Thursday 24th April 2025 Sullana to Zapotillo (Ecuador)
We ate in the hotel, last night, not the best of meals, chips and salad for me, not what a finely tuned athlete needs, so went over to the shop and got a big bit of cake and a tube of pringles, lot better.

Had the rest of the cake with my breakfast, once again my eyes are bigger than my belly, least it wasn’t wasted, all packed up and riding at 6 in the morning, for the last jaunt in Peru, crossing the border into Ecuador, at the 40 odd mile mark, another border crossing.

Another nice early morning ride through the banana plantations and rice paddy field, very green, with loads of irrigation canals feeding the fields, guys on their little motorbikes whizzing past us with great big machete’s going to the banana plantations we hope, not just riding around with big knifes!

Then just like that the scenery changed again, now gone back to scrub land, bit like being on Dartmoor as we roll along the ups and downs, very little traffic on the road, makes us wonder if there is a border crossing, tried to do a bit of research last night, to be honest nothing came up, could be fun, but keep pedalling. Stopped for a coffee and soft drink at a busy little cafe in Lancones, full of workers having a bit of breakfast, before their hard days toil, got a few strange looks and smiles, them thinking we have a harder day in front of us.

Left the cafe with smiles and waves as we headed north, terrain got a little bit tougher, but nothing serious, just ups and downs, then through some interesting fords, traversing through the streams and rivers, made it quite exciting, good job we are in the dry season, think the road would be unpassable in the rainy season, whenever that is, maybe we should have researched that, but not that good on planning! The streams got bigger and wider for a while, just made it more fun, shame Bingo cleaned the bikes yesterday, they need doing again now.

Finally came into the little border village El Alamor on the Peru side and Lalamor on the Ecuador side, stopped for a soft drink, then I had a beer, it was nearly 11:00 and thought we maybe at the border sometime, so best to keep hydrated, nice little chat with some locals, not really sure what they said, just lots of smiles and arms gesticulating all over the place, seemed like they was having a good time. Then made our way to the Peruvian border crossing, all done in a matter of minutes, great thats half of it done, then over the bridge to their Ecuadorian counterparts, not so quick on this side, but still all done in half an hour, nice work. Now just a gentle ride into the border town of Zapotillo, about 14 miles away, easy ride, got sorted in a little hostel, very easily, now just need some currency, they use the USA dollar, so no big deal, as we have some, but managed to change the Peruvian SOLS over to dollars, happy days, nice little lunch, then sort out how we are going to get to Quito, from here, loads of time though.