Last night we waited in anticipation for it to get dark as then we will see ambers shooting out the Valcano a lady told us:

This is the last we saw of it as the clouds came over it and covered it.

We were lucky to get a room at this Hosteliera (like a hotel but with Chalets.) They only have 18 rooms and only one was available, it was a suite and they could remove the lounge furniture and give us some single beds and fold-out couches, we accepted this as non of us wanted to go back into the rain. This hotel was before the town and next to the empty river, it had a bubble bath, sauna and swimming-pool and was mostly booked by Mountain Bikers who came to do the race in Town today as part of the Independence-day celebrations.

It also had a nice restaurant and the chef could speak good English and suggested we order his take on what we call Surf & Turf:

Last night we toasted our good fortune to have traveled so far, and on the fact that we had traveled our 1st full day in the Southern Hemisphere, since we started this trip in London in 2012 we had only traveled in the Northern Hemisphere, we even went up into the Arctic Circle twice.

I will have to up-date our stickers and get new shirts as we are really progressing now.

This morning we left after breakfast, Bananas formed a big part of it, there was a deep-fried green banana with cheese in, and a banana scramble and Chorizo Sausage dish. The chef told me they have many types of bananas and each has different textures and tastes, even a pink one.

I laughed at Rocky the spent lots of time drying his boots with the hair-drier, I told him it was going to rain again and he is wasting his time, well, the joke was on me as it was rain-free for most of the ride apart from 5 minutes just to make the road slippery, so tonight Rocky can wear open shoes and I have to hide my verimpelde gekreukelde ou-mens voette, (my feet are stuffed from being wet the entire day.)

 

We had to go through the town and the cops closed off the main road as the cyclist doing the race came past, wasted so much time sitting there, then we had to cross that huge river with the bridge under construction, this was a quick-wake-up-call as we had to ride over mud and stones etc. while in-between the trucks and busses.

The road started to get less twisty and I got optimistic that we might reach 6th gear and reach a speed of 100km per hour as we hardly average 60km per hour when its mountain passes with one bend into the next, or in the rain and mist. We went through a few little towns and I noticed several eateries in each little settlement had a huge pig hanging outside it, this got more and more as the ride progressed. It seems that Independence Day in Ecuador is to pigs what Thanks Giving Day is to turkeys.

 

Later in the day, after lunch, the only thing left outside the restaurants were the head and the spine, the rib-cage sawn off.

They crisp the skin with a blow-torch. The wives were preparing the other dishes and as far as we rode today people were out for a feast.

Just when I thought it was going to be an easy day we started climbing up a mountain, and the road was small and in very poor condition. But no other cars, except for when we got to a village, and there were a few cars of the locals going out to celebrate. There were so many waterfalls coming down the side of the mountain, we even stumbled onto the source of the Rio Negro which flows into the Amazon at Manaus in Brazil. It as such a nice twisty road, but the going was slow as the road conditions were dangerous.

All the little villages had their name in bright colours at the church square, and often if it was a more affluent village, also had a few statues.

The little village was having its Independent’s Day Parade with over a 100 horses and riders with traditional dress, and the street was lined with spectators, we got there just after the show was over and had to follow the procession for about 2km back to the Military Stables. Pie got all “Horsey” on us and we had to switch off our bikes engines and then roll down the mountain behind the horses so that we dont scare them???????

Today was another low-kilometre-day, but we rode the whole day to achieve it as it was hard going.

We got out of the mountains and had to join the main road through Ecuador, the E35, which is the road named Trans American “Highway.” The traffic was hectic as we passed through the outskirts of the Historic City of Cuenca. It got worst when we got closer to our hotel as everyone and their dog was out looking for some left-over-pork.

I booked a hotel on Booking.Com for tonight as we are staying in the city and we needed to be close to the Cathedral and close too the main Plaza or Square. Looking forward to dinner on the square tonight.

Greetings Friends

Fleisch.