Crossing into Ecuador was straightforward. It's fascinating how the different countries have different requirements. Some have had vehicle fumigation (a bloke with a garden spray), fees for tourism, fees for temporary vehicle import, bond for the bike, fees for this + that.  

Colombia to Ecuador was the easiest yet, with $zero cost. Woo hoo!

 

The bike was somewhat asthmatic on the big hills, but I'm starting to wonder if the poor response is simply caused by altitude. If so it's still puzzling, as it was never noticable on any of the high passes in the States. I dunno.

 

Just out of Ibarra was a restaurant/lodging called Sommerwind, run by German couple Hans and wife Ximena. It's well known in the overlanding community. The weiner schnitzel, strudel and dunkels went down rather well. The only real drag was noise - they played Christmas music till all hours, plus a fellow guest played his own favourite rock and reggae tunes in his tent next door.

 

The fellow guest was an interesting bloke - Johannas had been riding his Suzuki Freewind around South America for a year and a half. Mind you, he was a bit of a grumpy old man; glad I'll never be like that.

 

A Suzuki Freewind? That model was new to me. Maybe they hadn't come to Australia. It was essentially a DR650 in a slightly more road oriented form. Blow me down, I spotted another two days later outside a supermarket. 

 

Sommerwind is on Lake Yahuarcocha, as is Autódromo Internacional José Tobar - a local racetrack. Pity if wasn't a weekend to watch some motor racing as the track looked interesting with many curves and some elevation changes.  

 

I became quite anxious over the crummy bike performance.  Many nights were spent lying awake, catastrophising on what had blown up.  Years ago my old BMW had slowed down bit by bit, which turned out to be a broken piston ring. So I worried that a similar internal engine problem awaited. Where to find motor parts? How to find a good workshop? How long would it all take? 

Time to do something instead of just panicking.

 

Mauro and Patricia in Colombia had passed on the name of "Paitopapito" (meaning "daddy" I gather). He'd offer a bed and assistance to travellers. He had done a year long lap of the continent on this machine.

 

First things first - clean the carby in his garage.

 

This carburetor is the simplest thing out; I'm sure the mower at home has one more complicated.

The pilot jet was a bit gunked up. Every orifice got a good blast with carby cleaner spray.

 

That afternoon his son Mateo performed in a Christmas act in the city plaza. He's the one on our right, waving at the camera in a red ruana. Mary and Joseph are ahead with their doll child.

 

Once the kids started singing proud parents couldn't help themselves, squeezing forward to photograph their little darlings, Paitopapito and wife Kate included. Notice our champ at the microphone.

 

The performance was fun. It was lovely seeing Mateo happy with himself, skipping along as we walked home afterwards. 

 

Through the family, I met Kate from Colombia. She'd been travelling for only four days on her first motorcycle trip, so was still figuring out how to carry gear. 

 

The two of us camped at waterfall Peguche on the edge of town. It was a fun, but weird night. Kate insisted we each only spoke the other's language, to learn. For sure I did learn a bit, but my head was spinning.

We walked by torchlight to the cascade after dinner. She told me she'd been there twelve years before with a boyfriend, attempting to conceive a baby. Ah, ok.

 

She'd started this trip with a friend Daisy as passenger, but they'd had a falling out. Daisy had left to camp separately. While returning from the waterfall, Daisy contacted Kate, asking could she camp with us? She had no tent, she was cold. Kate and I walked around in the dark trying to find her, unsuccessfully. Upon return to our tents, there was Daisy.

So the two of them slept in Kate's tiny tent together ("we're not a couple, just friends"). Correction: they spent hours talking in the tent only feet away. It was a crappy night for sleep.

 

All in all Kate was charming and could have been fun to travel with for a few days, but she just didn't have her act together. 

 

The equator came and went somewhere around Quito, Ecuador's capital. 

 

Hey, at least home is in the same hemisphere now!

 

So did the carby clean sort things out? Yeah, nah, not really.

It ran beautifully until lunchtime the following day. After this, it intermittently stalled, particularly on a downshift - if a heap of throttle wasn't applied before pulling the clutch, it'd flame out.

 

The air was properly cold heading up into the hills to Quilotoa. Local ladies wore traditional clothes to ward off the cold: bowler like hats, colourful long skirts, long socks and solid leather shoes. Many had their faces covered with a scarf.

 

Quilotoa itself has a half finished look with unpainted grey blockwork on buildings common in Ecuador. Maybe it's low season as well. There were many signs of incomplete construction.

 

Quilotoa has a lake in a volcano crater. It's beautiful.

 

Hiking around the volcano's rim for thirteen kilometres was a workout. The downhill and few flat portions were not too difficult, but at just under 4,000m the uphill chunks were tough. After a few hours, I was pretty knackered and gently happy.

 

A frequent sight is animals tied up, in lieu of fencing.  Horses, donkeys, cows, goats, llamas, all on a rope only a few metres long. They've been everywhere: alongside busy highways, next to houses, even miles away from towns like here. My heart goes out to them.

 

A couple along the way were on a three day hike. By staying in towns they needed only light backpacks. What a free way of travelling that must be, all on your own two pins.

 

The map showed a mixture of major and minor roads in a loop north of Quilotoa, leading back to a main southbound highway. At first the riding was rapid on grippy asphalt curves. Rapid enough to keep scraping the side stand on left handers. A hoot.

 

From Sigchos onwards it was all dirt, getting progressively wetter. Despite the weather it was fun riding, floating along on the pegs, avoiding the roughest of puddles and getting covered in muck. 

There were even new friends.

You've escaped mate. Good for you.

For the longest time the road went down, down, down apparently without intersections.  Thick white clouds covered everything leaving no sun for reference. Part of the brain said "This is taking a while". Another said "Don't worry - this is fun". By the time I got to the tiny locality of Las Pampas, I was soaked and miles off course. Rather than going east, I'd been heading north.

 

There was no phone reception for mapping. Friendly folk in a cafe gave directions to the closest decent sized town, but even then the way wasn't all that obvious. Cue some backwards and forwards riding, further enquiries of passersby. 

This chain blocked the road at one point, a girl wanting an unofficial 25 cent toll. The day was almost over, so I paid up rather than complain.

 

After hours I emerged on to an asphalt highway in the dark, weary, muddy but exhilarated. 

 

There are a lot of cocks everywhere. Being a poultry fancier, I love watching them taking care of their little feathered families. Ducks too. Nice to see Muscovies in their native setting - the same breed that we have at home.

 

Baños is a well developed tourist town. Its name is a curiousity, meaning "bathrooms". The full name is Baños de Agua Santa, a reference to hot springs in the area.

Frabicio at Montano Camping and Hostel was one of the best hosts yet. He particularly aims at motorcycle tourers - thousands of moto themed stickers adorned the place. It was amazing that he charged only $15 a night for a room with private bathroom, communal kitchen, washing facilities, views of the closeby volcano, et cetera. Mind you, with literally 330 hotels/hostals in town, he needs to be keen.

 

Fabricio recommend hiking to see volcano Tungurahua in the early evening as the clouds dissappear then. The first part was up a set of steep stairs to yet another religious themed lookout. 

 

Beyond the concrete Mary a narrow slippery path ascended further, around the mountain towards the volcano. I gather there was a significant lookout point for Tungurahua, but I was a wee bit confused as to where. With lengthening shadows and cooling evening air, it seemed better to return to town. Snow on top of a volcano at near zero degrees latitude - pretty neat.

 

A new friend on the way back brought up memories of Dusty and Mushroom - donkeys that dad once had to protect his sheep ... except they were scared of the sheep.

 

Baños was pretty at night. 

 

The darker section in the bottom left was a sizable graveyard. Getting closer revealed the graveyard having lanes and street lights of its own. It appeared the graves were stacked up, each concrete box having many doorways.

 

 

It's always sad farewelling old friends at the end of their life.

Like all the stupid floral shirts, this came from an Aussie op shop, so probably did 100,000 miles before I owned it. Cycling through three shirts for eight months has taken its toll.

 

A couple of fellow riders had offered to share a meal at Christmas in Cuenca, Ecuador's third largest city. The city itself had been recommended by many as worth visiting, so on the 24th I headed there.  The 330km from Baños was well more than my usual daily distance.

 

It started well enough - zooming along a quiet black dirt road on a dry morning, avoiding big highways. There were mist covered wow! views.

 

By and by, the journey got crappier courtesy of rain and heavy transport. The final couple of hours were just miserable. Mild illness that had been nagging for a couple of days didn't help. I was shivering uncontrollably. I can't complain - the only other sickness so far had came from a miscalculated amount of gin back at John's in Colorado.

 

Cuenca was indeed an attractive place. Early on Christmas morning I had a half hearted jog/walk while the city was still yawning. Some ladies wore traditional clothes. One was just hitching up her skirt after a traditional wee in the street outside the hotel at 7am.

Once the 25th got underway, it was surprising how many businesses were open - not all, but if you fancied a new necklace, washing machine, suit et cetera you were likely in luck.

 

Loved this mural. Mr business man + tanks + gold bars on the left all in black, an indigenous figure with water running from his hand in the light on the other side.

 

Our turkey dinner at a USA style sportsbar was a laugh.

 

From left:

• Emma from Canada

• Charlie from the UK

• Filip from Poland

• Jack from NZ, now shearing sheep in Canada (!)

• Thomas from Germany 

• Redd from Canada

• Michael from Colorado

• Angela and Steve from Canada

 

Everyone had motorcycle overlanding in common, all were happy and positive yet all had such different stories. 

e.g. Redd, who has been travelling on her Royal Enfield Himalayan for three years, largely solo but now together with Michael.

 

Post dinner we kicked on back at Angela and Steve's apartment. They're staying in Cuenca until February, as a holiday from travels.  They'll then head south to Ushuaia next Christmas.  

Filip insisted that we all enjoy his allegedly excellent Polish vodka. Things got a bit loud.

 

The mix of revelry, walking the rainy city only in short sleeved shirt late at night looking for beer and other stupidity was not helpful for a bloke's health. Come the 26th it wasn't worth moving on, so instead I just blobbed around close by.

 

Months of eating food prepared by hand from street vendors, sometimes drinking tap water when not advisable and a casual approach to personal cleanliness hadn't bothered my guts until now. One uncomfortable waddle back to the hotel will not be forgotten soon.

Some of Kirsten's anti-pooh pills bunged the system up pretty quickly.

Las Cajas is a national park close to Cuenca. The hiking sounded amazing. However it has a reputation for freezing cold camping and the park gets up to 4,450masl. Not sensible when ill. 

Instead, I shrugged and headed south. Might as well eat up some miles.

 

Vilcabamba has a reputation for the longevity of its residents, many claiming to be centenarians. It's a pity it's all bullshit. A formal study in the 1970s found that the town had zero people over a hundred.  One bloke claimed to be 122, then three years later 134. Still, it doesn't stop the town having a heap of health focussed businesses for it's many gringo residents and visitors.

Cerro Mandango is a ridge adjacent to Vilcabamba shaped like a man lying down. Look! There is his chest, his head, his nose sticking up. They have good imaginations, even if their ability to count is suspect.

 

Mandango was an excellent hike. It's always nice leaving the bike and gear tucked away safely at a hostel and setting off without worrying about stuff getting nicked.

True to form, a bloody big cross facing the town was first. 

 

Further on the trail approached a big chunk of rock. Steel cables assisted ascent of the slippery track. Views from the top (his chest? head? I dunno) were brilliant. 

The trail often followed razor thin ridges. The weather was perfect - mild cloud cover and no wind. It was exciting trudging along with big drops on both sides.

 

The track narrowed and became quite indistinct. Somehow I missed a turn. I wriggled under a barbed wire fence, down a hill covered in only cow tracks into a gully that completed the loop to town. Long grass brushing my legs made me wonder if Ecuador had snakes like Australia. The whole thing had taken 4-5 hours plus a bucket of sweat. A wood fired vege pizza and beer was reward for the effort.

 

The hostel in Vilcabamba was low key and delightful, made more so by Beatrice its charming manager. It was awfully tempting to stay yet another day. 

 

However Peru was calling. 

En route to the border, the glorious mountain road had great altitude. It sure was cold and wet. Wet weather gear was donned. 

 

Just before setting off again, a big black fully loaded adventure bike came past. I gave a thumbs up, in case the rider thought I was in strife. Moments later it returned, the helmet flipped up, exposing a giant grin. "Gavin!" exclaimed Thomas, one of the Christmas dinner crew.

 

Thomas has had an exciting but challenging trip. He shipped his Suzuki V-Strom from Dresden, Germany to Anchorage, Alaska along with two mates. His machine had overheating issues and by crazy coincidence had conked out just one corner back on this same road, four weeks earlier. He had to stay nearby in Loja while mechanics fussed with it. Meanwhile his mates had moved south, in Bolivia as I write.

 

We propped in Zumba that night. 

For your benefit Kirsten, here's my best fitness dance impression.

 

The view from our third floor lodgings was gorgeous. Peru was there, just over those hills.  

 

Can't wait.