Day 21: Quito To Portland

Parting is such sweet sorrow.  I wasn't ready to leave Ecuador.  I wasn't ready to pack my bike up.  I wasn't ready to go home.  And that's the best way to end a bike tour, wanting just a little bit more.  We relished one last breakfast at Colonial House and reluctantly disassembled and packed our bikes and gear into our bike boxes.  Two rolls of packing tape and just an hour later, we had patched up the boxes and packed everything.  Amazing how much easier it was this time around.

Sweet grinder for our morning coffee!

 Our flight wasn't until the evening, so we still had a little time to explore a little more of Quito.  Jake had recommended to us a chocolate shop where we could buy some locally sourced sustainable ethical chocolate at the Kallari Cafe.  We wanted to grab a few more souvenir type items for loved ones and what better than chocolate?

Bolones de verde con salsa de mani.  Yum.  Not to be mistaken with the typical bolon.  Not a big fan of the latter, but the former, whoooooeeeee.  I also got a chocolate milk that was delicious, but made my tummy hurt because, well, lactose and lactose intolerant don't go well.

After our "lunch" of many chocolate samples, we decided to check out the church in the historical center.  For just $2, you can climb up the clock towers and otherwise get amazing views of the city.  While the "stairs" would certainly be banned in the U.S., if you have a little gumption and no fear of heights, it is well worth the trek up and down!

Basically a glorified ladder.

Church explorations were worth the views!

And then it was almost time to go.  Jake stopped by our hostal to say his final goodbyes.  And then our van picked us up and we headed to the airport a wee bit early.  Oops, we were 3.5 hours early, but at least the van driver was super nice and bilingual, so the three of us had a lovely conversation as we weaved in and out of traffic.  We unsuccessfully avoided the bike fee when we checked in, but we were happy to have been so early because the line was ridiculously long behind us.  

We blearily arrived in Houston at 6 am the next morning and ran straight to the first bar to enjoy a Bloody Mary, only to find out that booze is not served in Texas prior to 7 am.  What!?  We had a 4 hour layover and how were we going to amuse ourselves.  So we sipped water, made small talk with a slightly tipsy government contractor on his way home from Las Vegas, and waited it out... and sure enough, at 7 am on the dot, the lovely bartender made us glorious Bloody Marys to tide us over until it was time to head back to Portland.  

Ani's dad picked us up at the airport and luckily, Ani had enough juice to drive us back to Bend right away.  It was nearly 24 hours from the door of the Colonial House to the door of my commune, and while it was good to be home, I already was thinking about my next tour.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• I probably said this on the front end, but we made sure we got a van and not regular SUV or car for our return to the airport.  Just know that bike boxes are big and really, only a van will fit bikes and passengers!

Day 20: Quito

Sometimes, the world is tiny.

I live in a lovely group home in Bend, Oregon, which we joke is like a commune because of the shared garden, backyard chickens, music jams, bonfires, potlucks, and general community feel.  Jake used to live in that home... and we met through our mutual friend who owns the commune.  In fact, he used to occupy my room and when he moved to Ecuador, I moved into his room.  Jake has been doing amazing work with Naku, an indigenous organization created by the Sapara people of the Ecuadoran Amazon that protects, preserves, and shares the ancient wisdom of the Sapara.  Although he lives in Quito, he has the privilege to travel into the jungle to help facilitate tourist trips into this community, so we weren't sure if we would be able to spend time with him until the last minute.  Luckily, the stars aligned and he was able to spend the day being our personal tour guide of Quito, from exploring Pinchicha to gourmet Amazonian cuisine to recommendations for a local nightcap, we did it all!

We are on a cable car!

Headstands at the top of Pinchicha.

Trying to look kind of normal.

Volcanic acroyoga.

Lupine and landscapes.

No words will do justice to the food we ate at Patria.  For about $30, we got a gajillion course meal sourced from purely Amazonian ingredients, with 3 different alcoholic beverage pairings, and impeccable service.  This is white linen tablecloth dining and only by the grace of being privileged tourists were we able to enter in our bike touring clothes.

Appetizer.  House made sausage and potato cake with avocado foam and lemon balm.  Not pictured here, the amuse bouche. a small shot of traditional soup.

Entree.  Paiche, a prehistoric fish that is apparently huge and catfish-like, served with yuca and roasted fern, garnished with lemon balm.

Entree.  Stewed goat with llapingachos.

Post-dessert bite.  Chocolate covered lemon balm with creamy mousse bit.  Not pictured here, the actual dessert which was an Ecuadoran death by chocolate.

Jake had to head home after lunch, but recommended a craft brewery called Bandido Brewing that was located just a few blocks from our hostel.  It is in an old renovated church and stocks board games and cards, and generally has a jovial ex-pat feel.  The beer was spot on and we ended the day there.

Honey ginger saison, fuck yea.

Day 19: Alausi To Quito - ELECTION DAY!

Election Day + Market Day = Crazy Morning.  I had a really nice conversation with the owner of our breakfast establishment about politics and the elections.  Interestingly, he has two kids that live in the U.S., but doesn't think Trump is so bad.  Turns out his kids are there legally and he feels like people shouldn't enter the U.S. illegally.  His view of the state of politics in Ecuador was also interesting... he likened the current administration as pro-oil industry and just money hungry.  It was time for a change.  I decided to buy a few newspapers to read about the elections on the bus and then we headed to the market to check it out.  The entire town was bustling!  Even though we really didn't need anything, we bought some more arepas and Ani's favorite, llapingachos.  We also finally figured the magical ingredient... "meat juice!" according to the kind woman who packed us our llapingachos to go.  We also grabbed some more passion fruits and chirimoyas.  Sigh.  No self control.  

Just one corner of the market... and just a minute after I snapped this photo, we saw a guy carrying a dozen live guinea pigs on his bike!  If Ani hadn't already won our Ecuador bingo game, this would have been a double-square find.

It was finally time to head to the bus station which was swarming with people.  It was super stressful getting the bikes on the bus because there was hardly any space in the terminal and the bus helper guy was yanking and trying to just throw our stuff on.  But we made it, and much to our surprise, didn't charge us for the bikes even though the lady at the ticket window said he would charge us.  I suppose our bikes were nothing in comparison with the guy who was bringing an entire bed with him in the luggage compartments!

When we arrived in Quito, it began to hailing and raining crazy hard.  We waited it out a bit and Ani spent some time fixing the fender that the bus helper guy had accidentally broken.  It seemed crappy to not ride our bikes to the Colonial House, which was just 8 miles away... and the rain seemed to be letting up.  So I fashioned some rainpants out of an industrial plastic trash bag that Ed had left for me, which paired beautifully with my poncho, and off we went.  As luck would have it, the rain was basically done and we made it back to the hostel coasting mostly downhill in grand style along a gorgeous ciclovia.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

We settled back into our home away from home, saw that our bike boxes were still there, and wandered off for some dinner.  At long last, we were finally a bit sick of Ecuadoran food, so we decided to check out the local Chinese food scene at the nearest chifa.  We split a greasy vegetable-y noodle dish and knocked back some free aguardiente and called it a night.

Aguardiente poured directly into passion fruits seemed like a great idea, but, the best laid plans...

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• I had heard a lot of bad things about the Quito bus terminal, but we found it was very safe feeling and just made sure to be in a very public part of it and always vigilant.  Most folks just stared at us because of our bikes, and the one guy who seemed a bit out of place walked off when security came through.  Plus, I gave him the stinkeye just in case.

Day 18: Chunchi To Alausi (24.5 Miles)

We woke up so early that no breakfast places were open, so we grabbed some provisions form the market and some bread so fresh we literally got to pick them off the pans from the oven, and made some egg, avocado, and cheese sandwiches at the hotel.  We were a little scared of the steep descent into the canyon and the long ass climb out, but this was going to be our last day of real cycling and we were determined not to ride on the PanAmerican.

Did I mention the perfect weather and views?

The long twisty road down and back up... sheer bliss and all 100% rideable.  No hike-a-bike for us for once!

We could not have picked a better route.  What we thought was going to be a dirt road grind, turned out to be a gorgeous recently paved road devoid of traffic.  We relished the riding this day even though it was mostly climbing up 4400 feet because the grade was downright comfortable.  And even all the dogs seemed to be in better moods.  

Lunch break in the first town we came across... had just one market and a friendly kitten who we fed tuna to...

As we descended towards Alausi, I felt a small pang of sadness that we were basically done with our time riding.  Soon we would be hopping on a bus to get back to Quito and meet up with a friend of ours from Oregon who now lived in Quito.  I wish I could say we ended the day on a glorious downhill ride into town, but Ecuador threw us one last steep climb into town.

A woman advised us on the way into town that the cheapest digs were at the Residencia Alausi, which was just one block from the bus station.  It was pretty rustic, but had plenty of space for our bikes and the price was right.  After we checked in, we headed to the bus station, which has just one big bus bay that sort of fits two buses in it.  We bought our tickets for the next day and then explored the town. 

Alausi was the second most touristy city we passed through, primarily because it is where people grab a train to explore the parts of the cloud forest that we had already biked through.  Real f-ing espresso is one of the perks of tourism... and it was only $1!  

Because trains need more headstands?

We got hungry so we stopped for a late lunch and hit up the market to make a huge quinoa beet salad for the bus ride to Quito.  And even though we had just had lunch, we couldn't resist whole wheat arepas and ice cream.

You haz ice cream?

We had some time to kill so we decided to abuse the wifi at the hotel and re-watch the Anthony Bourdain episode on Ecuador on Ani's cell phone.  Dammit, we didn't realize he had gone to Puerto Lopez in our whiskey-induced haze in the U.S. when we watched the show after buying our plane tickets.  Ah well, we had done well enough for ourselves but still had some food envy as we drifted off to sleep.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• Alausi has an abundance of places to stay.  I feel pretty certain the Residencia Alausi was the cheapest spot at $8 per person for a private bathroom ($6 per person with shared bath).  A few dollars more and I think you could find some classier digs if you shop around.

• The buses to Quito ran at 4 am, 8 am, and 10 am, but only the 10 am originated in Alausi.  You cannot buy tickets for the other buses at the station in advance because they originate elsewhere.  It would also be election day and market day when we wanted to take the bus, so we wanted to be extra safe.  So even though we wanted to leave earlier, we bought tickets for the 10 am train so we could ensure our seats and get to the bus terminal early to get our bikes aboard.  We were glad we did because the bus did sell out the next morning!

Day 17: El Tambo To Chunchi (38.9 Miles)

We woke up and realized that the tent was completely soggy from an overnight sprinkle and dew... poor Policia was curled up in a ball right next to our tent.  I guess he had been guarding us all night!  We made coffee and packed up and figured we could find breakfast in town.  We got a weird vibe from Angel and his wife and wanted to get out of there sooner than later.  The PanAmerican highway was a couple blocks away, and lo and behold, we found the tiniest cutest food place there.

The owner was a whirlwind of energy because it was the big livestock fair and she was getting ready to sell her food there.  But she welcomed us and made us a lovely creamy sweet cinnamony corn drink (kind of like Mexican horchata), milk coffee, and light airy fried cheese empanadas.  Then she showed us the soup she had started at 3 am.  It was called mocho and she offered us a bowl.  Who were we to say no?  Well, I have no idea what animal parts were in it, but it was pretty gross to our palates.  I took one for the team and ate some of it, and then we packed the rest in a bag to throw away later so we wouldn't seem rude.  On the way out of the restaurant, I managed to roll my ankle pretty badly.  Argh!

Views of El Tambo from a random dirt road track that we were trying to follow.

We had a huge hike-a-bike out and around the town when we ran into some construction workers.  They kept telling us there was a "shorter better" way and we thought we could see the road they were pointing to, so against all of our own personal rules of not listening to locals, we ignored Maps.ME and tried to find this "shorter better" way.

The road was just a little muddy... Ani's bike didn't have as much clearance so the mud actually made it so her wheels wouldn't turn until she cleared it out by hand.

After descending basically all the way back to the PanAmerican highway, we basically gave up.  The hike-a-bike was killing my ankle and so we decided to stick to the highway to give my ankle a rest.  The silver lining was that there wasn't actually much traffic on this section, it was mostly downhill, lots of cool roadside waterfalls, beautiful views, and lo and behold... another rad female solo bike tourist named Alif, from Turkey.  She has been bike touring for four years with a machete, a "can do" attitude, and a cat.

One benefit to the PanAmerican... plenty of food stops along the way!  This little junction town specialized in roasted pork

And I thought we were carrying a lot of gear!

Alif's cat.

Dem views!

Ani and I had scouted out on the maps a cutoff to another highway that would have required us to descend from 8300 feet to 4850 feet on dirt roads.  A woman stopped us frantically to asked us where the f*ck we were going.  Based on our earlier experience and our blind faith in Maps.ME, we were wary, but she was adamant that the road had completely washed out and it was impassable, even by foot.  The cost of being wrong was high... the idea of descending down nearly 4000 feet to be wrong about a washed out road was a bit terrifying.  She kept telling us there was a way to get to get to the other highway a bit further on.  Sigh.  Better safe than sorry, right?  We kept chugging along the PanAmerican to the next cutoff at Chunchi.

Leaving dirt roads to head back to the PanAmerican.

Views of a cemetery atop a hill enshrouded by clouds.

Approaching Chunchi.

As we rolled into Chunchi, I got pelted right on the back with a water balloon.  Damn kids.  But I didn't really care.  We quickly found a hotel for the night which cost the same as our campsite.  We holed up in the room drying out clothes and abusing the wifi while making a gourmet pasta dinner until I peeked out the bathroom window and saw the most amazing sunset.  Ani rushed into the bathroom and did a pullup on the window above the shower, and I stood on the toilet admiring the fiery sky.  Then we rushed down the street to find a better view, laughing until our stomachs hurt.

My amazing illustration of the bathroom incident.

Success!  Yay sunsets!

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• Just don't eat mocho.  Ani and I love all food, and well, this was probably the worst food experience I've had in all my travels.

• I have such conflicted opinions about listening to advice about directions from locals.  For the most part, they don't understand that bike tourists love the roads less travelled, even if they are steeper, longer, and harder to travel on.  And sometimes they know best. 

Day 16: Angelita's To La Tomba (19.6 Miles)

After a restless night of sleep listening to chickens, highway traffic, and barking dogs, we enjoyed Angelita's bathroom and a simple breakfast.  We also grabbed a few humitas and tamales to pack in our panniers.

Moreno bids us adieu and even Angelita can't help but peek out the door to see us off.

And then we were off for our first miles on the PanAmerican highway.  We had managed to stay off this beast for over two weeks, but since we had not planned much of this part of the trip, we just sucked it up for 3 miles before we turned off onto dirt roads again.

This part of the country was grazing land dotted with countless cows.  The road was lined with silver 5 gallons jugs, which we surmised were filled by the locals and picked up by one of the many milk trucks we saw bouncing down the dirt roads.  As we continued on, we came up on a rocky landslide.  Maps.ME showed that this "road" (okay fine, it showed up as a dotted line trail) connected so we had an epic hike-a-bike up the landslide and onto a steep dirt trail.

Lone milk jug.

Ani rides towards the ridge.

Landscapes and empty roads and stuff.

Riding on the horizon.

The end of the road.

After a while, the trail finally mellowed out enough to ride.  The terrain was super challenging but this may have been my favorite day of riding because of the solitude and the views.  This summit was around 12,500 feet and blissfully unpopulated.  We stopped for a bonk-prevention lunch with views into the valley and then bombed down the mountain into Canar.

Turns out tamales in Ecuador are filled with peas, carrots, chicken, and egg!

Views on the way into Canar.

The obligatory fruit stand stop... found our first chirimoya!

Canar was a lot bigger than I expected.  Before I lost my pannier, I had been reading a really good book about a photojournalist that did some cool work in Canar back in the day and her descriptions made it sound like a dusty village.  Nope.  It was a full blown city.  We sat in a park in the center of town to eat some fruit until a guy came over and made some strange conversation with us.  We didn't feel unsafe, but he wouldn't leave us alone so we decided to move on.

Leaving Canar (at least I think this was a picture of Canar).

Just give miles down the road from Canar was a town called El Tambo and we figured we would aim for there and see what options we had for somewhere to spend the night.  On the way, we met a hilarious old woman who was carrying a huge load of plants.  She wanted to know all about our trip and was a joy to talk to (especially after we survived yet another alley of shitty Ecuadoran dogs).  We continued onto La Tomba and Maps.ME told us there was a hosteria on the edge of town, so we decided to check it out.  It ended up being this oddly manicured empty convention center resort of sorts, but the caretaker Angel said we could camp there for $10, which is about the same as renting a room.  But we were so taken with the resident alpaca and llamas that we decided to stay.

We made a new friend!  Really, who could resist that face.

Our "campsite" at Hosteria Cuna del Sol.

Angel calls his dog la policia, but he wasn't doing his job right as we rolled right in with no problems.

I suppose he did a pretty good job of guarding our tent though!

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• Hosteria Cuna del Sol is an odd place, but it has showers, a pool (that was under construction), wifi, some limited alcoholic beverages, and they do make food if you ask.  There were also plugs outside near where we pitched our tent so we could charge our devices.  We felt safe at night as they locked the gate to the grounds, and there were a few really nice workers who asked us about our gear and shared some cerezas with us, which are a type of fruit kind of like a sour cherry that grows on the grounds.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as Angel, the caretaker, was almost too schmoozy and charismatic... that is, until he yelled at his wife and made her cry behind closed doors.  And, at $10 per person, it wasn't particularly cheap or a good deal.  It was, however, otherwise quiet and away from the town and prying eyes.

Day 15: Cuenca To Angelita's (22.4 Miles)

Breakfast marks the difference between the guesthouses that are family-owned versus more European-style hostels.  Although the AlterNative hostel has all the amenities of a great hostel, the breakfast was basically coffee, wonder bread DIY toast with margarine and jam, and a banana... a far cry from our lovingly-made eggs and fresh juice.  But, it was free and who were we to complain?  And then, sometimes hostel life shines through.  Someone had left an egg in the "leave your extra food" area and another gal was struggling to finish a huge avocado and asked if we wanted it.  And like that, we had ourselves a lovely egg sandwich for breakfast.  My karmic gift back to the commune was a nearly full bag of lentils that we hated cooking in camp because they take too long!

On our way out of town, we went to the only post office in all of Cuenca that sells stamps... mind you, Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador!  Ecuador does not have a culture of mail, and oddly, there seem to be mailboxes all over, including in smaller tourist towns like Puerto Lopez, but who knows when it is actually picked up and you cannot buy stamps anywhere except in the largest cities.  Since it cost $3 to send postcards to the U.S., we decided to just send a few back to our favorite people and then mail or hand deliver the rest from the U.S.  To make it a little more fun, we bought some $0.10 stamps to put on those.

Leaving the Cuenca valley behind.

School break in one of the small towns we passed through.

We were winding through tiny dirt roads when I saw that Ani had stopped and was actually chatting with a local man.  Normally, she goes through her small vocabulary and then tells folks that her friend who speaks Spanish is right behind.  Turns out this man, whose name we forgot to ask, had lived in Chicago from the age of 16 through 37 and came back to Ecuador about a year ago because his parents wanted to retire in their hometown.  He also wanted to come back and try to get back to the U.S. legally, but to his dismay, Trump was elected so he felt unsure about those prospects.  He was so happy to practice his English since he hadn't had the opportunity to use it since he had been back.

Coffee break with ominous clouds in a tiny town called Deleg.

The skies did not cooperate and so it sprinkled and rained on us off and on.  Luckily it was pretty warm while we were riding and my new poncho worked fine.  As we climbed out of the Cuenca valley, we started to see more traditional clothes and a lot of curious friendly stares as we rode by.  Some folks even tried to chase us down to ask us where we were going and what were we doing?  In retrospect, I wish we had stopped more but the rain was more bearable when we were moving, so that's what we kept doing.

Sweet repurposed bicycles.

Cute little house with one of the nice dogs.

Lots of hike-a-bike on amazing dirt roads... right after the town of shitty dogs (well, except for the cute puddle of puppies).

We also saw tons of baby lambs and wondered why we couldn't find the elusive seco de cordero anywhere!  As the day continued on, we realized it was getting late and we were nearing the PanAmerican highway and that we would probably want to stop before we got there.  There was a sprinkling of houses along the dirt road before the highway, so I stopped and asked an indigenous grandmother and her granddaughter if there was somewhere to spend the night.  "It's not that we don't want to help you, but we cannot protect you," she explained as she directed us to a ranch down the PanAmerican where she felt we could ask this favor.  Her directions were confusing at best at how to arrive a this ranch.  Just up the road at the intersection with the PanAmerican, there was a cafeteria, so I asked again there.  Bingo!  Angelita, the owner of the cafeteria, offered the space behind the cafeteria or in her yard, which was just across the street.  Done and done.

Moreno, the resident dog at Angelita's who bravely chases semi-trucks down the PanAmerican.

We decided to have the merienda at Angelita's cafeteria before setting up camp, which included a jugo de tomate de arbol, potato/choclo/rice soup, stewed chicken, rice, plantains, and french fries.  When it was finally time to set up camp, Angelita was fascinated by our gear.  She checked out our tent, asked about our sleeping bags, and then after a minute, asked if we wouldn't feel more comfortable sleeping inside the gated enclosure of the cafeteria.  That suited us just fine because we would not be visible at all from the road and we were amused by sharing the space with her chickens.  She promised that she would open up the door early for us, and asked if we needed to use the restroom before she locked us into our compound.

Our cozy home for the night.

View through our gated paradise.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• This part of the trip we literally had nothing but Maps.ME and an idea of working our way back towards Quito on small roads and staying off the PanAmerican as much as possible.  We had not planned anything and were just taking it one day at a time.  

• The dogs in this section were TERRIBLE.  I literally had to kick a dog in the face when all my other tactics failed (slowing down, stopping, riding towards the dog, throwing rocks at the dog).