With over 10.000 km still to cycle, and with the climate window closing further south, the austral winter was something that was worrying me for several months. During the last weeks, I`ve been cycling at an average speed of 30/40m km a day, and reaching Ushuaia before the first snows and freezing temperatures, was becoming an almost mission impossible.
I had to make a decision: either leave Joana and move on at full speed through the shortest route, or delay my arrival to Tierra del Fuego for after the austral winter. I make several phone calls to Europe to assure that it would be financially possible to travel for an additional 6 months. I also called my parents:"once again I will postpone my arrival. I only will arrive in Autumn, maybe just before Christmas, I don't know yet". They were apprehensive.
In adventures like this, there can not be time compromises. The feeling of been stuck-tied with time, is in itself a paradox that removes the pleasures of bike touring. For the first time in several months, I felt completely free again. Although I wasn't in any rush any more, and even if I was enjoying the city, I was starting to get itchy feet. Cuenca offered too many western comforts, and I felt the urge to leave and get off the beaten track.
The plan was simple: Joana had to wait in Cuenca for her new bank cards, and I would continue to cycle to Loja, further south, where she would met me up later. "I will see you in 5 days", I said, feeling her body in a strong hug. The night before, in the room of the hogar Cuencano, I had shown her the map and said how it would be an easy route. The road apparently followed a river`s valley passing through Paute, Sevilla d´oro and Amaluza, before descending the oriental Andes and enter the amazon basin.
The map indicated a road interruption between Amazula and Mendez, but Marta, the owner of the hostal, guaranteed me that the road existed. The map also indicated a deep depression between the cordillera oriental and cordillera del condor, where the road followed south to Zamora. Once in Zamora I would start the climb back to the Andes and to Loja.
A 5 day side trip through roads relatively flat. At least that was the idea that I had of the amazon basin. The fact of been able to know a bit more or the "oriente", the Ecuadorian amazon, and the Shuar culture, was very appealing to me. Specially after I`ve visited the excellent Pumapungo museum in Cuenca, that recalls the fascinating culture of those indigenous people. what I did not know, was that I had ahead of me, not only the hardest stretch of road in Ecuador, but since I set foot in south America with my faithful "Burra".
I left Cuenca late in the morning and followed the pan-American highway 15 km north until the junction to Paute. The paved road to Paute was relatively flat, the traffic intense and the landscape uninteresting. Paute is the last city between Cuenca and Mendez with good food supplies. After Paute the road, despite good, started to alternate between asphalt and gravel, specially near the water lines, the so called "zonas geologicamente instaveis", so comon in the Andes, where sometimes, after heavy rain fall, entire pieces of road just vanish.
After a week in Cuenca, I was happy to be on the road again. I felt the bike like an extension of my body, together we rolled up and down the mountains, through a road that from farway, looked like a giant rope thrown along the mountain. The valley shown on my map, existed after all, but it was no more then a deep gorge carved on earth during millions of years, from the cordillera ridges all the way to the amazon basin, with over 100 km extension, and getting deeper and narrower as I cycled down.
On both side of the mountains, red roofing tile houses surrounded by cacao and banana trees gave a somehow, colonial feeling to the landscape. Domestic animals roam freely everywhere. They obstruct the road like if they have the right of way. Dogs bark demarcating their territory fiercely pursuing the bicycle. Something that I am already accustomed, but in this road they were particularly aggressive.
At the end of the day I start looking for a place to camp. Finding 15m2 of land to pitch my tent, normally is not a problem, but the hillsides were so inclined that I couldn't find a flat spot, and after cycling through the night I gave up and set up my hammock between two trees. My Henessy hammock has been one of the most valuable pieces of equipment, allowing me a night of comfortable sleep and shelter. even in the most difficult situations.
On the following day I begin the descend to the amazon basin. Starting the day at 2470m of altitude and finishing at 590m, one could think that it would be an easy day of downhill. In fact it was a very hard one. The landscape was so rugged that I accumulated 1690 meters of altitude, although I have gone down 2000m.
The landscape was of the most exotic and luxuriant of the last weeks. The eastern mountain range, in contrast with the Pacific mountain range, is very green, with rain and cloudy forests and innumerable waterfalls. In fact, that day, I think I saw more waterfalls per km cycled then in any another part on this trip. Surely that if the German explorer Alexander Von Humbolot had passed here during his expeditions through the Andes, he would have titled this road as the "avenue of the waterfalls".
At the end of the day I arrive in Mendez, a small town lost in the deeps of the jungle, hot and humid, with wooden houses and cheerful indigenous Shuar inhabitants. Mendes does not have much tourist infrastructures, is only a cross road town between the Andes and the Amazon basin. This part of the Ecuador is the least visited in the country, and a tourist (specially on two wheels) is always an attraction.
Samuel, one of the residents, invites me for a refreshment in his house and introduces me to his family. "the good road finishes here", he said continuing "from here south the road is very bad. And there is a lot o road works, but on your bicycle you should not have any problems".
In the following morning, actually, in the three following days, I would get to witness really close what Samuel was referring to.
The "troncal amazónico", as the road is known, skirts the eastern feet of Andes from the Colombian border all the way to the city of Zamora, in the southern part of the country. An exterior artery of the biggest lung on the planet. To the east the almost impenetrable amazon forest, to the west the imposing Andean mountains range.
After Mendes, the troncal of Amazon penetrates inside dense vegetation, camouflaged in the intense green, with sections of the road made of polished rock collected from the rivers that cross the road. The road makes very little effort to skirt the hills, creating cruel inclinations. A nightmare for any loaded cyclist, but the only economical way of keeping the road passable year round.
The muddy and rock road obliged me to cycle very slow on both up and downhills, in part due to the completely bald tires that I travel with. Both Shwalbe Marathon plus. The back one placed in the Yucatan (Mexico) and already with 12.848 km, and the front one, an authentic relic of equipment, already rolls on the roads of the continent since Smithers (Canada) with an impressive 24,253 km.
Despite the tires been so old and already improper for the Andean roads, in last the 12,000 km I had only two punctures on the road (plus 2 valves broken). No doubt, great touring tires!!
It was another 3 hard days to cover just 150 km until the city of Gualaquiza where where the asphalt starts again. With averages of 6 and 7km/h, roads cut by fallen trees, landslides, areas with mud where I had to push the Burra and some areas of road construction that implied hours of wait.
Those road works are slowly transforming the troncal amazónico into a super-jungle-highway. At least that's the Ecuadorian government´s goal, that intends to create infrastructures for petrol exploration. Vast amounts of "Oro Preto" had been found recently in the region, in special in the subsoil of the national park of Limoncocha.
After 3 days of "cyclo-torture", the arrival in Gualaquiza and on the tarmac was received with strong enthusiasm, was as if I put the Burra in a flying carpet.
Days later I arrive the Zamora where I receive news from Joana that she was still in Cuenca waiting of her bank cards. I decide to take a day off and visit the nearby Podocarpus national park, recently acclaimed UNESCO´s heritage site. A Particularly interesting visit for the enormous amount of birds and butterflies.
In the following day I begin the climb back to the Andean mountain range. The road goes up without interruption until 2800m, following one downhill of 700m until the city of Loja.
Joana arrived one week later... and still without her bank cards, (the soap opera of her bank cards lost for nearly a month in the labyrinth of the English Royal mail is not worth of being told).
Although we still have more than 200 km to the border, the next stokes will define all of our itinerary in the north of Peru. We either follow directly south passing through Vilcabanba and Zumba using the most remote border between the two countries, and entering in Peru through the eastern Andes, or we cycle southwest using the calm and quiet border of Macara entering in Peru through the dry plains of Piura province and then to the coastal desert of Sechura.
We opt for the second. Main reason: the severity of the elements. At the moment the Peruvian Andes are going through the heaviest months of the rainy season, and many roads are impassable. The desert-like coast will offer a more easy, flat and "dry" cycling.
Near San Pedro la Bendita, we pull off the road in search for a place to spend the night. We followed a dirt road that lead us down a narrow valley and finishes in front a small concrete house without electricity. We ask the owners if they allowed us to camp somewhere in their land. We notice the amount of red dots in the faces of the children. There was an epidemic of measles in the family, But we were not bother by that.
Mr Torres, hunchback and with a contagious smile, was very intrigued and surprised by the sudden intrusion of 2 ciclo-tourists in his routine life. He shows us a piece of land near the the pig pit. We did´nt argue. In fact, the ground was pretty flat and was sheltered by the house. "podem dejar las motos ahya, no pasa nada", he said. Although I insisted that we had bicycles,not motorcycles, I think that in the following morning we left without convincing him that we did not have "engines" in the bicycles. We cook in the yard at candle light on a dark and overcast sky, in the company of the children, fascinated with our presence.
The uncertainty of the unknown must be one of the must motivating and fascinating feelings of bike touring. Many times during the day I try to imagine where I will end up that night. In a noisy hotel? With a hospitable family? In the tent on the side of the road in a cold and rainy night? In the hammock underneath two trees? Or near a lake with some amazing views of the Andes?
The lack of comfort and not having the security of the routine, stimulates other senses and compels me to see and feel what´s around me in a more discerning form, a more present one.
We wake up with the noise of the pig digging in the mud just a few meters from the tent. After breakfast,we thanked the Torres family, grab our "motors" and continue our journey. It rained all day. Although we really enjoying Ecuador, we already start to anticipate the border crossing to Peru. The bad weather of the last few weeks has been very demoralizing and we start to anticipate our next rides in the hot and dry desert of northern Peru.
At midday we stop on the side of the road to eat something and to have a nap. We sight one other cyclist that approaches us slowly. He was Jeff, that had cycle from Loja until here (200 kms) in just over a day and half, to catch up with us. It was a pleasure to see him again. still overloaded as usual. Jeff left Inuvik (Canada) 2 days after me, I met him the first time in Mexico and again months later in Guatemala. We then travel together until Granada in Nicaragua. I did not see him since then.
Macara is a ugly border town, with an wild west atmosphere, with clear evidence of prostitution, gambling houses and delinquency. The border of Peru is only a few km to the south. Tomorrow we will face together what it is considered by many touring cyclists as "the more difficult" country of Latin America. At least those are the comments that we had been listening from other cyclists that we met along the way. But in fact, on the other side of the border, in our next stage through the desert until Trujillo, we had some really pleasant surprises....
Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa
In Trujillo, Peru.
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