Had a stonking ride from Cuenca to Guayaquil yesterday.On the premise that the road through the Parque Nacional El Cajas must be largely paved as the buses only take 3 hours for the trip (both my maps show it as unpaved), I turned due west. The park rises to 13,000ft and looks like a cross between the Highlands and Snowdonia, although the shrubbery and wildlife are somewhat different. As I descended the other side towards the coast I could see the top of the cloud forest. Ouch, can't use lights because of lack of charging. At 3,000ft I entered the forest - no pix as visibility was fairly zilch and one patch of thick mist looks much like another. At the same time the tarmac disappeared so I had the deep joy of going downhill on wet muddy sandy gravelly hairpins without being able to see where I was going (much) while the mad bus drivers squelched past as close as they could.

Once at sea level the mist disappeared and the tarmac reappeared, hurrah.

Anyway, I dropped the bike off at Ecuavia this morning to have the oil changed (it's due after the rebuild), the charging system fixed and the apparent air leak sorted (lots of popping and banging on the overrun - might be timing, of course). At the price they charge for labour here (about $12 an hour) I'd rather let someone else have the grief. Jolly friendly people although not much English spoken. Having said that, my grasp of Spanish bike tech lingo is now fairly decent (cambio de aceite, sistema de carga non funcionar, that sort of thing) so we managed.