Amazon basin (Ecuador)

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.

The new year of La Moya (Ecuador)

Without losing my concentration on the holes in the road, I noticed, through a fence of vegetation surrounding a modern, unpainted concrete house, the slaughter of a pig. At the front door of the house was a scarecrow with a face mask. At a table, someone with a knife opened the pig and extracted the viscera. I could hear children shouting, music, laughter and groups of unconnected words.

I searched for a bakery in this village of 20 or 30 houses lying between the road and the mountainside. Joana was near the stream at the village entrance, preparing a picnic in the company of two curious children. One woman left her group and approached me on the road.
"Where are you going?", she asked.
"There, to the church," I answered, gesturing towards the hilltop chapel surrounded by houses, which seemed to represent the center of the village.
"You're from London?"
"From Portugal, but I lived in London."
"You know Torres?"
"Torres? Of course!", I exclaimed, surprised.
"Hey, it's him, it's him," she cried out to the group of people with the pig.
"We've been waiting for you. Come in!"

About 18 months prior, in the bar of The Caprice restaurant in London, my co-worker, after many glasses of farewell champagne, drew me a map of Ecuador and detailed the Pan Americana between Alausí and Cuenca. "You must visit my family in Ecuador. You'll be well received." This map travelled in the burra's panniers until today. "When you get to La Moya, ask for the Torres family."
But the family found me first.

"Chancho" (oven-baked pig), served with "mote" (steamed white corn) and bread baked in the wood-fired oven, were some of the main dishes that Anita Gullien was preparing for New Year's Eve. Family members from Quito were visiting and anticipating a great party. The entire population of La Moya (which doesn't appear on my map) was coming over too.

And around here, a party's not a party without some evidence of Spanish heritage, in this case a running of bulls, mixed with local influences, such as the consumption of enormous amounts of "canela", a mix of aguardiente of sugarcane, lime juice and hot water.

This afternoon in the village bullfighting ring, some lean cows were provided for the many "matadors" who were getting braver as more "canela" flowed.
In the ring, on a stage enveloped in the intense fog settling into the valley, a live band of trumpets and guitars entertained the masses with the (repetitive) sound of Ecuadorian traditional music.




After our inhospitable Christmas night, when we had to camp at the roadside after a frustrating ride in arduous mountains near the villages of Punin and Tselaron in search of the idyllic Lake Colta, and when a tipsy local aboriginal accused us of being thieves and threatened to set our tent on fire, this running of the bulls was not like in Pamplona... it was better!

It was a "different" Christmas. As consolation, we had an excellent bottle of Chilean wine and the comfort of knowing that in this damp fog, the old drunk would not only be unable to burn our tent, he wouldn't even be able to find it! Later, on the other side of the enormous valley and behind the mountains, the full moon rose, illuminating the valley and clearing the fog.

Christmas is not about gifts and luxuries. As someone once told me, "the important thing is to remember others." The full moon was something we could share with the entire world. The next morning we continued our trip, finishing the day in Palmira, a small village 20km north of Alausí.

The village priest's helper offered us an empty room in the convent of St. John the Evangelist, where we brought the bikes inside and slept on the floor. We shared the unused building with an extensive ecuadorian family that recived us in the true christmas spirit. It was our christmas gift.

The bullfight finishes and we return to the house. On the way we could see some modern houses in cement that contrasted strongly with the simple wooden houses with Iberian roofing tile. "they belong to emigrants in London", told us Júlio. Ecuador thus Mexico, El Salvador and many other countries of Latin America, is a country of strong migratory traditions. The majority of them to the United States and Spain, but in La Moya they all seem to have gone to London. Júlio has 3 brothers there and its sister Anita, 5 children.

Enrique (that we would met a few days later) told us the story beyond that trend. Luis Torres was the first person of La Moya to make it to London, after a lot of hardship and country hoping. Later it was the bothers turn, and nephews and friends. Nowadays, there is not a resident of La Moya, who does not have family member or a neighbor living in London. The Torres family is a history of success. But not all had the same luck.

While I cycle up and down the Andes, or you in front of the computer somewhere in the "global village", there is not a week that goes by without the news of a tragic history of a full boat of clandestine emigrants been shipwrecked in the pacific sea or some coyotero`s ( human trafficker) truck full of people travelling in inhuman conditions been caught somewhere near the Mexican border...

Many were in their final phase of the arduous and long trip across the American continent in search of "land of freedom". In the list: always one or two Ecuadorians. Histories that have followed me along my journey on the Pan American highway.

It is news year eve and the pig that spent the previous night soaked in spices came out of the oven and is ready to be consumed.
In this simple and healthful atmosphere of the Ecuadorian countryside, a tourist from north Europe could be having a strong experience, even a cultural shock. For me and Joana was like a trip to our infancy. Everything was very familiar. The baked pig, the firewood oven at one corner and the fireplace to another, clad-oven baked hot bread with butter, and a warm family where the costumes and habits are preserved as they always been.

We danced on the road in front of the house. All participated. The blasting sound of Andean typical music attracted some neighbors that joined in the party.
Anita kept the spirits high with copious amounts of "canela", served from a plastic jar into a single cup that circulated between everyone. The countdown to midnight was announced by me through the bicycle computer .




At midnight the music stops, hugs and kisses are exchanged and the "testament" left by the "año Viejo" is read out loud. The old year was the straw puppet that I saw on my arrival in front of the house and that would be burnt next, symbol of all the events of the year that finishes. Its testament, a parody concerning the life of each member of the family, who did not exclude the visiting cyclists. The puppet is burnt in the middle of the road obstructing the evening traffic. One of the many thousands burnt that night on the country`s roads.

The following morning, slightly hangover, we say farewell to the Torres and Gullien families and continued our journey.


We had a very ambitious plan to make a "normal" day of cycling, but there was more surprises on the road. We had made only 4,5 km when we pass by the small hamlet of Zunar. A young girl comes closer to the road and says: " La patrona los esta invitando a parar ". I exchange looks with Joana. To be invited to stop and to enter in someones house is some relatively common in ciclo-tourism in Latin America, but we had made only 4,5 km and we wanted to continue. " gracias, but we have to continue".

Moments later a middle age lady runs along side our bikes and trying to keep her breath, cries out:"Pare, soy hermana de Torres" Sister of Torres,I thought, how many family members does he have along this valley?
We stop for a little chat and a beer. It was only midday. We did not leave.

I just finished making the shortest day of the entire trip. At this pace when will I arrive in Patagonia? Christmas 2008?
Enrique shows us the place where we would have to keep the bicycles, in the hen house. But it was not any hen house, as we would come to know later. More than 20 race cocks in separate compartments, protested the intrusion of our bicycles, some with marks of recent fights. Later Enrique showed us, with proud his collection of trophies won in fights of this cruel sport that still common in Ecuador. One more time we were well treated by the Torres family.

In the following morning we leave finally decided to make some cycling. It was still 5 more days to cover the 160 km until Cuenca, due to strong rain and foggy weather.


We stop in Cañar, a city with an unusual number of lawyer`s offices, where we visit some Incas ruins situated at Ingapirca 15 km East of town..


We finally arrive in Cuenca, one of the biggest urban centers in the south of Ecuador and part of UNESCO patrimony, just on time to attend the celebrations of the "day of the innocents". Street parades with loads of music and color. Some sort of hybrid festival between Carnival and American Halloween .

Cuenca represents a vast human mosaic where one can witness the alchemy of the mestization, and is (for a good reason) also a touristic city. Some of them come to visit and stay for ever. A consequence of this resident foreign community is the many restaurants of international gastronomy. It is a good place to linger around and forget the realities of the Ecuadorian countryside and to let oneself be soaked in certain occidental comforts.





We lodge ourselves in a neighborhood with some presence of the foreign community, where we got to know some of them. Amount them Guilermo. A Frenchman of Normandy doing voluntary work. Guilermo is voluntary in one project of the Orden de Malta, a french institution that helps, among others things, the integration of special children in the platform of the education.

Guilermo invites me to visit the center where he shows me his work: To make supports for prótesis for special children. One articulated prótesis bought to a foreign company costs about 2.500 dollars. Guilermo makes it by a mere 20 or 30 dollars, the cost of the material. Dr Francisco Ochoa, responsible for project, is very pleased to have him there, he told me, as he showed the installations of the dispensary and with who I change impressions, leaving some information of the APPC-Leiria.


One week in Cuenca and already was to start to feel itchy feet. Although it is an interesting city, I was missing the road and the saddle of my bike. Joana bank cards (lost in Quito) never arrived (the reason of our prolonged stay in the city), so we decided to opt for the "plan B". I would continue by bike through the Orient via Mendes and Zamora, taking advantage to know a little more of that little visited part of the country. Joana would join me by bus in Loja in 4 or 5 days.
We though it would be simple.

What I still didn't know was that in front of me , was the hardest stretches of roads since I set foot on south American soil.

Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa
In Loja, Ecuador