San Ignacio, Peru
Crossing the Border in the Wilderness
February 1, 2008
Fear is the wilderland
Stepping stones or sinking sand
- Joni Mitchell
South of Vilcabamba towards Peru most maps show a road going only as far as Zumba, a 5-6 hour bus ride away. In fact, there is a road, or more accurately a dirt track that runs south from Zumba to La Balsa, which sits at the Ecuador-Peru border. So I was in fact going where roads do not go, at least the paved ones.
The bus ride from Vilcabamba to Zumba was a slow one and the road was unpaved but in rather good condition, despite the few rivers and waterfalls that flowed across it at a few points. The scenery was beautiful with steep green cliffs, mountains, and interesting cloud forest type vegetation. We stopped a few times at towns that never made it onto any map and were so isolated that I was surprised that some had electricity.
The road was so steep and winding that it took almost 6 hours to travel the 65 miles to Zumba. As we approached Zumba there was a military checkpoint and since I was the only tourist on the bus, everyone had to wait for me to sign in at the checkpoint. Then it was a few more minutes to Zumba, located amidst the steep hills of the region. In Zumba the sun was powerfully hot and most of the people were walking around with umbrellas to shield themselves from its radiating heat. I arrived around 2:30pm and had to wait until 5:30pm for the rancherra, an open sided small bus, that would make the 90-minute ride south to La Balsa. The bus terminal in Zumba consists of two rows of wooden shacks and a dirt lot overlooking the surrounding mountains. After eating lunch, there wasn´t anything to do in town so I sat down and waited.
When 5:30 came the rancherra was loaded up with sacks of rice, gas cylinders, and other luggage and we headed south on the rough dirt road, crossing several rivers and there were some great views of the wilderness. After another military checkpoint, where the officers pretended to search the rancherra the road branched off and we headed to an isolated town near the top of the mountain to drop some people off before proceeding to La Balsa. By the time we arrived in La Balsa it was a little after 7:30pm and most of the people had already gotten off the bus elsewhere so there were just a few of us left, of those few only one Ecuadorean and I were actually crossing the border to Peru. I have no idea where the other passengers went but they just sort of disappeared into the night. This was odd because there wasn´t anything in La Balsa, it isn´t even really a town.
There were two restaurants, the immigration office, a small store and money exchange, and some abandoned looking shacks. Everything was closed save for the two restaurants and there was a man in his underwear washing himself with a hose in the street. The road to Peru was blocked with a long piece of bamboo that closed the bridge across the river. We had to wait a few minutes for the immigration officer to appear and then he quickly stamped my passport without asking any questions and I was on my way to Peru. I went around the bamboo blockade and was in no-man´s land on the dimly lit bridge over the river, the only piece of pavement within more than 50 miles in either direction. On the Peruvian side I had to wait for the immigration officer to finish eating dinner and watching a soccer game before I could get my passport stamped.
By then it was a bit after 8pm and there were a few people with cars waiting around to drive people from the border to the nearest towns. The road leading to the border is so rough that there are no buses or other public transport, only shared cars, known as combis. Being the only person that crossed the border and also the last person that would cross the border that night I was a bit stuck as there is no place to spend the night on the border and the nearest town is about 15 minutes away. The drivers knew that I didn´t have many options and had no bargaining power. My choices were to either pay $20 for a ride to San Ignacio, 2 hours away and the nearest populated area, pay $7 for a ride to Namballe a dump of a town 15 minutes away, or sleep outside at the border until 10am when more people would cross the border and then pay $5 to go to San Ignacio. I opted to pay more money and go straight to San Ignacio.
This night also happened to coincide with the new moon and despite the few underpowered streetlights it was incredibly dark outside. Once we left the relative civilization of the border area it was pitch black outside and more or less totally silent except for the car motor. When we reached Namballe I knew that I made the right decision as the buildings were literally falling apart and the town didn´t have anything to offer, save for proximity to the border. Another 90 minutes later and we reached San Ignacio, with many more signs of life, the promise of infrastructure, and links to the real world. I had the driver drop me at some hotel that he recommended, although of course I couldn´t pay for the room because I hadn´t been able to exchange any money since everything was closed. The man at the hotel was kind of enough to let me pay him in the morning. At least I had arrived somewhere that was on the maps.
The next morning I set out to find an ATM to try to obtain some Peruvian Soles and avoid having to exchange money. It didn´t take me long to find an ATM, however, it wouldn´t accept my card so I had to wait in line at the bank around the corner, the only bank in town. After waiting in line for 15 minutes the clerk at the bank told me that the bank doesn´t exchange money. How a bank relatively near an international border doesn´t exchange money was beyond reason. The clerk told me there was someplace to exchange money a few blocks down and to the left but after walking for 15 minutes I couldn´t find it. Then a woman who had seen me in the bank asked what I was looking for and offered to take me to the exchange place. It was a good thing that I took her up on the offer because the money exchange was with a man who worked at a furniture/electronics store and naturally there were no signs since this was unofficial type of side-business.
Of the $30 I wanted to exchange he only accepted $20 because the other bills were too dirty. So I had $20 to make it to the next city where I would hopefully be able to use my ATM card. I found the place where the combis left for Jaen, a 3 hour ride away, paid my 10 soles ($3.33), and waited for the minivan to depart. A few minutes before leaving another car arrived from Jaen with two Mormon missionaries from the USA. They told me that the car in front of them had just been carjacked, everyone had been robbed and then the thieves stole the car. This wasn´t really too promising as I was headed the same way but I thought that if it just happened the odds of it happening again on the same route were probably much lower. Luckily we made it safely to Jaen, despite riding crammed in with 17 adults and 6 kids in the minivan over the roughshod road.
The road, which contrary to the guidebook was not being re-paved, had been paved many years ago and had since deteriorated into a patchwork of pavement, potholed gravel, and rock. Arriving in Jaen, it was a busy, hot, and dusty place, more similar to Asia than to the parts of South America I had previously been with the rice fields and hundreds of moto-taxis zooming about. I managed to find the only bank in town with an ATM and thankfully it accepted my card so I was able to resupply with money. After having lunch I was able to arrange transportation in combis, as the buses run very infrequently, towards Pedro Ruiz, a small crossroads town on the route to Chachopoyas or Tarapoto. Near Pedro Ruiz is Gocta, supposedly the world´s third highest waterfall, so that is next and then south to the fortress of Kuelap.