Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Ecuador Machala to Peru Mancora

I found this great program for my mac online to re-size pictures in bulk "iResize" its free and it works great.
Even though I got the pictures down to .6mb the internet is so slow at times it takes hours to upload just few pictures :( well I guess its better than none and at least I can get the update going ( I will do my best to catch up today)
Matchala is very close to the border so I got into the area in no time, there is a brand new road that passes by the border city so the traffic is very light.
As I got closer to Peru I noticed a official looking building on left side of the road but there weren't any signs and it looked like it's for trucks coming into Ecuador, so I rode by it. Within few minutes I noticed another this time looking like some brand new factory and again no signs anywhere, again I kept on going and few km's later I got to the "welcome to Peru" sign - What the?!
On the other side of the road I spot it a Couple going to Ecuador on v-strom so we waved and one minute later I was following them back to Ecuador as the border patrol turned me back to sign out of the country lol.
Sure enough the couple on V-strom made the same mistake and had ride back so we decided to stick together for this one, well we ended up riding together all the way to Lima. Mariana and Marcos are traveling back home to Brazil from Penn. US and you can visit their blog here

Border info:

Leaving Ecuador
As you getting closer to the border you will notice a building on left side of the road ( I will post pics)
This is Aduana office and you can do this first, Go into to the main door and tell one of the officials that you want to sign out your bike out of Ecuador, he will take your papers and enter needed info to the computer and you are done.
2km later you will enter (first gate on left) the area for border process, this will be a whole area for everything but for now is in few places (its brand new) very quick here, all you do is get your passport stamped and if you didn't loose the small paper from previous border they will take that back (if you don't have it than no problem all you have to do is fill up new one)

Entering Peru
The buildings are the same on both sides but its not even nearly ready so you have some waling to do, not far just cross the street.
Passport stamp its easy, fill up a customs form and you get 60day visa stamped in.
Aduana is running in new building so you will get a form to fill up and than hand the guy all your paperwork, he will check your bike numbers and enter all data to the system. You will receive portion of the form that you filled and signed plus a big white sticker (I did not put it on the bike) and you are done.
There is a insurance agent next to the building but we didn't buy it as the insurance for cars was $8.00 US and she told us $35.00 US for each moto.

BTW.
Going back on Central America, don't be scared of the borders. You can do it all yourself without the annoying helpers, most border officials will help you if you smile and be polite.
simple rule is: Leaving (sign out yourself and the bike) Entering (sign in yourself and the bike) :P

Even with my very limited Spanish I find many very friendly people here in SA that are willing to take their time and help me any way they can (I'm working on it though :)

For Gps maps search sites like, (Colombia, Peru, Argentina - Chile etc) there is some clicking around and signing in but mostly you can download them for free, I didn't get them all myself (specially the Bolivia) so maybe you can point me in the right direction.

Cheers

The magic cleaners, I have not clean my plate once
Ecuador Aduana office
Mariana, Marcos and I at the Ecuador border
If you see this before signing out of Ecuador, you went to far
Entering Peru
Meanwhile my bike turned

 Mancora is a cool surf town and tourist trap as well, but it has plenty of places to stay and easy to find so don't get pulled into the helpers trap, we found one very cheap right on the beach that was ok except for my nightmare of a night (more soon).



I don't think any other country has as many Mototaxi's as Peru



Just some ocean view
We went for a walk to check out the town and had a great dinner, later we finished the day at one of the beach bars having a local beer while watching great sunset, this town is pretty cool.
This was a beach hostal so the rooms were ok at best but bed is a bed :) anyway, in the middle of the night a bus full of school kids (15,16's) showed up and that was my first wake up call.
I guess the hostal ran out of rooms so some of them had to sleep in the bus that was parked right out side my window and when they got cold at night the idiot driver start up the diesel engine and the F....ng thing was running all night. I slept maybe a total of 2hours that night, the lucky part is that I'm still on the trip and the SOB is still alive lol

The Hostal

The soup, Yea baby
The sunset
And the idiot
Its all part of great experience and I don't regret anything, even that bus :P
Cheers

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