Leg 19 Day 329 Friday 23rd Feb Playing Tourist, Auto Spa 184km

Last night Peens treated us with a Braai, he rode to town and bought a selection of meat, potatoes, onions, foil and butter, everything one need for a healthy dinner, (we did have to order a large salad to get plates and cutlery.)

Our waiter was a bit of a disappointment, but she did smile nicely:

This morning we had a late start, breakfast only at 8h00, (although the early risers were scratching around for coffee at 5h00, their poor wives.) Our chalets overlooking the lake were nestled up on the hill, a steep hill, in fact so steep that last night when I walked up again, (forgot my jacket and then had to go back for my phone, so three trips up the mountain,) sucking hard on the thin air (almost 2300m high the air is thin,) I thought I was busy dying, I saw green flashes in the dark on the path in front of me, my heart was racing, I was light-headed and the green flashes got worse. “So this is how it feels when you die” I thought, I have often heard people talk about “walking into the light” but they never mentioned the light was green!!!!!!!! Why do people never give me detail I thought. Then I reached the chalet and by the time I started down my heart rate was down to about 150 bpm, but I still saw the green lights, which turned out to be Fire Flies, (or fairies.)

Peens did not join us today, he went big last night to celebrate his up-coming birthday and the prospect of finding true-love ins Colombia. The lady friend he visited in Cali and him really hit it off well and she has the Honda Agency for Colombia, so who knows, before we know it he might be back in Colombia working for Honda??? He also wanted to do washing and work on his bike and re-pack all the furniture he is carrying on his bike, plus sort through his fishing gear.

We set off on a Tourist Route of things to see in the area but stumbled onto a Auto Spa (Car Wash) passing through the 1st little town, we needed to wash the bikes before locking it away but was planning to do the washing at the end of the day, yet we stopped and Pie, who felt very guilty for not getting the guys to do my washing yesterday insisted on washing my bike for me. But Pie bent over in his Riding Pant and did his “Plumber’s Impression” which was a sight for sore eyes and I had to look away, (after taking a photo of course,) so not sure how clean he washed my bike, but the others tell me it was a “bum job.” Lesson : Riding Pants are not made for bending over in.

About my laundry, at least Tex showed me how to operate the washing-machine, where to put the soap etc. and I did not have to go through the Learning Curve Pie and Rocky went through a few trips back when they threw their dirty clothes and some soap powder in a tumble drier and only after the soap had been cooked into their clothes did they realise their mistake.

We set off to a Nature Reserve situated around a big Volcano, the crater filled with water, well over 3400m high. There was little museum with detail about the reserve, what animals are there, how much rain a year (5 meters a year,) and lots of info about the local tribes etc.

Like everywhere in Colombia and Ecuador paperwork was very important, Passport Number, phone, email, registration numbers, no easy way to get a bed for the night or as we found out, to enter a National Park:

There are still 2000 bears in Ecuador, and 21% of Ecuador are protected in National Parks, (a large % of this 21% is probably in the Amazonas Province which is part of the Amazon. Trees used to be butchered like crazy but the Government has realised the problem this creates and have started with strict measures to protect the trees and programs to plant new trees.

There were little boats that could take you to a part of the lake where foul smelling gasses bubble up to the surface coming from deep within the earth, under the volcano, we declined, (it sounded to much like some of us’s bath-time.)

We went for a coffee at a little Coffee Shop with lots of Curios being sold to the tourists. Once again we were scratching for our coins to pay with as tomorrow we fly home and we needed to get rid of our last cash. There was this old man who weaved armbands with names on, it was amazing to see how he works the loom, spelling the name by putting the roll of cotton through a different number of other cotton twines running in the opposite direction. I ordered two, one for each of my daughters.

I have traveled through 37 countries now on this bike trip and feel very sorry for the Ecuadorian men. I have seen traditional shoes for most countries and places like Mongolia the men wear nice boots with the toes curled up, or the shoes they wear in Mexico, manly leather pointy shoes, some countries has long leather boots, but the poor men of Ecuador had no imagination when they chose their traditional shoes and just decided to copy the females shoes:

There were many more examples I could have photographed but I did feel the local people will not “warm up to the tourist with the shoe fetish.”

Then set off to some Solar Clock, Sun Dial which I knew we would find it broken as it was raining, but we still went. Riding through beautiful little towns, passing all the little shops situated on the street, our nostrils filled with different smells as we rode past the baker, hearing the music coming from the underwear shop, sniffing the bacon as we ride past the street vendor cooking pork, and once out of town looking at the farmlands and smelling the farmer mowing the lawn long before we see him.

The Solar museum was situated on the true Equator and it was much more than a Sun Dial, (it started working when we got there as it had stopped raining. The position of this museum is at an ancient sight, where the tribes 500 years before the Incas, in the 10th Century already realised the significance of the sight and built temples on the mountains in the area. It was an Information Overload. I will try to explain as much as what my Blond and Senior- Brain could Digest and then of course now remember.

The Equator runs over this Volcano and it is the only place where it cross over an area covered by snow:

See the line below, that is the Equator:

In the 18th Century Isac Newton had a theory that the earth was not round but was flattened on the poles. Scientists  then came to this spot and because of the altitude and the position and because they could triangulate the position using all the high mountains around this spot then did some calculations which they compared to more calculations did in Lapland in Finland and could then show that the earth was not shaped like a ball. When they got to the top of the mountains around this spot they found ruins of what tribes doing before the incas had built using the lines where the sun rise and where the stars appear at night:

Then the Sun Dial was explained:

There is a big movement among scientist that feel the world map is wrong and should be turned 90 degrees with the Equator running from top to bottom and not from left to right on the map.

Read this, it blew my mind:

The guide then took us to stand on South Africa on the map on the floor showing us our stars that we can see from RSA.

And yes, the toilet does turn in different directions depending on if you are in the Southern Hemisphere or Northern Hemisphere.

Other photos of today: