Ecuador and Colombia
San Agustin, 22nd June, 2009- Hills, Hills, Hills...
After saying our goodbyes to Debs and Jack we had a day off in Quito to do a few jobs that needed doing. We also met up with Paola, Igel and Dave H, cyclists we had previously met in Peru. We had a few beers and pizza and tried to get an early night, ready for our cycle out of Quito.
The following morning, we slowly climbed out of Quito and were excited that we would soon be crossing the Equator, another big milestone on our journey. After 75 km, we arrived at the Equator monument, where we met Alex, a local guide who told us all about the significance and importance of the Equator. He also asked us if we needed a place to camp for the night and offered us a place on his family's land, which was only 5 minutes away. We spent time chatting to the family. That night, we were blessed with a spectacular clear evening and were able to admire the different star constellations.
We made an early start towards Ibarra, stopping at Otavalo for lunch and a quick visit to the market. In the afternoon, we were caught in a very heavy downpour which followed us into Ibarra, where we stayed with Danyhel, who we had contacted through www.warmshowers.org
We spent the evening chatting with the family, whom all worked in education and we were interested to learn about the education system in Ecuador. In return, they wanted to learn about the UK education system, asking Kelly to teach them some division techniques, as it is different to the methods they use in Ecuador. Kelly was in her element, they even had a white board set up in their living room. We also had the pleasure of watching Ecuador beat Argentina 2-0 in a World Cup qualifying match. Maradona's face was a picture at the end of the match.
We were on the road by 0700 and after a short climb out of Ibarra we had a descent into Valle del Chota, which is famous for its African communities that settled here during the colonial times and have maintained a lot of their traditions and customs.
We were both feeling rather tired and knew we had a long climb ahead therefore decided to have a short day and try and get some rest. We stayed in a place called Ambuqui, where we splashed out staying in a Hosteria for 16 USD. We had a sauna, jacuzzi and steam room all to ourselves as we were the only guests staying there.
We were ready to start the long climb towards San Gabriel and met Charlie a cyclist from the States who was on his way to Bolivia. He had been working for a volunteer programme for Quetzel Trekkers, (who are also setting up a similar project in Sucre, Bolivia). Both Kelly and I are hoping to volunteer with them once we get to Central America.
After meeting Charlie, we had more rain that afternoon but managed to arrive into San Gabriel and found a cheap Residential for the night. It was interesting to chat to a few teachers and children who were making and selling empanadas in the residential to try and raise money for their Year 7 school visit to the coast next year.
The following day we woke up to more rain but we were so excited that we would be crossing into Colombia that we didn't let it dampen our spirits. That day, we also hit our 10,000km mark, which soon followed with Kelly getting her fourth puncture of the journey. We duly celebrated our 10,000km with a second breakfast which fuelled us on to cross the border.
After easy border formalities and pleased that we were given a 90 day visa, we were finally in Colombia! We stopped in Ipiales, and decided we should have another celebration of pizza as we reflected on our journey so far.
The pizza didn't seem to agree with Kelly, who spent the night and the following day bringing it all back up again. A rest day sorted Kelly out and we then hit the Colombia roads. We met many friendly cyclists whom we stopped to chat to and many people in cars gave us beeps of encouragement. We wondered why the roads were so busy on the Monday and found out that Colombia has Lunes Festivos- Monday festivals, which are a national holiday. There are apparently about 20 within the calendar year, we couldn't find out the exact reason why they are public holidays except that a politician decided it would be a good idea!
From Ipiales, we had a good downhill section to Pedregales, passing numerous military checkpoints-all of whom waved us through with smiles and waves of encouragement. After lunch, we got ourselves ready for the 27km of uphill, which we completed in the rain, and hoped to get to Pasto before nightfall. The climb was never-ending, but it was broken up with a Colombian family frantically jumping out of their car and the mother and daughter proceeded to slink themselves around me in different poses, it must have been my new found skinniness!
On arrival to Pasto, we treated ourselves to a night in a lovely backpackers, Koala Inn and had our first delicious pancakes of the trip! The following day we climbed out of Pasto, again in the rain, but were kept company by another Colombia cyclist. We had spectacular scenery of deep gorges. We eventually made it to El Tablon, where we were offered a building site to camp in for the night. It was a great little spot which kept us dry, but neither of us had any sleep as we felt that the passing trucks and buses were driving over our heads all night long.
Since neither of us slept, we managed an early start, had a nice 16km downhill section and then after cycling in ridiculous humidity, we relaxed in Mojarres for a few hours, chatting to a Costa Rican couple on bikes heading south and exchange route notes.
We decided to try and plod on a bit further and get to El Bordo for the night, thankfully finally had a little bit of flat which compensated for the heat. On our final 5km uphill section we met a large group of Colombian cyclists. We stopped to chat to them and one of the cyclists, Francisco, offered us dinner and a bed for the night, an offer we kindly accepted. Francisco and his wife treated us to amazing hospitality and made sure that we were well fed for our journey to Popayan.
On arrival to Popayan we were shattered! We decided to just stay just the one night in the colonial, whitewashed town of Popayan, preferring to take a bus detour to San Agustin for a much needed holiday. From Quito to Popayan, the going has been quite hard as the hills have been relentless, the equivalent of cycling up Snowdon or more every day and we haven?t had a proper break since Trujillo in Peru.
We are now relaxing in the Casa de Ciclistas in San Agustin, waiting for the owners and our friends, Igel and Paola to join us from their cycling trip. Both Kelly and I are enjoying time off from the bikes. The house is beautiful, set in 2 or 3 acres of land and surrounded by fruit trees. We have been enjoying lazing in the hammock reading and I have been enjoying the opportunity to cook and feed everyone in the house. Yesterday, with David H arriving, we all had a baking day, lighting the bread oven and making different types of breads and chocolate cakes!
As for San Agustin, the seven hour horrendous bus journey on the most awful roads was definitely worth the detour. It has a laid back, quite artist feel to it with horse drawn carts still being used in the streets. San Agustin is the archaeological capital of Colombia and so once we have relaxed for a few more day we will be off to discover and learn a little more about the ancient cultures that lived in the surrounding area.
So far, we are really enjoying Colombia, the people have been so friendly and their hospitality has been amazing and we are looking forward to getting to know it in more detail.
Quito, 8th June 2009
We have had an absolutely fantastic time cycling with our friends, Deborah and Jack. In the two weeks of cycling with them, we managed to visit all three of Ecuador's climatic zones, cycle over 500km, including a pass which stood at 4065m and clocked up high speeds on the downhill sections- 70km/ph (Deborah) and 80km/ph (Jack).
Things didn't look like they were off to a good start at the beginning of the journey as Debs and Jack arrived empty-handed through customs. Their bikes hadn't made the connection from Madrid to Guayaquil.
We kept our fingers crossed that they would arrive on the evening flight and decided to take the time to visit the only two interesting things that Guayaquil has to offer- the iguanas that roam around in the parks of downtown Guayaquil and the newly developed waterfront Malecon.
Thankfully by the evening, Dave and Jack returned from the airport with the two bike boxes. The bikes were assembled and Dave took the empty bike boxes to the bus station and sent them on the bus to Quito (to save a day at the other end, trying to find new bike boxes).
We were ready to set off the following day. The first day involved weaving in and out of the city traffic in 36 degrees of heat and then we made the most of the flat tarmac road which headed towards the mountains. We clocked up a very respectable 106km and settled down for the night in the grounds of a hosteria near to Bucay (a hosteria is a place where Ecuadorians go for the day to get out of the cities or towns. It often consists of beautiful cabins set in lush grounds and often has a swimming pool. Hosterias are often used as a place to hold parties and weddings). For two dollars each, the owner gave us permission to camp in their grounds and we made use of having our own private pool to use, showers, light and tables to sit at. It made a great end to a fantastic day!
From Bucay, the only way was up, up and more up into the mountains to head towards Riobamaba. It has to be said that Debs and Jack are nails. Both of them were really willing to have a go at the steep inclines of the never-ending hills, and although we were all sweating buckets, they didn't once complain. In two days we had clocked up an ascent of over 2000m, taking us from banana plantations into the Ecuadorian cloud forest with some beautiful camping spots. Hosteria Ecovita www.vivecovita.com put us up for free in their tropical grounds and another night we camped beside a stream.
We had to bus the few remaining kilometers into Riobamba as Jack and I were suffering from a bug. With many of the hotels occupied for a conference, we were offered a room with four beds and a kitchenette (Hotel Oasis $8pp) which was set around a beautiful garden.
Around the centre, Riobamba had a nice feel to it, we were lucky enough to be there during market day and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the indigenous people that were in their traditional dress and sampling unusual fruits and vegetables.
We stumbled upon a lively parade that was starting in the central plaza and discovered that they were celebrating the Day of the Child, a day where children's rights are celebrated, along with the communities that they were from. It reminded me a lot of Baden-Powell and St. Peter's Global Week where the children learnt about their rights and I thought that it would be great if we could have something like that back in the UK.
Up in the mountains we had experienced lingering low lying cloud which obscured any chance we would have of seeing the volcanoes and spectacular mountain scenery that we had heard so much about. We decided to change our route and instead we headed towards Banos, where we had heard about a great downhill route following waterfalls and hot springs. However, it was in Banos that we had the worst night's camping that we have experienced so far...
It all started well, we treated ourselves to chocolate cake and coffee and then were excited to meet a Dutch couple traveling with their 11 year old and 13 year old children on tandems. They had cycled down from LA. (www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/4438).
As it was getting dark, we decided to ask a local policeman where it was safe to camp. He recommended camping near to or in the hot springs complex of El Salado, 2.5km out of town and where we would have a great view of the volcano in the morning. Unfortunately, we were unable to camp in the complex, but we found a nearby dirt track that lead up to a grassy area - a perfect spot.
Firstly, we had an initial scare as we discovered a huge silver back spider that was trying to get into one of the tents and then discovered quite a few more crawling around in the grass.
We then had a fire and Debs made damper bread to go our veggie stew and after a glass of red wine and a chat about what a great day we had, we settled down to sleep. About midnight, we were awoken with a start as the volcano began erupting. We had been told by a local that this happens very frequently and not to worry, but the sound was immense.
At 3am Dave awoke with a jump, grabbed the torch and literally dived out of the tent head first and wearing only his boxer shorts. He had heard someone trying to tinker with the locks on our bikes. Two men were crouching and lying in the long grass about 5 meters from our tent and the third was being blinded by Dave's torch light. It is a god send that Dave can speak fluent Spanish as he confronted the three men. A tense exchange took place as the men tried to say that we were camping illegally, hence their appearance at 3am in the morning. They were quite persistent in trying to find out where we were from. Dave told them we had permission to camp and asked them what they were doing sneaking around our tents in the early hours of the morning. We weren't sure whether they were armed or not, so with quick thinking, Dave asked me to give him the mobile phone and he pretended to call the police on it, despite it being broken. He spoke loud enough so that the men could hear what he was saying. With that, they tried to throw a stone at him and then all three shot off in the dark down the track. Needless to say none of us got much sleep for the rest of the night as we were worried that they may return and added to our worries, the volcano continued to erupt in the night.
With first light we packed up, had a look at the volcano (no sign of lava!) and launched ourselves into the hot springs to relax and unwind. We weren't sure who the men were, they could have seen us pushing our bikes up the track, or they could have heard about us from a few of the local farmers we had talked to that passed our tents after working in the fields. Perhaps they saw our fire? It was a really shame as it was the first incident of this kind that we have experienced in seven months.
In the morning, we tried to tell the police, but they weren't too interested and so we told the Tourist Office instead. The Tourist Officer was very concerned and he told us to let other cyclists know that if they wish to camp, he can offer space to camp in his restaurant:
Chez Roberto Grill Bar, Velasco Ibarra- in front of Parque Montalva, Banos. Ask for Ing. Msc. Washington Ortiz.
After a stressful night, we decided that an English breakfast and we headed to a cafe that the Dutch couple had pointed out the previous night. We enjoyed bacon for the first time in seven months and chatted with the Dutch family.
From Banos, we followed the "Route of the Waterfalls" a 61km, mostly downhill journey towards Puyo and the fringes of the jungle. We decided to treat ourselves as we were all in need of a good night's sleep and checked into Hostal Las Palmas, (probably the best of the bunch in Puyo www.hotelesecuador.com.ec). As we looked out over the balcony, the taste and smell of the jungle wetted our appetites and we decided that we would continue to head north through the jungle and towards Quito.
It was an excellent decision, and we weren't disappointed. Within the first ten kilometers of leaving Puyo, we swerved to avoid a snake in the road, saw two dead tarantulas-slightly unnerving to see how big they were. We watched leaf-cutter ants working and tried to work out what all the unusual road kills were left on the road and tried to recognize sounds of the jungle.
The tropical scenery was amazing and certainly hot and humid. We didn't need much persuasion to stop and take a dip in one of the rivers, and we watched five different types of butterfly drinking from the sand.
We entered the little village of Mishualli after a tiring, but rewarding 90km day of rolling hills and humid weather. We were taken in by Kepa, a mad Basque man who had been living in the jungle for 28 years and for the last 18 years had been offering cabins for tourists (Txalaparta Cabins). He was a Frank Zappa look-a-like and greeted us with long flowing hair and very bright short shorts! Initially we weren't sure whether he was suffering from jungle fever or was just a very hyper sort of person, but he kindly said that we could either camp on his grounds or use one of his cabins, adding that his house was our house, we could stay as long as we wanted and just to leave any donation that we wanted at the end if we wanted. We opted for the cabins which were set amongst tropical fruit trees and we had amazing views of the river snaking through the jungle.
We had a great, if not slightly crazy few days as we got to know Kepa and the village of Mishualli. We chatted to Kepa over dinner and found out that his vice was the local sugar cane rocket fuel, which accounted for his love of dancing on tables! He explained to us that he had an open door policy for animals and humans-they could come and go as they pleased. He was enthusiastic to show us all the animals and insects that lived or visited his house, including spiders, moths and beetles.
I was a little jumpy after seeing all the insects and so Debs and I decided to skip the night walk that Dave and Jack had planned. They only went out for about 20 minutes and ventured about 200m from the cabins, but in that short time they saw a small cat like animal, numerous big spiders, a mouse and Dave nearly stepped on a 5ft black and red snake which we think was either a coral or fake coral snake.
Mishualli had a cool, laid back vibe to it, perfect for a rest day. Kepa took us to visit an enormous 500 year old tree (which we think was cedar), it must have had a diameter of about 30m and then we settled in the square to watch the monkeys that have taken up residency in the middle of the town. The monkeys were comical, friendly and outrageous thieves. Both Dave and I had two monkeys hanging off our legs successfully undoing our zip pockets, looking for any food they could steal.
We decided that a relaxing float down the river was the best way to view the jungle, and so we booked to go "tubing" which involved laying on an over inflated car tube and floating down the river. What we didn't realize was that we would also be floating (and swimming) down the rapids. It turned out to be an exhilarating, if not slightly bizarre experience. One in which the British Canoe Union would be spitting fire about due to the complete lack of instruction or safety and rescue kit!
After the tubing, we set off from Tena. We had an afternoon of cycling in the rain and all of us discovered that our panniers weren't waterproof. None of us fancied the idea of camping out in the fields, and so asked if we could set up our tents in a local community centre, where we tried to dry our clothes and entertained ourselves with scrabble and rummy. With time plodding on, we decided that the best way to maximize time was to visit the thermal pools of Papallacta and then spend a couple of days in Quito.
At 3300m, Papallacta was quite chilly, but for $4 each, we were given a garden to camp in (Hostel Antisana) and the owner filled up a swimming pool with thermal waters for us to enjoy for the afternoon and evening. Jack couldn't wait for it to fill up, so he jumped in and let the fountain of water act like a massage!
It was still cold and drizzling as we left Papallacta for our final day of cycling with Debs and Jack. We had a 700m climb up to the 4065m pass, we plodded up, stopping quite regularly to catch our breath in the thinner air. We piled on all our clothes for the downhill descent and watched as Debs and Jack flew down the hill hitting 70km/ph and 80 odd km/ph.
As we have learnt, Ecuador is synonymous with hills and for the final part we had another 700m steep and cheeky climb up into the Old Town of Quito. Thankfully, an Ecuadorian cyclist stopped us as he was driving past us in his car and jumped out to give us directions for a quieter and somewhat easier route into the city.
A celebration was called for, we checked into Hotel Vega ($6 pp) a friendly and safe hostel nestled within the Old Town, and after a day of exploring the beautiful churches, impressive plazas and interesting side streets we managed to find a cool restaurant serving up Argentinean style steaks and red wine (La Vaca Borracha, Carchi Oe4-39 y Venezuela, opposite the Basilica), which overlooked the Basilica.
Yesterday, we enjoyed going up the telesfericofor Deborah and Jack's last day and standing at 4100m we had fantastic views over the city of Quito.
Dave and I were quite sad to say our goodbyes as we have thoroughly enjoyed having company and sharing our new lifestyles with our friends.
As luck would have it, Igel and Paola, the German couple we met in Peru (who are cycling with their dog) are also in Quito and so we went to help celebrate Igel's birthday. Today we are also hoping to catch up with David Holmes (whom was also at the Casa de Ciclista's in Peru), before we start to head North again.
The equator is a days cycle away and then we are really looking forward to crossing into Colombia in a few days. We have met so many cyclists who have come down through Colombia and they have raved about the country, our plan at the moment is to try and take our time through Colombia to really explore all that it has to offer.
