Back on the Road

  The farm to Quito - 110km

Quito from above

I had been dreading this ride for a while as I knew there was a lot of climbing after taking a bus to Quito a few weeks ago.  Still feeling the dregs of a hangover from New Year’s Eve I woke up at silly o clock in the morning to get an early start, Realised that the dogs had eaten one of my shoes, luckily I had been given a second pair a few weeks ago so it wasn’t to tragic, as long as they enjoyed it I’m happy. It was great to set off so early, I had a good few hours of cool weather before the sun showed up. The First 50 km was pretty much all uphill, a long slow climb that seemed to go on for ever.   I was feeling the effects of eating too much and drinking too much and not cycling over the past weeks but chugging on all the same. There was a nice section of downhill for about 15km until the road cut through the side of the mountain range with some ups and some downs until just outside Quito where there was a serious climb, I could see ahead of me an endless series of switchbacks and was not looking forward to it. I stopped for a drink and a police truck pulled up, he asked me if I was ok and I took my chance, I told him I had a problem with my bike and was looking for a ride up to Quito He told me he was heading about 5 km up to a pay toll and could give me a ride. Didn’t help me out too much but it was cool to ride in a police truck. Nearing the top of the hill I realised that Quito was about 40 km long and so I’ve heard terrible for cyclists, I wanted to get to the centre so I decided to try to hitch a ride as I didn’t fancy battling through 20km of smog and traffic, plus I was exhausted. Within about 2 minutes a pickup stopped for me, a guy who worked at the airport which happened to be only a few km from the centre of town, which is a ridiculous place to put an airport he told me of four occasions when a plane had over run the landing and caused carnage in the centre of the city.

middle of the world

I found a cheap hostel and was asleep before 9. Spent a day in Quito seeing the sights which were few, its basically just a huge city in the mountains second highest city in the world at 2850m. I took a gondola up the volcano Pinchincha which felt horrible without skies on my feet but the view was quite impressive, a sprawling city never more than 3 or 4 km wide but about 40 km long . Quito also boasts the centre of the world, a monument that lies on the equator with museums and cool interactive experiments to prove than you are in fact on the equator unfortunately by the time I arrived all the museums were closed so I paid $2 just to see a huge Statue that read - latitude 00.

Quito to Latacunga 95km

A long slow dismal climb out of the city on narrow roads with boisterous trams, it was nasty for the first 20 km I felt very uncertain on my survival, If I didn’t get killed by a bus then I would surely collapse from carbon monoxide poisoning. After a very unpleasant few hours the city began to leave me alone and I was on the open road again with a nice wide shoulder just for me to play in. the rest of the day was better but not great, a gradually climbing 40km without much of a view, I knew I was in the midst of the great volcano Cotapaxi but there were a gang of mischievous clouds loitering about its base obstructing my view. After this climb the road lead gently downhill all the way to Latacunga, this was rather pleasant. Latacunga didn’t look like much more than a dirty stopover from the Pan-American but as I crossed the bridge to the centre I was surprised to find a beautiful old colonial town centre with cobbled roads and very interesting architecture, after circling the narrow and confusing one way system the wrong way and pissing off all the motorists I found a nice hostel in a stunning old 19^th century abode, enjoyed a hot shower and cooked some hot food.

Latacunga to Quilotoa - 80km

Today I took a trip off the Pan-American up to a mountain village named Quilotoa home to  ‘Laguna Quilotoa’ a crater lake of awe inspiring beauty formed by a massive volcanic eruption and the subsequent collapse of the volcano some 800 years ago. The crater is 2 miles wide and 250 metres deep. To get there I had to climb from around 2400 metres to a whopping 3800 metres in a distance of 80 km though most of the elevation was gained in the first 40km. This was at once the most challenging and most beautiful ride of my trip. The first 40km steadily climbed out of the valley with increasingly impressive views though Cotopaxi was still obstructed by those malevolent clouds. But once I reached the pass and flew down in to the next valley the views were really quite stunning. I crossed a further valley including another brutal climb and a whooping descent until I arrived at the town of Zumbahua by which time I was starving as I had been expecting a town in the previous valley but it turned out to by not much more than a handful of farms and didn’t see anything resembling a restaurant. In Zumbahua there seemed to be some kind of parade going on, I passed locals dressed in ridiculously bright coloured costumes some riding horses also dressed in ridiculously bright coloured costumes dancing and prancing down the road, I grabbed a pretty unappetizing lunch amidst the mess of the mornings market which seemed to be coming to an end, scattered skulls of assorted animals strewn across the floor along with other litter and some very happy dogs cleaning everything edible up. As the parade entered the market place a band was playing and everybody seemed to be getting drunk, there were men in tiger masks walking about like john Cleese in the ministry of silly walks sketch and stealing things from the market stools. The owners of the markets seem to take this as something that happens but looked pissed off all the same.

an example of the hideous views i had to look at

  After watching the antics a while and letting my lunch settle I set of the final 12 km up to Quilotoa. This road was a minor one, empty and a pleasure to ride. The road cruised through wide open rolling mountain farmland with excellent views of the peaks around. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 7km except for the dogs, it seems that the little villages I passed were solely home to dogs, I hardly saw a human being. These dogs were either over protective of their land or just bored and felt it necessary to chase me down in gangs and yap at my heels. Not something I have been unfamiliar with on this trip but today it happened every few hundred metres and became quite annoying. The road started climbing and quite aggressively, at an altitude of nearly 4000m I slowed to a snail’s pace and had to take regular breaks to try and suck in enough oxygen to make my body work properly. I finally arrived and was not disappointed, the lake was stunning, drawn in by its beauty I decided to stash my bike, pull out the old backpack and hike down into the crater to camp for the night. One of the most incredible places I have ever passed a night, the stars came out for a while and I serenaded myself to sleep with my ukulele by a camp fire and felt content with my day.

After a nice 12 hour sleep I woke and rented a kayak and went out on the lake. It was cool to think that if I had been in the same spot 800 years ago I would be at the top of a volcano and could be blown into oblivion at any moment.  I spent the rest of the day enjoying the scenery and resting my bones. Quilotoa is a sleepy town of only a few hundred indiginous residents, the main language between the locals here is Quechua which confused me when I first arrived; I wondered why I couldn’t understand a

 word being said. But the people were warm and welcoming.

Lake Quilotoa

Quilotoa to Latacunga - 80km

This trip back down was not as enjoyable as I had anticipated. I still had to cross two valleys and there were a few fairly big climbs, it  would have been a breeze if it hadn’t been for the wind (excuse the pun) The wind felt the need to bitch slap me in the face the whole way down. On the uphill sections I was fighting hard to hit 5km an hour ,without wind I would be doing at least 9, at one point a huge gust came along and stopped me dead. Almost fell of the bike. The 40 km of downhill I had been looking forward to was kind of sketchy, I was thrown around like a rag doll, when the wind hit me face on I almost had to pedal to move at all on a slope that gravity would normally permit me to fly down at 60km an hour. It was rather frustrating to say the least but it’s all part of the fun (in hindsight anyway)

Quilotoa on the edge of the crater