We bought tickets for the 8 hour overnight bus journey leaving at about 11pm and taking us across the border to Piura, Peru. Unfortunately we didn't look very carefully at the map and assumed that the frontier was quite close to our departure point, Loja.

This wasn’t exactly correct and instead we had to travel for about four hours before piling out of the bus to go through the border rituals. We had therefore had very little sleep when we arrived and were mercilessly overcharged by a taxi driver who drove us round to try to find a hotel. Still the hotel was pretty reasonable.

Perhaps it was our argument with the taxi driver but we became very conscious of how much taxis and other vehicles constantly beep their horns here. Taxis beep at every possible fare, all cars beep to get other traffic to move or to stop. Every corner needs a beep and when a car approaches a major junction, rather than slowing to assess the risk, they keep going at full speed while repeatedly blowing their horn. We found some signs actually forbidding the use of the klaxon but these were completely ignored, even by passing police vehicles. We were also reminded of a joke we were told some while ago; when trying to come up with a definition of a microsecond, the SI unit board considered, "the period of time between a South American traffic light going green and the second car sounding its horn".

We spent a little time sightseeing in the town but our hearts were not really in it. However, we did find an attractive area just off the main square where the walls have been treated to attractive mosaic and there is some nice shady seating.

We also found a local park where a past attraction was a substantial water tower that people used to be able to climb up for the view. It is obviously now falling to pieces and someone has usefully painted a notice to say that the area under the tower is high risk. Unfortunately they have not actually cordoned off the area, so anyone is still free to clamber over the fallen bricks and try to climb the tower!