What a day!!.

As you know from yesterdays entry we camped last night at 12,600 ft and tonight we are at 87 ft and in Peru. The descent from last night's camp was another of those Ecuadorian specials, steep, twisting mountain roads, much of which was a new concrete surface but some of which was just diabolical gravel and broken blacktop. As we reached the lowlands we noticed vast banana plantations (Ecuador is the worlds largest producer of the things) and an apparent decrease in the standard of living of the people.

Along the way we exchanged the partially filled propane tank for a freshly filled one - $6.

After reaching the lowlands we were in somewhat of a hurry to get to the border so that we would have some day light left when we got to Peru and started searching for a camping spot. But ... about 20 kms from the border town of Huaquillas we crossed a particularly bumpy entrance to a gas station, the cupboard door opened spilling the contents onto the floor, in the process one of the jars of spaghetti sauce and one jar of mayonnaise broke with the obvious consequence.(shades of our NW Territories experience) Needless to say the clean up did not help make good time to Huaquillas.

The border crossing is certainly something to write home about.

• To start with as we entered the town of Huaquillas there is a large sign at a round-about saying Peru Frontier pointing to the left; but of course that is not the way to go. The correct road is the one to the right going to downtown Huaquillas as that's where the customs and immigration offices are.

• The towns people are not slow to see a money making opportunity and have erected a toll booth 50 yards before the Immigration office and charged us $2 to enter the town.

• The Customs office (we have to go there to get the vehicle out of the country) is at the end of the PanAm highway where it meets a bridge and the Peru border. But - we cannot simply drive down the PanAm because the town has a street market (every day) that completely closes the last two blocks of the PanAm. So everyone has to detour around this street market. The detour is, of course, not marked in anyway and leads one to a very rough gravel road that Nina is convinced goes through the local garbage/refuse dump.

• In the middle of the refuse dump road are two men, one in uniform, who check that we have our immigration stamps and charge us another $2 to get past.

• The Ecuador Customs process was a non event and so we crossed the bridge trying not to hit anyone or anything in the crowded streets.

• At the Peru end of the bridge we were told that the new Customs office and the Immigration office are 3 kilometers further on. More maneuvering around pedestrians and other vehicles and we arrived at the right place.

• THe Peru Customs and Immigration are slow but not complicated. But as we are getting ready to leave three women, two in uniform, approach us. We gather that parking around the offices is controlled by the local municipality and that we owe them 7.5 solares in total (about $2.5) for parking and something else; another town that can spot a money making opportunity. We never did work out what the something else was.

As we left the border the sun was close to setting so we were keen to cover the 13 miles to Tumbes and find a place for the night. As luck would have it Tumbes was having some kind of parade with marchers carrying candles and truck mounted floats.