Not far north of Lobitos is the township of Cabo Blanco. This town is the southern end of a nice section of coast with clear sunny skies (rather than the normal Peruvian grey), white sand beaches and lots of hotels, restaurants, and surf shops. The Panamericana runs along side this nice stretch of beach until just south of Tumbes, the northern gateway to the Peruvian coast. Thirty km north of Tumbes is the border with Ecuador.

On our southward journey the border between Ecuador and Peru was one of the more unusual, in that travelers had to find their way through the markets of Huaquillas (the border town) to locate immigration and customs. Things have changed a bit in the past year. There is now a fine new freeway by-passing Huanquillas and north bound traffic does not need to enter Huanquillas at all. However south bound traffic, it seems does not yet get the benefit of this new construction.

We were amazed how quickly the landscape changed. One minute we were in the dry sparse countryside of Peru the next minute we were surrounded by sugar cane and jungle trees in Ecuador; and the temperature was in the mid 80°F.