We were at the bus office at 7.30am, expecting to get onto a CIFA bus, and were a little surprised when instead we were told to pile into a collectivo, a mini bus that squeezes in 12 people (or in our case 12 people and a child) with minimum wiggle room.
Almost two hours later we arrived in Tumbes, and were offloaded at the side of the road. We wheeled our luggage up to another bus office, where we were issued with another bus ticket. About half an hour later (during which the guy at the bus station tried to overcharge us for using the toilet, then tried to lock our cases away "for security" so that we would have to pay him to get them out), another larger bus arrived.
This CIFA bus was more like what we expected, and the six of us headed off to the border 25 minutes away. We had heard that the border crossing was painful, taking up to three hours, which is one reason why many people don't take the day bus. The bus pulled into an area which had a long narrow concrete opening under it complete with stairs so that they could check under the bus - for stowaways or illegal goods maybe? Our fears were unfounded though, the crossing was a breeze as it was very quiet, we were in and out in less than 15 minutes, and we thought that we would get to Cuenca much earlier than we expected.
The bus carried on into Ecuador, and a few minutes later we arrived at another bus station where we were told to get off and wait for the bus to Cuenca, but we weren't told much else. K went asking and found that the bus to Cuenca would leave at 12pm, about 40 minutes later. When the Cuenca bus arrived at 12 we were rushed on in a great hurry - but this wasn't a CIFA bus, it was a Pullman bus, and was pretty crappy and run down - no wifi or aircon as we'd been told when we'd booked. The bus drove for less than five minutes, pulling up at the Pullman office, where we were told to get off. K went to the office to ask what was happening, and was told to relax and get some lunch, it wasn't leaving until 2pm!
After waiting around until 2pm we finally continued our journey to Cuenca, picking up and dropping off people along what way. Our hopes of an early arrival had been dashed, and we finally arrived at the bus terminal in Cuenca around 7pm. (Note to anyone reading this who is looking for information on getting from Mancora to Cuenca by bus .... don't believe any of the stories about how good the buses are, or how long the trip will take, and if you have the option, don't go with CIFA!).
We then had the misfortune of getting a taxi driver who was either an idiot or trying to rip us off (I choose the latter, but there definitely was an element of the former there as well). What should have been a 10 minute taxi ride turned into a 30 minute one when the driver decided to take us via the "scenic route" - luckily we noticed using Google maps that something was amiss, but the driver's incompetence combined with the massive roadworks (in a part of town we had no reason to go through in the first place) stretched the journey.
After finally checking in to our airbnb (where our host had been patiently waiting for over an hour and a half) we decided to walk to the main square for dinner. Cuenca is a very popular retirement city for expats that we had done some research into, and it is known as being clean, cheap, safe and with enough of home mixed with the exotic to be attractive for people to move to.
This is where a day that had been pretty ordinary so far took a turn for the even worse ....
It was around 8:30pm, and we were walking side by side and almost at the square when a man walking towards us punched K in the face with absolutely no warning. K screamed (there were historic buildings crumbling to dust because of the sound), fell to the ground, and then kept screaming, M ran and tackled the man to the ground, holding him down to prevent him from escaping, then yelled for someone to get the police.
A group of people gathered, some of them helping K by getting water and some ice for her bleeding nose and lip. Others were also able to keep the attacker restrained while M tended to K, The police and ambulance eventually arrived, after some discussion we decided that we had to press charges (it's hard to believe that there would even be any question regarding this!).
From there we were taken to multiple police stations, where we thought we were going to give a statement, but instead all we could work out from the various "discussions" (though this was never said explicitly) was that the police would prefer it if we dropped the charges. We held our ground though, which meant we had to visit the hospital to get a doctor's report.
We were driven in the back of a police car (a first for both of us) with flashing lights to the public hospital, fortunately the presence of a police escort meant K was seen very quickly, and after being examined and cleaned up (the doctor was chewing gum and blowing bubbles during the examination!), then X-rayed and given a shot of some painkillers, K was diagnosed with a possible broken nose, to be confirmed at a specialist appointment scheduled for 8am the next day.
By this time we were ready to go home, but the police had other ideas. We were driven back to one of the police stations, and greeted by a woman. We thought this was a lawyer, or interpreter - but it was the attacker's mother! This appeared to be another attempt to get us to drop the charges. This "ambush" upset us immensely (especially K) - we told the police to get her out of our sight ... this was not the right time for them to pull something like this!
We then asked the police when they were taking our statement (who at no point had volunteered anything of any use to us on what was going on, we had to fight for every bit of information), we were told it would be done at 8am the next day. But we had already arranged to see a specialist at that time ... so this prompted another heated "discussion" and one of the police officers started shouting at K - they really wanted us gone. The final outcome being that the police would collect us at 7:30am the next day and take us to our appointment.
We were dropped back at our airbnb just before midnight, both quite hungry and very upset, with K in pretty bad shape with a swollen nose and lip, a suspected broken nose, and a very poor first impression of Cuenca (and its police) at about 11:40pm.
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