Awesome Bike Tour

To celebrate the end of my trip, I flew to Cartagena from Quito to meet my girlfriend Valeria for a week.

We rented a really fancy apartment. It was quite the change of pace from my normal digs. It was awesome!

The tropical fruit on the Caribbean coast is absolutely amazing. I hadn't seen any of these ones elsewhere in South America, and certainly not in New York.

Pool top roof!

Sunsets!

The old part of Cartagena is loaded with beautiful historic buildings. It's quite small, and we covered most of the streets after a couple days of lazy exploring.

We found an Ice Cream shop that had the best Sorbet I've ever had in my life. It was all made from local fruits.

Another long bus ride and I made it to Quito. This ride wasn't as treacherous as the one from Zumba to Loja, and I was able to sleep a bit. Unfortunately after my over night jaunt I still had to get myself from the station to my hostel in the touristy Mariscal Sucre neighborhood.

I arrived a couple hours before dawn. I decided to wait for the sun to come up, since I had been warned repeatedly about crime in Quito. The other problem, was that I had no city map or GPS map. How hard can it be to get to the center? I got soooo lost. I rode around for about five hours in all directions in this moutainous city until I finally made it to my hostel.

I cycled by this park with a big globe sculpture on the way. When I passed it a bunch of kids were climbing all over it, and I vowed to do the same later. When I came the next day nobody was around and I got shy.

The old town in Quito is really beautiful. It's full of old winding colonial streets to get lost in. Mariscal Sucre, the backpacker haven part of town where I stayed I could do without. It's full of night clubs, bars, and restaurants. It's not very unique, or interesting, and it's full of tourists. If I were to do it again, I would stay in the old part of town.

Basically I was done with exploring new places by the time I got to Quito. The bike part of the trip was now over, and I was anxious to get on with things. In a few days I was flying to Cartagena, Colombia to meet my girlfriend for a week. And then I was going home. 

I had a great vegetarian meal at this Hari Krishna place in the old town. I forget the name. In fact, most of my 3 days in Quito were spent taking advantage of the great (for me) food options.

I'm stealing this font at some point. 

I did go up this awesome Basilica in the old town.

Where I found awesome views of Quito's undulations.

I got to walk the plank through this scary section to climb up to the towers.

The crazy steep stairs plus heavy winds were a bit nerve-wracking. 

I showed up bright and early this morning for my 7am bus ride from Zumba to Loja. This was to be followed by an overnight ride to Quito. Fun times.

The trip to Loja was supposed to be 6 hours, but it was closer to 8. I don't where this term came from, but certain buses in Central and South America are called "chicken buses" by travelers. This was definitely a "chicken bus". What this means is that the bus stops every 5 minutes to let somebody off, or to pick up the family on the side of the road. People bring all sorts of stuff on board. Sometimes they bring chickens, hence the name. The driver was blasting reggaeton the entire time, so I couldn't really listen to my ipod without experimenting with mashups.

I had about three hours to kill in Loja before my over night bus to Quito, so I headed to the center to get some lunch. There is an excellent vegetarian restaurant near the plaza called Alivinuta (10 de Agosto btwn Validivieso and Olmedo). One of the guys working chatted with me about bikes for awhile. He's really into downhill mountain biking, as am I. He has a really nice bike, a Santa Cruz Nomad. Those things cost a fortune in the US, I can't imagine what he paid for it here.

Today marked my first day in Ecuador, and sadly, the last full riding day of my bike tour. My head was all jumbled up with reflections and relief at the idea of my 7 month bike tour finally coming to an end. I had hoped to ride all the way to Quito, but I simply ran out of time. I have a flight out of Quito May 18 that can't be missed. So my revised goal was to simply get through Peru, and then take a bus from Zumba, the first town in Ecuador, to Quito.

  Tarps covered in peanuts, coffee beans, etc laid out in the sun to dry by the side of the road. This is a very common sight in Peru, and Ecuador. I guess they are not worried about all the street grime going into their food.

The first 50 kms of the day involved a lot of up and down on a rough dirt road out of Peru. But it wasn't too tough. The border crossing at La Balsa was super quiet, and quick. I don't think many people use this very rural route. As soon as I entered Ecuador the road turned into a dirt wall. It was the most insanely steep grade I have seen in South America. I know this because it was the first time I was not able to ride up something. The first 2km I couldn't physically turn the pedals, so I had to push. Pushing a loaded touring bike up a steep road is completely exhausting. After a bit I was able to ride, but it was hard. The entire 30km ride to Zumba was like this. Most of it I had to do standing. There were some descents, maybe 10km of the ride, that were equally steep. Actually when I arrived at the first descent it began to pour. This turned the road into a slippery muddy mess. It was dicey.

My knees were on fire by the time I reached Zumba. I know I am going to be sore tomorrow. Well, it doesn't really matter, since I'll be sitting on a bus. I have to say, finishing my tour in Zumba is extremely anticlimatic. I hate not meeting goals I set out for myself. I also hate skipping sections via bus. I guess I will have to be content having rode 10,700km through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru.

  More hot weather as I approached the border.

  One thing I am going to really miss about Peru is the fruit. It's incredible. Above is the exotic Chirimoya.

It really tastes like no other fruit. Truth be told, I prefer it in juice form, where it is incredible. The fruit itself can be unpredictable. In my experience, there is always some incredible delicious meat on the inside, but also some bitter parts near the edges that leave a bad aftertaste.

Not the case with granadillas. They win the award for most consistenly good fruit in the world. This is my favorite fruit of all time. I eat like 10 of these a day when possible. They are tougher to find up in the mountains, and tend to be smaller there. They must need warm weather to grow.

It is an extremely pleasing tactile sensation to crack this fruit open with your fingers. Inside is a sweet goop with crunchy seeds that you eat as well. 3-5 for a dollar! 

This is a tuna, fruit from cactus. I got really into these in Bolivia, where they were more common, and better tasting.

They can be tricky to eat. The outside is covered in microscopic pins, that you really don't want to eat (trust me on this). I learned the proper technique to peel them from a lady in a Bolivian market. You chop the sides of with a knife first.

Then you cut a line straight down the side, and push the fruit out. The fun thing about tunas is that they are offered in a wide variety of colors. The outside can be bright magenta, yellow, orange, or red. The same goes for the inside, and they don't always match!

The Pepino is a recent discovery for me. Have you ever said to yourself "I really want to have a juicy ripe melon at lunch today, but I can't bear to carry all that weight!".

Well this fruit is for you. It tastes just like a big melon, but it's little and packing friendly.

Scenic riding along the river continued today, after I backtracked a bit out of Chachapoyas. Huge imposing cliffs corridor the road on both sides.

  As I headed north the terrain gradually got less dramatic.

No doubt about it, today was tough. I was on the road at the crack of dawn.

It was 60km of straight climbing.

"On top of the world" is a fairly accurate assessment of the situation

The entire climb I was right at the edge of the cliff. It was amazing because I was able to see exactly how high I was climbing the whole time. Often when I am riding at super high elevations it's not visually obvious, like on the altiplano in Southern Peru. Not here, the sense of scale was very satisfying.

Today was an easy, more or less. Coming out of Celendín at 2600m there is 13km of climbing, and then it was a big long descent to Balsas at 900m.

There was a nice short flat section at the top, with a fútbol field.

The view right before the descent was incredible. I sat on this grassy ledge and had lunch. It was a "what I'm doing right now is awesome" moment. I could see the miles of road snaking through the mountains to the valley below.

By the time I approached Balsas, things were more desert like. It reminded me of northern Argentina.

This bridge crosses the river. There is a little town there, that I thought was Balsas. It's not. To get there you have to ride along a tiny dirt path through the jungle for 2 or 3km.

There is one very basic Hospedaje in town. The owner warned me that there was going to be a Mother's Day party in the courtyard that evening. I was surprised that they celebrate this holiday in Peru, on the same day even!. Balsas sits on a nice river, so I ducked behind some houses and relaxed on a rock for a couple of hours. Unfortunately there are a ton of little mosquito like bugs, and I was eaten alive.

Yep, 10,000 km cycled.

  By Friday morning I finally felt well enough to get back on the bike. The next town with Hospedajes was Celendín. I was a bit worried, because it was 110 km away, and the ride involved a lot of climbing.

My fever started to come back in Cajamarca, unfortunately. Actually things got a loss worse, and spent a night vomiting, and a few days in bed. Maybe it was food poisoning. I don't know, it wasn't fun.

On the other hand, Cajamarca is pretty city. My first day, when I didn't totally feel like crap, I walked around a bit.

I'm pretty happy I chose this mountain route through northern Peru. It continues to be really quiet and beautiful. I headed off again today, not feeling completely well, but buoyed by the nice weather.

For awhile I was circling this nice lake.

It´s never fun to wake up and put cold wet clothes on, but sometimes it has to been done. I headed out of Quiruvilca and prayed for some sun. Luckily I got it. I climbed some more out of town, until what I am told was a 4200m plateau. Unfortunately last night my GPS stopped working. Apparently it was one rain storm too many for my "waterproof" device. I´m bummed out about it.

The road continued to be a pot holed mud disaster.

There were several lagoons up on the plateau.

I tend to treat these high altitude passes like video game levels I have to beat. I´m always looking forward to when I get to the descent to warmer temps. The Campesinos that live up here don´t have that option. They have to tough out this brutal weather year round in unheated houses with straw roofs.

Another pretty lagoon.

Mercifully the asphalt returned at the descent to Huamachuco

By the time I arrived in Huamachuco, it was an entirely different scene. Blue skies and warm weather are two benefits of living at 3100m instead of 4100m.

Huamachuco is really charming colonial city, with a massive plaza. It´s one of the nicest I've seen in Peru, loaded with fun topiaries. It´s like a mini cusco, untouched by tourism. It´s not very common that outsiders pass through here.

I should start hauling my gear around on one of these guys. Works for the farmers.