Running Late to Lima

Huanchaco at sunset

Despite how difficult it was to depart from the beautiful city of Peurto Lopez, we had already delayed far too long and had to move on into Peru at a much faster pace. We decided the best way to get a head start on our journey through Peru was to get a 27 hour bus directly from Guayaquil Ecuador to Lima Peru. We awoke early the morning of May 29th to Dibby (our Irish friend and world famous dj) enlightening us of  a rather unnerving e-mail he had received. One  of the artists under Dibby's record label had sent him a new song entitled "running late to Lima." Could this be an omen for our upcoming bus ride? dun dun dunnnnnn.....

Roadblock protest in Peru

Jason, Lee and Graham heading out to surf

Things were running smoothly for the first 12 hours of our ride, but around 2:30 am we all realized that our bus had stopped running. At first we assumed the driver's were just having a break before continuing on for the next 15 hours. But as the hours continued to pass and the sun began to rise we knew something was not right. Apparently there was a road block 1km ahead due to a protest, and no large vehicles were able to pass through. Rumours began to ruminate saying we might not be able to move again until midnight, or at the earliest 6pm!!! Our alleged 27 hour bus ride had all of a sudden become much longer. A fellow

 American passenger named Dan was catching a flight from Lima the following day, and did some research about any other possible way to safely cross the road block  and continue to the city of Puira not far away. Discovering that it was possible to take a taxi through the road block, and considering we might be stuck in the blazing hot sun without any air conditioning for another 10 hours, we decided to hop on a taxi to pass the protest. Along with a few other passengers, Graham, Jason, Dibby and Ciara took the first taxi ride through the road block, while Jesse and Lee waited patiently for the taxi to return. Turns out taking the taxi was not the best decision we could have made, as there were several more smaller road blocks ahead. In order to successfully and safely pass by these machete wielding locals, we were forced to give them some money and food before being dropped of in the next large city. While this was occurring, Jesse and Lee realized that the never ending line of backed up buses began to honk their horns and start moving. The protest was finished for the day, hoorah!!! Deciding it was best not to stay behind by themselves, Jesse and Lee hopped back onto the bus, and with the help of our new gnarly Peruvian friend Patrick who saved our asses, managed to convince the driver to stop at the next city to pick up Jason, Graham, Ciara and Dibby. We were finally altogether and safe and sound on the bus again. Only 18 hours to go........or so we had thought. Surely nothing else would go wrong with the bus again. We were already running late to Lima as it was.
After finally catching a few hours of shut eye, we once again realized that the bus had stopped. After doing some investigation we discovered that the bus transmission had broken. Once again, we were forced to wait from 12:30am until sunrise for another bus to pick us up and continue onto Lima. At this point we had all decided that we wanted to get the hell off of the bus as soon as possible, and after hearing about an awesome surf town just outside of Trujillo we agreed to get off at Trujillo and take a couple days to relax on the beach before continuing onto Lima.
The surf town is called Huanchaco and is wonderful. We had just been relaxing on the beach and catching up on some sleep until today, when we attempted to go surfing. Although we failed miserably, it was a fun day out in the ocean and we now feel we have done enough to move on tomorrow morning. Unfortunately we must say goodbye to our new Irish friends Dibby and Ciara tomorrow, as they still have 5 months left in South America to travel, and would rather not rush through Peru. We love you Dibby and Ciara and will miss your lovely company. Our next stop is at Huarez Peru, where there are 23 glorious mountain peaks, and that means hardcore mountain biking!!! We will have to move even faster for the rest of our trip,only affording to spend 2 or 3 days in each spot. So much to do but so little time!!!