I peel back my sweat-sealed eyelids as the bus screeches to a halt. The sun hasn't quite revealed itself, and since my bus seat doesn't recline, I haven't slept much for the past 12 hour ride. As I step off the bus, the vultures pounce. "My fren! My fren! Dis way...." My fists clentch, eyebrows furrow, and as I sling my bag over my shoulder, I venemously trill R's off my tongue as I ask a local where to get my weathered passport stamped. I trust no one here. Border towns are not places for making friends.
Lane and I hop on the back of two motorcycle "taxis", and we zip through the streets of Tumbes, Peru. Clutching onto the sides of the drivers and hoping our weighted bags don't tip our bikes, I chug on a bottle of OJ and watch the madness.
We split a market street at 40, oranges rolling off of fruit stands and bounding before our tires. Sleazy men offer to change counterfeit money, a drunk man sits on the corner and leans into his elbow. Children beg money for glue to sniff or for their parents' drug addictions and taxi drivers overcharge gringos like me. No one is friendly here, and I touch my wallet every 4 seconds. I am no longer pseudo-Panamanian. I am a tourist, and the vultures know it.
We step into the bus station, and buy our tickets for the next leg, a 24 hour ride bound for Lima. Bring on the Land of the Incas.
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Sounds like Tijuana. "Chicle! Chicle!" is all the kids would say as they swarmed you while the mother of the crew of kids sits around the corner hoping they score.
Guess it's hot down there . . . and I've got to walk around in a few inches of snow, not that I'm complaining, but there's a temperature difference between our locations.
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