Vilcabamba was really just the start of a long transit to Peru but it proved to be a quaint little town, buried in the mountains with picturesque walks and a great cafe with real coffee, cake and falafels!!

We stayed in a little hostel called Rendezvous, who pride themselves on their English style garden. The perfectly paved paths were surrounded by colour, and were shadowed by a huge avocado tree. It was a great place to relax at the end of a day. We were there only two days and did two walks; one around the town and the other up into the hills, for a spectacular view over the valley below.

The day we left was an interesting one! We were headed to another transit destination, San Ignacio, just over the border in Peru. We were keen to start the day early as we knew we had a fair distance to cover. We had made multiple enquiries at both the bus terminal and the hostel as to what time the bus was scheduled to leave to get to Zumba (the first stop), without much consistency. We were told anywhere between 9 and 10:30am. So we decided to get there at 8:30am to be sure. When 10:30 am rolled around and there was still no sign of a bus, we were approached by a well dressed, young, Equadorian business man who asked if we would be interested in sharing a 4WD taxi with him and another man to get to the next town. It was half way to our destination Zumba, but he insisted he was headed in the same direction as us and he would travel with us to the border. The conversation was largely in Spanish, but we thought we got the gist, so off we went! Hilariously the taxi was not exclusive to us. Whilst the four of us sat comfortably in the cabin with the driver, we picked up local after local, often elderly and one particular lady very frail. We watched as they struggled over the tail gate and perched themselves atop our packs in the tray! We both commented that it was nice to see such community spirit in action.

Our ride eventually ended 1.5 hours later in a small nameless town! Our taxi had offered to drive us further to Zumba but our cheufer was unhappy with the price and told us we would wait beside the road for another vehicle. We weren’t sure if we were waiting for a bus or a better priced taxi but we soon realised we were really just waiting for anyone headed in the right direction. We waited for around an hour, on the side of the road, looking in anticipation at every vehicle, hoping they had room for three! When a vehicle finally stopped and our mate yelled, vamos, it’s fair to say we were not expecting to be running towards a petrol tanker. There was definitely some hesitation on our part at first, but we asked the question and were reassured that this was the best option for our journey. So in we piled, 18kg back packs x 2 and the three of us, into the cabin with the driver. We had two seats between the three of us so it made for a squishy couple of hours.

The road ahead was a shambles. It had been cut into a mountain face so, we were told, frequently experienced land slides. Huge boulders and mounds of earth covered the road in parts and blocked the already scarily, narrow road. And to really play on our insecurities, we were very aware that only a slight miscalculation in judgement on the drivers part would have almost certainly ended in our tumbling to a dramatic death down a mountain side! Once we got over our initial fears, we almost forgot we were in a petrol tanker and took in the stunning, distant views.

Arriving at the petrol station outside of Zumba, we paid the driver $4AU each, donned our packs and walked around 2 km into town. The bus that we anticipated catching to the border wasn’t leaving for another four hours so we decided the next leg of the journey would be a taxi.

At the border we were guided into the customs office and were soon walking over a bridge into PERU! Still such a foreign and exciting concept for us that we could walk to another country!!

Arriving in Peru we were quickly introduced into bizaro land! Whilst sitting in the collectivo with two locals, the front seat passenger finished her Corona and simply wound down the window and threw the bottle out of the window onto the side of the road. We both looked at each other and gave some very serious judgey eyes! We were soon to realise that every beautiful Peruvian landscape was heavily littered with plastic. People in buses treat the window as the bin. Anything for the bin just flies out the window into the landscape. This concept has actually really affected us both. Why is there no education about looking after our planet? Why are they not disgusted that their view is obscured by trash? Its a very foreign concept for us that has continued to trouble us throughout our travels.

Anyway, we finally arrived at our accomodation that night after a taxi, petrol tanker, walk, taxi, walk, collectivo commute! Just another day in South America!