Day 8 - Riobamba to Guamote - Lets try again...

Distance Cycled: 45km

Total Cycled to date: 198km

A feeling of deja-vu as off we set again out of Riobamba having studied the proper map, Garmin and asked a few locals to get us on the RIGHT road. Its a gorgeous, picturesque ride through farmland with loads of donkeys, pigs, cows, llamas and dreaded dogs but Will always manages to fend them off with his dog-scaring look...you know the one...!? But its a climb up from 2,800m to 3,050m and although we are now on our intended road it isn't the main Panamerican highway which means we can't be sure of the road quality. So sure enough the final 15km turns into extreme off-road status; rubble, gravel, mud, streams, rockfalls and constant ups & downs. It was very hard but also quite exhilerating when you negotiate a tricky part and don't fall off or get wet, but it turned into a race against time as nightfall approached. I wasn't aware of my physical limits until I started this trip all of a week ago and have already pushed them beyond what I thought possible and today took them to a further level...

We got to the Andean village of Guamote just as it got dark and turned super cold and discovered our hostel was way up in the village another couple of steep kms up cobbled streets. I couldn't speak when we eventually arrived at IntiSisa, a bizarre self-run place that is funded by monks. Thankfully there was hot water as we were & our fabulous bikes were filthy and this amazing local women cooked us up a feast of potato soup and spag bol - ecuadorian style - yum yum.

Day 7 - Riobamba to Riobamba - Going round in Garmin circles

Distance Cycled: 32km

Total Cycled to date: 153km

We cycled off from Riobamba which is at 2,800m to follow a carefully plotted route by Will and his beloved new toy, the Garmin, to the town of Guamote. Should have been an easy-ish 45km ride...hmmm...

About 2 hrs into the journey after another very, very steep and remote climb, Will lets me in on the fact that we might be on the wrong road. He then plays with his little toy some more and shows me how it will be alright if we just go here, here and here to get back on track. Fine in theory but it turns out the detour roads run in to rubble for kms and kms. It gets to the point where I am pushing my Surly more than riding it and its very hot. I am now grateful that Will made me buy horrible clothes made of special wicking material to make this easier but its still very hard. And on this route in the middle of nowhere, there is of course nowhere to re-fuel for lunch, so we have a couple of leftover rolls I stole from breakfast to keep us going. Some more playing with the stupid Garmin reveals that the road we are planning to join to cut us onto the road we should be on does not really exist, or to be fair maybe it did in the days of the Inca's!

We then get caught in a mini rainstorm and get to try out our lovely goretex garments and eventually get to the village we were supposed to have lunch in around 4:30pm. Its Sunday and market day and this lovely family who specialise in selling pigs head soup feed us some potatoes and mote beans. I ask them if there is a hotel nearby as we are exhausted and they laugh. I ask them if there is anywhere to camp and they frown and say no no, es peligroso. I ask them how far it is to Guamote and they say its impossible. I ask them how the road is to Guamote and they say you need to catch a bus back to Riobamba! I then translate all this back to Will with a grimace and officially relieve him of his navigational responsibilities. After much conferring we decide a bus back is the best option and we'll try again tomorrow. Easier said than done on market day, we eventually get everything on about the 4th bus of trying and travel squashed back to Riobamba on another road that Garmin doesn't even register!!! I made several attempts to lose him on the journey but he has survived to hopefully make amends.

In Riobamba we stayed in this really quirky place called Hostel Oasis with weird garden ornaments and the nice couple next door to us, gave us a beer when we arrived as I guess we looked so in need...thankyou :)

Day 6 - Banos - Waterfalls, baths and grills

Distance Cycled: 44km

Total Cycled to date: 121km

We were quite behind on our schedule and needed to get some kms under our belt. Instead of taking the difficult option of cycling up the road to riobamba (which involved crossing a lava flow and ascending 1000m) we decided to take the easy option to ride the beautiful road down to Puyo along the 'route de cascades' and get the bus back. The road was as stunning as promised with waterfalls every km along the 60km road and, more importantly, descended 600m into the Amazon basin. There were various touristy attractions along the way including a cable car across the river (Amanda gripped the rails so hard her hands went blue) and a zip wire (which she refused to do ;) ). Great chicken and rice lunch, great views, great day.

After 45kms we'd had enough and put the bikes on the roof of a handy bus for the ride back to Banos. We deliberated on whether to bus up to Riobamba to put us back on schedule but decided another night in Banos would be a lot more fun, and it was! Firstly, the thermal baths. Hundreds of locals in these natural thermal pools standing around chatting. After a dip in the hot pool you ran over to the cold shower with water diverted straight from the waterfall overhead, invigorating to say the least! Fully refreshed, we had a great argentinian grilled meat dinner before hitting the sack.

Day 5 - Banos - British Embassy

Nothing much to say other than I had a horrible day of getting up at 5am and travelling for 5hrs each way to Quito to go to the British Embassy to apply for a temporary passport.

Amanda on the other hand had a lovely day swanning around Banos doing eating and shopping.

Day 4 - Ambato to Banos - Finally we get going

With the horror of the previous day still hanging over us, we struck lucky with the embassy. Will needed to go back to Quito with a police report to apply for an emergency passport, which was easily doable from our next planned stop of Banos - a nice spa town in the jungle where I could be left alone quite nicely. Then they could issue it 5 days later from Cuenca to coincide almost perfectly with our route plan. We would lose one day but not ruin the trip and boy were we desperate just to get out of Ambato....

So our first proper day in the saddle - big thanks to Brooks Saddles of England, they are truly the comfiest ones ever! But comfy saddles don't help pedal up hills and there were plenty of those ahead even though we dropped in altitude from 2,600 to 1,900. We cycled 60km in total stopping in the pretty village of Patate for lunch after a huge uphill but was worth it for the best pizza outside of Italy.

Our hostel (La posada del arte) in Banos was the best yet, great view overlooking the famous waterfall which feeds the thermal baths and our own whirlpool bath in the room - completely opposite our previous nights experience :))

Day 3 - Quito to Ambato - A little incident

***Parents - do not read this one***
So the main reason for moving hostel in Quito (apart from Will being a cheapskate) was to position ourselves near the bus terminal for an early getaway 2 hrs down the PanAmerican highway to Ambato, a good spot to start pedalling. But chatting with the owner in dodgy spanglish we discovered that a lovely new bus terminal had just been inaugurated 20kms away south of the city! The sweet man was fearful for our lives to cycle there on the dreaded highway and tried to persuade a tram driver to let our bikes on board but to no avail. So off we set, with the tram lines as our guide on a smelly, noisy but drama-free journey to proudly arrive at Quitumbe terminal in one piece. Having been warned about the dangers of pickpockets on all buses / stations, we carefully locked our bikes underneath the bus and got ourselves on complete with 5 bags each plus helmets and water bottles - no easy task amidst the masses - though a smiley armed security guard did help me with my water bottles ;)

Very relieved to have made it we were then quite impressed with the bus with its comfy seats and latino soundtrack. Not so impressed a couple of hours later when Will opened his handlebar bag that had been on the floor between his feet to find a big empty space where his camera had been. I quickly opened mine to discover the same. Worse still, for some reason that only Will can justify, his money belt was also in the bag meaning he lost mucho dinero, credit cards and aaghhh his passport!! So feeling like the ridiculous naive tourists we were, it was off to the nearest internet cafe to try and get everything cancelled and call the embassy. It was then getting dark and we had to find a hotel in this non-tourist town where we weren't supposed to stay and no-one could offer any direction apart from the helpful advice of es peligroso (dangerous) for you sticking out like sore thumbs with all your gear on your bikes so please leave...!
Anyway I won't bore you with all the horrible details but we eventually found a place with a bed where we could plot our next move, it could have been a lot worse but it didn't feel like it at the time :(

Day 2 - Quito - Bike building

After more tea de coco, it was time to put the bikes together. Using all my non-existant bike construction knowledge, I managed to put together two bikes which at least looked like everything was in the right place, although I'm not sure how we are going to take some bits apart again to take home. We were later to discover that the forks weren't attached properly and they rattled a lot, luckily I had brought a bike maintenance book (should probably have read this first!) and the bikes were then as good as when we picked them up.


So now the test ride! We decided that the hostel was too expensive so we were going to cycle across town to another guesthouse which we had discovered the day before. This was the first time we had cycled the bikes fully loaded and they weighed a tonne! We could hardly lift them down the stairs. My bike with bags weighs approx 40kg with Amanda's slightly less. This was the first time it dawned on us what we were actually hoping to achieve, nothing short of a miracle.

After arriving at the new hostel (lovely place around a courtyard), we decided that we couldn't possibly cycle with all that weight and it was time for a second round of economising, the first being a review of Amanda's gear before we left. For Will this meant losing a couple of pairs of boxers and a pair of socks (leading by example). For Amanda this meant a torturous couple of hours deliberating which tops and trousers had to go (from a starting point of 10 tops and 5 pairs of trousers compared to my 5 and 2). We eventually settled on shedding the following:

• A fake leather purse
• A passport holder
• Box of tea bags
• 3 Tops
• 2 pairs of shorts
• pair of trousers
• various girly toiletries

She stood her ground on the heavy glass moisturiser bottle. Painful.

Day 1 - Quito - Altitude test

Amanda had pre-booked us into a lovely (but expensive) guesthouse on the edge of town. Apparently we need to break ourselves in gently to the backpacker lifestyle! After lots of tea de coco (apparently helps with altitude) we had a look around town, first stop - cable car to 4100m to get our bearings. We passed the altitude test but I have no idea how we are going to cycle at this altitude, there's no air! A local soup of potato and avocado and a quick wander around the streets in old town is enough to tire us so we head back to hostel to crash.

Houston, we have lift-off, or rather Houston, we have a problem!

Classic bike touring error #1 - Not realising you should deflate tyres on bikes before sending them on a plane
Classic traveller error #1 - Not realising we would have to clear customs in transit through Houston
The first was easily solved by slicing open our expertly boxed up bikes and then going crazy with sellotape - though it did look like Will was milking something inside. The second meant a frantic dash to the internet during a pitstop in Tokyo to apply for pre-visa waiver approval. They were radioing our boxes off the plane as we ran back to the gate!

But finally after a 28 hour journey on 3 planes we AND all our gear miraculously landed in Quito, Ecuador. A little tired and very bloated having sat and been fed airplane food every few hours but happy, relaxed and well-movied up; loved Invictus, City of God (getting me in the latin mood) and Lovely Bones.

Now to catch our breath at a starting height of 2,800m and pray that Will The Mechanic can re-assemble our bikes ;)
Ax

Training of sorts

After a few visits to the bike shop to check up on the whole customisation process, we finally took possession of 2 black & shiny Surly bikes late on Fri afternoon - the last day of work. We did a few practise laps of the hawker centre and then carried on into town very naughtily without helmets, proper footwear and one heart-stopping wheel to wheel encounter with a taxi. Even more naughty we christened the bikes at Uncabunca on Boat Quay with a few leaving drinks. Reluctant to leave the bikes outside (low crime doesn't mean no crime ;) they came inside with us for some pool table action. We have some videos of us cycling around the pool table which we'll upload at some point. Who says we didnt do any training!

Ax

Packing

So today the last box of equipment arrived, 2 days before we leave! We've had deliveries from Germany, US, Taiwan and the UK, our flat is literally covered in bike gear. We have enough stuff to climb Mount Everest never mind a little bike ride, how the hell is it going to go in 4 small bicycle paniers?? Amanda has bought pretty little skirts and nice tops from the bike shops, not sure she has got the right idea yet. My purchases of course are purely practical, handheld GPS and lightweight netbooks are obviously essential items on a bike tour in the wilderness.

Last day at work tomorrow, Amanda says we have to come home and pack but Im going to sneak to the pub.

Preparation (all 3 weeks of it ;)

So we finally decide on the big adventure and start making lists of all the things we need...which is basically everything... much to Wills' equipment-buying delight.

Off we go to hit the shops in Singapore only to find, well nothing really, as not much call here for gear to cope with freezing altitude and mountainous conditions. Disappointing but surely we can just buy online and import, hmm and so the ash cloud finds new victims of circumstance! Anyway, the good news is that we are finally receiving parcels daily and woo hoo the bikes just arrived on D day -9. What were we were worried about?? Just a shame that the right handlebars didn't come with them...or the pedals... Ax