14 Minutes in Ecuador

I was in Ecuador officially for 14 minutes. We stamped in one line and walked to the other window to unstamp. It was a pretty intense experience once we got out of Tumbes. We were ambushed as we got out of the van we rode up there by a whole crap load of drivers. I didn’t talk to any of them and let the group decide our best route, I witnessed, as Jason was talking to one driver and another guy came up to talk to him, a fist fight and my thoughts were lets get out of here-fast! Upon reflection, it may have all been a part of the scheme to get to scared and get in a car because it was a pretty lame fight(according to the others in my group).

Finally we agreed on S/.(soles) 5 a person to the boarder and got into 2 taxis. As we headed to our taxi I realized the guy we had been talking to was not the driver. The driver was one of the men who had been in the fist fight, but we got in anyway. The man we had been talking to got in the front seat and he played the role of ‘the intimidator’ – the scammer – the lier. He spent the whole ride turned around in Dave, Jamie and my faces. Talking to us really fast and angry once we said we didn’t want his ‘help.’ He informed us that the actual price for our ride to the boarder would be 40 soles, playing that he thought we only wanted to go to the immigration office and this was 38 km(my thoughts were oh, more than a sole a km-how ridiculous). He wanted to ‘help’ us by giving him $30 per passport so that we could get our passports stamped and return within an hour. He told us that if we had to be in Ecuador for 48 hours before we could return or we would only be able to return with a 15 day visa(we needed 90 more days). But, if we paid him he would sit down with a guy(he knew people) and make it all work. He kept telling us that we weren’t understanding him and we didn’t understand how it worked, and that he was only trying to help us. Every time we started discussing our options in English he would interrupt us and talk over us again. At one point, we asked him to stop the taxi because we wanted to talk to our friends in the other taxi. They said they weren’t feeling intimidated and didn’t get he same sketched out vibes, and by the way their taxi ride was still S/. 5 per person. At this point we decided to get to immigration and ditch these guys asap. Once back in the car, more intimidation, but we had made up our minds. I was just waiting for any minute him to turn around again with a knife and say “You know what just go ahead and give me all your money anyway.”

He was so much in our faces all the way to the immigration line. Here he threatened the driver of Emily, Jason and Jimmy into charging S/. 40 for their ride too. They set up a guy to stand in front of us in line to ask about the 48 hour rule, we realized later he was another taxi driver. He was still trying to get us to pay him for his help, just $30 a person, and I was furious. I wanted him to leave us alone and I yelled at him ¡NO TENEMOS ESTO! (We don’t have the money). Which was true, we didn’t have 180 U.S. dollars. Finally we paid them their S/.80 and they left pissed off.

We waited in line a bit for our stamps. When it was my turn, he questioned me. Elizabeth? No, Kori ¿Vives en Perú? No ¿Que haces, eres una estudiante, trabajas acá? No ¿Por qué estas acá para tan tiempo, si no vives en Perú? Ahhh, solo para conocer… he stamped me out with a skeptical look in his eye. I was the only one in our group that got questioned, no one else said a word-not even hola o buenas tardes!

We continued north to the boarder and walked across in a rather anti-climatic way. It’s a bridge that on the Peru side the railing are painted red-white-red and the Ecuador side is yellow-blue-red. Ok, so we’re in Ecuador, now what? Find a place to get a stamp. While looking we talked to a guy who fed us the same 48 hour bull - but at the time we didn’t know that it was bull – he could help us out for only $10 a person, still we didn’t bite. We took a taxi to Ecuador’s immigration office on the outskirts of this boarder town. Again, the guy questioned me, and nobody else, through this little slit in the dark window. He was flipping the pages of my passport, stopped and looked up at me, ¿Que vas hacer? Ummm solo visitor. ¿Pero, donde vas? Este cidudad (I didn’t know the name of the town we were in). He started naming off a few places in Ecuador, and I responded, Si, es esto la cidiudad? No, esto es ______. Ok, quiero conocer este lugar. Ummhmm, he stamped me in with a skeptical look in his eye.

We next walked 10 feet to our left to wait in the line to get stamped back out of the country, for a grand total of 14 minutes officially in Ecuador. We headed for lunch on the Ecuador side at a restaurant that had very little food, at least 4 of us ordered something different that they were out of. There we tried the puro sabor nacional del Equador, Tropical and we decided Inca Kola is better-we must truly be Peruanos. At lunch Jamie called Hunter and Ruth to hypothesis what actions we should take if we only get stamped for 15 days at re-entry. We thought we’d simply stay in Ecuador for the 48 hours, find a dive hostel and stick it out. But, thinking about the anti-climaticness of the boarder. We could easily cross and make it back to Mancora and our fun in the sun beach house without notice. Hunter gave us the name and cell number of a congresswoman we work with to drop, and if it came down to it, and needed to disscuss it with the US consulate here is his number(this option was more of a joke, being Hunter’s cell number).

We encountered a taxi driver on our walk back over the boarder who wanted at first to take us to immigration, then Tumbes, we said nah, we are headed to Mancora, then he offered to take us back to Mancora, then a stop off at the market for our dinner groceries then on to our beach house south of Mancora. Some people argue for price, we argued for distance! Back at Peru immigration, it was easy and not intimidating at all. Again the guy asked me(and only me) questions, but this was in a more conversational, matter of fact sort of way, and stamped me back in for 90 more days.

Artsy-fartsy photo album: http://owu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012021&l=ee22a&id=24100417
Half-way point photo album: http://owu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012031&l=44208&id=24100417