A short and easier ride today with varied terrain: agricultural valley, mid-sized city and then slow climb.

While the summit wasn’t visible, it was nice to spot Cotopaxi this morning, Equador’s second highest point. I cycled through rest of Latacunga town and then was on a four-lane highway with gentle descent down the valley. It was easy cycling with only a hill or two. At 13km, I came to the next town Salcedo.

Not sure why, but hidden behind a low brick wall was this old 727. There wasn’t an airfield or similar nearby. The route took a zig-zag route through city streets before then going and joining the main 35 highway at 18km. There was a toll plaza followed by a 100m climb and after this point, the road shoulders were narrower.

Banana boxes from Equador.

Why the photo? One thing I’ve noticed in my travels is Ecuadorian bananas are pervasive in a large part of the world. They seem to get shipped in a particular size box, almost always with lettering in English and often a weight in pounds instead of kilograms. These boxes then get re-used for a lot of purposes.

As an example, in my ride across Russia, I saw these same boxes in some small towns in Siberia. Despite both Ecuador and Russia being on metric system and neither having English as primary language, they were still standard format. I also found it interesting to consider that path those bananas took to get from Ecuador into interior of Russia.

I’ve found the same boxes in other places in the world as well, though Russia is perhaps my most remote example. I believe many of the bananas in the USA come from Costa Rica, but Ecuador is then largest banana exporter to rest of the world.

That is why I took the photo.

Nearby was agricultural land such as this area. Despite the fields, or perhaps because of them, there are also a lot of houses as well.

At 34km, I came to a choice point just before town of Ambato. This photo summarizes the main items:

• Riobamba, my destination for tomorrow was 64km away. In that 64km, the road goes over 3600m (11,800fy), so there is still a lot of climbing yet.
• Ambato, is a nice city center and staying here would be a nice stop in the city. However, would leave a tougher day for tomorrow.
• A previous blogger documented his approach to go beyond Ambato. He eventually ended up in Mocha staying at the fire station; having thought there would be a hotel there and being incorrect. He had however, documented hotels he came to before then. Some were in countryside, so not as pleasant to stay as city, but some of the climb done.

After stopping at the Petro Ecuador at the right and having a break in the mini-market, I decided to go into center of Amato and see from there.

This guy was delivering bananas, though interesting no boxes to be found.

I reached the main square in Ambato.

There was a nice church here.

After leaving the square, I started on the outbound road. There was a short hill here with an insanely steep grade. I pushed the bike up the hill.

A little further, I felt my tire go flat. I had ridden over glass. Took a slow careful time to unpack everything, diagnose the flat and then fix it. It was directly in the middle of the tire. Hopefully doesn’t leave a hole for further flats.

After the flat, I decided to stop at next hotel along the way, only 2km further. Nice hotel and I’m on the “outbound” road from Ambato about 5km from city center. So still close enough to have stores and services and also 150m higher than city center so a little less climbing for tomorrow.

Note: This post was all ready to go when the internet stopped working. I had a fun Spanish exercise of asking, “can I reboot the router” to someone who seemed to think the remedy to a DNS issue was to connect from elsewhere. In the end it didn’t help. I also ran through my cell phone MB without internet so until I can recharge those minutes, won’t have internet from the cell phone. In any case, uploaded today instead of yesterday.

Two rest days in Quito and chance to take a short break from cycling.

Photo above shows Bert enjoying local delicacy of cuy (guinea pig).

I stayed with more standard and basic fare. My body was recovering from a few things: GI tract still adjusting to food or water or something. A little more concerning, but looks to be on the right track was I had developed a saddle sore that had become infected. It was hurting the two days riding into Quito. I guessed a day of rest would help and also from internet learned that my malaria medicine (doxycycline) was sometimes prescribed as an anti-biotic. So followed instructions for doxy as if I would enter a malaria region (only found below 1500m in Ecuador).

After first rest day, the infection wasn’t much better, so we found a local clinic for a consultation. That was its own adventure but reasonably efficient. First had picked out something from internet but our hostal owners said it was now mostly for older Ecuadorians on their equivalent of social security. However, they had a recommendation. First place was an emergency hospital but guard was able to recommend a second. A short wait and was seen by a doctor who cleaned things up further with anti-biotic wipes/cremes and confirmed my anti-biotic medicine choice and suggested anti-inflammatory as well. Today was feeling much better when we departed. Now will need to be careful in next days (and rest of trip) to not have relapse. However, overall was good choice to take that break and Quito was the right place.

Today we had some busy roads getting out of Quito. First was local city streets including this short stretch of bike path.

Leaving the city, the highway became considerably busier. We were headed “outbound” but as you can see from photo above, they had switched one of our lanes to now also come inbound. However, after 8km, we were on different highway, still busy but no longer as congested.

We climbed including past some overlooks with good views of the city.

Eventually on the main highway. Sign above not far from Machachi and shows good list of upcoming cities on the highway over next days.

Once in Machachi, we found a reasonable hotel and went out to get lunch.

Photo above actually our hotel, but also taken with slightly larger perspective to show one of the volcanoes in the background. There is a tall volcano, Cotopaxi, not too far from here but we haven’t seen it yet.

Banana’s not too expensive here at $0.50 for five bananas. Have bought them even less expensively but this was still reasonable price.

Overall plan is for Bert to join me in first part of tomorrow, but once we reach top of the hill, I’ll go over on to next town and Bert will turn back headed towards Quito for next part of his trip.

Across the equator and into the Southern Hemisphere. Greetings from 0.06 degrees south.

Nice morning leaving Otavalo, though my GI tract wasn’t quite agreeing. Stopped twice in first 10km and better after that. We started out with a climb for the day, a bit of level and then more climbing again.

This statue was somehow along the road now really connected to anything.

A view of fields along the way during the climb.

At 20km point we were over 3100m (10,000ft) and nice little shop that sold hot cocoa among other things.

First views of Cayambe volcano here at 5710m (~19,000ft), Ecuador’s third highest peak. The south flank is on the equator. It is the highest point on the equator and only one that is snow covered. There were two routes here to Quito – the longer one went via Cayambe town and the shorter one via Tabacundo. We had much more detailed notes on the first one, but it was 10km longer and decided we’d try shorter route instead.


More views of Cayumbe, can you tell I was impressed?

After this generally downhill, though we just enough shorter uphills to keep climbing muscles engaged.

Lenin was recent candidate in elections here.

Crossing the equator itself was a bit anti-climatic since the road we were on didn’t have any specific marking or monument (the Cayambe route had one). So mostly looked up the GPS coordinates on my phone and within a kilometer of when I crossed, took this shot as the first one in Southern Hemisphere.

One short intense 2km climb at the bottom and we were now past little town of Guayllabama. There was motel along the road and nice place to stay. Still a substantial climb between here and city of Quito, though we’re getting closer.

Shorter ride today with over 1400m (4700ft) of descent. A little warmer, but not to worry we’ll climb this all back on way to Quito.

San Gabriel was nice little town, with the main commercial street up on the hill. We were back on the road early and for first time in several days, the road was dry. It stayed dry and sunny and even warmer here at 1760m (5800ft). Gasoline in Ecuador is relatively inexpensive. Also interesting to find another country it is sold by the gallon.

Off in the distance, our first volcano. This before one of the first descents.

Still some small hills to climb. Made an excuse to stop by photographing the environmental sign.

Religious shrine on entrance to one of the villages.

Mammoths!

Also saber tooth cats.

Mural told of the slaying of the mammoth.

All these murals and more at entrance to village of Bolivar.

Not much further and we started the serious descent for the day. My tire felt a bit soft, so stopped at 20km and pumped it up. Otherwise, the descent was on good two lane road and with stretches in the 8-10% downgrade. It was tiring to go so slow down this hill.

Another religious shrine along the way. Seems like many of these Ecuadorian villages want to mark entrance with some interesting shrine or memorial.

Finally at the bottom! It was considerably warmer here and also seemed a bit drier.

Without too much trouble, cycled to a nice roadside resort. Next door was small restaurant. The specialty was fish.

Overall today was shorter day, but significant climb back ahead and not sure where next place to stay. When we arrived, I checked my back tire. Pulled out three small wires as well as a piece of glass. I ended up patching the tube as well.