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Trip Diary - Photo Diary - Start the trip in the UK - USA - Mexico - Belize - Continue on to Peru
From: Mark
After a 4 hour border crossing, we were into Ecuador. A mountainous country of about 14 million people, bisected and named after the equator.
Riding away from the border, we had some company for the first few miles. The two crazy Colombian Harley riders, full of life and excitement and at the start of their 2 month tour of South America. We were also riding with Alemania Alex, who was leaving Colombia for a couple of days to obtain a working visa from the Columbian embassy in Quito. The previous day, Alex had managed to cover the 500 miles between Medellin in Colombia and the Ecuadorian border in just over 10 hours. No mean feat, considering he was riding what consisted of a plank of wood strapped to a hairdryer and two pram wheels. As we reached the open road, Alex waved us on, echoing what he had said early about not waiting for him and his gasping stead. A few miles later the Harleys boys wheeled into a town to change up some dollars and we were on our own again heading towards Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
After a night in the town of Ibarra, we crossed the Equator and pulled in for a couple obligatory photos. In the vicinity of the road, there were two monuments to the imaginary line of the equator. One, the oldest, was a stone globe marking the point of the Equators original position, relative to a survey performed pre-GPS days. The other, a slightly less shabby bright orange pole, marked where the Equator now runs according to the now more accurate form of topographic positioning, GPS. Hedging our bets, we stood astride both lines, splitting ourselves between the Northern and Southern hemispheres and making whooping noises as we hoped between the two halves of the globe. With the most fun anybody can possibly have with geodesy in one day, we got back on the bike and started to make our way up towards the highland valley that nestles the city of Quito. Riding up the four lane road towards Quito and crossing under the sign that welcomed us to the city, the traffic abruptly slowed to a crawl in front of us to let a metre wide twister cross the carriageway and whip it's way up the side of the hill. This image, combined with the relatively difficult act of breathing caused by the altitude of the city (2,800 metres) made our entrance into Quito a pretty surreal affair.
After getting based in a hotel, our mission was to complete the follow objectives. 1. Find and book a few weeks worth of Spanish lessons. 2. Find and move into a low cost hostel. 3. Meet up with Mark and Helge (the bikers who we rode large portions of Central America with) and Andrew and Chantell (the backpackers Colombia). 4. Go to the British Pub called the Turtles Head and have a pint of decent beer.
Skipping objectives 1 & 2, it was decided that completing 3 and 4 would be the most efficient us of our time and we all promptly met at the boozer that evening. Not the best of ideas for a bunch of people who had been used to living at much lower altitudes and hadn't properly adjusted to the thin air of Quito. The next day, with hangovers from hell obviously caused by the thin air, objectives 1 & 2 were completed at a slow pace, a very low volume and most importantly whilst, at all times, wearing sunglasses. And so here we are; Conjugating verbs during the day. Drinking microbrew in the evenings. Not riding the bike at all (although the spin on Albert's KTM and Husqie with Mark was a welcome treat) and above all, desperately trying to breath. From: Daisy The soul destroying 4 hour Colombia-Ecuador border
crossing sees us
crossing paths with plenty of bikers, including amongst others Mike
“if I were
King I’d build a bridge between Panama and
Guatemala” - oh God help us all. But
asides from that, a great start to a new country and also quite fun
hopping
across the Equator from Northern to Southern hemisphere in the same
second
(little things…).
We ditch the obligatory Colombian neon bibs and
sniff out the finest
Mango & Raspberry ice-cream the palette will ever devour, in
the process
managing to avoid the Guinea Pig (recognized by little claws and teeth
and
their eyes being tightly shut in BBQ fear) which looks like rat and
smells like
off rat. And on the
subject of food,
we’ve found more Indian restaurants, except the only
ingredients they use are
tomatoes and chicken, so not only does every one of the 15 curries on
offer
LOOK the same, they ARE the same. (NB: anyone heard of a Tindaloo? A
real curry
apparently and different to a Vindaloo - has a few less
tomatoes’ in it). We drive past the long-haired mountain donkeys,
through the beautiful
Andean hills and snow-covered volcanoes, choking on the black filth
emanating
from the buses. Through our smog-filled eyes we can just make out the
bright
orange, green, cerise and blue skirts with matching over-knee socks and
black
bowler hats perched atop the heads of the many indigenous women (a
surreal
cross between A Clockwork Orange and Moulin Rouge). Some
plough the
fields, some carry bundles of grasses and some carry babies wrapped in
colorful
blankets on their backs.
Settled into 3 weeks of life in Quito with its
extreme’s of rich and
poor. Awful watching the children begging: from the 8 year olds in
filthy,
ripped clothes selling chewing gum for pennies outside a nightclub at
4am to
the girl on the bus with black teeth rubbing infected, bloodshot eyes
to the 5
year old in her dressing gown standing in 3 lanes of Friday night
traffic hand
held out for donations (one kid was knocked down and killed doing
exactly this
last week). Christ. Didn’t take us long to forgive the minor
pick pocketing
incident (though what a homeless kid wants with a cut out photo of
Julio
Iglesias and a receipt for Lady Speed Stick deodorant, I’ll
never know).
Life becomes ever so slightly harder for us when we
decide 3 weeks of
4-hour-a -day Spanish is a good idea. Of course it’s a good
idea, our teachers
are wonderful and we get to use our brains at long last! As every
Ecuadorian
seems to want to practice their English with us, Mu and I take to
practicing
vocabulary and conjugating verbs over breakfast. Except Wednesday which
is
Ladies Night and my Brit buddy Chantal and I make full use of the
nightclub
offering free Mojito’s to anyone who can shake their ass on a
par with Shakira.
We have to buy our own as we look more like Bez than Shakira. The ladies still fancy Mu to his delight (Colombian
AND Ecuadorian
ladies: we can only assume this is the Northern European colourings -
either
that or the ‘Johnny Vegas look’ is fashionable
here). No one loves me ‘cos my
hair has turned a quite incorrect shade of orange in the sun and if I
was to
abandon the old Gillette for a few weeks and sit in a tree I could
quite easily
be mistaken for an Orangutan. All this is rectified on Pamper Day, i.e.
Have-I-REALLY-Been-Alive-For-30-Years Day. Sunflowers, daisies and red
roses
(and an ipod - YEAH!) appear all over our bedroom, flaming drinks are
drunk,
posh food is eaten and much Shakira-ing is achieved! Thank you to
everyone who
sent kind/hilarious/piss-taking/drunken birthday messages - I
appreciate being
thought of whilst being a million miles away!
The intensive Spanish draws to a close and we bid a
sad farewell to our
wonderful, patient teachers Eugenia and Paulina as well as our drinking
partners Chantal and Andrew, but not before abusing the kind offer of
2-for-1
cocktails this generous city demanded we partake in. Decide to leave
Quito
before Cocktailosis sets in and finishes us off completely. South through lush landscapes and colonial towns,
where we get soaked
in water by the kids almost everyday in the run up to Carnaval. Even
got pampas
grass and maize kernels chucked at us as we whizzed passed –
I believe it’s
their fault we were distracted and forgot to tie our luggage to the
bike
properly and ended up atop a mountain with massive burn holes through
everything where the bags had rubbed against the rear tyre. Ooops.
Reckon Mu secretly
wanted new clothes and was prepared to use sabotage in order to get
them! Mildred
and Shirley * at
the old fashioned ‘no
electricity here’ sewing shop pulled a blinder on the luggage
(but not
clothes) repairs,
even after shaking their
heads for 10 minutes and mumbling quite a few “es no
posible’s”. Didn’t have
matching fabric or colour, so end up with lime green faux leather
patches on
the bags. Not grumbling or anything, in 1985 that may have been quite
cool.
On the road again but not for long – flat
tyre. Sorted: on the road again…but not for long, another
flat, couldn’t
believe it! Made it to a seedy hostel where the landlords mum, Miss
Haversham,
rocked inanely in her chair whilst cackling like a loon. Luckily the
bedroom
door had a lock. She probably had a key, but we were too trolleyed to
think of
that at the time as our ‘quiet drinky’ ended up
being some local chaps’
birthday party, so ended up with lock-in,
complimentary…ummm…what was that? as
well as acoustic Pink Floyd from an obliging ex-pat. Towards the border of Peru, we’re
endlessly
saluted (bizarre), even by the whippersnapper military that stop us to
check
our papers. They salute us on our way when their fave rap song comes on
the
radio – we watch them in the rear view mirror grooving
crazily and play-fighting
all over the road pretending to be from The Hood. We know
we’re in safe hands
with Pedro Ped and Fernando 3 Pac ready to pop a cap in the ass of any
banditos. Llama (possibly Alpaca) count:
2 *Names protected for confidentiality purposes. .
From: Mark Daisy’s birthday comes and goes and apart from the fact she turns into a red head, I notice little change in her. This is a good thing.
Hello movement! Down
the road we go and past mountains and Volcanoes, riding towards the
border with Along the way, we stop at little Colonial Spanish towns nestled in the hills. Each distinct, but at the same time very similar to each of the other Colonial towns found all the way north to the Mexico/US border. Bod 1: “Where are we?” Bod 2: “ Bod 1: “No, what country?” Bod 2: “Oh…”
Through Especially in the
evenings. When the
heat of the afternoon sun has dropped below the horizon, the
plazas fill with people like Victorian promenades.
Unlike the beery yob fests of Riding down the spine of Due to a little
miscalculation (no fingers need to be
pointed at this stage), at one point, our red bag drops flops down and
dangles
against the rear tyre whilst we ride along.
Despite its rather precarious position, the
bag hardly affects the
handling of the bike and we continue on our merry way for a good High in the hills we see
two other bikes and stop for a
chat. Scots Mike
and Ozzy Michelle. Both
are doing the South to North thing, on
route between Michelle:
www.the-girl-is-a-liability.blogspot.com
Mike: http://www.argentina-alaska.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
Onto LT: Donde este? Me: Inglaterra….. LT: Hablo Espanol? Me: Poco… LT: Vamos, vamos…. And so we follow him
through the traffic, to his shop.
We make small talk with his security guard
over complimentary snacks, whilst he phones around his English speaking
cousins
(who just happen to be Bikers). “But for now, Fernando will take you to your Hotel.” he says, picking up on the fact we’ve been in the saddle all day and look fried. “Don’t worry” he continues, “he maybe a fat man, but he’s a good rider” Fair enough. The next day, tyres and purchased and fitted. Pork, maize and fresh lemonade is consumed. Yet more acts of random kindness from strangers. We talk about our countries and about the common bond – bikes. Even Daisy, a non rider and self proclaimed ‘Glamorous Passenger’ is getting into the swing of the bike talk. One day ago we didn’t know these people and yet now, out of the kindness of their hearts and because of the common bond of biking, they feed us and help us along our way. Great people.
After a day laid up because my head is clogged with cold, we find a puncture on the rear tyre. Hummm. The shop that fitted the tyres obviously pinched the inner tube. Pump it up and nail it around there again before it goes flat. The lads fix it again, shaking hands again – Suerte. Next town, Loja, With fuzzy heads, we head
for the border riding another
high mountain road and with some sadness, we prepare to leave Continue on to Peru |
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| ©2006 Mark Bell |