Driving through the Ecuadorian countryside with white knuckles, I couldn’t wait to get away from the big city. I have said it before and I say it again: I do not like big cities. Quito was a gringo central, and I hardly spoke any word of Spanish. I like to and I need to get to smaller places where the waving of the arms are not as big. Not like Japan, though - they hardly wave at all.

After a few days in a small town, my final exit to Peru were ahead of me. Ahead of me lies days filled with beach, sun, surfing and nice tan. When counting hours from the kilometers, it shouldn’t take more than 15 hours. The trip should be possible with 4 buses and some kind of personal service at the border. Choosing a reputable transport company was the way to go.

Looking back at the trip, it took me 3 buses, 4 taxis, one minibus, one sleepover in a very dirty and spooky border town, fighting off "Peruviadorian" (a newly invented word, meaning both Peruvian and Ecuadorian) scumbags, some tiny bit of being ripped off (again!!), a bus driver that bought sexual services at the backseat of the bus while others where waiting for him and a backpack smeared in fishblood. Some would say my border crossing were different - my 18 year old friend got to Peru in the luggage compartment of a bus.

Apparently, the kilometers here in South America is as strange as the swirling water in a South American sink. Apparently, they go in a different direction than in Europe. When I count hours from looking at distances back home, I calculate 1 hour per 60 kilometer. If anything, 60 kilometers should be passed in shorter time than 1 hour, because who really drives "only" 60 kilometers per hour? And especially here in South America, where a road with two lanes have four cars and one huge truck lined up on the side of each other - each heading in different directions. Speedlimits are constantly ignored and you better have a good insurance if you as much as look at a road. How can I not calculate 1 hour per 60 kilometers. To this moment, I have no idea. 240 kilometers took 5,5 hours. The following 235 kilometers took 6,5 hours. And as I got ripped off by the physical laws, I managed to get ripped off by a thief at a bus terminal as well.

I had to get up at 4 in the morning to catch my bus at 5 am. I decided to stay up all night, so I would be able to sleep on the bus the next day. I managed to borrow the computer at my hostel all night, so I could play online poker most of the time. And guess what? I was only ripped off by the dealer a couple of times. I won money, though, but because of the unpredictable play of some Internet morons, I still feel cheated for at least $100. I enjoyed myself, though, and as I ended up chatting to friends at home as the European day dawned, I had to end every conversation to rush to my bus.

The first busride went fine. The promised 1 hour and 40 minutes became 2 hours and 15 minutes. No big deal. They put me off at the wrong terminal and I had to take a cab to the right terminal. The second busride went fine. The promised 4 hours became 5,5 hours. And here, the strange stuff started. Arriving in the town of Guayaquil on the coast of Ecuador, we were all dropped off at a huge parking area. There were no way of buying tickets for anywhere in the world in this place, and I had to ask "how do I get to Peru?". A nice man told me to enter that bus, pointing at the bus right behind me, as it would take me to the entrance of the terminal situated on the other side of the heavily trafficked street. I entered the bus, rode it literally around the corner of the parking lot, not even near to the other side of the heavily trafficked street - and I had to step out of it again. It was free, though, but seriously - I only rode the bus out of the parking lot?! As confused as one could be, I looked at the others in a typical "Latino raising his shoulders with a surprised look on his face"-kind of way. For everyone else, this was apparently very normal. I had to walk all the way across the street myself. But what a fortune that I didn’t have to walk out of the parking area myself.

Locating the small shop with the reputed buscompany that would get me to Peru, the bus departed 4 minutes after I bought my ticket. What a luck! But after buying my ticket, I didn’t have any small change left. One strange thing some places in Ecuador is, that once you get your ticket, you have to pay a very small amount to be able to enter the parking area of the buses. It is normally not more than 10 cents, but I didn’t have less than 25 cents. A nice guy on the other side of the gate I had to enter, said "I can change for you" and took my 25 cent out of my hand while paying the 10 cents fee. Immediately walking away guiding me to my bus, I thought he would give me back my 15 cents when we reached the bus. Opening the hatch to the luggage compartment, I realized he wanted me to put my backpack right on top of a box with fish, with fishblood floating all around it. "I am not putting my backpack there. Other side of the bus. Other side", I said. Reassuring me that it would be OK, he made me put my luggage on some sort of shelf and let me know that the blood would be no problemo. I wasn’t convinced and after a short discussion I agreed on putting my luggage inside the hull. "Don’t get blood on my backpack!", I said walking away from it. "No problemo, no problemo", the guy said.

Even though I was annoyed by the guys uncooperative will to pay me back my 15 cents, I now had a new thing to be annoyed about and as I entered the bus, I actually forgot all about the money. I am a man after all, and we cannot handle more than one thing at the time. After putting my ass to rest in the small seat, the previous annoyance appeared once more, and I stuck my head out the window shouting to the guy "hey - give me my money back". He told me that he worked on this bus, it was all OK and after we started to drive he would give it to me. As my ability to negotiate properly were seriously crippled, as I was hanging out the window of a bus, I didn’t really want to run out of the bus and let him know he was a thief - for only 15 cents. I’ll get the money back after we start driving. As these buses pick up people regularly on the road, the bus people always walk about in the bus to get money from the passengers. The only problem was, that he was not even on the bus. He is probably still standing at the bus terminal smiling, knowing that he stole 15 cents of a gringo. And he didn’t even had to work for it. I literally gave them to him. The thing is, that each bus here in South America has at least to people working on it. A driver and a side kick. The side kick is the guy loading and off-loading the luggage, and getting money from passengers they pick up on the way. I thought this guy were the side kick. If I knew he weren’t - I would have kicked his sides properly.

I knew the border I would cross, is a border not recommended to cross. It is difficult and at night it is dangerous. I also knew, that the bus company I used normally helped with the crossing and I also knew that my border crossing would be after sunset. To my surprise, after 6,5 hours inside the bus, Peru was right outside my window. I opened it and asked where the immigration office were. As the customs searched the bus, the grumpy side kick said that we had passed it. "What??", I said. "We have passed it" he replied. Properly confused I stepped out of the bus and asked again "where is the immigration office??". "Back there" he said pointing back into Ecuador. "Well, where are you going? I bought a ticket to Peru, you were supposed to help me and you haven’t. Will we go back?". "No". "So you are going to wait as I get my passport stamped?". "No". "You are just going to drive leaving me here?". "Yes". Argh … I knew it!! Problems again. Giving me $1 in return as some sort of discount on the ticket for the trouble, the bus started driving. "HEY!!! My luggage!!", I shouted after them. "Ah", the grumpy side kick replied. Stepping off the bus and went for the hatch in the middle of the bus. "Please do not drop the lugg…..", I started, but before I managed to finish my sentence, he dragged my backpack from off the shelf and dropped it into the nice little pool of fish stinking blood on the bottom of the hull. Absolutely short of angry Spanish words, I only managed to say "Hey, what is this?!". He looked at me in a typical "Latino raising his shoulders with a surprised look on his face"-kind of way, he really didn’t care. So there I was literally in Peru, one stamp short in my passport, on a very dangerous border with a backpack reeking of dead fish. Nice. It turned out, that I had to go 6 km back into Ecuador, get a stamp and then get back here. Even the police told me that it was dangerous, so I had to spend the night. Crap!!

The next day, I went to the immigration office, walked across the border with my legs while fighting off pushy taxidrivers and fony moneychangers with my hands and my eyes fixed at an imaginary point 4 meters in front of me. I knew what was waiting me. I have heard stories about this border. You need to fight for your right to walk here. I just hoped I didn’t explode in uncontrolled anger. And I learned that if you just walked without saying "no", the fuckers just followed you. I soon had a tail of 5-6 people on my back. How stupid can someone be?

I crossed, I negotiated, I entered and I saw the pacific ocean for the first time in my life. It is beautiful. It is just a shame that you have to pass the greedy people at this border. But as I learned - try to read just a bit on how to cross the border and you’ll be fine. Put on you "beat it motherfucker"-kind of face and you’ll be fine. At last, it only took me 3 buses, 4 taxis, one minibus, one sleepover in a very dirty and spooky border town, fighting off "Peruviadorian" scumbags, some tiny bit of being ripped off (again!!), a bus driver that bought sexual services at the backseat of the bus while others where waiting for him and a backpack smeared in fishblood. Some would say my border crossing were different - my 18 year old friend got to Peru in the luggage compartment of a bus.