Border towns like busy airports can be hard work for the gringo wet behind the ears. There are so many helpful people but what they mostly want is your money for their services, which is a good thing but it can sometimes be difficult as they think of you as rich and absolutely needing their help. (Which gives them a decidedly good business advantage which they can also use to take you for a ride)
Some border crossings are clear cut and simple and basically the procedure is get a stamp in your passport from immigration to show you have left the country and then afterwards at the next immigration office pertaining to the country you are going to receive a stamp showing that you are now in that country.
If your goal is to cross the border simply to leave the country to return again (to get a new visa usually 90 days) the best advice would probably get a bus that is going to a town beyond the border as they will take you to where you need to go for all your immigration needs and you will avoid harassment from the always eager to help people.
Learning From Experiance
It is said that “good judgement comes from experience and that experience comes from bad judgement.” This was true in my case. I arrived to the border town which I made my destination and in doing so passed the Ecuadorian immigration office a little out of town. So there I am in the middle of the town without having checked out as it were. In an instant someone is there to help me with his trike bicycle to take me to the bridge and saying that from there I can get a taxi to the immigration office on the Peruvian side. (often a river or something similar is used as the line between one country and the next)
Here is an example of some Trikes below.
So I jump on the the bike and enjoy the ride. Before long however some of his friends try to become my friends and help me out. So now I feel like an uncomfortable king sitting on some throne being wheeled with three people behind me, uncomfortable knowing what there designs were and me with not much local currency, which I was hoping to use for a night at a hotel also! Any way long storey short I get to the bridge and discover from my helpful friends that I need to check out of Ecuador first. (A border town is often a limbo zone in the sense that you are in effect between two country's and whether you have left or arrived is dependant more on your passport status then your location.) So I had to take a taxi back to immigration 5 minutes away get my left Ecuador stamp and get the taxi back to town. By this stage a was feeling a bit “bravo” which means A bit grumpy, having travelled 13 hours from the night before with little sleep, being told by immigration to return again to Ecuador would cost $200 dollars and having been ripped of by my bike friend. I return to the bus station and decide to wait for the next International bus to the next town. I was hoping initially to go to the border town and get all the stamps I needed and return, but I could see It would be a better Idea to just go to the next town and wait a day or two and then bus back.
What does one do on a long haul bus trip to fight of boredom?
Well there is the obvious looking out the window, sleep, read a book, talk to the person beside you, meditate on some profound thought, think about how you would like to go to brazil, watch fellow bus mates succumb to boredom and throwing confectionary at their travelling companions or perhaps ponder on how long your journey is and whether you are close too your bus exchange point or if maybe you have passed it. So many things to do.
Here in Ecuador I have been reading quite a few books mostly that which I have downloaded onto my iPod. I have read the Count of Monte Cristo which is the second time I have read it and must say it is one of my favourite books. I have also read some older books such as Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, Treasure Island, The Adventures of Sherlock Homes, The South Pole (Written by Roald Amundsen of his record expedition to the South Pole, a very interesting read but if you love husky's you may not want to read it) and I have even read Pride and Prejudice which I just recently finished. Another great book I have been reading is The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson which is a book with many great facts and analogy's in the fields of … well nearly everything but not excluding cosmology, science, chemistry and Palaeontology.
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