On the long ride to the border, i had the misfortune o getting sat next to the only other foreigners on the bus; missionaries from Utah. I spent hours hearing about how i shouldn't be alone in such dangerous countries and how I was sure to die. He seemed to think since i had never been to Peru, I had never been ANYWHERE. In between listening to the missionary’s second-hand
stories of an evil Peru, I spent hours on my iPhone writing my book. This is
how my book came to be; by me writing all my stories into the notes section of
my phone. After a while I had so many stories of my travels that someone said
I should write a book. Since my whole journey seems to be one long adventure,
it was easy to fill in the blanks between all the stories in the time line. Eventually,
about a year after starting the book in South America, my few stories in the
note section turned into my 100k word book. All written on boring bus, train
and plane rides. And all on my iPhone.
Writing my book got it's start on this stretch of
highway in Ecuador, but a few hours later it almost came to an abrupt end. We
were chugging along up a steep hill when two guys ran out and jumped onto our
slow moving bus. I had luckily been paying attention and saw the whole thing
from the beginning. I was just writing about my first trip to Costa Rica when I
saw the masked men hop on, and I instantly knew what was happening.
While the men were still in the separate driver’s
compartment, I hurriedly shoved my phone and my passport holder, that also held
most of my money and ATM cards, into the head-rest cover on the seat in front
of me. It was just a cloth with Velcro attaching it to the back of the seat,
and not a pocket, so no one would look there. Then I took my carry-on and
shoved it under the seat and up toward the front of the bus near an old lady
that no possessions.
I did all this in about 5 seconds and had just
started to warn the other foreigners when the door burst open and the masked
man walked in pointing a hand gun at us. The other bandit was holding his gun
to the drivers head and telling him where to pull over. His friend had a
plastic garbage bag and started at the front of the bus, yelling in Spanish for
people to give him their valuables. I don’t speak Spanish, but it wasn’t really
required.
The thief was making his way towards me, taking
anything he could get from people along the way. One of those traveling sales
men had the misfortune of being on board, and lost all of his sales money. I
was relieved when the thief didn't notice my bag under the old lady and moved
on. When the guy got to me and was swinging his gun between me and the
missionary couple, the husband translated for me to give him my wallet and
anything else I had and that it wasn't worth my life.
I shrugged and gave him what I call my decoy
wallet. It was a little pouch with about $6 in American singles and a wad of
Colombian money that probably equaled $10. There was also two old library
cards, an expired credit card that I had found and a Starbucks card. If I was
ever robbed I planned on giving the thief this wallet and hope he thought he
had a good score. It worked like a charm. The thief looked in the pouch, saw a
wad of money and what he figured were a rich American’s credit cards and was
satisfied. He searched my pockets for anything else. He asked where my bag was
and I pointed to a pile of bags I had seen him already go through where he had
gotten cameras and whatever else. He must have been satisfied that he had
gotten everything I had and moved on. I was feeling pretty damn relieved and
sure of myself.
After what seemed a long wait they were gone.
There was crying and wailing, and I felt sorry for these people. I didn't know
what I would do if I had lost anything. It might be a common thing in these
people’s lives, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant.
"Now you know why they take our finger prints
at the beginning of the ride. It's because sometimes people get kidnapped as
well." said the missionary, breaking the trance I was in.
We were close enough to the border that we didn't
wait for the police. They were waiting for us when we got there. I almost felt
guilty being the only one leaving the bus with something of value, so I did so
quickly and quietly, and made my way to immigration to get a stamp out of
Ecuador.
"Don't you want to report what they got from
you sir?" asked the man.
"I didn't actually lose anything. I gave him
an empty wallet and hid everything else."
He had never heard of a decoy wallet but thought it
ingenious. Him and his wife had lost more than $1000 between them and their
passports. They looked at me longingly as I waltzed across the border that they
could not now cross. I thought it kind of sad that this incident wouldn’t be making
the missionaries view of Peru any less damnable. Oh well.
Immigration for both sides was pretty pain-free.
From there I took a bus south. I bought a ticket to Trujillo, which was half
way to Lima. I knew Lima was too far for me to go and I would be way too tired
and sore. On the bus I met a cool guy from New York who was traveling around by
himself as well. He was only going to Mancora, a few hours from the border. He
said it was a good surf spot with many backpackers. We talked the miles away,
and by the time we arrived in Mancora I had decided to join him.
He was meeting some other Americans he had met in
Colombia in Mancora, at a hostel I would get to know well: Loki. We got off in
mancora, which is a small surfers paradise. There's sand dunes and cliffs to
the east, and a nice beach to the west that the town is situated along. There were
a lot of cool little souvenir shops along the main street, that we walked by on
our way to Loki. The town is
tiny, and it’s easy to find Loki, as everyone knows where it is.
The bus to the
Peruvian border was much older and dirtier than the others I had taken so far.
For some reason they copied all of my passport information and took my finger
print. They did the same for all the passengers and I didn't know what for, but
it made me a little nervous. When I got to my assigned seat I had the
miss-fortune of being next to the only other foreigners on the bus. I say
miss-fortune because they were the old missionary types who would not shut up.
Since I told the husband that it was my first time in Peru, and that I was alone,
he took it to mean I was a newbie of a traveler and needed guidance.
The whole trip he kept saying things to scare me
like, "I hope you locked you bag underneath the bus", or "Lima
is too dangerous for a lone foreigner, you can stay at our mission" or
"don't look people in the eye, they might stab you". I spent the
first part of the journey trying to be polite and attentive.
 |
| Loki. Awesome hostel |
I have mixed feeling about the Loki hostel in Mancora. On one
hand, it turned out to be one of, if not the best hostel I've ever stayed at. But
on the other hand it was a major party hostel and not too relaxing. Another downer
about the place is that it is basically a big compound. It is surrounded by
high walls, and almost no one leaves the compound until they are catching the
bus out of town. There is a restaurant and bar and pool and a gate to the beach
and pretty much everything you would need so you don have to leave. They even
tell you at checkout that its to dangerous to leave the hostel and wander the
town. So besides me and a few others, no one really did leave. I didn’t really
see the point in even coming to Peru, just to stay in a single, closed off
area. But to each their own I guess.
Despite any dislike I may have had, Loki provided me with a
way to travel indefinitely with little money. Nearly every member of the staff
was volunteers working for their accommodation, food and half off of their bar
tab. On my second day I took a job in the bar right along side of the others. I
say Loki showed me the way, because they also had 3 other hostels along the
route I was taking toward Brazil. Not only that, but now I realized that
working or volunteering at hostels was a possibility, and that just opened up
so many more doors and possibilities. Since then I've worked at many more
hostels around the world, saving a lot of travel money.
The hostel was so nice though, that I once again ended up
staying much longer than intended. I needed to keep moving south towards Rio,
but it was hard to get motivation to leave the nice pool and beach, to go on a
20 hour bus ride to Lima. One day however, with my schedule always on my mind,
some of the staff came up and asked if I wanted to go to Lima for a Pearl Jam
concert. The plan was to head there and start working at the Lima Loki after
the concert. Well, nothing like a little motivation. Together we headed out to
catch a very long and boring ride to the capital.
