Trip Report: Stage 7 - Ecuador

California to Patagonia: A Cycling Expedition
Trip Report
Stage 7 - Ecuador
8 August - 19 September, 2008

* Photographs from this stage of the journey can be found here.
* Route maps of the journey can be found here.

Total distance cycled: 12,348 km (not including around-town distances)
Total distance in Ecuador: 1,038 km
Days on the road: 316
Days cycling: 140
Days spent in Ecuador: (14 days cycling, 28 days off)
Days spent climbing and trekking: 11
Average distance per day in Ecuador: 73.8 km
Maximum speed: 79 km/h (downhill out of Loja to Catamayo)
Maximum altitude: 6,310 mtrs (20,561 ft) - Mt. Chimborazo, Ecuador
Flat tires to date: 25

Nights spent...
... invited to a family home - 21
... with the local firemen - 8
... camping outdoors - 8
... in mountain huts - 3
... cheap hotels - 3

Best day: reaching the summit of Chimborazo right as the sun broke first light through the clouds.
Worst day: exiting Quito, saying farewell to my new friends, intense traffic and pollution.

Total money spent in Ecuador: $554.40
Average daily expenses: $13.20 in Ecuador ($11.15 trip total)
Total mountaineering expenses: $68.45 (6 summits, 8 days)

........

The Andes is a place where history, myth, legend, and landscape are inseparable. The cosmic past is as real as the human past; and the imagination is as vivid as reality.

The story of Ecuador, thus cannot be told without looking further south along the mighty range of the Andes, in Lake Titicaca. Let us begin with the Incas.

Incan creation stories begin with the creator god, Viracocha, who emerged from Lake Titicaca and formed the sun, moon, and stars from an island in the lake. He then proceeded northwards, walking across modern day Perú and into Ecuador, in each place, creating humanity from various huacas in the landscape - places imbued with energy, such as caves, mountains, and springs. As the story goes, when Viracocha reached the coast of Ecuador, he walked out over the water, promising to return one day.

The Incas, seemingly following Viracocha´s legacy, spread out from their native land in Cusco, creating what was perhaps the most powerful empire on the planet at the time stretching from the Colombian border all the way down to Chile.

The only difference is that while Viracocha has never returned, remnants of the Inca rule, along with countless other local tribes and groups, flourish in Ecuador and all the way down to Bolivia.

On my first day of cycling in Ecuador near the town of San Gabriel, Volcán Cayembe reared its giant snowy summit across the landscape like a sentinel threatening to punish illegal entries into the country.

Coming out of the tight canyons and steep river valleys of Colombia, cycling in Ecuador was a joy - the roads glided across vast landscapes where sharp pointy ridges were replaced by vast landscapes dominated by volcanos spread just apart such as not to encroach on each other´s territory.

'They speak to us,' Olger Andrés told me as he looked off in the distance. The aging fireman who provided me with a space in the station´s conference room to spend the night didn´t look at me when he spoke again.

'Sometimes they embrace us with nourishing water. And other times they tremble with fury, creating rivers of flame and clouds of ash.'

The evening light started fading away and Cayembe disappeared with it.

My mission in this country over the next month and a half was the same as every other country on this trip: make friends in a place where I didn´t know anyone previously, and learn first-hand, the history, mythology, culture, and contemporary problems it was facing.

Thankfully, Ecuador also gave me permission to climb high up its lofty volcanos, gifting me with perspectives from up high and down low.

Cutting high above the rolling farmlands and meandering streets, Ecuador is blessed with 10 volcanoes, all over 5000 meters (16,424 ft). When talking about the Andes, the whole concept of altitude must be adjusted for those only adjusted to European or American standards. Even the smallest of these ten summits are at least 1000 feet higher than Mont Blanc in the Alps, or Mt. Whitney in the continental US.

My first major stop in the country was Quito, the bustling capital which looked (and smelled) more like New Delhi than the Swiss Alps. Taxi drivers whizzed by honking at potential clients and mamacitas - the latter who often shrugged it off as if it was a shower of compliments.

Juan Carlos Rios, my host in the city guided me to his humble apartment and I settled once again, into the comforts of city life: a soft bed, warm showers, laundry, a computer, and best of all, a wonderful collection of books and music!

A professional photographer-cum-adventurer from Colombia, Juan Carlos and his fiancé Sandy were nothing short of angels - the kind that tell wonderful stories, savor the taste of fine beer, and hold on a bit longer than everyone else when giving hugs. 'Mi casa es tu casa, hermano,' he chimed, and one comfort after another led to me spending nearly a month in and around the bustling capital.

From the roof, I had a clear view of the broad valley and if I was lucky, the snow capped summit of Cotopaxi would be smiling at me.

It was time for a 'rest-break.'

As Bucephalus, my trusty bicycle was resting in Juan Carlos´ apartment, I romped off on multiple forays into the mountains in search of some well needed relaxation and rehabilitation from the circular motions of cycling - first into the Pichinchas, arriving at the summit in the middle of a snowstorm and spending the night at 15,000 ft; then stepping up to Cotopaxi, bypassing all the guided parties and menacing glaciers to reach the 19,347 ft summit alone before the sunrise; then donning technical ice-axes and sharp crampons to face spewing avalanches and whiteout conditions on Illiniza Sur, backing off, and embracing Illiniza Norte instead (and in the biting wind, losing my precious down-jacket to the crater); and finally, after long periods of waiting for the right weather window, reaching the top of Chimborazo and shedding tears of joy at 20,561 ft for being so humbled by the absolute magic and immensity of our planet.

The tears, however, were also for all the retreating glacier and devastating effects of global climate change. August, as all my friends from Quito reminisced, was supposed to be a time of clear sunny skies. Instead, it rained nearly every day and a blanket of white clouds shrouded the horizon as if a curse had been placed on humanity forbidding it to enjoy sunshine. Gabriel, a kind farmer who helped me hitch a ride into the tropical forests near Lloa explained to me how crop yields were at an all time low and how pesticide prices were not only rising, but they were being less and less useful at warding off encroaching bugs.

Apart from the shifts in climate patterns and retreating glaciers, many Ecuadorians also vividly recount the economic crash nearly a decade ago. The government´s gross mismanagement of expansionary money, coupled with large fiscal deficits, and corrupt bankers and politicians (sound familiar?) resulted in an economic crisis that was marked by a 65 percent devaluation of the national currency, the Sucre.

In an attempt to stabilize the Sucre, the government switched to using U.S. dollars as currency. In the exchange process, many Ecuadorians lost huge amounts of money by submitting to the horrible exchange rate the government imposed on the banks.

'You can never trust the government or the banks,' my host´s fiancé, Sandy explained to me. 'My family thought that we were doing the right thing when we saved money for the future, only to find that after the crash, we lost everything... all of our life´s savings!' Even respectable Ecuadorian families with considerable savings were reduced to a meager amount after the exorbitant exchange rates, effectively widening the gap between the select rich, and the poor masses.

The answer to Ecuador´s problems in the coming years came as another double-edged band-aid: intensification of oil production, the nation´s main industry, which is destroying the rich Amazon rainforest at an alarming rate.

Although Ecuador has the distinction of being THE country associated as being in the middle of the Earth, and although hordes of tourists return to their home countries each year with pretty postcards of windswept mountains and lush forests, I realized that even Middle-Earth is facing the same problems of ecological and social unsustainability as the rest of the planet.

Now officially in the Southern Hemisphere, I bid an emotional farewell to Juan Carlos and Sandy, ready to follow the spine of the Andes right into Perú. The modern highway roughly follows the path of the ancient Royal Inca Highway, a network of over 40,000 km in roadways that connected the northern Inca capital of Quito to Cuzco, continuing as far south as modern day, Santiago in Chilé.

The road South of Quito didn´t drop below 7,000 feet for almost two weeks as it winded up and over high passes, meandering across the Amazon and Pacific watersheds innumerable times. Camping in the paramó, the windswept territory above treeline was a dream. Although plagued by rains and constant wind, the vistas were breathtaking, and to date, I think Ecuador has provided me with the best campsites on the whole trip!

Just outside the town of Alausi, I joined forces with 'Señor David,' a cyclist from Seattle who had given up a high-paying career path in IT to learn more about himself and his world. We had both started on our journeys roughly at the same time, but amazingly had never met up until now!

The further South we cycled towards the Peruvian border, more and more indigenous villages and ancient ruins dotted the picturesque countryside. Near the town of Cañar, I was treated to my first taste of classical Inca architecture in the ruins of Ingapirca, an ancient fortress and waystation along the Royal Inca Highway. Andean crops such as quinoa and potatos, and irresistably cute llamas and alpacas also started making their appearances.

Perhaps it is just me, but my imagination runs wild on my travels, and I wonder often how life must have been like in the days before the arrival of the Spaniards. Lots of elements have changed - horses and sheep are much more plentiful than llamas and alpacas, and indigenous men and women, half attired in jeans and half in rich native embroidery, sip on Coca Cola on street corners as the loud roar of cargo trucks scream by.

Other elements, however, remain the same - whenever I sojourned well off the beaten-path, the roads narrowed into dirt tracks and local girls and boys would giggle in an incomprehensible Quichua dialect as I cycled past.

If I stopped for conversation, they would switch to a well inunciated and clearly spoken Spanish. The usual questions would follow, 'where are you coming from? where are you going? why on a bicycle? what about flat tires? and is that really a bicycle?'

Each time I answered politely and patiently, and when it was my turn to ask, I´d turn the topic towards local myths, mountains, and why they always had such curious looking hats.

Just as the realm of cycle touring and travel is strange and exotic to them, their world of ancient gods such as Viracocha who dwell over the earth, sea, and sky, and mystical waypoints such as belching volcanos and thundering waterfalls, is strange and exciting for me.

........

Acknowledgments

* Olger Andrés Peña Ayala, Jimmy Revelo, Diego Ibijés, and José Escobar - for the warm hospitality and camaraderie at the S. Gabriel Bombero station on my first night in Ecuador.
* Alex Coyaguillo y José Molina Tapia - for the geography lesson and folk stories at the Equatorial line.
* Viviana Ferrey y Patricia Valenzuela Wagner - for your wonderful invitation at the Equator!
* Eva Reznickova - for the conversations, stories, and late night adventures shared in Otavalo. * Pablo Palacios - for the unforgettable dinner at JC´s place in Quito and your kind words.
* Mercedes Proano - for living the couchsurfing spirit to the max in Quito.
* Laura Lin - for the wonderful reunion in Quito.
* Lisa Segesta - thanks for your good vibes and warm smiles at La Mariscal!
* Kellie Kemp and Sharon Williams - for making the freezing descent at 15,000 ft on the Pichinchas so memorable!
* Stephanie Eonta - great dancing and random crossings all over Ecuador!
* Juanita Garcia - thanks for all the wonderful moments on our trek from Lloa to Mindo! And FYI, the movie is 'Cast Away' and no one won the bet!
* Rose Peñaherrera and Tómas - for the beautiful gift of friendship and inspiration in Mindo. * Patricio - for the photos at Lloa! You´re going to be a pro soon!
* Gabriel - for being our savior and taking us deep into the jungle without getting stuck in the river.
* Manolo - for all the good times on the Rio Saloya.
* Trevor Marrs - for all the avalanches on the Illinizas and for all the high altitude laughs!
* Julián Lara - for the borrowed gear on Chimborazo and your great attitude on all of our climbs together!
* Boriss Aulestia - thanks for the stories and well wishes on Chimborazo and Illiniza!
* Esteban, Angela, and Natalia - for the wonderful dinner and stories in Quito, and congratulations with Natalia and the new family!
* Katya Guiñez and Mario Huber - for picking up a cold and stranded climber on the Illinizas and the hitchhike back home!
* Britta und Simon - for the great advice on the road ahead.
* Pepe Moreano - for your warm hospitality at the Casa de Andinistas in Riobamba.
* Rita Rodriguez, Erika Lara y José Gabriel - for the family-love and support in Ambato.
* Enrique Gordón - at Radio Illusion for the exciting interview.
* Hugo Silva - thanks for the giant free lunch at Riobamba!
* Dave Liddell - for the kilometers shared exiting Ecuador.
* Juan Luis - for all of your help at the Bombero Station in Cañar.
* Alex Rohl - great times on top of Chimborazo!
* Angelito - for helping us get to the mountain hut on Chimbo.
* Nick Rattray - for your warm friendship and unsurpassable hospitality in Cuenca.
* John Jairo y Fernando - for your classic Colombian warmth and the hospitality in Loja.
* Umanda - for making my last evening in Ecuador a fun and memorable one.
* Juan Carlos Rios and Sandy Espinosa - you are the kind of friends that feel more like life-long family! I am infinitely grateful for your buena onda and unending kindness during my stay in Quito!