Day 333 Thursday 8th August Papallacta to Misahualli 202km

I hardly slept last night, we of course took the Oros Option when choosing our Family Cabin which had one room at the bottom with King Size Bed On Suite,  which Rocky immediately claimed as “you guys snore.” So the rest of us went up onto the loft where the kids of the family would sleep, in 4 little single beds. And Rocky was indeed correct as the 4 of us did snore, well I don’t think I did as I never fell asleep, I think. Each of us went to the Loo at least twice, so that was at least 8 incidents of creeping steps to go down, and another 8 to go back up. I suspect the high altitude of 4000m also caught me, plus each of us were so winded by the time we got back to bed from doing the stairs that there was a lot of huffing and puffing happening before  we got our breathing under control.

As if that was not a sign, we went for a long walk following the river, going up-stream for the 1st 2km before we got too light headed to continue and walked back.

As kids our parents often took us to the Warm Water Baths Resort near Warm-Bad, and this resort we stayed at was very similar, except  the occupants staying in the resort had several little pools around their chalet, some cold at 10 degrees and most at 34 degrees. There were also other pools for Day Visitors.

We left after the Breakfast that was included and now started heading down from the 4000m we were at, (it was 4 degrees when we woke up.) The guys that did our tyres advised us not to follow our planned route (which I based on the common route followed by Over Landers and Globe Trotters,) due to the drug wars continuing in the coastal province. The government declared war on the two big Mexican Gangs who infiltrated the local gangs as they started exporting the drugs down from Colombia only into one country, Ecuador (instead of all the way up through 5 Counties to get to the USA,) as they hide the drugs in the containers filled with bananas, going to most countries in the world.)

So we stayed in the mountains for the morning on very twisty roads, the going was VERY Slow, and then winded out way down to only 400m, the temperature went up to 34 degrees, so a swing of 30 degrees in one short ride today. We were advised to stay close to the Amazon Province and currently we are in line with Manaus, in Brazil, the Capital of their Amazon Province.

We had a lovely scenic ride.

We stopped along the road for a Braai-Mielie at a mom and daughter along the road. They served us Cane-Sugar Juice, mielie (corn) with mayo, and grilled banana. We saw the daughter also had time in-between serving and cooking for us to do the family’s washing by stepping on it in a tub.

Then we rode into Tena where we thought we were staying and found it a big town, so we stopped at a Fish-Place and ordered two plates off the menu without knowing what we were getting, `(turned out to be Prawns cooked with Lime in the liquid and then something like Paella but with mainly rice. But we could share a few beers and look for accommodation. While we were searching the local news paper came and did an interview with Tex and Millsy and took some Photos. The journalist suggested that we ride into the Amazon area and stay at a Amazon Style Tourist Hotel with tours in the jungle and animal and piranha tours, which we thought would be great.

The Wi-Fi is dying, so let me cut it short and tell you more about our LODGE in the Amazon tomorrow, (Heads up, its under construction and we are the only guests.)