Day 3: Quito To Machachi (30 Miles)

We woke up early in anticipation of our first day of riding.  We had made the decision the night before to ride out of city towards Cotopaxi National Park on smaller roads and avoid the Panamerican.  The idea of starting the tour on a bus out of town didn't sit well with anyone and we were itching to ride our bikes.  Ani and I headed out to grab some last minute parts for her fender from the hardware store around the corner from our hostel.  We were pleasantly surprised that it was run by a woman and we were able to find an appropriate bolt to mount her fender properly.  And then... it was time!

Three amigos and three bicicletas all clean and full of stoke.  Those are some sexy bikes.

The ride out of Quito was stop-and-go with an obscene amount of traffic, gas fumes, and a quick stop at the gas station for Ed to fill up his fuel canister.  Technically, the gas station attendant wasn't supposed to fill it, but he did anyway.  We had a big climb to get out of the city on a highway and then, all of a sudden, we were zooming down our first huge descent going just as fast as traffic.  With loud vocal whoops, we relished the wind in our faces.  And then slowly but surely, the traffic and congestion of the city gave way to the countryside and we found ourselves on small back roads.  The intermittent clouds and sun made for pleasant cycling.

And by small back roads, I mean dirt roads with lots of rocks.

The sign says "Ciclismo Turistico"...  not sure if the folks that put up this sign know that cobblestone is not cycle tourists favorite road surface.

Unending cobblestone.

After about 10-12 miles of riding and pushing our bikes up steep pitches of cobblestone and getting stuck in a heavy afternoon rain, realized we were not anywhere close to making it to Cotopaxi National Park, nor did we have any hope of getting particularly close.  We decided to aim for Machachi, the gateway town to the northern entrance of the park, and find somewhere we could dry out for the night.

"In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous" - Aristotle.  The Ecuadoreans certainly are poetic in their signage!

Ed checks out a road that is marked as "seasonal."

It ended up being a little muddy all the way into Machachi, but passable by bike.

We rolled into Machachi around 5 pm exhausted, wet, and ready to splurge on a hotel.  As luck would have it, the hotel we found was right next to a huge open air market.  It was $20 for the three of us for basic but clean accommodations.  A guy came in with a woman right before us, and we didn't think much of it at the time, but neither of them had any luggage and we never saw them again... pretty sure we stayed in a sex hotel!

Exhausting work hanging up all the wet things.

After unloading our gear, we made a bee line for the market because we were told it would be closing soon.  And then, we followed the whims of our noses and stomachs and ate all the things.  We gorged ourselves with llapingachos (fried mashed potato patties with achiote and cheese), fried chicken empanadas made with yuca or green plantain dough, quesadillas made with corn dough, guate (beef tripe stew with egg), and salchipapas (fried hot dogs and salsa atop french fries).  The clear winner was the llapingachos which was served with a beet salad, fried egg, grilled beef, aji sauce, and rice.  We would search the rest of Ecuador for llapingachos as good as these, but we never did.

A few notes for bike tourists:

• We had read about other bike tourists making it to the park in a day, but they had taken the Panamerican to the southern entrance to the park, which is all paved.  The north entrance, which is accessible from Machachi, the guidebooks all say has a road that requires a high clearance vehicle, preferably with 4WD.  

• In order to avoid the Panamerican, we relied on Maps.ME to navigate us using the cycling option.  We had no idea if the route would be a good one and didn't have any real intel on what going through the northern entrance would be like.  Once we were out of Quito, we just had the route loaded instead of in navigation mode.  This saved a lot of battery.  We did have to recharge the phone off an external charger since getting out of Quito was complicated.  I'll take quiet backroads over a highway any day.  This day was certainly challenging and we had our fair share of mud, hike-a-bike, and cycling through cow poo/pee from the big ranches we cycled by. 

• There were only a few times a road showed up that wasn't really clear on Maps.ME.  Usually, the GPS would tell us shortly if we were going the wrong way, but we also asked locals if we were close enough to the town if it was the right way.  If we were within a few miles of a town, the locals always knew the route.  If we were relatively far away, locals were confused by us not taking the most direct highway route so we found it easier to use the GPS.

• Maps.ME showed there was a hotel where there was none, or maybe it had closed.  We found it was a lot easier to just ask around.  The woman at the hotel tried to charge us $30 but after a quick negotiation, she dropped her price.  We would find out as the trip goes on, the first price quoted is never the actual price... and often would come with a price reduction three seconds later even without negotiating.