We woke this morning to peer at the hen and her chicks pecking at the mud at the foot of our tent ladder and the sun was shining.
At first many of the roads in Peru, from this little used border crossing, were much the same as we had seen on our last day in Ecuador. The mud is more clay like here and almost all the houses we have passed have been made from traditional mud brick. New houses are also being built from the same traditional mud brick. Although also traditional in Ecuador we had seen very few there. Another difference we have quickly noticed since arriving in Peru is that once again it seems as if almost everyone is tooting their horns and waving and calling out greetings to us as we pass. Yes, they are smiling and waving and not shaking their fists at us.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the regularity with which we meet dogs, cows and chickens in the road. A difference is that the animal wildlife now includes lots of donkeys too.
taxi bike drivers at San Ignacio
We haven’t been able to buy a proper road map of Peru yet, no-one seems to sell them anywhere. So I was pleased when we arrived in San Ignatio, to be called over by some drivers of a few of the hundreds and hundreds of little bikes that swarm around the towns to take their photo. They showed me a painted tourist map on the wall inside the garage, showing the roads and rivers in their locality and the resultant photo was a useful supplement to the rather simple map in the Central American guidebook.
Late this afternoon we reached Pelico where the road finally turned into tarmac. This brought with it a surprise. The roadsides were lined with paddy fields. It wasn’t something we had ever thought of before but it is obvious that rice is a significant crop here.
After passing Jaen, and reaching the end of the map I’d taken a photo of at the garage, and we were once again on dirt roads. This time the road was running along the banks of a fast flowing river where the waters ranged from seething to broiling but never calm. With the waters high against the banks, in places it felt as if the river was close to breaking out across the road before us. Elsewhere we were close under the sides of the mountains and a little nervous of the rock falls that narrowed the road in places.
We opted to camp in a garage tonight and stopped at one just past a toll booth. Close to the road traffic Paul put in his ear plugs and a peaceful night ensued. Although we were disappointed not to stay longer with Doug and Rebecca at La Casa Verde in Banos it still feels good to be back on the road and travelling again. That’s why we are here, after all, to travel.
We were pleased that so far none of the officials we had seen had stopped us for being a right hand drive vehicle and are strongly beginning to suspect that yesterday’s border conversations were a scam. Still, it was probably a lighter scam than what we might have faced at the other border crossings had we gone there instead.
