Day 56 – Riobamba, Ecuador to Mancora, Peru

LOOOOOONG day – started at 9am and ended at 9pm!
Good riding this morning along the mountains of Ecuador – quite chilly
– and high up – we could notice that the bikes had a lot less power
and consumed less gasoline at these altitudes.
Around noon we started the descent towards the coast – the sky was
gray the entire day but fortunately no rain.
We had around 300 miles to cover today since between Riobamba and
Mancora there isn't much in terms of tourism at all – it is quite a
rural area with poor villages along the way.
The border… well… I was expecting the worst since we never
officially left Colombia or entered Ecuador.
A pair of helpers aided us through the whole process. After about 3
hours and some expensive bribes we were able to get the exit stamp
from Ecuador to get into Peru and the documentation for the
motorcycles to enter Peru, which only came after the Ecuadorian
customs also got a bribe. We were at fault but some good negotiation
of the fees were necessary – their initial figures were always cut
down substantially…
In any case – we got to Mancora at night – well worth the trip!!
There were so many hotel options that we had a hard time deciding
which hotel to stay in. We finally decided on one and it turned out to
be the best in town – very nice.
Slow internet so you'll have to wait for the videos of the past two
days 🙂

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