From Banos we headed further South to Cuenca. This town is famous for being the place where the Panama hat originates from. To be honest I haven't got much to say about Cuenca which didn't seem to hold much apart from museums and the weather wasn't great. We had a whole hostel to ourselves so I did a spot if relaxing, internetting, got my laundry washed, and ate lots! It was a necerssary stop enroute to the border though.
Getting into Peru from Ecuador should have been easy as it's a well used route for overland trucks and we had a brand new immigration office block where we could get stamped out of Ecuador and enter Peru at desks just next door to each other. Sadly it wasn't so easy for 6 of us, including me! When we entered Ecuador some of us were given a traditional rubber stamp and some a fancy electronic stamp. It turns out that some of the rubber stamped passports entry wasn't recorded into the system properly (seems to be a common problem that we are having with Ecuador) with the border post on the computer not matching what the stamp says. We were told that we would have to go back to the border we entered in from, which wasn't going to happen! A couple of hours later the immigration people realised that we did all come through the same border together and someone higher up the rank managed to get code to overwrite what had been typed into the computer. Who would have thought that getting out the country would have been so difficult!!
As soon as we headed into Peru you noticed a change from Ecuador moving from green and wet to brown and dry. The sun was shining as we headed to Punta Sal, meaning Salt Point about 30km from the town of Mancora. We arrived in time for sunset pitching our tents on the beach with sea views. We had 2 full days of beach fun. The first day some of us headed into Mancora by a combination of tuk tuk and flagged down minivan to change some money and also to learn to surf. Myself, Lisa, Vanessa, Francois and Antony braved the waves for an hour with an instructor guiding the surf board from behind into the waves and giving us a little extra power before yelling for us to stand up. It was great fun. The first wave we attempted I managed to stand for a couple of seconds before falling but the waves after that I surfed them into shore. It would be interesting to see how easy it is without a chap behind you yelling instructions. I'm really glad I did it as a surf lesson is something I never got around to in Australia.
After an afternoon of relaxation we started one of many 'farewell Pete' parties. This one included a huge BBQ, a photo slide show and Rogan hosted a couple of games of Limbo and pick up the cardboard box. Great night had by all. The next day (today) has been a day of sleeping, swimming and book reading. No complaints so far!
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