The Ecuadorian Highlands

A rare flat section of road in Ecuador.

More photos here

All our fast-forwarding through the north of Peru and the south of Ecuador really got us moving along, it was weird to move so quickly through a country after so much time in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes.

We spent a day in Guayaquail, the largest city in Ecuador before catching a bus back up into the highlands. That day was characterised by constant sweating as the temperature soared past 38 degrees with 100% humidity. After all our time in the mountains and then the desert we were completely unprepared for heat and spent most of the day looking for ice creams or air conditioning. After intially planning to spend another night we got lost trying to find the place we wanted to stay but accidently found the bus station (complete with air conditioned mall) so flagged it and arranged to leave our bikes in the company offices for the day instead and got an evening bus for 4 US dollars each. Anna had her first coconut cream ice cream that afternoon and decided that Ecuador was a definate step above its neighbours in the local food stakes. Ben saw iguanas, which he rated as the most interesting inhabitants of the city.

Iguanas. Ben likes.

The bus that night was driven by a man with complete disregard for human life, on very steep, windy roads in the mountains he was passing all other vehicles with reckless abandon. He even managed to pass a bus that left an hour before ours, 3 hours into the 4 hour trip. Thankfully most of the trip was in the dark and fog so we couldn't see the vertical drops off the side of the road. Eventually we were dropped off on the side of the road on the edge of Riobamba and rode to the first hostal we saw and booked in for two nights, once again thankful to be alive!

Volcano number one.
The summit is the furtherest point from the centre of the earth.

We spent a day reacclimitasing to the altitude in Riobamba, in which we tried the local dish, whole roasted suckling pig at the city market. There was a whole hall dedicated to roast pig and of course the moment we stepped in everyone was touting for our business. Like the savvy travellers we are, we stood there looking completely confused before walking to the closest stall, where the lady was offering us a free sample. It was fatty and yummy and before we knew it we had two plates of it, complete with an onion salad and boiled corn. Somehow we managed to order a fresh blackcurrent juice to wash it all down which was awesome, much better than Ribena. While it tasted great a few hours later it returned with a vengence in the form of an upset stomach which lasted two days. Just our luck really, but we still think it was worth it.

'Smokin.

Our plan was to cycle along the "Avenue of Volcanoes", a route through the Ecuadorian highlands between Riobamba and Quito that was (as the name suggests) lined with numerous volcanoes and is renowned for is scenery. The first mornings riding began ominiously with a 25km uphill with some of the steepest gradients of the trip. The road took us over a ridge at the base of our first volcano (whose name neither of us can remember) whose summit is the furtherest point from the centre of the earth, thanks to the earths' bulge at the equator. About 10kms into the ride we were both ready to catch the next bus to Quito with many phrases like "to hell with this!" being bandied about on our rest stops, which were nearly every 10 minutes. The only thing that really kept us going was that Ben had brought Anna some new bikes shorts in Lima and to justify that purchase we really had to keep riding. It was probably worth it as on the other side of the valley we could see another volcano with smoke billowing out the top. If we hadn't been so puffed it would have been awesome. All in all it was a tough day, as was the next one and the one after.

Sunset from the roof of our country lodge.

On day 3 of rollercoaster hill riding we were grinding up another steep hill in granny gear, with no shoulder for our riding pleasure and 6 lanes of motorway to contend with when a ute drove past slowly with the driver waving madly at us. Nothing unusual in that, but he pulled over in front of us - actually just stopped in the middle of the lane as there was a big dropoff from the road - introduced himself an offered us a lift to the top of the hill. Well, after Patagonia we vowed to never turn down an offer of a ride again and even though it was only 1pm, and we had only done 20kms, Anna was unhooking her bags an climbing in before Ben even had a chance to respond. It turned out that Manuel had a farmstay just outside of town that was used by climbing groups for acclimitisation and suggested as we had nowhere particular to stay in town that we stay with him. In return he gave us a discount and included breakfast. For a few bucks extra he threw in dinner. We agreed and by 1:30 we were lounging around reading our books in the garden surrounded by 16 Andean peaks. We didn't quite know where we were and really weren't too worried about it either. Manuel worked as a guide on the local volcano and when we were settled in he popped into town to run some errands, leaving us alone on the farm. We were still alone 6 hours later and were wondering where the hell our dinner was. Ben resorted to rummaging through the kitchen and found an egg to fry up in our room for afternoon tea. Eventually our host returned and cooked us a locro de papas (potato soup, we pretty much eat one of these every day) with local cheese and fried chicken on rice. We had some coca tea when as when we leave the mountains soon we won't be able to get it any more.

The next morning after a great breakfast of bread, eggs, cheese, yogurt, granola and coffee we pushed our bikes back to the motorway and zoomed downhill towards Quito. For the first 25kms there was a motorway under construction, with at least 6 lanes being added. This had mostly been sealed but was not open to traffic so we enjoyed what could be the largest personal cycleway we have ever seen coupled with a great downhill to compensate for all the crappy uphill of the previous 4 days. All good things come to an end though and as we approached Quito the uphill returned and the cycleway stopped. We had no map other than what was in the guidebooks so had to take some educated guesses about which motorway would get us into town, before the motorway abruptly ended and we started out 2 hour free-for-all through the southern suburbs-slums. Not wanting to stop and being on a general downhill gradient meant we were guilty of several traffic infringements an were even whistled at by a policeman for running a red light. We were hardly alone though, every vehicle was flaunting the rules at every opportunity so it was a case of joining in of never making it. We frequenly found ourselves overtaking buses in the fast lane of the motorway, swerving out to avoid manholes with missing lids in the middle of lanes and being cut off at high speed by the same bus we just passed.

The best bit - another volcano, gentle downhill, personal bike lane.
It didn't last.

Old Quito. Apologies for the lack of rotation.

Ben, post-haircut.

We made it into the historic centre eventually and in one piece by about 2pm - way past our usual lunchtime due to the high stress of the morning. We checked into a cool hostal which has a shower so wonderful it is a strong contender for the greatest shower of the trip thus far. We did our first proper laundry in a month (since Cusco) and have had a great time walking around the historic old town. Ben finally got a haircut after the customs officer in Ecuador struggled to recognise him. The hairdresser literally sheared him as one would a sheep. We treated ourselves to a Sunday brunch in the hostal kitchen with an extravaganza of pancakes with bacon, fried banana and maple syrup (Ben) and fresh fruit, yogurt and maple syrup (Anna). We have nearly clocked up 6500kms with no pancakes so it was good to remedy that horrifying statistic. From here we are planning to head to the equator, apparently a mere 15 kms away, so probably an actual 40kms!