Riobamba – Baños – Nuevos Horizontes – Macas – Cambanaca – Plan de Milagros – Gualaceo – Cuenca – La Paz – Saraguro – Loja – Yangana – Palanda – Zumb – Puerto San Antonio

14 cycling days   |   4 rest days in Cuenca   |   934 kilometers   |    19.070 meters elevation gain

After some tough and hard days at altitude in the Andes I decide to give myself some slack and descend down to lower altitudes. I’m going to Ecuador’s Amazonas.

I wake up in Riobamba feeling fresh again. I’ve recovered from the cold, altitude sickness and a rough night at the foot of the Chimborazo volcano. I check out of my hostel and hop on the freshly washed bike in freshly washed clothes. I’m ready to tackle the world again. I’m happy.

I see a lot of fully grilled, huge pigs hung by the legs and hanging upside down on the side of the road, the meat of it will be sliced right onto your plate. Not a sight that makes me really hungry, to be honest. I go for some empanadas and coffee instead. The rest of the day I cycle in thick fog. It’s quite boring because I don’t see anything. A perfect day to send some audio messages to friends and listen to some podcasts. At the end of the day I descend into the valley of Baños and finally I leave the clouds and mist behind. It feels like somebody pulls my sleeping mask off of my face: I can finally see again. I’m greeted by green mountains.

The town of Baños is some kind of party town, lots of Ecuadorean and gringo tourists come here to check out the stunning nature around. But they need to eat and maybe want a beer or coffee, so the town fully delivers to their needs. I’m not really in the mood for all this fuzz, so after a good night’s sleep in a hostel I cycle further east.

I cycle down a beautiful valley where left and right waterfalls are squirting out of every crack they can find in the lush green mountainsides. Today I put on my leg warmers to protect me from the mosquitoes, what a difference with a couple of days ago. The beautiful canyon comes with its cost: mass tourism.

Everywhere I look I see ugly ropes and cables spanning the canyon for some crazy fun zip-lining, canyoning and other monstrosities that people want to spend their money on. Every viewpoint is obstructed by mega parks and restaurants blasting their loud music. What a shame.

The further I cycle (well it’s a big descent, I don’t have to spin my legs too much) east, the less touristy it gets and the more I get to enjoy the pure nature. When I find a nice lunch spot and ask for the toilet, the woman directs me into their house and tells me I can use the bathroom in the back of the bedroom. I think it’s hilarious because there is still somebody sleeping in the room. When I come back from the toilet I find out there are more people still sleeping in the house and I wonder if these are little siestas or if I’ve missed a big party here yesterday.

I descend some more and suddenly I’m in the Amazon. It’s hot, blue skies, banana trees, palm trees, flowers, fruit growing everywhere, everything is green and there’s lots of birds. I drink a beer in the sun in the city centre of Puyo, life’s pretty good. It’s half past two and I feel like I can maybe do some more cycling.

I cycle a bit further in the hot baking sun. I find a shop on the side of the road with the best ice-cream in the world. I munch down two. Then I start looking for a place to camp. I turn into a side road and find a flat area. It’s not the prettiest, but it will definitely do. I go for a little walk and suddenly I get treated to a beautiful outlook on the roof of the Amazonas, the roof of the jungle. Clouds are hanging low between its treetops, right of me the full moon rises majestically. Everywhere around me I hear exotic birds whistling.

I’m in the freaking Amazon, I cannot believe it.

Last night I first slept to the sounds of the frog symphony. Then it started raining pretty hard and long. Despite, or maybe because of, the rain I slept very well. However I do find out that the ground I pitched my tent on was of the clay kind, so it takes me a while this morning before I have everything clean again. Praise baby-wipes!

What I really love here in Ecuador is the fact that everybody calls each other “veci” here. Veci is short for vecino or vecina and means neighbour. Which gives a really sweet and friendly atmosphere to every conversation, a feeling of unity. I try to blend in and adopt it into my vocabulary.

The cycling today is tough because it goes up and down the whole day, no time to find a pace, nor rhythm, changing gears continuously. Still, if you plot this day in a graph, it will be categorised as being a flat day. I push on between the banana trees. The humidity is back and sweat gusts off of my body, I need to drink more than I’ve gotten used to the last months. After 100 kilometres I reach the town of Macas where I check into the cheapest hotel that the city has to offer.

How I’m so sure about that? Because I’ve gone to every hotel to find out the prices and bargain..

That morning I enjoy the fact that I don’t have to pack in a tent a little bit too much. I sleep in and stroll into town for breakfast. I’m only on the bike at 10:30. Other people would maybe take advantage of the fact that they don’t have to pack-in and get a head start. Not me, I’m not really a morning person.

Today is not the toughest of days, a lot of the road goes down or is flat. Only at the end of the day I get to work out a bit as the road goes up.

At the end of the day it’s business as usual: cycling slowly and scanning for good camping spots.

Then suddenly I see an old basketball field in the middle of the jungle. A little bit away from the road and nothing around it, amidst all the greenness. Perfect.

I put up the tent, sit down in my lovely camping chair that allows me to give my legs and my back some rest. I watch the sun go down into the jungle. A beautiful starry sky unfolds above me.

I’ve had a perfect last night’s rest in the Amazonas. I pack up and start cycling and soon I’m fully wet. It is so freaking humid here. Still, I try to enjoy it because I know that soon I’ll be back in the sierras and I’ll definitely miss the heat again. At the end of the day I climb 700 meters up to a grey area between Amazonas and the Andes. I reach the village with the beautiful name of Plan de Milagros. I have hoped to find a hospedaje here, but after talking with some people it turns out there are none. I do find a gas station with the best cold shower I’ve ever experienced.

Completely clean and happy I start looking for a camp spot. The town is very small so I feel like I can basically set up my tent anywhere and still feel safe. A lady I talk to says that I can put my tent under the roof of the school, which I do. The best part is that I don’t have to cook because there’s a small restaurant that I can have both dinner and breakfast at.

Big day today! Climbing back to the Andes. The plan is to climb close to the top and find a camp spot there. Soon I’m fully wet from sweat, but it’s luckily not too cold yet. A car stops to give me some water and his number just in case, which is really sweet. I feel really good and make it to a roadside restaurant for lunch way ahead of my initial planning. I look at my phone and see that it’s only 8km left to the top of the pass, after that it’s one big descent into a city called Gualaceo. I decide to push on and make it over the top and ignore the initial idea of camping. The legs are super today and I make it to the top without too much suffering.

At the top the cold wind slaps me right into the face. Luckily there’s a small chapel where I can change into some dry clothes. Sorry that you’ve had to see my naked butt, Maria and Jesus, but there just was no other place. I fly down into the city of Gualaceo and check into a hotel.

During my nightly stroll through town, looking for food, I suddenly get called back by a group of old men, sitting on a bench in the principal park. They explain to me that they thought I was an Uruguayan football player that was playing for the local football club here. I tell them that I’m not a football player but that I did do some comparable exercise today. They like my story and invite me for a drink. Sure. I kind of like these guys, most of them are retired and spend their nights drinking booze with their pals. At some point we dive into a taxi, because there is some kind of car rally happening on top of the hill. I sit in front of the taxi and when I look back to my new friends in the back, I see four old drunk guys with crooked teeth, it’s hilarious. Before we make it to the rally we first have to stop to buy more booze and drink some more. The moment we make it to the rally we see people coming down, telling us the last car just passed. I burst out in laughter, this exactly fits this night.

We retreat to the bar for more beers. We end up drinking on the streets and I feel like a 16-year old hanging with his buddies. The only difference is that the buddies I’m hanging with are 60/70 year olds. I started liking these guys, even though they are real alcoholics. I make it back to the hotel before it escalates.

I wake up with a headache. I didn’t have dinner last night but I did burn a lot of calories during the day. My body is screaming for food and it makes me a bit nauseous. I slide into my clothes and soon find some empanadas and coffee which eases my body. Then I suddenly hear my name and one of the guys of yesterday has found me. When I shake the hand of one of them, Dugar, I smell alcohol and I see that he is holding a plastic cup with licor. I ask him if he has slept at all. They take me along again. There is some kind of restaurant where one of the guys is supposed to grill some meat. So I’m being dragged in a cab once again.  A big grilled pig is on the spit and its grilled skin is being served to me with some cooked corn on the side. Six pairs of eyes is watching my every movement and ask me every minute if I like it. We hang around some more but at some point I’m done.

I have to check-out of my hotel and still have some cycling to do. One of the guys brings me back to my hotel and I say goodbye to my new alcoholic friends.

The road to Cuenca is busy and ugly, but luckily not long. I drive into the city passing a lot of fancy “love motels”. Like most of Latin-America, young people here live with their family until they’re married and thus these motels serve as meeting points for lovers. I make it to Cuenca and immediately cycle to a park where I’m supposed to meet Ana. I bought wine and chips and we have a little picnic in the park. She is nice, cute and a good conversation partner. We split ways because I still have to find myself a hostel. In the night she texts me if I want to go out for pizza with her and her friends, what an honor! A great first night in Cuenca.

I’ll stay a couple of days in Cuenca. First of all to rest, but also to wait for Dea and Gaetan that are making their way to Cuenca as well. We will cycle together again from Cuenca.

The hostel I’m staying at is really great. Super cozy with a lot of nice volunteers working there. I play lots of pingpong games with Alessandro the Italian. Furthermore I visit a mirador, write my blog, read my book and catch up with the world. I visit an anthropology museum with Jojo from the hostel and learn about all the different ethnic groups Ecuador has to offer.

The absolute highlight of my stay in Cuenca is when I suddenly bump into my Swiss friends on the streets. It’s so good to see them again! They invite me and Jojo over for dinner at their AirBnB. We bring the wine. I meet Jesús at their place, another cycling adventurer from Spain. The five of us have an amazing meal and it really feels like having a cozy dinner with close friends like back home.

It’s quite incredible how close I’ve gotten with Dea and Gaetan in such a short time.

Jesús’ bike is still at the bike shop so he will start chasing after me and the Swiss one day later. So it’s me and Dea and Gaetan setting off from Cuenca. It’s nice to cycle together again. We end the day on a small grassy spot behind a gas station with an amazing sunset over the valley behind us.

The next day we start with a big descent, followed by a big ascent, followed by another descent and ascent. Once again proving that in Ecuador, not a single meter is flat. We see lots of pelgrims, both on foot and by bike, on the way. They are all walking or cycling to a little village called El Cisne where every year the virgin of El Cisne is celebrated. We had to help out some youngsters on bikes that got their derailleurs messed up. I hope they’re going to make it because their bikes were so old and scratchy. Later on we got rained down on, making us wet to the bone. Found shelter at the Bomberos in Saraguro and they even had a hot shower to warm us up again. In the area we could pitch our tent, next to the fire brigade, used to be a cock fighting area but luckily it’s being reconstructed and there is no bad smell anymore.

We leave the Pan-American to shoot down a beautiful valley with tiny indigenous villages and beautiful views. After a small cow-jam and a landslide, having us walking and climbing through bushes and over hills to circumnavigate it, we make it to Loja. It’s a bigger city and we get friendly rejected at the fire station and the police station. We decide to check out a big thematic park close by. We talk to some supervisors and they tell us it’s fine to camp and that there will be night guards watching over us and our stuff. Great! We pitch our tents right next to the shed of the night guard. We can also get a shower in the bathrooms of the swimming pool that are nearby. Me and Gaetan go to the men’s bathroom where there is a row of shower heads. It’s not completely clear to me what the ethical code is here. But when I pull down my pants and go take a shower butt-naked, the cleaning guy starts to freak out and yell “hijo de puta” to me. Well I guess it’s showering with bathing suits after all, excuse me, mister prude. As wEven though we slept in a public park on a Saturday night, there was little to none sound in the night, no drunk people, nothing. How different would it have been in Colombia or Mexico.

We pack up our tents and start cycling again. We make our way down the valley of the “eternal spring“. Apparently the last days we descended so much that we are finding suddenly finding ourselves amidst coffee and banana trees again. We pass the touristy town  of Vilacamba, where we are suddenly greated by lots of gringos. We get the hell out of there soon after lunch. These touristy spots are always so random, many other towns that we passed today are much cuter and prettier and have remained more of their authenticity. We end up in the town of Yangana where we run into the WarmShowers host that we messaged days ago but never got any reply from. It’s Sunday and he’s clearly drunk, but other than that he’s still really friendly. He gives us the directions to his house where we meet his brother and his family. We chat and I tell them I’m an engineer. Five minutes later I have a welding mask on and I’m welding the school chair of his kid. I’ve never welded before in my life! We pitch the tents in the garden and we talk some more.

I feel myself drifting off now and then, I’m super tired. Time for bed. 

I went to bed at 21:30 and woke up at 08:30, I guess I needed the sleep! Our host Javier told us we should stay an extra day and we’re considering it. But there is no sign of Javier in the morning so we decide to pack up and move. IT RAINED THE WHOLE DAY! We did met two super nice women stopping us in a car. The first thing they do is to give us a piece of cheese, which was kind of weird but also super sweet. She asked where we were going, etcetera. She gave us contacts to stay in Zumba and San Ignacio. Super nice. We said goodbye and then ten minutes later she returns to us with the car to give us 12 Peruvian sol that she still had in her purse from a visit to Peru. Incredible! We reach Palanda completely wet and exhausted. We decide to take a room in the hotel for $5. We hang out all our clothes on the washing lines on the roof terrace, take a warm shower and eat some food on the street.

We hoped our clothes would be dry in the morning but the humidity and the mist here didn’t dry them a bit. I can tell you one thing: slipping into wet cycling clothes in the morning is the worst feeling ever. We have our usual breakfast of oatmeal, bananas and nuts on the balcony of the hotel and make some coffee. We start cycling in a green world. Wild orchids are growing everywhere. We get chased by two barking dogs, which is quite normal and happens minimally twice a day, but this time I ran over the dog with both my wheels. The dog was just stupid and started running in front of me, I really did not feel like braking for him so I went over him. Don’t worry, the dog was fine although he stopped barking afterwards. A signal to all dogs out there: don’t mess with Marijn On A Bike. Soon later we hear howler monkeys in the distance across the river. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard those. We pass a tiny village where some futsal game is being played right on the (not so busy) main road, but when a car has to pass the referee has to pause the game, quite funny. It’s very busy with spectators. We try to have lunch in the next little town but unluckily there is nothing there. So we eat some bananas and bread that we still had in our bags.

Luckily we also find a jugo de caña (sugarcane) stand to get some more sugar in.

I’ve been eyeballing my little cycling computer for a while now and today is the day that I reach the massive milestone of 20.000 kilometers. Incredible. Dea and Gaetan cheer for me on the bike whilst I think of all the beautiful and difficult moments I’ve had on the bike. Porto to Madrid and Calgary to the south of Ecuador. Twenty thousand. Something they will never take away from me anymore. Never.

We do one last brutal, sweaty climb and we make it to Zumba. I immediately dive into the first little shop to treat my cycling friends to beer and chocolate at the small central park t. We met some lady a few days ago that had some contacts here, maybe to camp somewhere, but she doesn’t answer if we tell her we’re here.

Plan B is to ask at the church. No problem! They even try to sweep clean a room for us, but we tell them not to do the trouble and that we can put up the tents. Tonight we sleep amongst the nuns, they are super sweet. Whilst cooking we hear the singing of the nuns during the mass in the church, funny.

We are finally greeted by blue skies in the morning, but it comes with a brutal hotness. At least we can dry our clothes a bit for the first time in days. After a usual breakfast (I start calling it the breakfast factory: cutting bananas and putting in all the ingredients: oatmeal, granola, raisins, some cookies, nuts). It’s super hot but the gravel road is gorgeous: beautiful mountains and everything is green, ferns, palm trees, flowers everywhere, papaya trees next to the road. We make it to the Peruvian border! It’s a super quiet border crossing, we meet some motorbike travellers from Norway. The customs guy is super friendly and gives us 6 instead of 3 months for our visa. What a great start to Peru. We have lunch for 1.25€ at the next village which is half the price as in Ecuador! We end the day in a village at a river and first go for a wash in the river. It has been such a long time that A) I’ve used my swimming pants and B) I’ve bathed in a river to cool down/wash up.

The village is quite a shock because literally everybody looks at us. Everybody is super curious. I see people hanging out the windows to catch a glimpse of us. After the quieter and more shy people of Ecuador this is quite a culture shock. There are 10 kids around me, 10 around Gaetan and 10 around Dea. Luckily the people are not only curious but also super friendly and helpful. In no time people arranged for us that we can sleep in the school, a communal building or in a parking lot. We choose the school. During setting up the tents lots of curious kids are surrounding us again and fire questions at us. During cooking some kids bring us rice and a piece of the birthday cake of the girl that is bringing it.

What a first day in Peru! Really curious for the rest of this country.

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11 Replies to “Ecuador III: Amazonas, Reunited & 20.000KM”

  1. Marijn, wat een fantastische avonturen weer en Fin dat je weer met je Spaanse maatjes rijdt. En 20.000! Goed man! Ga door! ( moet wel denk ik) Groeten!

    1. Wow…..20.000 km. Wat fantastisch. En wat een prachtige foto’s uit het Amazonegebied. Ben reuze benieuwd wat Peru jullie zal brengen. Oh ja… dat verhaal met alcoholische vrienden. Geweldig. Zie het al helemaal voor me.

  2. Prachtige momenten weer vastgelegd op papier en in de foto’s met hierendaar een grapske . Het houd niet op want je moet en wil nog door maar deze 20.000 km nemen ze je nooit meer af
    Fijn dat de Zwitsers weer bij je zijn , toch net iets gezelliger . Doe ze de groetjes van ons Pa en Ma XXX

  3. Hé Marijn, wat een geweldig verhaal weer en die foto’s, prachtig.
    Ik zit nu het verhaal in de mooiRooi krant te lezen, ook hier zijn ze je zeker niet vergeten.
    Zorg goed voor jezelf( ik lijk je moeder wel) en geniet nog van alles wat er op je pad komt.
    Gr. Ton en Irene

  4. Love the part where you miss the rally race because your alcoholic friends were to busy being alcoholics:)

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