We spent Day 4 heading north to Riobamba which was roughly half way to Ecuador's capital, Quito. The route was lined with volcanoes of which you could see very little, as it seems clouds are magnetically attracted to the tops of volcanoes be they live or extinct. Apart from being roughly half way between Cuenca and Quito there is very little to say about Riobamba as far as we are concerned, except that for the first time in a number of days we had HOT water at our accommodation; not tepid or lukewarm but HOT. It was worth the extra... And that clearly the town had a clothing issue as one of the squares was full of people sat at treadle sewing machines waiting for the next repair order to come their way.
We can't work out the climate here. We are not always warm when riding. It could be due to the altitude - we are always between 2,500 and 3,500m. It might also be due to there not being distinct summer and winter seasons here. We don't think that we can transpose our European ideas of seasons on to the climate here; it's more about it being the dry or the rainy season and we haven't been rained upon that much at all - just been a bit damp (and cold) when riding through clouds. The locals say it is winter and that they have flowers in their gardens all year round, albeit with more in the summer. There is also an abundance of fruit available in the markets and it's not a question of it being imported from elsewhere. In Argentina and Chile the children were definitely on summer holidays from Christmas to March, ie now. Here the children are still at school because it is winter. A tad confusing for us.
So we moved on to Quito. Going to Quito used up Day 5 of our allowance. Cotopaxi, the volcano outside of Quito is probably the symbol of Ecuador and we wanted to see it. All that was visible of the volcano from the route to Quito (our Day 4) was a signpost - so we booked ourselves on a tour for our Day 6. We spent a very enjoyable day on the tour with two American chums, Doug and Tim who were both exceptionally well-travelled and have given us various tips for the future, both short and long term. We also met Carmen who led us on a merry little dance...
We were exceptionally lucky to be able to see Cotopaxi without too many clouds being stuck to its summit. We were also a bit jealous of Doug who, because he had flown in and therefore didn't have a restricted visa, was laying down plans to hike up to the summit during his stay in Ecuador. That and the Galapogos...
The follow-on to Cotopaxi was a visit to Lake Quilotoa which was a near perfect lake in a caldera. Again, we were very lucky with the 'winter' weather. It was very difficult to judge scale with the crater and the lake but we were told that the crater lake was 3km wide and the rim was over 400m above the lake; we didn't walk all the way down, and the lake itself was 250m deep and pretty chilly all year round, be it winter or summer. On the return to Quito we had a great view of another volcano, Chimborazo, which we hadn't been able to see because of clouds at Riobamba.
Having burned 60% of our visa we headed north from Quito on Day 7 to Mital del Mundo to celebrate the equator. We sometimes find it hard to get away from our accommodation in the mornings as people start chatting with us. We had lovely accommodation in Quito and the owner, in exchange for a photo sitting on the bike, gave us lots of tips on things to see in Ecuador. At Mital del Mundo there is a monument to the equator, and, as we live in Greenwich and have done the thing about having one foot either side of the Meridian line, we had to do the same thing with the equator - except, unfortunately, the monument and line are 250m out of position according to modern GPS technology... It was the French that got it wrong! Never mind, the thought was there.
We finished Day 7 in Otovalo. Doug and Tim were also travelling to Otovalo; we had a couple of beers and dinners and swapped even more stories with them. Otovalo is home to one of the biggest markets in South America and one way or another we spent all of Day 8 in and around the market. We made some stall holders very happy by not doing the 'gringo' bartering thing.
Ecuador is very colourful. It's a 'hat' country. In Peru, also very colourful, it was the women who wore the hats. Here it is everybody. Françoise was the only female in Peru with short hair. It's the same here in Ecuador but the men also wear their hair too in a plaited ponytail hanging from below their hats. In Otovalo we stayed in more expensive accommodation than usual. Françoise chose it. However we were very happy to learn that the accommodation is a significant supporter of the local population, whether it is in profit share arrangements, the funding of education or in education itself. Françoise is forgiven.
We had previously remarked how tall Françoise was compared to people in Peru. This is totally out of hand with Ecuadorians. It is also the build up to carneval here which, due to the lack of compassion from our very nice Ecuadorian Immigration official, we will miss.
The big thing about carneval here is to spray everyone with shaving foam and the children, armed in some cases with cans bigger than themselves, were getting a lot of practice in. Very similar to the State of Emergency poster.
We are not sure what it is about us. We are obviously not South American but everybody seems to know we are from England without us saying anything. Why couldn't we be French or German or even American for that matter? But no, everyone calls us out as English when all we are doing is walking along the street. Anyway the latest example was us being accosted by a group of school children in the street needing assistance with their English homework... Paul had his little success...
Day 10 is when our Ecuadorian visa runs out, so we need to be at the Colombian border with all necessary paperwork. However, there is no paperwork, as everything has to be online and we have to upload a copy of Paul's passport with the Colombian Immigration entrance stamp onto the Colombian Customs website at the border before we can clear the bike through Colombian Customs. We have put extra money on our Ecuadorian SIM card, otherwise we just hope there is WiFi. We only have one way out of Ecuador too, if we are to follow FCO advice: Tulcan -Ipiales. The rest of the border with Colombia is far from being recommended.
What is missing is Day 9 of our Ecuadorian sojourn. Well we went for a walk in a National Park and had a day to relax! Another caldera lake. We didn't take the boat ride as we felt we needed the walk but apparently the volcano is not extinct as you can see gas bubbles breaking the surface.
There have been a number of questions as to how we share tasks on our trip. Clearly Paul rides the bike and Francoise is the happy pillion always ready to take snapshots of what comes along the way, averaging a photo per km. And some of those photos find their way into the Blog. Paul prepares an initial draft of our Blog and we finish it together. We share clothes washing duties and we load and unload the bike together which can be a pain if our accommodation is on the third floor and there is no lift... We try to choose accommodation together so that Paul doesn't go too cheap or Françoise too expensive. And Paul sets the route taking into account things Françoise might have identified as worth seeing on the way if we can.
Just in case you wondered...
