Ecuador - Middle Earth and not a Hobbit in site!

After having such an easy time getting into Ecuador we weren't about to hang around waiting for something to go wrong so we headed straight for Quito, the Capitol. On the way we crossed the Equator but didn't stop due to the impending afternoon downpour, there is a really tacky theme park called Mita Del Mundo (middle of the World) roughly 20k North of Quito which is supposed to be on the Equator (but it isn't) and then there is the official one in the City which is more symbolic.We decided to do the equator visit later in the week.

You can set your watch by the rainclouds.

Getting into Quito and finding a hotel caused the stress levels to go through the roof (as usual), Quito is a sprawling narrow city over 30 miles long and we were actually heading out of the place before we realised we'd gone too far. Just as the heavens opened we finally stumbled across a hotel somewhere close to the centre of the city.

Smog bound Quito.

As we've travelled South we've kept in touch with Brian and Sandra, another couple from the UK who are doing the same trip but they are ahead of us by a few thousand miles. They gave us the details of a mechanic in Quito who had done some work on their bike and, as BOB was in need of a service we decided to contact him and see if he could work on the bike whilst we were here. God! Quito's noisy, we had a crap night's sleep what with car alarms and dogs barking. If someone can breed puppies with a 'mute' button sign me up for some shares in the company!

Diego and his very small, very rickety 4x4 (hairdressers car).

The next day Diego arrived at the hotel and we discussed our plans, how long we were staying in Quito and the Galapagos trip. Diego served his time as a KTM mechanic but is now in the process of establishing a business making aftermarket equipment for off road bikes. He has a small workshop where he does the servicing work and after coffee I followed him back to the workshop on the bike and left him to get on with sorting out BOB. That evening Diego and his girlfriend picked us up and took us for a meal and a tour of the old city, we drove up to the Virgin De El Panacillo, a 45 metre high monument of the Madonna made of thousands of pieces of aluminium which overlooks the city. After we had a walk round the museum inside the monument we ate at a nearby restaurant overlooking the city.

The Virgin of Quito.

Inside the statue, showing the aluminium plate construction (Hmmm, interesting).

Quito at night from the observation deck. The lights in the distance stop suddenly, not because of lack of buildings but because of power cuts.

Quito at night would be even more spectacular if the city didn't have an electricity shortage, due to the lack of hydro electric power there is a rationing system and every area of the city has blackouts for a couple of hours at specific times of the day or night.

Are we lucky or what? It also turned out that Diego's uncle owns a tour company specialising in trips to the Galapagos Islands and he had got them to send us a quote with some dates etc, so the next day we moved to a nearby (cheaper) hostel and booked ourselves in for a five day cruise round the islands leaving in four days time. The Hostel International was in an area of the city popular with tourists so plenty going on and plenty of noise, the only way to get secure parking was to take the panniers off and ride the bike through the Hostel and into the back yard.

Another tight squeeze.

Luxury accommodation.

Diego had done an excellent job on the bike and his mother (bless her) had even washed and polished BOB like new. The only (and painful) problem was that she had also polished the seat, so the first time I sat on the  bike and applied the brakes I shot forward and nearly lost 'mi nuts' under the handlebars!

Cotopaxi - A grand day out!

Breakfast en route to Cotopaxi.

Bloody Tourists! (and guide).

"Oh go on then", one more stunning scenery photo.

The road to the National Park.

Cotopaxi is said to be the highest active volcano in the world approximately 5,897m (19,347 ft) though, as with most things "highest," there's some debate about that claim. Because it is on the equator and the earth is not a true sphere it is also one of the closest places to the sun, whether you get close to the summit or not, the view of its perfectly shaped, snow-covered cone is stunning and the ride through the National Park is spectacular...at least it would have been if we were allowed in on motorcycles! When we got to the entrance to the park we were told that only cars or four wheel vehicles could use the road to the Refugio 4,800m (15,840 ft), the building used by climbers as a rest stop on their way to the summit.

Not much use if you can't get into the Park.

This was as far as we got with the bikes (isn't she pretty?).

The problem was that a couple of weeks before our visit there had been a National mountain bike race through the park and Diego had taken a cameraman on the back of his bike to film the race, so assumed (there's that word again!) the park was open to motorcycles.

BOB would have to stay put for now.

No amount of begging or bribing was going to get us in, so the only option was to hire a vehicle to take us on a tour of the park. 10 minutes later the guy turned up in a mini bus and we left the bikes at the entrance, the drive up to the car park took us an hour with stops here and there to take photos.

Once you reach the car park there is another 600ft to climb to the Refugio, now normally 600ft at sea level would not be a problem but at 14000ft on volcanic ash it took us over an hour. Hang on a minute! we've been here before.....Volcanoes, ash, burning lungs, knackered legs, mutterings of "never again" some people never learn!

Looking back down the volcano with the car park on the left.

Bloody tourists with the refugio in the distance (it looks higher than 600ft from here).

Where's the refugio gone?

Made it!

The view of the summit from the refugio.

At this elevation it's cold, even in bright sunshine, and it was a good test to see if we would be affected by altitude sickness. In a few weeks time we will be in Bolivia and Chile where we will be driving at over 4,000 metres for days in a row.

Just a few hundred metres from the refugio is one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, at 5,000 metres we declined the offer to go up and after a cup of hot chocolate in the hut we took the cowards way out....Down!

Was it worth it? Yes. Would you do it again? No! (yeah right).

We got back into Quito just about the time that everyone was converging on the city centre to watch  the final of the Copa Sudamericana, the South American equivalent of the European Champions League Cup. La Liga from Quito were playing Fluminense from Brazil, unfortunately La Liga won which meant car horns and whistles blowing until the early hours. These Latinos sure know how to celebrate....Noisy Bastards!!

After a sleepless night we were ready for a day of rest at the thermal springs in Banos.

Banos is a stop off point for travellers heading in both directions through Ecuador and it nestles at the foot of Volcano Tungurahua which supplies the heat for the thermal springs. We didn't fancy stopping in the centre at one of the many hostels, so the night before I found a quiet spa a few miles away on the road out of town.

The run down was pleasant enough but we find ourselves getting very blase about the stunning scenery and you've all seen enough mountains, right? As usual we couldn't just go straight there, we had to do the now customary detour via some real hillbilly towns assisted by some characters straight out of Darwin's waiting room! We should know better than to ask directions from someone who has never seen a map or travelled further than the edge of the village, but Hey! it's an adventure right?. We arrived in Banos late in the afternoon and drove straight through the town but came to a halt at some road works which had been set up to control traffic whilst repair work was carried out on a tunnel.

Notice the extremely safe systems of work!

We were waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass when a tour bus with inflatables rafts on top drove past with a couple of goons sticking their heads out of the windows shouting at us. It was Phillipe and Obi who we'd last seen in Salento.

Follow that bus.

This is getting to be more wierd than coincidental, the chances of us being on the same road at that precise moment in time was scary, they had just finished a day on the rapids and were heading back to their hostel so we turned around and proceded to hold a conversation with them riding alongside the bus with interuptions to avoid being wiped out by oncoming traffic.

We followed them back to their hostel and decided to book in for a couple of nights and enjoy their company, the hostel was far enough away from the centre so as to avoid all the noise but more importantly the guys had negotiated a good deal of 8 dollars a night.

Monte Real Hostel, Banos.

It turned out that they were now riding in a group of 8 travellers on 6 bikes and the car park at the rear of the hotel looked like a convention for overland travellers.

BOB (left) was among friends again.

The group of bikers consisted of:

Chris (South African) from Miami, Chris is travelling with his wife Melissa (Melissa is taking a break to visit Easter Island and will be joining him later on the trip.

Gino from Venezuela.

Johanass and Judy (Jude) from Tasmania.

and the three that we'd met in Medellin and Salento.
Ingo from Germany.

Obi from New York.

Phillipe from Canada.

We went into town for a meal that evening to trade the usual "did you go here" "did you go there" stories.

The group from left to right:

Johanass, Sue (isn't she pretty), Kristine and Toby (German biker couple also staying in Banos), Some woman Phillipe found?, Phillipe was behind her out of shot, Ingo, Jude, Obi, Chris, Your's truly and Gino.
We had a great evening, I of course was in my element talking bikes and stuff and Sue really enjoyed a bit of female company for a change.

We had originally planned to only stay in Banos one night and ride back to Quito the next day but the alcohol wouldn't allow that, so we booked another night to give us time to look round and visit the hot springs without feeling rushed.

Guinea pigs, they're a local delicacy but they charge an arm and a leg for them (if guinea pigs have arms?)

"I don't care what kind of sauce you put on them I'm not eating them".

The next day was spent visiting the Spa, lazing about and watching the street parade which consisted of various groups of musicians, dancers and carnival floats from around the region.

Here's one for the fellas.

Here's one for the ladies!

That day the group also picked up another rider, Gert, a displaced Dutchman who had been living in Bolivia and was now looking for somewhere else to live. Gert had been running a cafe business in Sucre in Bolivia and had numerous contacts which would prove useful further down the road.
The Saga of the New Tyre:
In Medellin, Columbia we had bought a new TKC knobby rear tyre on the advice of Carlos at Ruta40 BMW, he reckoned once we entered Peru the chances of obtaining the right size of tyres for BOB would be slim if not impossible until we reached Santiago in Chile. I was keen to get back onto off road tyres for the sand and gravel sections through Bolivia and Chile and had intended to change them once we got to Lima or La Paz, the only problem was Carlos could not supply a front tyre. At a push we could get to Santiago on the front tyre already on the bike but it would be no fun on the desert sections but the only other option would be to order a tyre and have it shipped ahead.
As we sat having dinner that evening the conversation turned to tyres and it turned out Chris was going to use his company in Miami to ship a load of tyres for the group into La Paz. I asked if it would be possible to get another front tyre in the box and was told "no problem", all we had to do was follow the group to La Paz and pick it up when we got there. If we had not been doing the Galapagos trip I think we would have joined up and travelled with the group, their route was similar to ours and it would be good to have some backup through the rough sections ahead. Unfortunately we needed to be back in Quito the next day so we said our farewells and told the everybody we would try and catch them up in a week or so.

As we had spent another day in Banos we had to return by the same route to save time rather than do the twisty roads though the mountains which would take a lot longer.
We arrived back in Quito needing to pack for the trip to the Galapagos Islands the next day, Diego was going to have a look at the final drive on the bike whilst we were away so that solved the problem of finding somewhere to store the bike. Our last night in Quito before leaving for the Islands coincided with the last day of the week long Fiesta De Quito and as I pointed out earlier in the post we were stopping in the middle of Fiesta Central! We tried our best to sleep but even with earplugs it was clear the day was going to be a long one, people were still singing and shouting at 4:30 in the morning and we had to be up at 5:30 to get the taxi to the airport for our flight.....Yawn

Take a look at the following site until the next update landlubbers!

http://www.galapagostours.net/content/view/37/91/