August 1, 2018 – August 9, 2018
A couple of weeks back, at another hostel in Ecuador, we had seen a flier for a hostel near the town of Vilcabamba that looked really nice, so we headed there for a day or two before we crossed into Peru.
The view from our camper
The grounds were beautiful, and although we had to camp in the gravel parking lot, we enjoyed walking on the trails in the hills surrounding the hostel. They also had a spa, where for $US 28 I had a full body massage, a “facial” (really just a quick face massage) and a reiki treatment, all of which lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.
From there we drove to just before the border of Peru near the town of Marcara, where we camped in the lot of a nice hotel for the night before an early morning crossing into Peru.
The next morning, with a full fuel tank (about 225 litres) we said goodbye to the cheap Ecuadorian diesel ($1.03 US per gallon!) and entered Peru. The border was quick, efficient and hassle free. We made our way through the desert of Northern Peru to the town of Piura, where we had decided we needed to stop to restock on groceries and water. We camped just north of town at a little oasis in the desert with a pool, a pond, some shade and a friendly owner. There, Derek saw a drip of fluid on the ground under the truck that confirmed a suspicion he had developed after seeing a similar drip at another stop. After some investigation, it was determined that our water pump was leaking. Our plans were to head into some pretty remote mountains, so, even though the pump was still working, Derek decided we had better replace it now before we had a complete fail.
At our camping spot. Many Peruvians came by during our stay to do photos shoots here…water, trees and grass are rare in this region of Peru.
It was the weekend, and we knew nothing would be open, so we hung out and waited for the shops to open on Monday. We took a tuktuk into town for some more groceries, and went for a hamburger at a Chili’s restaurant attached to a modern shopping mall.
On Monday we took another tuktuk into town to an auto parts shop. They didn’t have the part in stock but could order it from Lima (almost 1,000 km away), and it would be there the next afternoon. Awesome! Another tuktuk back to our camper.
Derek killing some time playing futbal (soccer) with the owner’s son.
Tuesday afternoon we arrived at the shop at about 3 pm. The shop was closed for lunch (in Peru, people eat their biggest meal of the day in the early afternoon). A man that was sitting just inside the gated entry way told us to come back at 4:30. We walked the dusty streets of Piura looking for a coffee shop, settling on a lunch place with cold bottles of water.
We returned at 4:30, and were told that the part had not yet arrived. Maybe it would be there at 5:30. We decided not to wait and headed back to camp, and told them that we would try calling the next day to see if the part had arrived.
Wednesday we called, and the part had still not arrived. Maybe it would be there at noon, or so we thought. Derek would say that he was having trouble understanding and then asked her, “Is the part there, yes or no”, to which she would reply with a long, multi word, fast response that left us with no more understanding. We thought she was going to call us when the truck arrived around noon.
Noon came and went and we had not received a phone call, so Derek called again. The conversation was again unclear but then, suddenly, Derek understood enough and said, “We’re going!”. We gathered our things and headed back into town. We needed to get to the shop before they closed for their 2 hour lunch break. We got to the shop and stood in line. The woman saw us, smiled, and gave a big thumbs up. Yeah!!!! We got our part AND it looked like it was the correct part!
The tuktuk rides back and forth to town cost anywhere from 5 Sol, to 15 Sol….$2 to $6 CAD. Cheap enough for the distance that we never bothered to negotiate with them, but I found it interesting how much the rate varied from driver to driver.
Derek installed the new pump late that afternoon, (he had also done an oil change on the truck while we were waiting for the part), and we were finally able to leave Piura, after 6 very long days.