Day 9: Pilalo To Quevedo (48 Miles) To Portoviejo

After a restless sleep, we packed up and Ed did a little bike maintenance.  The combination of road grime and steep descents had worn his brake pads to metal.  We had a leisurely desayuno continental with blackberry juice in the company of the town's precocious three year old named Jefferson who decided to befriend us.  Turns out not only was his birthday the next day, but he was determined to hang out with us at the expense of school until his aunt threatened to attack him with silly string.  Ed gave Jefferson his massage ball as a birthday present.

Probably time to replace this brake pad.

The best of breakfasts... local queso fresco, bread, eggs, coffee, and blackberry juice.

Breakfast was a bustling affair with Jefferson hanging out, as well as a local election guy setting up his computer.

We grabbed a few snacks on the way out of town, including the most delicious trio of snack balls:  candied peanut balls, candied sesame seed balls, and roasted coconut balls.  And then, with sunny skies, we continued our descent.  The clouds hung high in the sky so we could finally enjoy the views as we bombed down the mountain.  We were stopped momentarily by a mudslide being cleared out, and then we continued on past beautiful waterfalls, windy turns, bamboo, banana trees, "traffic," drying cacao beans, and skidded into the relative metropolis of La Mana.

Roadside shrines.

Deep into the valley.

Local traffic!

Random ciclovia.

In La Mana, we adjusted to the shock of traffic and stores.  I bought some replacement clothes and Ed bought another bottle cage and brake pads (only $2.00 for a set!).  After a flurry of errands, we got back on the road towards Quevedo... somewhere along the E30, there is a lost pair of Chaco knockoffs.  Oops.  After a quick lunch in Valencia of fried potatoes, mounds of meats, plantains, chitlins, and Cokes, we continued on.  And then, the heat hit.  Ani started to break down from the heat as we rolled into Quevedo.  So we decided to check out the bus schedule to get us straight to our target of Puerto Lopez.  No buses for that afternoon, but we could get to Portoviejo, a day's ride from Puerto Lopez... if we jumped on the bus right then.  And so we did.  Three and a half hours later, we arrived to cooler temperatures.  It was dark so we put all our lights on and wandered around the streets searching out a hotel.  We finally settled on the Hotel Maxima, which was $45 per night for all of us, including breakfast.  Actually $60 per night with air conditioning.  Ed took one look at Ani and said "Happy Birthday, sister."  And like that, we had a blissful night of air conditioning. 

Parillada includes 20 kinds of meat.  Fyi.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• I think it is perfectly legitimate to use buses to skip relatively boring or icky parts of routes.  Like the section of the E30 between La Mana and Portoviejo.  Mostly because it was grossly hot and humid and relatively uninteresting.  

• Just know that each bus company has their own random rules about oversized "luggage."  We paid $5 per bike from Quevedo to Portoviejo, but probably only because I asked about it.  About half the time we paid nothing and the other half we paid a random amount to load our bikes on buses.