*Too-clever-for-their-own-good hostel computers have thawarted our image uploading. We'll try and get some pictures to accompany our words in the next day or so.
Found a computer that is not to clever for us so here is a link to some of the photos
We had a fantastic time in Quito, what with a comfortable bed, delicious pancake breakfasts, undemanding strolls around the old town and a full 11kgs of laundry - we felt [and looked like] like bona-fide tourists. All good things have to come to an end however and after our last over-the-top breakfast we packed up our things to begin the process of leaving Quito.
Leaving a large city is always a bit of a drama for us. First of all there's getting out of the hotel which presents a number of challenges for the bicycle traveller, especially as there is always at least two flights of stairs and a few narrow doors involved which makes for multiple trips. One person has to stay on the street and keep an eye on the bikes [even though we have secretly hoped they would get stolen numerous times on the trip, losing our wheels would be a hassle]. The street watching person is usually Anna, as she is a better watcher and is terrible at carrying heavy things. Ben usually gets the job of carrying all the bags and bikes down the flights of stairs, because he is a bad watcher and can actually carry the bikes, rather than just dragging them or pushing them down the stairs, Anna-style. All stairs throughout the continent seem to be covered in glossy tiles which make them a bit hazardous to everyone but moreso when you have metal cleats in your shoes. Anna made a tactical error with her shoe purchase and her cleats stick out someways beyond the soles of her shoes, making her transit accross such tiles very much like skating on ice. She has taken to wearing her helmet when walking up and down hotel stairs to avoid cracking her head open [again] when she inevitably slips.
So after 20 minutes of too-ing and fro-ing and huffing and puffing and "Have you checked under the bed?" and general scene-making we were off. Well, we didn't have a map really and we had half read a blog describing a cycle lane that took you out of the city but didn't pay attention to where it was, so there was lots of over slow cycling on the footpath and direction-guessing at intersections. We found the cycle lane eventually but without knowing exactly how it took us out of the city we had no choice but of follow it as it zig-zaged accross town to encompass every park and scenic neighbourhood, which was pleasant but not exactly good for making progress. After two hours of cycling we were still very much in Quito and only 8kms north of where we started. Then the cycle lane ran out. After a bit of blank looking around hoping for a sign saying "north" we gave up and asked a security guard which way to the Panamericana norte, which thankfully was straight ahead, but unthankfully accross some sort of elevated motorway-roundabout, then up a large hill on a 8 lane motorway. This would usually strike fear into the hearts of the most seasoned cyclist but as we trained by cycling to work last year in Auckland's traffic this was a piece of cake for us. Vehicles screaming past mere centimetres from our handlebars? No problem.
We carried on our merry way along the motorway for another 20kms or so, getting the occasional wave from passing policemen. We have never experienced any trouble from riding on motorways and in fact find it sometimes less stressfull than more minor roads, as there is usually less people wandering onto the road and less vendors [and buses] to avoid. Also the lack of traffic lights means we aren't forced to stop, which can sometimes bit a bit shifty on the edge of town. We rejoined the city bypass at the biggest intersection we have ever seen and stopped for lunch at a toll booth at the top what appeared to be a canyon. As we munched on our jam sandwiches we peered down into the canyon and realised that the road appeared to go all the way to the bottom, and then all the way back to at least the height we were at now on the other side. It could possibly go even higher as there seemed to be only hills as far as the eye could see. There was at least 1000 metres of downhill followed by the same uphill in the next, say, 5 kilometres. All this when we had already done 25kms through Quito just to get to the city edge, and the guidebook said the equator was only 15kms away. 15 kms from whereeeeee, we moaned. Clearly this was going to be way harder than we had been envisaging.
Surely enough, within 4 minutes of starting we were at the bottom of the canyon-gorge-bottomless pit, and about an hour later we had managed to regain about 200 metres. There was a medium sized town just over the first lip and as we pulled up for an emergency ice cream it started to rain. It was already almost 3pm and 40 kilometers to the next town, so the guidebook was consulted on what amemities existed [other than ice cream] in the town we were in. In an unsual stroke of good fortune Quito zoo was located 3kms from where we were, and was reported to be the best zoo in the continent. When faced with choosing between cycling uphill in the rain, or going to the zoo, the decision was clear. Within the hour we had found a hostal, changed and biked to the zoo gates, where a mathematical error on behalf of the cashier got us in for free.
The zoo was great, as we hadn't gone to the Amazon we thought we would never get to see the jungle animal but here they all were - jaguars, Galapagos turtles, monkeys, some sort of bear, tucans, condors, armadillos, and other more out-of-place things like lions and kangaroos. It was a great couple of hours and made up for the fact that we had cycled less than 40kms that day. We had a meal that night from the restaraunt below our hostal [potato soup] and cooked some quinoa porridge for breakie in our room the next morning.
The next day we were determined to at least make the equator, about 35kms away. Of this about 30kms was straight uphill, which took most of the day. The road was in great condition though, as it has been everywhere in Ecuador and we usually had a wide shoulder for our cycling pleasure which we took full advantage of wobbling everywhere at 4 kilometres per hour. The views of the surrounding countryside were great though, with neatly tended farms as far as the eye could see. We learnt that much of the worlds roses are grown in Ecuador and there was big greenhouses everywhere. This was clearly one of the wealthiest areas in the country as well, with every second vehicle that passed us seemingly a late model ute or SUV. Ben was getting depressed that everyone in a third world country seemed to have a truck less than five years old yet he couldn't afford one himself. When you're travelling on a bike at 4kmph its easy to get bitter at nice cars.
But just when things were looking down the road suddenly slanted downhill and we zoomed towards the equator monument. After a few false alarms with the wrong statue we completed our heroic arrival at the equator, a mere 7 and a half months after we left Ushuaia, 50-odd degrees to the south. After waiting for our sweat to dry we listened to a local guide give a presentation on the equator and brought the dvd she was selling, before taking jovial pictures of us standing on two hemsipheres.
It was only 5kms from there into the town where we celebrated with bad hamburgers and a beer.
Other, equally ambitious days followed. 35kms, mostly downhill but one large uphill that coincided with heavy rainshower. We cycled into Otavalo, where had planned on being two days earlier at lunchtime, ate fried chicken and chips for lunch and spent the afternoon wandering around the textile market, the oldest, biggest and most famous in South America. Panama hats were purchased, they fold into tiny little packages perfect for travel. Despite the name they are from Ecuador. We regretted our earlier purchases as the stuff here was the nicest we have seen everywhere. Alas, when on a bicycle one cannot buy too much, and we are already carrying a hammock from an impulse purchase in La Paz. Ben has lugged it thousands of kilometers and we have not used it once.
We decided here that with time running out that it was important that we spent a significant amount of the remainder of our trip relaxing and not cycling, ideally on a beach. A Carribbean beach, to be precise. With that in mind we cycled another couple of days to the border of Columbia, crossed effortlessly and vowed to bus from there to the beaches at the other end of the country. We spent a night and day in the border town of Ipiales as there is a famous cathedral straddling a gorge nearby which had been recomended to us. It was pretty cool and we also saw guinea pigs being roasted on sticks for the first time nearby.
We have always thought bussing was breeze compared to cycling but we are constantly proven wrong. Ben met an American girl at a fried chicken takeout place who told him that her bus had been robbed at gunpoint a couple of days ago not far from here. We spent a productive hour afterwards armed-bandit-proofing our baggage so that our valuables were as dispersed as possible. We considered such security measures as putting our credit cards in our shoes, as bandits would never look there. We were also warned not to catch night busses near the Ecuadorian border but due to poor time management accidently did that. Thankfully the bandits must have taken the night off as we made it through unscathed. Every other part of that ride was totally action packed though, with salsa music at full blast and chronic overloading unaided by someone putting a horse saddle in the aisle which the whole bus had to climb over to get out. Every town had a stop with half the bus getting on and off, people arguing over ticket prices and people trying to hawk chicken kebabs through the windows. To descibe the terrain as mountainous would be an understatement, there was probably over 7000 meters of up an down in 300kms. The scenery was amazing. At the tops of the passes it was freezing cold but at the bottom of the valleys it was boiling, tropical and humid.
Phew. Anyway, we arrived in a town called Popayan at about midnight last night and are resting a day here. It is apparently a world gastranomic capital, so Anna is happy. This morning we tried some Colombian coffee which was so strong it nearly gave us a heart attack. It's Bens birthday in a couple of days and we are hoping to go to some thermal springs in the mountains in the Zona Cafateria before continuing our bus-slog to the beach!
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