All roads lead to Cuzco

Back in Quito Sixto gets new tyres and I rest up from the trek knowing that the following few weeks will involve a few thousand kilometres of riding through Ecuador and Peru to get to La Paz in time to meet Jenn before we travel together for a couple of months. Before riding directly south into Peru, Ricardo the friendly mechanic invites me on a Saturday ride with his mates, a motorbike group he'd established. We meet up back at the shop and I follow him on to his place where he shows me his home servicing setup and then on to his group clubhouse where I'm introduced to some other members of his group and become an honorary member for the day. They're a nice bunch of guys and as usual we stand around discussing each others bikes and take in some morning sun.

From here we move on to a party, collecting more from the group along the way and forming a long line of bikes as we head to the outskirts of Quito. I had little idea where we were heading but arrive mid afternoon to no other than the local headquarters of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. On arrival there's a long line of motorbikes of all brands and sizes parked along the laneway, a few marquees, a roasting pig at the back of the clubroom and guys setting up the stage ready for an afternoon of heavy metal cover bands. The party brings together several Quito motorcycle gangs. I'm welcomed by a heap of guys from all different walks of life, what may appear intimidating on the surface is just another way people form social groups and share in a common interest. I feast, play pool and enjoy the music and characters and get shown a lot of bikes including Mark's - who takes me to his yard nearby to show me the collection of bikes he's restoring. A nice farewell to Ecuador, a preferred country for it's people and places up to now.       

 

Following a month passing through Ecuador’s mountains, volcanoes, lakes and rainforests the landscape changes dramatically soon after crossing the frontier a couple of days later. In Northern Peru the roads are now surrounded by dry sandy desert with more aggressive truck drivers and the petrol stations offer gas at three times the price. The strong winds across the desert also means I need more fuel per kilometre. I get the impression that people are a little lazier and unwilling here. The honking of horns become incessant for what seems without reason – Overtaking? Not happy with my riding? Or just recognition that I’m noticed? It’s never clear. I’m against the clock for the first time since Mexico and make stops in the dead end town of Sullana where I'm not given much of a welcome into the country then in the bigger, more interesting city of Trujillo.

 

  

Further on I head east with the hope of catching a clear glimpse of the Cordillera Blanca near Huaraz, Peru's highest point and stunning snow capped and rugged mountain peak. To arrive the interesting way I cross into canyon country which brings back the joys of riding through parts of South Western U.S. 

 

 

The roads empty and the surroundings become nothing but blue and cloudy skies, warm sun, valleys of rocks, many shades of red and brown, stops to let trucks pass on narrow sections, ghost towns, dusty gravel tracks, tunnels and no sign of life but the Rio Santa which flows on beside me. I make the 30,000km mark when passing through an abandoned village and push on until reaching the dam walls and eventually the wet highway to Huaraz. 

 

Sadly, the overcast and miserably cold weather conditions doesn't give me much of a view of the mountain range at Huaraz but I do manage a few good meals and make friends at a family run restaurant, staying at a empty hostel ran by a Peruvian who spend years living in Ascot Vale over a decade ago but returned here for a slower life. From here it's back to the Pacific Ocean within a few hours, a spectacular return after leaving it's shores months ago in southern Nicaragua, approaching high above the waters which meet with the sandy deserts of central Peru. I pass through Lima hours later with no intention of stopping so I push through to it's southern holidaying beaches.    

 

 

 

 

I've been pretty happy with the simple food in Peru, the menus don't seems to change much from meal to meal- breakfast much like lunch and dinner offers chicken soup, egg and bread or roasted chicken, lo in of beef, tripe, fried rice and macaroni and similiar dishes. With petrol prices as high as I've seen so far I can get about seven modest restaurant lunches to a tank of petrol which is by far the biggest relative difference. 

 

 

 

Whilst searching for a cheap bed in Punta Hermosa I'm approached by Alberto cruising around on his pushbike who sees me aimlessly wandering and offers a room at his place. My instincts tell me he's a decent guy so I follow him to his apartment where he has a spare room which he usually rents out during the surfing season. He's an interesting guy who used to live in the Amazon, run a coffee business and now spends his time surfing, mountaineering and studying acupuncture. His mates drop in and we play chess, discuss Peru, the best way to see Macchu Picchu and they cook me the best bacon and eggs I've had in months the following morning before I have to head off.

 

 

 

Not before long I'm heading away from the coast and later that day I reach the town of Nazca. I stop at one of the watchtowers to get a glimpse of the mysterious site which surrounds me, the Nazca lines. You don't get to see much unless you take a plane high above the plateau to better witness the ancient geoglyphs - hundreds of shallow lines and geometric shapes resembling animals, from humingbirds to monkeys to sharks formed around 1500 years ago. 

 

After much lonely afternoon riding I reach a landscape new to me in the Pampa Galeras. The pampas, found in Peru and vast areas of Argentina are the high elevation, treeless, windswept plains of the Andes. I hadn't experienced anything like it before, despite the cold and unavoidable gusts of wind and being constantly chased by stray dogs, there's a mysterious beauty to these lonely lands with little agriculture, snot-nosed children playing by the roadside, herds of llamas, guanacos & alpacas roaming and tiny villages appear with nothing more than a few adobe homes and stone walled animal enclosures by a river. 

 

 

 

 

I ride all day without seeing many people or vehicules, freezing my hands in the high desert with concern for when the next gas station will arrive until finally reaching a village after dark. Lucanas is a small village atop a hill where of all places I'm offered chicken cooked in coca-cola and the following morning I buy a wheel of the cheese the village is supposedly know for. I stop for a roadside breakfast and moments later I'm forced to stop for roadworks. The woman at the roadblock and the cop say it'll be a two and a half hour wait for linemarking and I couldn't convince them to let me through with urgency until I offer them both cheese ten minutes later and they arranged an escort car through the radio.     

 

 

Making good progress high in the pampas on the day I plan to arrive in Cuzco, I notice a quaint little village off the highway in the distant and decide to take the small track out there for a rest in the sun and maybe a drink.  On arriving I befriend a teenager who directs me to the square where tables and chairs are being setup for a ceremony. I'm asked to stay and get chatting to a bunch of men waiting for the meeting. Within half an hour  what seems like all the adults of the village, maybe 150 people have arrived, all the men sitting in front of the main town building and the women off to the side huddled in groups. It's the monthly general meeting of the indigenous village and to start proceedings the mayor and a group of armed men in military clothing raise the Peruvian flag at the central flagpost and fire guns into the air. I'm then called over to the main table to introduce myself as a visitor where I briefly explain myself to everyone - what I'm doing there with some complimentary words of the village and its generosity. The next hour or so I sit and listen to the proceedings in a Spanish difficult to understand, where between the mayors speeches all the men are given a chance to stand forward, give their suggestions and vent their concerns of the village whilst everyone else sits and listens. I'm told the meeting may go on for a few more hours so I excuse myself and get back on the highway towards Cuzco.

 

 

 The 4,200m high pampas at sunset where wild vicunas roam

 

 

I eventually make in to Cuzco after stopping to chat to a couple from Geelong riding pushbikes since Colombia and sharing cheese. I arrive in the pouring rain and with a very dim headlight in need of a replacement. The city appears as colonial as any city I've seen since northern Mexico but a closer look shows membrances of the heart of the Inca empire which ruled for 95 years until the Spanish invasion. It was the largest of American empires before Columbian times and at its height it dominated the Andes, stretching across modern day Peru, large parts of Bolivia and Ecuador, northern Chile & Argentina and as far north as Colombia. I move on to ride as close as I can to Macchu Picchu and decide on riding to Santa Theresa which takes me through the Sacred Valley - it's high mountain pass, many waterfalls and rivers, misty mountain sides and wet and silent roads. It's a struggle through cold weather. I'm advised to stop and take a bus when I get to the end of the asphalt due to an imminent river crossings too deep for Sixto. I take my chances, get through the rivers and get held up by roadworks which means I arrive after dark. The following morning I take a collectivo taxi to the end of the train line at Hidroelectrico and walk with a couple of Europeans along the train tracks for a few hours until we finally reach the sacred mountain of Macchu Picchu, that wonderful royal city so hidden away the Spanish never discovered it.        

 

 

 

Within a few days I leave Peru, having spent less than three weeks here. I was warned several times that the country isn't so beautiful but I regret rushing through as it's uniqueness and variety - sandy low deserts, windswept high deserts, deserts meeting the ocean, high snowy mountain passes and tropical sacred rainforests gave me a new motivation to explore new landscapes.  

 

Conquering Cotopaxi

I decided on hiking to the summit of Cotopaxi, the seventh highest peak of the Andes, sitting at 5,897 m.a.s.l. and one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. It's has an active history having erupted over 80 times in the past 500 years.

 

I was hoping to ride into the national park, arrange some rental gear and find a compulsory guide who was willing to take me up. Andi, Ellen and I rode in through the back entrance, along a cobblestone road for 25km's only to be told at the gate entrance than motorbikes weren't allowed into the park. Annoyed after riding on bumpy roads to arrive we told the guy we were riding in anyway until these guards forced us to stop a few kilometres further on. I gave up and returned to Quito where I organised transport, gear rental and a guide through a tour agency, the only way to have the chance to hike from the refuge. 

 

 

 

Along with six others - three French chefs, two 'all the gear, no idea' Romanian doctors, an older Polish guy and four local mountain guides we set off from Quito and drove up to the car park at 4,600 metres and hiked to the refuge at 4,800 metres where we'd have lunch before having some practice climbing on the glacier with crampons and ice axes. Returning to the refuge for dinner, we then had five hours to rest and try and get some sleep before a midnight breakfast and beginning of the hike. I couldn't sleep of course, due to excitement and it being too early in the evening. With no sleep we took off under starlight. With the uneven numbers I was lucky enough to get my own guide so shortly into the hike we took off ahead on our own and I was able to set my own pace and not be held back by anyone. What followed was six or so hours of uphill climbing and a continuous rythym of ice pick into the snow, two sideway steps forward digging the crampons into firm ground and a deep breath to take in the increasingly thin air. We took occasional breaks for water and snacks, to put on another layer of clothing or gloves and to pass by other groups. Despite being lucky with the weather conditions, it was one of the tougher things I'd ever done, but well worth it when reaching the summit at sunrise.         

 

 

 

exhausted!

 

 

 

This group of German guys beat me to the summit

 

 

The still air and crater at sunrise

 

 

 

 

With guide at the top

 

Coming down was pretty tough, all adrenalin was lost and energy depleted. The sun got warmer by the minute, headaches set in and every step downhill brought pain to the legs. 

 

 

 

Laguna de Quilotoa

 

 

This is Laguna de Quilotoa, a pretty awesome crater lake, 250m deep which last erupted 800 years ago. I arrived here after spending a few average days in the river towns of Misahualli and Banos from the Amazon. I wanted to see the lake first hand after seeing some impressive photos and to get some hiking and altitude acclimatization in for a volcano hike the following week. The steep isolated ascent from the highway to the lake at 3,900 m.a.s.l was pretty cool through the small Andean hillside villages as the fresh winds became colder by the minute.

 

 

  

 

 

 

I met a few travelers on arrival, who I spent the next few days with. We hiked down to the still waters at the lakes surface from the town and back up the first afternoon.

 

 

 

The following morning with better weather conditions we hiked the rim in four hours ascending and descending the dirt tracks, watching the colour of the water changing as the clouds and sun moved across it.

 

 

Local Andean communities, always in hats and seeming to suffer little from the harsh and cold climate.

 

 

I met Andi and Ellen, a lovely New Zealand couple here on the ride up to Quilotoa. They were riding south from Alaska at a slow pace and had a lot of stories to share. We rode on together after the lake, only for a day unfortunately as I was keen to hike up a mountain.

Breaks in the countryside, all the time in the world

 

 

 Central Ecuador's flowing countryside

 

 

Ecuador, the beautiful country

 

 

Laguna de San Pedro

 

I hadn't given much thought to Ecuador before arriving but it quickly seemed like a country to spend some slow time in. From the crossing, the pace and people reminded me of Guatemala. There's a large indigenous presence, colourful clothing and soaring mountains. There's a warm calmness to the people who have plenty of time to chat. I was handed a map from the tourism board at the border and decided here was where I would enter the Amazon, the paved roads lead deep into Ecuador's slice of the rainforest of rainforests. It's a small country with an impressive landscape - the Andes cut through the country from north to south and climb significantly from the Colombian heights including several active volcanoes, the Galapagos islands west of the mainland is a wildlife haven and an important place in Darwin's studies on evolution and almost half the country in part of the greater Amazon. Relative to size, it's the most biodiverse nation in the world. It's also the worlds largest producer of bananas. They have a healthy growing economy and a significant reduction in extreme poverty in the past decade.  The roads are in great condition, easy to navigate and the petrol is the cheapest I've found by far, 55c a litre for the high octane.       

  

 

 

From bending through the mountains for a few hours I stop in Otavalo for a couple days. I ride out to a couple nearby lakes and try the local delicacy -  guinea pig, reminding me of tender roasted rabbit. The Saturday morning animal market is interesting and disturbing where all sorts are tied to stakes, squealing and moaning and sold off.   

 

 

 

Obligatory stop when crossing the Equator with a foot in each hemisphere

 

 

I stop in high altitude Quito for a few days, it's a relaxed place as far as capital cities go and gives me time to see a couple of museums, wander through the old town and visit the bike shop and order a few parts, new tyres and get a couple things repaired. Sebastian and the boys in the workshop are super helpful. We agree on a suitable set of tyres for the roads ahead and I meet Sebastian and motorcycle friends for a beer one evening to discuss my experiences travelling north and what to expect south of here. I also meet Fabian, a motorcyclist and photographer who shared his impressive South American photos with me and a group of travelling Brazilians one evening. The mixed hostel group and cool staff also made Quito entertaining and relaxing.  

 

Once sorted for a return loop to Quito in a few weeks for tyres I make the journey east to one of the larger Amazon towns, El Coca. The city turns to suburbs, then through the dry, brown and open mountains into wet and green flat lands as I reach the beginning of the Amazon. There's a few lookouts which offer views over the rainforest canopy for as far as the eye can see. Humidity sets in as I reach a small town at dusk, pushing on to El Coca the following morning. The insects are biting, the living a little simpler and the meals now just a big pile of rice, a plantain or yuca and a piece of chicken or fish. I'm directed to the port at the town and am approached by Raul and we chat for a while watching the river  boats come in. The town sits at the convergence of three rivers, the principal being the the Rio Napo which begins high in the snowmelt of the Ecuadorian Andes, crosses into Peru and eventually joins the mighty Amazon in Brazil. Raul introduces me to Juan, a quiet and gentle man who worked for 20 years as a guard for one of the protected areas of the jungle. He monitored the river traffic from a hut and was on the lookout for illegal loggers trying to exploit the rainforest, mainly coming in from Colombia. Juan agreed to take me into the jungle for a few days, camp at the hut with his ex-colleagues, and explore what the pristine primary forest has to offer.         

 

 

We met the following morning and took off on a river boat with food, water and a machete -  four hours east along the Napo towards the Yasuni protected area and the hut by the river.  

 

These trees are in abundance, shooting over 70 metres into the sky with huge webbed bases. If the canyons in the southern U.S. made me feel small and the open seas into Colombia made me feel weak, being here really made me feel like a dot in the universe. This is the richest ecosystem on the planet, home to a third of all the earth's life forms and a fifth of the world's birds. It's 8 million square kilometres in size where there's more plant species in a single hectare than in all of Europe. Because it lies on the equator the climate barely changes all year round and its stable environment allows plants and animals to thrive. It's so dense that only 2% of sunlight makes it to the jungle floor and its plants produce 20% of the world's oxygen. It's importance and brilliance goes on and on. The daily energy generated by the sun shining over the Amazon is equivalent to 6 million atomic bombs.   

Juan takes me out for a night walk the day we reach the hut and somehow spots this snake. Over the following few days we fish and take hikes and his love for the jungle shows as he tries to point out as much as possible. What interested me most is how humans have forever lived here prosperously with a resourceful and sustainable respect for its capabilities, its food sources and medicinal offerings. To the indigenous, the jungle serves as its supermarket, pharmacy and church. Juan picks a dry fruit which tasted like smoked mussels.     

 

We open up these plants, there's ants running inside, a source of protein, they have a strong, sweet acidic flavour like eating a whole lemon

Juan cuts down this tree which retains water very well and is used if lost in the jungle and in need of fresh water. There's also shells used to whistle into if lost as well as a certain hollow tree base used to knock the machete against to communicate.

Juan cuts into the Sangre de Drago 'Blood of the Dragon' tree which pisses out a red liquid as deep as human blood. He cups it in a leaf. It's the most bitter taste I've experienced. It's used to soothe stomach aches. There's so much more just in this small patch of jungle, a tree oil used for shampoo, tea leaves, a liquid used in darts to stun animals, jungle viagra, insects to eat. We visit an indigenous community one morning and I sample the fermented sweet potato with a decent alcohol content which to some village women is their only source of food and drink.

I'm lucky enough to spot a lot of wildlife, this coral snake, a deer nearby the hut, woodpeckers, toucans, howler monkeys, turtles and hundreds of parrots which come to feed in the mineral waters every morning. We head out searching for caiman (alligator family) one night in the boat and spot one on the river bed, a pair of bright red eyes on a hunt. It dips into the water as we approach and it bumps the boat seconds later.

 

 

Fishing on the Napo, we only manage to catch one small Bagre which we eat for breakfast

 

 

Visit to a turtle conservation project, at this size they're easy prey and numbers are dwindling so the project tanks allow the turtles to grow big enough to defend themselves before they are set into the wild.

 

 

After leaving Juan and returning to El Coca for a  night I spend the next day riding west in the rain. I stop under some shelter for a while during a heavy downpour and am approached by this group of siblings and cousins leaving the nearby school who annoy Sixto for a while and eat all my biscuits. A fun experience in the jungle, I hope to return further down the track.

 

San Agustin-Mocoa-Pasto-Ipiales

I wander in to the next notable town, San Agustin, to visit the archaeological park and the stone sculptures of Gods and mythical animals of a little known ancient culture of the 1st-8th century A.D., carved in honour of the link with their ancestors and their spiritual powers. The ride in through a winding deep valley was fun and I stayed at a quiet Swiss-run place in the hills, setting up the tent for a few days. The lively market was also an interesting place to spend time chatting to old men over coffee and load up on soup entrees and a rice, vegetable and meat dish which the Colombians seem to do well.  

 

 

After riding on and spending a couple days in Mocoa, an Amazon gateway town, I take off for the long infamous road to Pasto which I'd read much about, the surface wouldn't be too much of a problem as long as I didn't experience heavy rains. I left early on a clear morning and hoped for the best. The dramatic 80km path is known locally as the devil's trampoline, the road is continuously twisting and climbing through the valleys of the Cordillera Central, inclining 3,000m before finishing lower at Pasto. 

  

 

 

For hours I slowly ride the gravel and dirt one-lane road, choosing my path carefully and listening out for trucks approaching the blind corners. I'd read a few stories about landslides and trucks falling off the cliff.   

 

 

Gentle waterfalls and shallow rivers dominated the path, never too deep to cause a problem

 

 

 

A memorial to the Virgin Mary in the cloud forest, locals stop to light a candle and pray. From this point near the top my camera stops working, because of the humidity I think and I miss photo opportunities of the mile long hairpins hugging the mountain where the road meets within 30m on the other side and the cliffs which fall hundreds of metres. I cruise beneath overhanging cliffs and ride through the misty clouds which makes it difficult to see oncoming trucks, watching out for the faint headlights. They always seem to be in a hurry and assume I'll just simply pull over into the soft gravel on the road's edge. The summit at over 3,000 metres includes a police bunker and a coffee break in the light rain.  

 

 

 

Sixto against the carved out Andes 

 

I take breaks at the beautiful Laguna de la Cocha for a coffee and at a farmhouse with a sign for trout for sale. The lovely old lady invites me into her house and proudly shows me her trout smoking set up in the back room before I buy a large one for snacking on for the following days. Finally I reach the asphalt after descending through the clouds. I spent my last night in Colombia in Pasto, one of the most miserable highway towns I can recall - barred up convenience stores, rubbish littering the streets, vandalism, nothing but fried chicken for dinner, shady characters roaming the streets. It reminds me of the grim and uninviting highway towns I've stopped in when I ride till dark and stop at the nearest hotel sign - Yazoo City, Mississippi; Orange Walk, Belize; Guaimaca, Honduras come to mind.

 

 

 

Stunning Las Lajas church built in the valley in Ipiales on the Ecuadorian border