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The 8 weeks we spent in Colombia exceeded our expectations. When we arrived we had many trepidations lurking in our heads but the subject of remote roads with bandits, revolutionaries and heavily armed coke merchants all wanting a piece of freshly arrived gringo seemed to pop up more often then others.

All our worries were for nothing! No-one tried to rob, kill, kidnap or rip us off and at no time did we ever not feel safe. The Colombians are the nicest, friendliest, most welcoming, enthusiastic and easy going people ever. The country is brimming with cultural and natural beauty and is definitely worth a visit.

Ecuador. A new country.

Tiny Ecuadorian women in traditional dress tilling the fields; tiny dirt roads winding through vast vistas of Frailejones set in an astounding surreal landscape surrounded by huge mountains and volcanoes towering over two insignificant cyclists; strange money called dollars, steep, steep cobbled roads, and a million other new things.

So, our first destination was the Paramo del Angel, a high altitude reserve with vast swathes of frailejones. Several blogs tried to give instructions on finding the start of the road with most saying to look for the mad dwarf statue above and to take the road fork nearby.

The first part of the climb passing up through some local farms, felt a bit like the Yorkshire dales except for the diabolical dirt road and 5000m volcanoes looming in the background!

We soon left the farms behind and climbed up into the paramo with it’s beautiful landscape of frailejones and other paramo specialised plants. and no sign of habitation. Very peaceful. We saw just one vehicle all day. It was a nice gentle gradient too taking us up to 3800 metres to camp at a Refugio. Our sleeping bags did us proud.

Our map says that the road through the Paramo is a paved main road; the reality is somewhat different! However, we had done our research and knew that there was no tarmac involved.

 

Our 2nd day of cycling in Ecuador introduced us to two new Ecuadorian  cycling challenges. Cobbled roads and steep gradients beyond belief. And we thought Colombia was vertiginous. Clearly it was just a warm up! Cobbles and steep climbs means 70 km is well adequate for the day and sometimes 30 is more than enough. Passing through some small villages we were beginning to get a feel for Ecuador. Weird town statues, diminutive women in traditional clothing of embroided white blouses and elaborate necklaces and other jewellery, public toilets, election campaigning, (elections were last Sunday) advertising for shaman’s and all the time, these enormous volcanoes and mountains towering massively in the background, appearing and disappearing amongst cloud and giving us glimpses of snow glinting way up above our paltry 2700m.

Otavalo and its Saturday market has been on the tourist circuit for decades as a place to buy traditional textiles and weaving. The idea of tourist hordes tends to make us cycle screaming in the opposite direction so we decided to stay in an interesting hostel in a village on the outskirts. It was in a lovely natural setting and had real indigenous vibe with beautiful weavings decorating the rooms and the exciting opportunity to try ceremonies like hot stones and mescaline!

 

Our choice of destination after Otavalo was a bit of a mistake in terms of the effort required both arriving and leaving! A cobbled climb on the steepest road yet, led us to Lagunas del Mojanda at 3800 metres, a couple of serene lakes set in a volcanic crater. Several blogs mentioned the Lagunas as well worth a visit. Clearly they are the blogs of super cyclists whose league is well beyond us and who are extremely skilled at omitting crucial information about the route or are simply just too embarrassed to admit they nearly died too. The lakes and their volcanic setting were beautiful  and yet again, the rain-god decided it couldn’t be bothered ( we seem to be doing quite well on the rain front ) but the climb of 1200metres over 12km on cobbles was pretty tough. Our total distance that day was 24km! We put up the tent and died. Later on, the clouds cleared to leave a clear, light pollution-free night sky, filling the crater’s roof with a stupendous display of stars.

The next morning we discovered further aspects of why our trip to the lakes was a bit of a mistake. The climb up out of the crater side was literally impossible for us to cycle. We climbed 330 metres in 2.5 km to just over 4000m on a typically vertically steep Ecuadorian dirt road. We pretty much pushed the whole way – not exactly what you want at any time let alone first thing in the morning! The 15km descent on the other side was an equally horrible experience just slightly mitigated by the relief that we weren’t coming the other way.

Our first week in Ecuador has been fun, interesting and challenging. We’ve crossed the equator, learnt about cobblestones, why the pre-columbians didn’t invent the wheel and adapted our bodies to more fried food.

We’re now ensconced in the “Casa de Ciclastas” , just outside Quito, a sort of house with free camping for cycle-tourists run by Santiago, an extremely generous Ecuadorian cyclist and bike mechanic. We plan to stay here for a few days as we have to fix Steve’s broken back wheel again, ( this time the roads have broken the axle or the hub – we don’t exactly know yet ) do the usual shopping, laundry, ATM duties, etc. and visit the historic old centre of Quito for a quick dose of tourist.

Ps. Have cycled just over 1800 kms so far. Hope to do another 1000km before the end of the trip!