28 hours on a bus and we finally made it to Cuenca, Ecuador

The next stop on our itinery is Cuenca, Ecuador. We hopped on a bus and traveled north on a 15 hour bus ride. The bus company we feel has the best service and safety for the money is called Cruz Del Sur. The buses are clean, have a bathroom, and the seats recline "semi- cama", which is like a recliner chair. They also show movies and give you a hot dinner. It's very similar to traveling by plane, except it takes a lot longer. We paid $36 per person. We did look into flights to Cuenca and the best deal we found at the time was around $250 per person. Since we are budget travelers we decided to torture ourselves for a total of 28 hours via bus. We stopped in a town called Piura which we had been to before. We didn't love the city enough to pay $100 for a 2 star hotel for the night, so we kept going. We arrived in Piura at 7a.m. and got on the next bus at 9:00a.m. This bus was not as fancy, but it was fairly clean and comfortable. The tickets cost us $13 each person and took us over the Ecuadorean border in 8 hours. Ok, so five more hours to get to our destination. We arrive at the bus stop in Loja, Ecuador at 5:30 p.m. check the bus schedule to see when the buses to Cuenca are leaving. Unfortunatley, the last one is leaving in 10 minutes. We buy our tickets,which cost $4 each, grab dinner to go and literally run to the bus and jump on. We finally arrive to Cuenca at 11:00p.m. It's nice to be on our feet and off the bus. Which we never had to ride a bus again!

Miraflores, Lima

We flew into Lima, Peru and stayed for a month. We rented a short term apartment off of a site called apartmentclubperu.com. They offer nicely furnished apartments in good, safe locations. We paid about $1600 for the month, which included all utilities and services. This came out to around $53 a day. For a family of five traveling, it was difficult to find a decent hotel at that price. It was a little more than we like to spend but, the plus was that we could cook our own meals and save money this way. We stayed in Miraflores, which is the upscale neighborhood overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Miraflores boasts high rise apartments and condominiums, restaurants, cafes, shopping, parks and a beautiful mall built into the side of a cliff. It is an ideal neighborhood which Peru has groomed to be one of their most attractive tourist destinations. We got to live like locals for a month and discovered little nooks and crannies we had not seen during our last visit. It was nice to enjoy the average 75 degree weather, walk along the waterfront, sit in green parks and indulge in fresh caught seafood.

This seafood platter we really enjoyed at a restaurant called "Sofia" in Chorillos, Lima. It was around $12.00 and was fresh caught by the owner that morning.( This a restaurant Anthony Bourdain went to so, we just had to check it out. We really like Anthony Bourdain and have gone to a lot of the same restaurants he has gone to in different countries. We call it the Anthony Bourdain food tour.)

This is a photo of Lima's skyline and the fishing boats on the Pacific Ocean.

People relaxing on the beach under colorful umbrellas.

Christmas in Lima was surreal!

Pelicans hanging out at the outdoor fish market.

Sign up for Air Watch on tripadvisor.com to get great deals on airfare.

I have to share the EXTRAORDINARY GREAT DEAL we got from signing up for Air Watch on Trip Advisor.com. If you set up a profile and subscribe for Air Watch, you can put in your cities of departure and arrival. It will then send you an email periodically to let you know what the best price other travelers have been booking for that particular month. If you have followed my blog in the past, you may know that we spent over 4 months touring South America about a year ago. Out of all the 6 countries we traveled through we really had a liking for Lima, Peru. So, when I signed up for Air Watch I put Detroit to Lima as my two cities. I received an email late August with an email alert saying that the best airfare to Lima for December $427 rt. When it sends you the alert it shows the airfare for 3 consecutive months. The average price for airfare to Lima from Detroit is usually between $800-$1000 rt. We could n't believe how cheap the airfare was at $427!We thought it was a hoax , actually We were talking about how it would be nice to go somewhere for the winter and ditch the cold temperatures. But frankly, we did not think we could afford to do that this year. It was quite a surprise and we weren't quite prepared for such a nice gift! We tossed the idea around for a few days and weighed out the finances. After much deliberation and prayer, we decided to go for it! As I attempted to book our flight, four days had passed since I received the email email alert. Would the tickets still be available? To my dismay, of course not!Oh well, we missed out. We were really disappointed but it was our fault for not jumping on the opportunity. A week later I received another email letting me know that tickets to Lima were on sale for $417 rt. This was even cheaper than before! We immediately went on line and booked 5 round trip tickets to Lima leaving December 4th coming back March 20th. We were going to escape the cold winter months of Michigan and enjoy the year round 70 degree weather of Lima, Peru. Yippee! We did it. And here we are, as Michigan has record freezing temperatures and snow fall. What a blessing!