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.