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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| One benefit to the PanAmerican... plenty of food stops along the way! This little junction town specialized in roasted pork |
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| And I thought we were carrying a lot of gear! |
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| Alif's cat. |
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| 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.
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| Leaving dirt roads to head back to the PanAmerican. |
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| Views of a cemetery atop a hill enshrouded by clouds. |
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| 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.
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| My amazing illustration of the bathroom incident. |
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| 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.
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