Ecudor and Peruvian Boarder

I am currently in Lima, Peru. I spent about a week in Ecuador checking out the city of Quito as well as the southern central part. While in Quito I met up with some friends, one of which was from Quito, who knew the city much better than I. One of the highlights was going to the ¨midad del mundo¨ which is the equator. Apparently a few years ago, due to GPS they realized that they had been about 200 meters off in what they had thought to be the equator. They had built a park and a monument marking the ¨line¨, but in fact it is not correct. Well we went to the current ¨real¨ line and saw all the spectacular occurrences that come with it. You can balance an egg on a nail; they show you how water drains on the line, as well as north and south of the line. I am not sure if it was a trick, but sure enough it does go down in different directions. It was a wonderful tourist trap. I spent the next few days heading south on my route to Peru. A couple of towns really I thought were pretty. Alausí is a town where a train leaves to trudge down the Nariz de Diablo ¨devil´s nose¨. It is a series of switchbacks along a cliffs edge that are quite terrifying. From Alausí I headed to Cuenca. This was a really pretty city, smaller than Quito, but certainly more charming. Crossing the boarder to Peru was a bit nerve racking. There is a bit of a racket with fake money being changed. The fake money changers work with some of the corrupt police in that they will change your money and then a police officer will ask to see the money you changed, tell you its fake and take it from you, god forbid they go directly to the source of the fake money. Well knowing this I only change money at banks. I was stopped by an officer and told he wanted to search my bag for fake money, to which I replied that if he wanted to search me we had to go to the police station so there would be more witnesses, he promptly sent me on my way. Once in Peru I took a 21 hour bus ride to Lima. Sitting anywhere for 21 hours really tests your sanity, not to mention the man pushing 350 pounds sitting next to me. It was an amazing ride though through the desert of western Peru. I had expected peru to be much more lush, but the entire west coast is a baren desert. It is beautiful how the desert ends right into the pacific ocean. Well until next time.