Day 1 – Peru

The day did not start well – spent the night at an auto hotel (they are everywhere there are more ‘love’ hotels then ‘sleep’ hotels) at Huaquillas, Ecuador (the northern most crossing) and headed for the border early morning – the only problem was there was no border!?

No, ‘thank you for visiting’ or ‘thank you for leaving’, no security guards, no barriers, no nothing! So after driving for 20 odd minutes I realized that I was surrounded by Peru number plates, the gas prices had gone way up and I was being harassed by spindly assed auto rickshaws - that’s when the proverbial bulb lit up!

WTF – I am in Peru!!??

I am now in Peru illegally!!!

A rapid u-turn and back to Ecuador and luckily this time around I saw the border sign posting (damn OSM maps) – first I hit the Peru post as I was trying to come up with a convincing story as to how/why I was approaching the border from the wrong direction!?

No worries says the guard - happens all the time!

Apparently they have a semi open border and I happened to drive through the ‘opening’ so to speak!

30 minutes later I was back in Peru - all legal and curly tailed!