Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

Unsurprisingly, I woke with a slightly thick head, the consumption of vast quantities of red wine combined with just 5 hours sleep not a good idea. Especially considering today is a long riding day, with over 350 miles to cover to the town of Cuenca. Tagging on to the main bulk of the group led by Kevin, at least I would only have to concentrate on my riding and not on route-planning and direction finding...

The ride took us out of Quito and onto the Pan American highway, through countryside poorer and drier than in Columbia, and up into the Andes proper. The mountains are unusual in that almost every one seems to have been turned into a patchwork quilt of cultivated fields, all different shades of greens and brown. The houses scattered about vary from simple wooden shacks to nice-looking, almost Alpine-style houses with neatly tended gardens. The towns and villages differ in that the houses, like those on the outskirts of Quito, are simple and austere concrete blocks, flat-roofed, some left in drab grey whilst others are painted in pastel shades of pink and yellow. As we ride up into the mountains, we notice several roadside stalls with “Cuy” being grilled on large spits. Cuy is guinea pig... but these are much larger than the small furry animals that we see in petshops in the UK. Naturally, we had to stop and try them, so we pulled into a restaurant that looked a little cleaner than the more basic roadside shacks, and ordered a couple between the group. They came chopped into 5 pieces – one of which was the head, complete with little teeth...





It tasted far worse than it looked, a rich, sickly flavour with a lot of salt and an almost fishy after-taste. I couldn't eat it, but Nick and Christine seemed to like it, polishing it off and enthusing about how lovely the skin was... I don't think my delicate state helped, but at least I tried it. I won't be eating it again, that's for sure...

Back on the road we headed further up into the mountains, climbing over 3,500m up, the air noticeably thinner but the bike still running perfectly. At one stage we encountered some roadworks, where they had stripped the top layer of tarmac and replaced it with mud some 4 inches thick, onto which they were putting cement dust and then applying water. We had to ride through the mud, which as we're now on road tyres front and back was “interesting”. Even Kevin had a moment when his tyres slipped sideways as we tried to negotiate our way round an oncoming truck that wasn't prepared to give us any room. Only Phil actually dropped his bike, though, the rest of us having built up our experience over the past 12 weeks. A while later we encountered a new hazard, this time dense fog which reduced visibility to a few feet, and whilst in the fog the road again deteriorated, with several large potholes and complete sections where it was nothing but gravel and dirt. Challenging, but the increased level of concentration required meant I couldn't think about how bad my head felt...

We stopped for a drink at a roadside cafe overlooking the small town of Alausi, with its huge statue high on the hillside overlooking the town. The town is typical of those we've seen scattered about the Andes in Ecuador, with some very large statues dotted about on the roundabouts and on major junctions.








From here the road deteriorated yet again, in a seemingly endless set of roadworks, the fog returning to further slow our pace. It was quite a relief when we finally emerged onto good tarmac again, and were able to start making progress. We had a short stop for fuel and snacks some 30 miles from Cuenca before completing the last leg of the journey on the dual carriageway around town, then picked up a sign for “Al Centro” which dropped us firmly in the middle of suburbia, and we completely lost all sense of direction. Kevin asked a taxi to show us the way to the hotel, so we tucked in behind and wound our way through various streets before reaching the cobbled streets of the town centre and our hotel. Once checked, showered (the best shower of the trip by far, with lots of hot water and good pressure) we wandered into town in search of an Indian restaurant the woman on reception had told Aaron about. Only we walked and walked and walked and couldn't find it (eventually realising she was referring to a fast-food joint that didn't serve Indian food as we know it). So we settled for a nice looking restaurant overlooking the main square and church, where there was a night-time wedding gathering. The food was excellent, a delicious prawn and cheese dish to start, then a medley of steak, prawn and shrimp in 3 different sauces for main course and a chocolate dessert. Needless to say I didn't have any alcohol to drink, still feeling pretty crap from yesterday's excess...

When we were just about finished, the wedding party emerged from the church to a firework display, set up in the square. This turned out to be hilarious, as the fireworks shot skywards but failed to reach their target height before exploding in a mass of sparks and falling, still burning, right into the crowd, who then ran away trying to put their hair out...





I think we all laughed all the way back to the hotel, where I gratefully went to bed early...