On The Condor Trail: Firsts impressions of Peru: San Ignacio

Leaving from Vilcabamba we headed towards Peru by the most direct route. A dirt road winding through the high mountains of southern Ecuador. The road was super impressive with massive landslides all over.

On the way to Peru

For the last leg of the journey to the border we took a "chiva", sort of truck converted into a basic bus. The views were absolutely stunning. A beautiful way to leave Ecuador far from the crowds of tourists.

The chiva

Bye bye Ecuador

Traditional housing

We enterred Peru through the tiny border village of Balsas. The administrative formalities were more than easy in this incredibly small border post. We were only four to pass the border at the time. We felt like we were only distracting the guards from their nap.

Border post

On the other side: Peru

After a 45km taxi ride we finally arrived to the first sizeable town of Peru, San Ignacio. As many other of these small towns San Ignacio felt unfinished and pretty raw but nevertheless quite welcoming.
The first thing that caught our eye was the number of moto taxis, 3 wheeled vehicles powered by a moto at the front. We instantely thought the same thing. How great would it be to carry the trip with one of these crazy machines.

Where could we go with one of these?

The first impressions of Peru were: cheap, much more food diversity (a lot of asian inspired food), a big connection with asia and welcoming people. This clashed a bit with what we had heard of Peru from other travellers, describing the people as cold and ready to take advantage of the first gringo coming.
On the second day this idea of a moto taxi had grown in our heads and we couldn't chase the images of us two with the gliders at the back of the machine cruising through the high Andes free as Condors. We had to try to get one!
We went straight to a little shop where we had already asked information about moto taxi and called a friend of the owner who appeared to have a few of these to sell. 5 minutes later we had the first specimen in front of us. But too expensive. "No problem" says the man, "I'll call another guy he has one to sell that would suit your budget". Ok, off we went through the suburbs of San ignacio and 10 minutes later we were speaking business with the guy. Business also meant to share tequila (or something like it) at 10 on this nice Sunday morning.

Business time

After a few drinks and a sort of weird honey like paste we had a try of the beast. We both managed to crash it right in front of the owner. Embarassing. It wasn't the Tequila (at least I'd like to think so). These machines are very weird to handle as they are propelled only on the left side by a chain which constantly deviates the vehicle towards the right hand side. The absence of front break didn't help as well...
This little trial soothed a bit our excitation, but nevertheless we agreed on a meeting for the next day to sign all the paperwotk at the notary. We were about to get the thing!! Only a few more checks to do with the police to insure that we could drive moto taxis with our french licence and we were good to go.

The next day first thing we headed to the ministry of transport to check if our French licence would do the trick. At the third floor of the municipality building a "big girl" with fake eylashes and lipstick welcomed us to her office. She seemed very happy to see two young Europeans sitting in front of her desk on a Monday morning. She listened to our story with interest and said, "for me there is no problem, but maybe you should check with the head of Police". Alright, she called the man and asked us to wait for a bit for him to come. As always in these countries, there is no waiting for a bit. So we waited patiently while she showed us some photos of herself in different parts of Peru, interesting, but we had business calling us. After an hour she said " you should probably go yourself see the head of Police, but you should tell him that you are two scientific coming for a mission to observe climate change around Peru and that this is the reason why you need a vehicle to transport all your equipment". OK, we asked " but is this really legal to drive such vehicle around Peru?". She said "yeahh sort off, but you never know what the officer is going to say".
This is how it worked, the head of the transport departement asking us very openly to lie to the head of Police. At least it was interesting to see this side of Peru.

At the police station, they told us that it was no problem to drive a 3 wheeled vehicle through Peru with our license. We took the name of the officer and left promptly to the notary to sign the sale.
Our seller wasn't in a hurry even if we were 3 hours late on schedule. This is the good side of things they are late but you can be too. Finally we got in front of the notary and she told us very busy that a law had justy been passed on the previous Friday about selling of goods to foreigners and that she couldn't study it before Wednesday. Hmmmppff! So close...
It was two more days to wait for an uncertain outcome and we had already spent 3 days in this village goign round in circle waiting to buy this thing. So we decided to hit the road and try to find the coveted vehicle in another place.