Laura the Explora: Welcome to Ecuador!

I made it safely to Ecuador with no problems. From Mancora I got a bus at 4:45 in the morning that took me 4 hours to Piura from where I caught a bus that would take me right across the Ecuador-Peru border to the city of Loja, 4 hrs from Peru. From there.... almost there... I got a taxi to the village of Vilcabamba, in the Valley of Youth.

I guess I can say with enough truth that I made it to Ecuador without any problems. After crossing the border however my pleasant trip was rudely interupted by an obnoxious older man who decided the 2 seats he had to himself were not good enough for some unknown reason and asked to sit in the empty seat beside me. This puzzled me a little since for a bus equiped to seat approximately 40 plus people, there were only about 10 riders, thus many empty seats. Anyway, he didn't try to talk or flirt with me which was good, but he did proceed to fall asleep which led to his sprawling all over the seat in invading my space. It started off with his hand, fallen off his lap and nestled between my leg and his. As it annoyed me immensly I stared at it on and off a while as I squished myself closer and closer to the window. Finally I had enough of it an picked his arm up by the wrist and placed it on his lap. This woke him a bit and he straightend up. I took the opportunity to quickly reach for the arm rest that would seperate us and I pulled it down, quickly taking it for myself and exerting my dominance over MY seat. As he straightened up though, he moved his foot from his foot rest over to mine...ugh!

This continued for a while and some how he managed to gain dominance over the arm rest. The bus stopped a couple times and he would get off, but he always got on. Once the bus even drove a few metres, making me think he had gotten off for good, but then it stopped and he got back on. Finally I had had my fill with him. There was no reason for him to be sitting beside me since there were tons of empty full (2 seats) on the bus. So I tapped him on the leg (as he was again sprawling... I mean sleeping) and excused myself, moving to a seat behind. He stayed on the bus maybe 5 more minutes, then got off... at which point I moved back to MY seat.

Anyway, I met two very nice gals from Leeds on the bus and together we spent a couple days relaxing in Vilcabamba and are now in Cuenca. I like Ecuador quite alot so far. For some reason, although it is only separated from Peru by an invisible line, I felt that I liked it better the second we crossed the border. It seems to have a lot more wealth than Peru, although according to other travellers Peru is more expensive. The people here are better dressed, the houses are much nicer and more modern looking, and the cars are all new and shiny. I haven't yet seen a single 70s style VW Bettle, which were everywhere in Peru.

Some pictures: