Helen
The last two days before crossing the border into Ecuador turn out to be fairly tough, both mentally and physically. There’s been a huge landslide on the smaller road we wanted to take to the border and so we have to stay on the main road. It’s uphill for almost 25 miles! But we eventually reach Ipiales, find a hotel to stay in and plan last minute final preparations before crossing the border tomorrow.
I’m both excited and sad, to be entering a new country feels a bit of a milestone but I’ve got used to Colombia, it’s friendly people and easy ways, I only hope Ecuador is the same. The next day we cycle the 2.5 miles from Ipiales to the border and it’s a fairly easy border crossing. Getting stamped out of Colombia takes minutes and then stamped into Ecuador another 20 minutes before we’re cycling uphill and into Tulcan.
We stay overnight in what turns out to be a ‘not so peaceful hotel’, although it is Saturday night so it seems the Ecuadoreans have the same party all night policy as the Colombians! In the morning we’re packing our bags back onto the bikes when we bump into three British people, Greg, Simon and Lizzie, who also had a bad nights sleep in the same hotel and are also cycling south! It was strange as our whole time in Colombia we hadn’t seen any cycle tourists, and then within days of pre/post border crossing we were suddenly starting to meet people.
Simon and Lizzie started cycling just over a year ago from Calgary, where Greg also started, and they’ve criss-crossed each other ever since. It was great to chat to other cyclists and get advice and it turned out we’d be doing pretty much the same route through Ecuador, something called the TEMBR (trans Ecuador mountain bike route), a route that travels through Ecuador mainly on quieter dirt roads connecting small towns and villages along the way.
The first day was a real introduction to Ecuadors dirt roads. After descending out of Tulcan on the main road we turned left and started winding up an ever narrowing lane. The sun came out and exposed the high mountains surrounding us. Eventually we started cycling through the ‘paramo’, and before long we were surrounded by the famous frailejones, tall spikey tussocks that grow about 1-2cm per year, and some of these were over 3 meters tall! It was a beautiful sight to see and I felt very lucky to be cycling through this diverse area, even though the ground by now was very rough to cycle through. The ‘road’ was worn by the recent rains and we started to have to drag our bikes through mud slides, over landslides and through broken bushes!
Eventually we reached our high point and camp for the night, the Park rangers hut at 3700m. We were allowed to camp outside the hut and fortunately able to use their kitchen, which was good as the cloud had come down and it was pretty cold! We met Greg, Simon and Lizzie one again and chatted over dinner. We went to bed cold and it was strange going from predominantly not even needing to get my sleeping bag out to having my sleeping bag, thermal liner and almost all my clothes on!
But it was well worth it the next morning when we woke up to beautiful blue skies with views extending into the distance and stunning glaciated mountains. This was our first real view of snow capped mountains and I was excited! After a walk up to the nearby lake, we descended a rocky road to El Angel. The roads, similar to Colombia, were either rocky or cobbled in choice or perfectly smooth main road, and so we jumped between the two depending on how tired we were. We always prefer the quieter back roads but they are always harder on the legs and with the amount of weight we have on the bikes, not always an easy decent.
We find a beautiful campsite at Laguna de La Yaruacocha, near Ibarra. It’s full of fruit trees, birds of many striking colours, an outdoor kitchen and best of all, we have it all to ourselves! We rest here for two days, before carrying on to Otovalo. Along the way we camp one night at Cascada de Peguche, a waterfall, and get to see an indigenous celebration of Solstice, with music and dancing which extended through the night, and continued it seemed for some days, as they were still celebrating two days later as we left Otovalo! Otovalo is a big town perched in a valley towered over by by two volcanoes. We find a nice camping area in the grounds of a hostel up on the hill (obviously involved a steep cobbled climb!), with views overlooking the town. Here we meet up once again with Greg, Lizzie and Simon and share some meals and conversation together. It seems Simon shares my love for cake and so one afternoon we find a nice coffee and we all indulge in huge pieces of cheesecake!
From Otovalo we once again climbed up to 3700m to Laguna de La Mojandra, where we camped for the night, once again with Greg, Simon and Lizzie. They were good fun, and it was good to have company. As much as we enjoy each others company, and also meeting the locals, our limited Spanish meant our conversations were short and specific.
We descended the next day 12 miles down an incredible dry mud track with stunning views, and then undulated towards El Quinche, a town not far from Quito. We stayed in a hostal that night and during the night I awoke, throwing up violently. It was a real shock as I hadn’t felt any sickness during the day. The following day I realised I had diarrhoea and vomiting. I felt awful as we cycled the final 20 miles to Tumbaco where we had camping arranged in a Casa de Ciclista. I arrived exhausted but grateful, as the tent went up quickly, and I basically stayed between there and the toilet for the next 3 days! I don’t think I’ve ever felt that unwell and exhausted. I had no energy at all, even sitting up was an effort. I felt sorry for myself and desperately wanted to be back home with some creature comforts like a bed with a toilet close by, and my family to look after me. However, this wasn’t possible, sometimes you have no choice but to get on with things, and after 3 days I at least felt like eating something.
Against all advice from anyone we’ve met who’s visited Quito and told us not to bother, we leave our bikes with Santiago at the Casa De Ciclista and venture up on the bus. We stay for three nights in the historic centre and are glad we did. It’s beautiful, surrounded by mountains and the active volcano Pichincha at 4794m high, the streets are cobbled, the churches are ornate and the many plazas green and tranquil. We even manage to find a veggie restaurant, a rarity in South America so far!
Back down at our casa de ciclista preparing once again for the road. From here we’ll travel south past Cotopaxi, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, Laguna Quilotoa, a huge crater lake, and the Volcan Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador…
