The last two days... / Los últimos dos días...

Antes de comenzar nuestro viaje por Perú, consideramos pertinente contar con nuestra placa internacional para el carro, casi comenzó la aventura de encontrar un lugar apropiado para imprimir stickers, después de varios sitios visitados sin éxito llegamos al especialista en gigantografía, quien inicialmente dudo sobre la calidad del "arte" disponible para finalmente imprimir las 5 copias posibles por el mismo precio de una. Visitamos la casa de la cultura del Banco Central del Ecuador, que conserva su arquitectura, los pisos originales y tiene disponible una exposición de arte, fotografía, cerámicas y vestidos de os indígenas de la región, simple pero muy bien elaborada. Estar allá fue un gusto¡

Before starting our sector to Perú, we thought it appropriate to arrange our international plate for the car, a procedure which called for our finding a place capable of printing our "CO" sticker. After various print shops which proved unable to handle this, we came across a "gigantographic" specialist, who, after some humming and hawing (based on his concern that the quality of the artwork was inadequate), printed 5 copies of the plate for the price of one. No doubt the finished product will appear sooner or later in the photos in this blog and you can judge for yourself the quality. After this we visited the offices of the Central Bank of Ecuador in Loja (the Banks appear to be the places where antiquities are held): this proved to be a well-preserved building, with a good display of art, photographs, ceramics, and clothing of the region.

Luego fuimos otra plaza que habíamos considerado de interés la noche anterior y descubrimos que el interés se esfuma con la salida del sol, pero nos encontramos dos hermosos pájaros que pudimos fotografiar. En ruta a la plaza del valle (que no visitamos porque ahora la están reconstruyendo) encontramos nuevas empanadas: empanadas de maduro en el rincón zarumeño, propiedad de una zurumeña entusiasta que nos presento las delicias de su comida.

We then started out to visit a plaza which had been attractive the night before, to find that its attraction had diminished once the sun came up, however we encountered interesting birds to photograph, and then came across the Rincón Zarumeño, whose owner delighted in discussing the culinary delights of her home town, including empanadas de maduro.

En la tarde fuimos al Parque Nacional Podocarpus, con senderos ricos, inclinados, con bella vegetación y que te llevan a la cima de la montaña, (con varios miles de metros de altura). Para deleitarte con el silencio y la belleza del paisaje, atributos que no serán reconocidos por tus rodillas al bajar. Saliendo del parque pudimos ver algunos pájaros, la lluvia por fin había cesado, así que ellos estaban felices volando y revoloteando y poco dispuestos a posar para nuestras cámaras.

In the afternoon we visited the National Podocarpus Park, with verdant trails, beautiful vegetation, and a steep climb to the first summit of the longest trail, which despite being tiring (at various thousands of metres of altitude) gave a great view of Loja to the north, and the Vilcabama valley in the south. When we arrived, it was raining, which dampened the enthusiasm of the birds to be photographed, however on our way out, various deigned to make themselves visible, albeit elusively.

Oímos hablar de Vilcabamba, un poblado muy cercano, un valle de tranquilidad y longevidad. La longevidad aparentemente es verdadera porque encontrábamos varios sobrevivientes del hippie trail de los 60s, sobre la tranquilidad no tenemos mucho que decir, excepto que cada 5 minutos aproximadamente pasan por la esquina del parque central motos y carros grandes de sujetos ruidosos, que nos permitieron escuchar mas ingles que español en este rincón del Ecuador andino.

We had heard stories of the fabled valley of Vilcabamba, where the locals live to be well over a hundred years of age, and so decided to visit, since it was only half an hour from the Park. The reputation for longevity appears to be justified based on the presence in the village of significant numbers of survivors of the Hippie Trail in the sixties; regarding the tranquillity, it was difficult to assess based on the appearance every five minutes of large motorbikes and pickups doing the rounds of the Plaza at high decibels, despite which we were able to continue to hear more English than Spanish spoken in this remote mountain fastness of Ecuador.

Decidimos viajar desde Loja hasta Piura, utilizando el paso fronterizo de Macara/ La Tina. Existen dos rutas disponibles desde Catamayo (La antigua y la que corresponde a la panamericana ruta 35 (o E50)). Cuando llegamos a este punto encontramos que la única vía señalizada hacia Macara era la vieja, así que buscamos la ruta nueva. Esta se encuentra fácilmente transitable hasta Velacruz y empeora al llegar a Catacocha el ultimo pueblo de la sierra en la vía. Luego descendimos y encontramos un paisaje de bosque seco tropical precioso a pesar de haber sido descrito por un agente de aduana como un paisaje de película de terror. La vía es muy burreña, marraneña, cabroneña, perreña, vaqueña, toreña y otras eñas disponibles, así que hay que ser cuidadoso.

We decided to travel from Loja to Piura via the Macara / La Tina frontier crossing. There are two possible routes for this: the new Pan American Highway E35 (occasionally E50), and the old road. When we reached the crossroads where the choice was made, only the old road was marked to Macara, and so we had to seek the newer route. This proved to be in reasonable condition as far as Velacruz, and then deteriorated to Catacoche, the last village on the sierra. We then descended through dry tropical forest to the river at Macara for the frontier crossing. The ecosystem is fascinating, and includes many impressive trees. We asked the officer at the Customs Check Point on the descent to the river what these trees were and he described them as "trees from a terror movie"... We passed through a region which was increasingly donkeyed, goated, pigged, cowed, dogged, and various other ...ed in its wildlife, finally arriving at Macara.

En la frontera, los tramites aquí (rápidos y fáciles) los tramites allá fáciles y lentos, así que iniciamos nuestro nuevo libro y disfrutamos la hora y media de espera. Finalmente, en la ruta: estado perfecto, policía de carreteras permanente y progresivamente entraron el mapa los mototaxis, el desierto y el paisaje de otro país, estábamos en Perú.

At the frontier, the procedures were quick and easy here, and slow and easy there, and so we started reading our new shared book to while away the hour and half wait. Finally, we were on our way again, on a perfect highway, with frequent Highway Police presence, through dry desert, into Perú.

Photos of the above will be uploaded once we have a better connection... watch this space.

Besos, Alan & Marce.