Category: Ecuador

Our trip to the Galapagos was a truly unique experience, there is no place like it in the world. There is wildlife round every corner, whether underneath your feet, above you or in the surrounding waters and often you only needed to walk out of the hotel and round the corner to see these amazing creatures, many endemic to the islands. We decided to ‘go it alone’ so to speak, rather then get an expensive cruise that we couldn’t afford, for us this was a great decision. Having travelled on our own steam, doing our own thing for the past year the shock of being put on a boat with a whole load of strangers being told what to do and where to go would have been too much for us. When we saw the ‘beige explorer’ clad North American OAPs on said tours we were relieved not to be following!

I am not going to list everything we saw (as is common with Galapagos travellers) but just highlight some of the most memorable and special encounters. For me, swimming with sea turtles and sea lions was incredible. At one point we must have been in the same area of water as about forty sea turtles, all just munching some algae and elegantly moving through the water with a nonchalant air that only turtles can master. The sea lions were different; they were far more playful and would swim under and around you with intrigue and curiosity. I guess there is something about witnessing these incredible creatures in their underwater environment and completely at ease with us being there. Sam loved the white tipped sharks, we were told that they don’t tend to bite unless you dangle a foot in front of them…we floated on the surface as quietly as possible, keeping our hands and feet very much out of reach!

The islands were also lovely places to be, they were relaxed and beautiful with plenty of delicious lobster and seafood on offer as well as everything you could imagine with ‘Galapagos’ written on! Having said that, we found that we weren’t enveloped by other tourists, it was actually very quiet – most of the punters were on their posh boats! We walked, swam, snorkled, cycled, watched, waited and wondered…an incredible way to finish our time in Ecuador.

We then packed and started our journey home, stopping for two days in New York, which was busy, expensive and overwhelming but fun all the same. I had a strange moment when sat waiting for ‘Matilda’ the musical, to start on Broadway. I realised that this is a completely different life, living off the grid on our bikes is over for now and replaced by something much more real and scary. You think travelling by bike in Central and South America may be a nerve racking experience, you would be wrong – real life is far more daunting.

Arriving home is always strange after being away for a long time and this time was no exception, but nothing beats seeing your family, eating a roast dinner, taking a relaxing bath and that first sip of gin and tonic. There is no better feeling as long as you savour that moment and not look too far ahead and spoil the magic!

Our adventuring is not over, life is an adventure and as a very wise German friend said ‘After the tour is before the tour’. Time to start planning the next ‘spin’. But for now we will ride our road bikes fast up hills that don’t last forever…we will enjoy the seasons of England changing through the year and creating a variety and beauty that other parts of the world miss out on….and we will revel in the fact that we are able to explore, return to a safe haven and then explore some more. We really can’t complain.

Our decision not to rush through Ecuador and race for Peru was a good one, we have been able to soak up the beauty and majesty of the Ecuadorian Andes to their full extent. However, it meant that on arriving in Cuenca at the end of our last day cycling there was not much fanfare or applause…it was just the end of another days riding and rather an anticlimax. The road was busy, I had stomach ache, we shouted at one another and it rained.

Our last week wasn’t all bad though! From Latacunga we headed down to Baños, then continued on a very dusty road, that kept detouring due to landslides and volcanic activity, to Riobamba. From there we took a bus to Chimborazo. We had many debates in previous weeks about climbing the volcano…a tempting prospect as it is the mountain closest to the stars due to the Equatorial bulge. However, the trip required some mountaineering experience so we thought we would go away and get some before attempting the climb! We settled to walk in the park. It was chilly and desolate as we set off and the weather rapidly closed in around us, about halfway to ‘base camp’ it started to snow. We weren’t prepared for this and rapidly flagged down the next pick up to come along. The view from 4900m was minimal but we caught glimpses of the snowy monster of Chimborazo above us before starting our descent back to the road. The visibility got worse and we were offered a lift down…but as we had already cheated once we rejected the offer, five minutes later we were regretting that decision as the snow turned to rain and we trooped down cold and wet to quickly flag down a lift in a warm car back to the city.

The Ecuadorian Andes have been windy, often against us and in strong gusts which are hard to handle, doubling the effort required to move forward and generally pretty soul destroying…however sometimes it is behind and acts like a little helping hand up the hills. With the wind comes the dust and we found ourselves having to wash our eyes out when we stopped. Sam found the amount of dirt on my face at the end of the day bizarrely amusing, his beard just disguised evidence on his own.

We felt a little like we are marching for home. And march for home we did over the next few days, up hill and down valley one after the other. We were surrounded by spectacular scenery and in one particularly memorable camping spot, the clouds were laid out below us like a stormy sea, frozen in action. Incredible.

Our last night on the move was spent camped outside a restaurant near the Inca site of Ingapirca. We thought we should end in style and camp on the side of the road without paying a penny! Ingapirca was an interesting and tranquil place on the ancient inca trail towards Peru, nothing like the scale of the sites in its neighbouring country but beautiful all the same.

Then we arrived into Cuenca…wet, tired and a little grumpy but pleased to have finished what we started when we set out 11months before. It’s not everyday that you finish a 7132mile (11,503km) trip through 11 countries, confronting every type of weather and terrain, pushing ourselves to our limits (and beyond?!) and spending most of that time with just one other person and the four wheels we bought all the way from England to help us out! But it has been wonderful. The tough moments make the elation greater, the special moments make the tough ones disintegrate. This is the ebb and flow of life on a bike, a life that we have become very used to over this past year. As it comes to an end we are both realising how much we will miss this life. Here’s to many more two wheeled adventures, it really is the only way to conquer the world!

First to the Galapagos, we have heard they have sunshine, sea and an abundance of wildlife…so we thought we had better take a look for ourselves!

The awe inspiring landscapes continued as we cycled towards Cotopaxi national park. We had been longing to glimpse the iconic volcano since entering the region and, having caught a fleeting glimpse of the white rugged peak the evening before, we were keen to witness it in all its glory. It was a beautifully clear morning when we cycled towards Cotopaxi, surrounded by four volcanos it was like nothing we had experienced before. The road through the park was rough gravel, uphill and into a head wind…but like most tough rides this was more than worth it to be so close to such a majestic monster, and on our own steam. As we rounded the edge of Cotopaxi it was lost from sight in the clouds and we descended from the chilly, windswept environment at 4000m, down towards civilisation once more.

We had a very cold nights sleep just outside the park and left the next morning to start the Quilotoa loop. This is a popular circuit amongst hikers who tend to do sections of the 100mile route on walking paths. Being on bikes we planned to do the whole loop via the roads (or gravel tracks much of the time). We left the base of Cotopaxi for a tough day with lots of climbing, we found ourselves constantly descending towards the river and then having to climb all the way back up which was a little soul destroying, we spent a lot of time wondering why there are not bridges across Andean valleys?! The final battle of the day was to reach a village 14km off the loop…so we slid down a rough gravel track to the river and started to climb all the way up the other side. By this point we were knackered…and being tired on steep gravel is not an option. It takes so much more effort to push over the bumps with our heavy bikes and we walked a lot. It began to get dark and with another 5k still to go I was despairing. In true Laura style I cried, then decided there was nothing for it but to carry on…then got a second wind which left Sam in the dust wondering what had happened to his previously exhausted girlfriend. We arrived in the dark and were immediately welcomed into the warm hostel for a meal and a shower. Going from being on the dark, empty, bumpy road to the warm, bright hostel full of smiling walkers was a little bizzare!

We rested after that exhaustion and we rested in style as our hostel had a spa, so we were able to properly relax in warm water and steam…a long way from our normal lives!

They don’t close the roads here if they are building or adapting them…they leave them open for cars, buses, trucks and cycle tourists to negotiate the surface and dodge the construction vehicles. This isn’t ideal and made for tough and horribly dusty riding, with the added fear that you might get squashed or pushed off the edge. But a new road emerged and it was lovely and smooth!

On the second to last leg to Laguna de Quilotoa, the hills were knee crunchingly steep and into a ferocious headwind…but when we arrived to the enormous crater lake, that the locals say has no bottom, it was beautiful. And we managed to beat the walkers who we had met at the beginning of the loop, not really a fair competition but still…!

We descended from the lake at 4000m to Latacunga, where we rested and tried to decide how to spend our last week on the bikes.

Things have improved enormously since our last blog, we both feel better (almost normal!),are back on the bikes and quickly gaining strength as we continue through the Andes.

On our way out of Colombia we stopped in Las Lajas, a notable pilgrimage site with a spectacular church built on a bridge over the river. It was a Saturday and the place was chaos, little did we know that it was a religious festival and were turned away over and again from hotels…eventually ending up in a single room in an old nunnery. Sam took the floor and after an uncomfortable night on the hardest imaginable bed I was not sure who drew the short straw! It was a strange place.

We loved Colombia and were sad to leave…we stopped for breakfast between the borders and had one last taste of the Colombian spirit as we watched Nairo blitz a stage of the Vuelta de España with a large enthusiastic group of money changers. Then we were off into Ecuador and immediately greeted by spectacular mountains and smooth roads.

However, Ecuadorian roads seem to either be beautifully smooth tarmac, rough dirt or cobbled. That dreaded word has come back to haunt us and the dreaded cobbles are back in full force…usually up hill and for miles on end.

We stayed in a spectacular spot above Otavalo but having battled on the afore mentioned nightmare surface to get there we felt obliged to stay for four days to make the most of it and delay the bumpy return ride. This relaxed attitude was also due to the fact that we have changed our schedule…we no longer have the goal of getting to Peru but plan to spend the remainder of our time in Ecuador rather than rush through a country that appears to have a lot to offer. This has had a profound effect on my mindset and i feel incredibly relaxed and unhurried. Shall we stay another couple of days in this amazing place…why not?!

We did eventually leave, bumped down the hill and continued south towards the Equator, stopping to camp the night with a local man called Valentin who was incredibly kind and hospitable in a very understated way, he made a fire, cooked eggs and brewed fresh mint tea for us. Over and above what you expect from a campsite host.

A short distance south from Valentin’s we met the Equator and crossed from the Northern to Southern Hemisphere in the blink of an eye. We stopped to take the obligatory pictures before continuing to the outskirts of Quito where there is a renowned casa de ciclista. Santiago and Anna Lucia have been recieving cyclists into their home for over twenty years and we immediately felt at home as we set up our tent in ‘the bunker’ as so many cyclists had done before us. This was not only a free place to stay but they offered advice, lent us a backpack and allowed us to leave extra luggage we wouldn’t need before returning to Quito in a few weeks time. We took the bus into Quito but after so much beautiful rural countryside it felt like just a big, smelly and rather uninteresting city – we are not city folk!

Camping seems abundant in Ecuador and we have been able to use our tent every night since arriving in this beautiful country. We left the smog and headed out into the countryside once more, immediately feeling calmer as the people and buildings lessened…I even openly accepted the rough uphill cobbled road to arrive at a quiet and free campsite at the entrance to Pasachoa National Park.

A stint on the busy Panamericana made us realise that we may prefer cobbles to traffic and we headed off again, uphill and bumping around but with an acceptance that it would be tough but worth it…and it was! At one stage a cobble jumped out at me and sent me crashing to the ground…it then started raining, turning these slick stones into the ultimate slip hazard. We spent as much time pushing as we did riding but as dusk began to fall the weather cleared and we saw the clouds below us and the mountains and volcanoes all around, basked in a spectacular dusky light. At 3600m we were breathless…but not just from the altitude and the exertion.

So far Ecuador has been awe inspiringly beautiful while simultaneously challenging physically and mentally. This is what we dreamed of when planning to cycle in the Andes. More of the same please!