. Then it started to rain and the dirt turned to very slick clay which caused an accident up ahead and we sat for 45 minutes while everyone wondered why there were people on the road who didn´t bring along chains.

When we got going again, the rain stopped and the road returned to its usual ups downs and sharp turns. About 10:15 p.m. we went through a little town and then headed up. About twenty minutes later I looked out the window and the town was directly below us. If went over the edge, we would have rolled right into town hundreds of feet below.

We got to Zumba, the main town near the [Peruvian] border about 11:45 p.m. and I had to wake up the owner of a rinky dink place that charged $6 for the night, itchy creatures included, but no breakfast. At 8:00 am this morning I left Zumba on one of the old style buses seats but open sides, called a ranchero, and continued south for two more hours and over about four ridges ´til we got to the border.

This picture is of the Zumba bus station, the ranchero and, I think, Peru in the far distant ridge.

Had two Belgian fellows next to me who smoked pot, probably finishing up their stash before crossing into Peru. There is a freeway style bridge over a beautiful river at the border. It will probably be years before the road matches the bridge. You may be able to make out the Peruvian and Ecuadorian flags on either side of the bridge--this is the border crossing (Peruvian gvt. electronic equipment in the foreground).

It was another three or so hours coming out of the mountains before we got to a decent road. From San Ignacio the road was the same dirt, then it became clear there had been a little pavement once. Then there were more potholes than pavement, then more pavement than potholes, and finally a gorgeous highway winding down a wide river valley with lots of
rice fields. Looked like Asia.

I´m now in Bagua Chica waiting for Jorge Arauz and Robert Vincent to arrive. We will take off at 3:30 a.m. tomorrow morning and head back to the bad roads which will take us down to the jungle and the little town of Nieva.

Will try to stay in touch if possible.

Much love,

Pop