Paul and his comrade Andono were both disappointed that I wouldn’t sign up for a quick 3 hour jungle tour before heading out. I honestly would have loved to. But I was worried about my legs, and worried about my available daylight and the amount of elevation gain on my agenda today. I guess I’ll have to come back to Ecuador to see the monkeys and lemurs! I did see and hear a wild parrot though!

Started biking at 9, and until about 4, I don’t think I moved out of my granny gear more than three times. I also didn’t stop at the appropriate places for lunch, so when I was seriously hungry, there were no lunch options. I’ve been carrying very little food or water, because till now there’s been plenty of roadside restaurants, shops, food stalls, and tons of water everywhere. I will keep on not carrying more than one bottle of water – I have the water filter and there’s been no shortage of opportunities to use it. But maybe I’ll carry more food.

Partway through the afternoon, I saw a car pulled over with triangles infront and behind, so I stopped to chat with the stranded couple while they waited for their tow truck. They seemed happy for the distraction, and I was up for any excuse to have a breather. We shared some snacks and fruits. He runs a shop in Quito selling goods from the Amazon region, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to visit when I’m back in the city!

Then I had 2 more hours riding before I reached Baeza. There, I walked into the first accommodation option I saw, and the lovely lady in the hotel lobby was quick to offer me a room and to say that they could also do laundry for me. Hah. She then gave me a recommendation for supper, and now that I’m warm and dry and well fed, I’m feeling significantly more human.

F

67.6 kms
Ave: 14.7
Max 65.4

I woke up to the sound of rain, so I stayed in my storage building for as long as possible, and dawdled over breakfast – apparently breakfast is included. Scrambled eggs, a toasted cheese sandwich, fresh squeezed pineapple juice and a cup of hot milk. (I’m a weird camper already, might as well ask for a weird morning beverage) Around 10 it stopped raining and I hit the road, but it soon started to rain again.

The vast majority of drivers leave loads of room when they pass, and often give a wee honk when they’re about to pass, which is much appreciated.

I arrived at Tena around 3pm, and with the help of long-distance travel agent Alice and 2 cheese empanadas and one supposedly chocolate bun (disappointingly short on chocolate) … I got motivated to carry on another 22kms. It was a hard go, because from Tena until Papallacta, there is not much except up. Nearly 4000m of elevation gain in total. So as much as I go up today, that’s less up I have to do tomorrow and the next day. 

After sitting vegetatively in the common area for a long while, I eventually met Paul, the enthusiastic proprietor. Paul was keen to make me some soup for supper and wanted to chat for way longer than I had energy for.

F

Distance: 82.1 km
Ave speed: 17.0 km/hr
Max speed: 60.3 km/hr

This was not a hardship, as it was gorgeous. While coasting down a fairly sizable hill, a truck pulled alongside me, and a little girl insisted on giving me some watermelon flavoured gummies out the window. Later, at the top of a hard climb, I stopped at a pullout to use the bano, where there was a stall of folks processing sugar cane. They took pity on me and gave me a cup of cane juice (which is a frightening mossy green colour but tastes great).

Arrived in Puyo at about 1pm, just as the rain started. I rolled into a restaurant and garbled my way through asking for some food. Without a written menu, I was totally lost in high-speed Espanol and asked for the server’s favourite thing. What they brought me was a big bowl of cabbage, potato and pork hock soup, and then a huge plate of rice, beet and onion salad, fried plantain, chicken and beans. All for $2.50 US. It also came with much appreciated refilling juice.

My plan had been to stay in Puyo but it seemed too early to stop, so I found a campground on the map further along my route and skipped out on the attractions of Puyo. It turns out that my request to camp was unusual, but they had a mostly empty storage building big enough for my tent, and that suits me fine.

F

We arrived in Baños in the dark, so it was quite striking in the morning to see the landscape as the mist drifted and lifted. Tungurahua volcano is right there, and there’s streams and jungle everywhere. We biked from our hotel along the Pastaza river and took a zipline across and walked back over a suspension bridge. We made a quick tour to see the Diablo waterfall, and Jonathan introduced us to guaba fruit. We had the local delicacy of fried trout for lunch.

From now on, it’ll be no more cool folk, just me on my lonesome. So I signed up to go rafting in the afternoon, to ease my way into lonesomeness. It was quite disorganized and annoying compared to my activities up till now. Rio Pastaza is a class 3 river but lately there’s been a lot of rain so the river is extra full and extra silty. My raft cohort was pretty dysfunctional, and we got beached up on rocks several times. The dysfunction of raft “Pirañas Internationales” included people falling over while trying to carry the raft to the river, squeamishness about getting their feet wet, and prioritizing posing for pictures over boat safety instruction.

On the way back to Baños we got stuck in a traffic jam, so there wasn’t time for much else in the day: I went back to the hotel, did my laundry in the shower, and reorganized my gear for solo bike touring.

F

Quito is located at 2800 m above sea level. That’s already in the zone for altitude sickness, for those of us not used to high altitude. The hike we were intending to do would have been up to 5000m. We all had a cup of coca leaf tea to boost our energy levels. 

So we decided that persevering through the storm was probably not a prudent idea and also would be pretty pointless given the impossibility of a view through the hail and clouds. So… Our highest altitude of this trip turned out to be approximately 4500m, and we didn’t really have much of a hike. Even so, I could definitely feel it. It’s weird. My legs felt strong and reliable and I didn’t feel queasy or headachy at all, but my heart rate was way higher than normal and I felt out of breath in a way that felt a bit like bad anxiety. Anyhow, we had our bit of a hike and Javier skillfully turned the van around and we went back down to the lower part of the mountain and hopped on the bikes.

For the next couple hours we traveled on what felt like a slight downhill but must have been a slight incline, because the road was parallel to an irrigation ditch which was always flowing against our direction. I was quite baffled: you’d think by now I’d be able to tell uphill from downhill. We stopped to walk to a spot where a river comes out of the mountain. It’s considered good luck to put your feet in the water, and they say if you wash your face in the stream it’ll make you look younger. I didn’t care to get my feet any wetter than they already were, so I only tried the rejuvenation facewash.

Then back on our bikes for some pretty technical downhill riding. Jeannie says it totally counted as mountain biking, and I admit I was a tiny bit jealous of the bikes with shocks. It was about 4pm when we got to our lunch stop, and us bike riders were hungry, wet and cold. Javier was dry and toasty in his puffy fleece jacket and kept turning the heat down or opening his window letting in a freezing breeze. ! Dude!  Anyhow, we all survived, and were relieved to change into dry clothes and eat a hot lunch.

The hotel in Baños was beautiful, with a breakfast buffet almost as extensive as the Sheraton in Quito. Jeannie and I went out for snacks, beer and people-watching in the evening.

F

It was a beautiful route in the mountains, and we JUUUUST missed seeing a matching band in a town where we stopped for a chocolate break. If I’d been in charge of the program, we would have dragged out that chocolate break until the band was ready to play. But no dice. We’re on a schedule, and had more kms to cover.

After checking into the Sheraton Hotel (crikey!), Jeannie and I set off on a search for food/live music/beer in Quito. Which turned out to be quite frustrating. We arrived to each potentially fun place just as they were closing. We saw the mess and disarray from a street festival that must have happened all afternoon. And apparently all the brewpubs in Quito close at around 7 on new years eve. Say what?!? After that, we couldn’t even find an open restaurant. Eventually we found a bar down the street from our hotel that was open… but full… and having been turned away once, we lingered on the doorstep looking desperate and hungry and were -hallelujah!- finally let in. There was a rock cover band, friendly patons, and they served a huge supper as well as enough booze to make me wobbly on a set menu… and then we burned Miho in the street and watched the fireworks.

F

We started the day (after the cutest breakfast was delivered to our yurts) with a tour of a bizcochas bakery. The bakery also housed a small gallery of work by a local artist and composer. And we spent some time trying to find the absolute equator by walking around in the street using googlemaps.

It would have been a spectacularly beautiful route had it been sunny. A winding paved road through farmland, and then to finish, about 10kms of downhill on paving stones through a never-ending town. We made an unscheduled stop to poke our heads into a greenhouse filled with roses, and wow are those a finicky crop to grow. So much pruning to get long straight stems with a single large flowerbud. I was also surprised how mature the flowers are at picking time – the transportation must be rigorous about temperature control.

I’ve never had a bad dog experience before, but when we stopped for a banos break at a gas station, I went into the bathroom and was startled that this dog was rushing to get into the bathroom too, but he wasn’t going for the toilet, he took a nip at my ankle. What a dork.

We spent the evening in Otovalo, a beautiful small city with a majority indigenous population. We caught the tail end of a huge craft market. I was surprised by how many families were out for the evening together, and how much PDA and hand-holding we saw. We purchased a doll for new years eve and called him Miho. (Local slang for “my son”) We a little bit (quite a bit!) wished we would be spending new years eve here rather than in Quito: the vibe was lovely. Our guides told us that the indigenous culture here is very intolerant of stealing or dishonesty, and therefore it’s a very safe place. At the hotel, Jeannie and I went to the common space to eat our snacks for supper, and we met a lovely family on holiday from Colombia. They practiced their English and we (mostly Jeannie!) practiced our Spanish.

F

Jeannie and I said our final seeya laters to Minnie and Gilbert. For sure I want to see these humans again. And Seattle isn’t too far away from Vanderhoof! We’ll make this happen. Definitely.

We met our QuitoBikeTour guides Jonathan and Daniel and our driver Javier… Half an hour before we thought we were going to… But that’s fine, they turned out to be quite patient people. For this portion of the trip we will have three attendees all to ourselves. This has prompted a lot of giggling and hilarity between me and Jeannie, and which was compounded over the course of the day by a string of language goofups involving swear words and body parts.

We spent the morning cycle-sightseeing in the city, did a chocolate tasting, and also sampled some locally made candies. Jonathan gives a lot of information and it’s impossible to remember everything. We had a gigantic lunch out by the old airport that they’ve turned into a public park. Then we decided to skip the afternoon’s planned cycling because it was going to be in the city, and the weather turned raining and windy. So we drove to our accommodations. We stopped along the way to look at a valley of greenhouses and saw from afar (finally, I got some use out of the binoculars!) a bullfight. Which we only noticed because we could hear the music. Pretty darn cool.

The place we’re staying at tonight is absolutely the swishest place I’ve ever stayed at. We met Catalina, the owner/operator of the QuitoBikeTour company. After settling in, we had a game of ocho-locos and some wine and nibbles for supper.

This accomodation was my first experience of “glamping”… And I think I finally understand it. Swish swish! We had the choice of a gorgeous cabin too. Our guides seemed almost as stunned as us. What a crazy life!

F

After landing back in Quito, we took a quick drive up to visit La Virgen del Panecillo – the tallest aluminum statue in the world. Jorgen treated us to some very strong hot alcoholic juice, which was remarkably effective at 3000m elevation. I’m usually rigorous about finishing a beverage, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that and walk back to the van. Back at the hotel, we said goodbye to Jorgen, and the rest of us had supper at a Syrian food restaurant – gracious thanks to Minnie and Gilbert for being such generous and genial travelling companions! Gosh.

The rest of the evening I spent assembling my bicycle and doing laundry in the shower.

F

Jeannie and I were startled and unimpressed to have Jorgen knocking at our door at 5:07 hurrying us along. 

We rechecked into our hotel there, where we’ll stay for just one night before heading back to the mainland.

Luigi followed us in the support truck and carried all our gear, extra water, and an extra bicycle in case of a breakdown. It’s quite disconcerting having someone driving behind you at bicycle speed. The ride was beautiful, once we got up out of the muggy hot town area. We headed for a viewpoint 500m up, through farmland with a few hotels along the way. We passed cows and some horses, and more giant tortoises. 

After lunch, we drove up to a convenient place from where we could coast all the way to the beach. Turns out we’re a troop of speedy speedies; we stopped only to take pictures and once, to take a baggie of mysterious white powder away from a tortoise on the side of the road. (!) Luigi tasted a bit and said it was salt. Hopefully he was telling the truth. (!) We had about an hour to relax on the beach, which Jeannie and I spent trying to copy an impressive beach yogi, and then we met Luigi again, to get a lift to a nearby farm where they grow coffee and sugar and cocoa.

Not only does his crew grow the sugarcane and coffee and cacao, but they also make liquor, and he gave us an enthusiastic tour of the fermentation process and the still. We sampled the 45% moonshine straight, infused with anise flavour, mixed with cane juice and also mixed with a combination of cane juice and lime. It’s pretty potent stuff. His tips for a long and healthy life include: drink coffee, eat homemade sugar and chocolate, dance when you drink, add oil to your glass of moonshine if you don’t want to get sick, to enjoy all jokes, and to laugh loudest at your own. He was pretty smitten with Jeannie, informing her that here, once you’re married to a galapagos resident for ten years, you get citizenship! And who wouldn’t want to live here?!? I think we were all pretty smitten.

There was lots going on. There were several different locations with live music, a craft tent for kids set up in the street, karaoke, endless souvenir shopping… It was 10:20 when we finally thought of finding some supper.

F