January passed me by in a whirlwind of agonizingly short dark busy days. Day after day, it dumped snow and we were reduced to cross county skiing around town. My bike was banished to the shed. The trip to Ecuador didn't quite seem real, even as we counted down the days, reviewed gear, tuned up bikes, perused bike touring blogs, and brainstormed routes. Ani and I scheduled a video chat with Ed that involved a fair amount of whiskey (wait, isn't that what got us here in the first place?) so that we could at least get a rough sketch of where we wanted to go for Ed's two weeks with us. We had no real agenda other than exploring Cotopaxi National Park and the Quilatoa loop, routes inspired by Cass Gilbert of While Out Riding. Ani and I would play the last week in Ecuador by ear. Who knows if we would love the coast or yearn to return to the mountains?
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| Stu, my roommate and fellow bike touring fanatic, sings the "I'm not going to Ecuador blues" while I finalize this tour's setup. |
And then, after a whirlwind of wrapping up loose ends at work and spending some precious last moments with my incredibly understanding boyfriend David, it was time for Ani and me to head to Portland to pack up our bikes!
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| Bonk prevention gifts from Stu. |
We had given ourself a full day in Portland to get ready since we had one of those ungodly pre-dawn flights out of PDX. Ed made us breakfast burritos to fuel our day. Good thing because he and Ani spent the better part of a day in Portland sorting through gear, agonizing over last minute bike setup issues, and running last minute errands for gear and supplies.
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| All packed up! |
We got to the airport insanely early in case there were issues with the bike boxes. United Airlines might be my least favorite airline, but the tickets were so cheap that it was still worth the whopping $200 bike box fee each way. What was unclear to us from the website was if the weight limit for the bike boxes was 70 pounds or 100 pounds. While mine came in at 66 pounds (mostly because I opted to take a pannier on as carryon luggage with about 10 pounds of gear), Ed and Ani's boxes were just over 70 pounds. As Ed approached the counter, we held our breaths. There was some discussion amongst the front counter folks. I prepared to lawyer the shit out the policy wording if need be, but ultimately, they didn't charge Ed or Ani anything additional for their boxes being overweight.
With the most stressful part of the day behind us, we settled into a long long long day of travel, including what ended up being a 7 hour layover in Houston. Trip stoke and being self-entertained go a long way!
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| Airport acroyoga! We even taught Ed a little bit. |
Ani introduced me to a fun travel bingo game. Basically, everyone brainstorms 24 things they hope or think they will see on the bike tour. Then they are numbered and then a bingo card is filled with the numbers 1-24 randomly. Then we came up with different prizes depending on which row was completed so that the prize would be a surprise.
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| Making Ecuador bingo over two bottles of wine. |
Our 24 bingo squares included:
- Blue footed boobie
- Seco de cordero
- Equator line
- Live guinea pig
- Mangroves
- Cotapaxi
- Sailboat with a dark hull
- Stray dog
- Local cyclist with animal
- Lightening
- People playing soccer (futbol)
- Kids selling stuff
- Other bike tourist
- Dugout canoe
- Hot springs
- Panama hat (on a person)
- Stuck vehicle
- Lighthouse
- Livestock or other unusual pasajero on bus or pickup truck
- Panpipe or flute (being played by a person)
- Ruins
- Train
- Red-headed person
- Naked or swaddled baby
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| Prizes and completed bingo card... for the record, Ani won with a dubious spotting of a dark hulled sailboat on a version of the Ecuadoran flag. She won a fancy Valentine's day dinner in Cuenca. |
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| Just some tipsy bike tourists waiting for their flight and taking selfies for unsuspecting boyfriends. |
We groggily got to Quito well past midnight and anxiously awaited our bike boxes to come off the conveyer belt... we celebrated as we collected all three boxes. Ed had arranged an airport transfer with our hostel in advance making sure that they sent a van to accommodate our huge boxes and the three of us.
A few notes for bike tourists:
- It is worth comparing airplane ticket prices with baggage policies for bikes. I've paid as much as $200 (stupid United Airlines) to just $75 (yay Jet Blue). Some European airlines don't charge at all. There are also different requirements for what the bike must be packed in... United requires a box or hard sided case whereas some European airlines will allow you to just use a clear plastic bike bag.
- Packing a bike box is fairly easy. All I had to do was remove the front wheel, handlebar, pedals, rear rack, and one of my water bottle cages on the front fork. I taped some cardboard around the rear derailleur and just used the rest of my gear to cushion the rest.
- If you arrive late like we did and do not plan to ride from the airport, it is worth arranging an airport transfer in advance to make sure you have a vehicle that can accommodate the bikes. I recommend a van since Quito is prone to rain at all times of the year. We planned to ask our hostel to store our bike boxes so we could use them on the way home, and wanted to make sure the boxes stayed in good condition.
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