Our security guard while we went shopping

Quito is a pleasant capitol city, busy but not too crazy. The area of the city called Old Town dates from the early 1500's, the time of Spanish rule. There are many beautiful colonial building and plazas. On Sunday's the city is very quiet and many of the streets in the Old Town are closed to traffic so we spent a day site-seeing on foot.

Old Town section in Quito, Ecuador

We visited many old churches and afterward visited the newer gothic style basilica. In the basilica, we climbed flight after flight of stairs, then circular stairs up into the clock tower, then metal ladders took us even higher. We could see the city of Quito spread out over the hills with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary looking down from one of the hilltops.

After our first night in the tourist district, we moved to Ricardo Rocco's Moto Guest House. Ricardo has opened his home to motorcycle travelers and it was a wonderful place to stay, quiet and set high on a hill with a lovely view of the lights of the city at night. We stayed 5 days and met many travelers - Mike from the US, Dave from the US, Luciano and Timeteo from Argentina, Tom from the US, Ralph and Mary Ann from Australia. One night Luciano and Timeteo cooked an Argentinian meal that included a variety of grilled meats. The next night the Australians cooked a wonderful Italian meal. It's a good thing we left before it was our turn to cook or they might have gotten a bad impression of North American food!

We left Quito, winding our way through the city, heading south knowing that at some point we would have to come out on the Pan American highway. We stopped to ask directions from a carpenter making a door on the side of the road. He gave us instructions, told us to be careful of the trucks and God be with you on your trip. After several detours around construction we finally got on the highway and had a nice ride to the city of Banos. It is a pretty town in a gorgeous setting in a green valley with a great infrastructure for tourists - many hotels to choose from, good restaurants and tours agencies. We visited Blanca, the sister of our friend Hector in Indianapolis. She told us that they don't get many North Americans there, mostly Europeans. It is a shame that more North Americans don't go to Ecuador because it has so much diversity for a small country. It has the tropical beaches of the Pacific coast, the snow capped Andes mountains and the Amazon all within a few hours drive of each other.

Banos, Ecuador

Since the clouds and rain obscured the view of the volcano, we stayed only one night in Banos and left on a short ride to the city of Riobamba. We parked our motorcycles in the hotel garage and took a train ride through what is considered the most difficult terrain in the world for trains. The ride was down a mountain called Nariz del Diablo or the Devil's Nose.

Volcano near Riobamba, Ecuador

Nariz del Diablo train - Ecuador

At the steepest part, the train would zigzag down the mountain, going backward and forward on each successive section of track rather than making sharp turns. To add to the excitement, the train kept coming off the rails - five times on our trip! The conductor would stop when signalled by one of the engineers that rode on each of the cars. The engineers would get under the train, wedge a piece of metal next to the wheel and toss in a few rocks and then the conductor would pull the train back up on to the rails. One time when the car we were riding on derailed, the wheels on the car were about 10 inches from the rails and as the car was being manuvered back into position, one of the workers pushed a pile of green leaves under the wheel as a lubricant to help it slide sideways across the rail. These guys seemed to have plenty of experience dealing with this problem with whatever they had on hand.

One of many derailments

Train trestle

For part of the 8-hour journey, we rode on the roof of the train and had unobstructed views of the surrounding terrain, just like we were riding a motorcycle!

Highlands of Ecuador

The next day was one full of adventure. It started as we were leaving Riobamba. There was some kind of civil disturbance blocking the road in front of us. It appeared to have involved a bus, but we weren't sure in what way. A contingent of policemen in riot gear arrived just a moment after we did. The crowd settled down quickly and we were waved through by the police. A few miles down the road, we stopped at another roadblock. This time there was a large tree that had been felled across the road. There were several men with chain saws working to cut it up and get it out of the way.

Tree roadblock

It didn't take too long and we were on our way again. A few miles further on, we found our turn that would lead out of the mountains toward the coast. We were expecting it to be a major road but it was nearly deserted. Instead of going downhill, we climbed higher and soon were in the thick fog and rain. We kept wondering if this was the right road, but were sure we had turned at the right place. Finally, the road began it's descent. We came out of the fog into some very lovely scenery bypassing farmers dressed in their wool ponchos and felt hats tending to their sheep and goats. Soon, we were back into the fog for quite a long time. We know we must have been missing out on some fantastic views. Once again, we were out of the fog and found the road strewn with tree branches and large rocks. This had to be some kind of warning, like maybe there was a bridge out ahead.

Rocks on the road - some type of warning?

We proceeded slowly, winding our way through the obstacle course that lasted for about a mile. Once out of it, the road was fine and clear again.

Later that day, a little dog started walking across the road. Dave slowed and honked at it and it turned around. Just as Deb came up to it, it turned around again and trotted out in front of her and she hit it. She felt sick about it. She might have been able to take some solace if it had been a mangy, scavenger-type dog that she put out it's misery, but this was not the case. It must have been the cutest little dog in all of Ecuador, a chihuahua with perky big ears and not a care in the world. It was hard to continue on after that, but we did.

Eventually, we were out of the mountains and on flat, straight roads lined with banana plantations. We thought finally we could make some progress. Leaving one town, we came upon a roadblock caused by several buses sitting at various angles across the road.

Deb with some of the bus drivers on strike

Fortunately, because we are on bikes we were able to wiggle our way between the buses and onto the empty road on the other side. A few miles down the road, there was another bus roadblock. This time they were parked too close together and we couldn't get through on the pavement. We had to ride on the outside of the guardrail and along the narrow dirt path that had a drop-off into the banana field on one side and bus bumpers on the other. We made it through and continued on down the road only to arrive at another roadblock. This time we couldn't get past the buses on the narrow path beside the road. We sat for awhile figuring out what to do and then decided to ride off-road through an empty field, up through a row of hedges over a curb and onto a gas station parking lot. As Dave walked back from inspecting the way on foot to make sure he could get the both bikes through, a spectator suggested riding between a house and a business, then through the back yard rather than down through the ditch to get across the field. In the parking lot a mob of drunken men surrounded us, offering us some of the alcohol they were drinking and shooting questions at us from all directions. It made us a little uneasy and we took off. Another motorcyclists named Rodrigo, offered to show us a way to the next town that would avoid additional roadblocks so we followed him in to the town of Machala where we found a hotel for the night. Whew!, what a day!

The next day, we crossed the border into Peru at Huaquillas near the Pacific coast.

It was the main border crossing on the Pan American highway but you wouldn't think so. Most of the people were crossing on foot and we were the only ones at the customs office. There were people with hand drawn carts loaded high with bags of onions and what looked like potatoes. Once in Peru, the terrain was barren desert, a stark contrast to the green banana fields of southern Ecuador. The highway skirted the Pacific Ocean and the sea breezes kept us from overheating.

Northern Peru

We spent a couple of days at a beach community called Mancora where Dave got a bad sunburn. From there we rode the city of Piura and then across the Sechura Desert to the city of Chiclayo.

Peruvian desert

We weren't too happy with Chiclayo. It was a very noisy city with 90% of the cars on the road being taxis that honk their horns non-stop, music blaring from every store front and car alarms going off on a regular basis. Peru has a reputation for pick-pockets and we can confirm this is well earned.

One day after breakfast, Deb took the passports, credit cards and large denomination money with her back to the hotel and I went to the market to people watch, buy some fruit and take some photographs. After wandering the market for over an hour I came across a drummer and two teens dressed as Chinese dragons. This made sense as it was the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the year of the dog. I tend to be very careful in crowds, keeping everything in zippered or velcro closed pockets. I had my fake wallet in my back pocket with the zipper closed and pull-tab of the zipper tucked inside the pocket. My camera was in my hand, which was in my front, right pocket, and I carried a bag of fruit in my left hand.

I watched the show for a few minutes and realized the dancers were not very well practiced and the drummer kept looking at the spectators, rather than watching his dancing dragons. I sensed that this was a setup to gather a distracted crowd to allow the thieves to practice their trade. I also noticed a lady standing too close to me watching the crowd more than she was watching the show. I turned to leave and one of the dragons bumped into me. I removed my left hand from my pocket to catch my balance, reached back into the pocket and was not surprised to find the camera gone. My pocket was exposed for about two seconds, and the lady I didn't trust had just melted into the crowd. What pissed me off most was that I knew this was a set-up and I lingered too long. I didn't feel her hand take the camera.

Later in the afternoon, I went out with one of the workers from the hotel to look for 'used' cameras hoping he'd lead me to the place where my camera was fenced. We saw lots of older 35mm cameras that were probably stolen from tourists but not my Pentax digital camera. Fortunately, we brought an older bulkier camera with us as a back-up.

Continuing on from Chiclayo, we stopped at a deserted colonial city that was now a ghost town in the middle of the desert. There were many beautiful old churches that had been left to the elements.

Abandoned Colonial City, Peru