life @ 13
Saturday, January 31, 2009
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
the experiment in liberty must be photodocumented
pics up
sheet up
tuesday
first day cycling alone in a long time was from latacunga to ambato, 42 highly unintimidating kilometers. just to keep things interesting, someone pointed the wind in my face, put up a couple 150m passes, took away my shoulder for a while, and threw in lots of traffic. whatever. Ambato turned out to be much bigger than i expected...the guy who owned the hotel i stayed in lived in newark for 20 years and drove a truck. apparently almost all ecuadorians who go abroad to make money come back (i´m guessing a little here, but people from mexico tend to stay)
wednesday
left early in the morning, felt OK but not great...good breakfast of croissants and yogurt. climbed 400m just to get out of city. road never went down...but this was expected because according to the book the climb was to fourthree. my energy level was slipping rapidly..legs giving less and less. took a nap on the side of the road, which helped but not totally. i notice i'm short a spoke on the back wheel
stopped by little indigineous town, made coffee in a little farm house, decided to stay the night there because i was at threesix and any higher it would be cold. eventually a boy came by, shy, asked him if i could stay but he didn't really respond...later on dad came by and was very friendly and said it was OK to stay...boy came back with brother and more fam and asked for dollar. this would not happen in colombia, then again i wouldn't feel as safe doing this in colombia. an act of faith??
slept pretty well...almost cold but OK. crappy sleeping bag...NEVER wash nice down bags by hand.
thursday
left really early, spectacular morning. quiet road, started to get views of volcano chimborazo, felt much better, more climbing, practically next to volcano, great views, etc, etc, cross four, down to threeeight, through the altidessert, cross the pass at a little over fourone (thirteenfive).
downhill from there. descent starts off cold, then in really heavy clouds, then road gets worse and worse. first 1000m decsending are NOT FUN. then i'm below the clouds, still crappy road but i make it to guaranda in one piece. lunch, then i decide to keep going. something is drawing me to the coast. 5 weeks in the mountains and i want a change. my brain wants the kitch value of descending from 4100+ to 0 in the same day.
and so, with 80k and 4100 m of descending, you think this would be a pretty easy ride. hm.
the road goes down a little, up a little, down a little, down some more...ok with me. only 60k to the coast and 2600 to drop. climb 100m as the google terrain view predicted, then down to 2400. steep climb out of the town, 2500. notice that there is a wall of mountains, no pass in sight. screaming, raining, unhappy. there was nothing, NOTHING on the map that indicated a climb like this. only the deaf in San Vicinte did not learn a new word today. put on the pixies. climb to 2700. no pass in sight. can't see anyways. feeling incredibly strong (probably from the heavy air) and incredibly pissed. road turns shitty. 2800. lady says there is lots more climbing. 2900...in the clouds again, light rain, top of the pass finally. still can't see though. start descending. 11 degrees C, raining, i'm fucking soaked and pissed. road sucks, descending slowly, rain in eyes and can't see well, using every ounce of concentration i have to keep from hitting the big potholes. down to 2500, guy at gas station says it's all down from here, lady on horse says more climbing. unfortunately the horselady is right. mostly push bike to 2650, almost crying from extreme frusturation. down to 2400, rain and road get worse....in patches it is OK and others i'm descending a 5% grade at 15 or 20 km hr, using all my concentration and every bike handling skill i have. then back up to 2450 and now i'm in total disbelief...feeling very cold but just miserable, no real core temp danger. keep thinking that i need to descend at lesat below 1500 and dry off in order to be comfortable. finally, the descent i have been waiting for, 16k straight down to 800m, see sign for hotel, $5, done deal. mud everywhere, everything is wet. "the life of bees" is soaked, camera display is not working, "zen..." is OK, body not happy but in one piece, sleep 12 hours. 137k, 1250m up, 4100 down. hell of a day.
friday
wake up late, warm and still a little wet. hung up all my clothes in the room last night and in the morningnone of my ultra-drying synthetics are dry in the least. pack up, using much more plastic to keep everything dry.
really crappy descending the next 800m...unfortunately did not tie down my cycling shorts and the are gone with the wind and i'm still too pissed-hungover from yesterday to care. 35 flat, flat, flat k to the next town Babahoyo where i eat and charge the ipod and start sketching the blog post in shorthand....much of which i left in shorthand. the sign says 70k to Guayaquil, the biggest city in ecuador, not recommended by any guide book or person i've met, which means my interest is piqued. the road there wasn't bad...busy but mostly with a good shoulder. i haven't cycled without shorts in a long time and it's bitingly clear why.
still not feeling great and haven't eaten much in the past few days so i'm not entirely sure where my energy is coming from, but i'm able to hold around 23k/h for a few hours. cross over two massive bridges to enter the city....lots of traffic but for me it was much easier than quito.
saturday
i LOVE the city right from the get-go. to me, most people here on the coast have a certain gusto that was mostly lacking in the andes. entirely different people. there are very, very few tourists in the area, a huge plus in my book. My guide book sings highly of quito and damns guayaquil with faint praise (and very few pages), probably because there is "nothing to do" here, but, for me, this trip is intentionally very light on things to do (not counting the bike) and heavy on trying to get under the skin. guayaquil feels even more citylike than medellin.
the way i speak and understand spanish is improving too. very few improvements to grammar and vocab, but i'm speaking and asking questions with much more confidence, and ignoring the fact that my pronunciation sucks, because it changes so much from place to place there really is not much of a center to adhere to, anyway.
a day or two here, errands and things (definitely new shorts), then off to the pacific for a day or two....i've been pining for a swim there for weeks now.
the experiment in liberty must be photodocumented
pics up
sheet up
tuesday
first day cycling alone in a long time was from latacunga to ambato, 42 highly unintimidating kilometers. just to keep things interesting, someone pointed the wind in my face, put up a couple 150m passes, took away my shoulder for a while, and threw in lots of traffic. whatever. Ambato turned out to be much bigger than i expected...the guy who owned the hotel i stayed in lived in newark for 20 years and drove a truck. apparently almost all ecuadorians who go abroad to make money come back (i´m guessing a little here, but people from mexico tend to stay)
wednesday
left early in the morning, felt OK but not great...good breakfast of croissants and yogurt. climbed 400m just to get out of city. road never went down...but this was expected because according to the book the climb was to fourthree. my energy level was slipping rapidly..legs giving less and less. took a nap on the side of the road, which helped but not totally. i notice i'm short a spoke on the back wheel
stopped by little indigineous town, made coffee in a little farm house, decided to stay the night there because i was at threesix and any higher it would be cold. eventually a boy came by, shy, asked him if i could stay but he didn't really respond...later on dad came by and was very friendly and said it was OK to stay...boy came back with brother and more fam and asked for dollar. this would not happen in colombia, then again i wouldn't feel as safe doing this in colombia. an act of faith??
slept pretty well...almost cold but OK. crappy sleeping bag...NEVER wash nice down bags by hand.
thursday
left really early, spectacular morning. quiet road, started to get views of volcano chimborazo, felt much better, more climbing, practically next to volcano, great views, etc, etc, cross four, down to threeeight, through the altidessert, cross the pass at a little over fourone (thirteenfive).
downhill from there. descent starts off cold, then in really heavy clouds, then road gets worse and worse. first 1000m decsending are NOT FUN. then i'm below the clouds, still crappy road but i make it to guaranda in one piece. lunch, then i decide to keep going. something is drawing me to the coast. 5 weeks in the mountains and i want a change. my brain wants the kitch value of descending from 4100+ to 0 in the same day.
and so, with 80k and 4100 m of descending, you think this would be a pretty easy ride. hm.
the road goes down a little, up a little, down a little, down some more...ok with me. only 60k to the coast and 2600 to drop. climb 100m as the google terrain view predicted, then down to 2400. steep climb out of the town, 2500. notice that there is a wall of mountains, no pass in sight. screaming, raining, unhappy. there was nothing, NOTHING on the map that indicated a climb like this. only the deaf in San Vicinte did not learn a new word today. put on the pixies. climb to 2700. no pass in sight. can't see anyways. feeling incredibly strong (probably from the heavy air) and incredibly pissed. road turns shitty. 2800. lady says there is lots more climbing. 2900...in the clouds again, light rain, top of the pass finally. still can't see though. start descending. 11 degrees C, raining, i'm fucking soaked and pissed. road sucks, descending slowly, rain in eyes and can't see well, using every ounce of concentration i have to keep from hitting the big potholes. down to 2500, guy at gas station says it's all down from here, lady on horse says more climbing. unfortunately the horselady is right. mostly push bike to 2650, almost crying from extreme frusturation. down to 2400, rain and road get worse....in patches it is OK and others i'm descending a 5% grade at 15 or 20 km hr, using all my concentration and every bike handling skill i have. then back up to 2450 and now i'm in total disbelief...feeling very cold but just miserable, no real core temp danger. keep thinking that i need to descend at lesat below 1500 and dry off in order to be comfortable. finally, the descent i have been waiting for, 16k straight down to 800m, see sign for hotel, $5, done deal. mud everywhere, everything is wet. "the life of bees" is soaked, camera display is not working, "zen..." is OK, body not happy but in one piece, sleep 12 hours. 137k, 1250m up, 4100 down. hell of a day.
friday
wake up late, warm and still a little wet. hung up all my clothes in the room last night and in the morningnone of my ultra-drying synthetics are dry in the least. pack up, using much more plastic to keep everything dry.
really crappy descending the next 800m...unfortunately did not tie down my cycling shorts and the are gone with the wind and i'm still too pissed-hungover from yesterday to care. 35 flat, flat, flat k to the next town Babahoyo where i eat and charge the ipod and start sketching the blog post in shorthand....much of which i left in shorthand. the sign says 70k to Guayaquil, the biggest city in ecuador, not recommended by any guide book or person i've met, which means my interest is piqued. the road there wasn't bad...busy but mostly with a good shoulder. i haven't cycled without shorts in a long time and it's bitingly clear why.
still not feeling great and haven't eaten much in the past few days so i'm not entirely sure where my energy is coming from, but i'm able to hold around 23k/h for a few hours. cross over two massive bridges to enter the city....lots of traffic but for me it was much easier than quito.
saturday
i LOVE the city right from the get-go. to me, most people here on the coast have a certain gusto that was mostly lacking in the andes. entirely different people. there are very, very few tourists in the area, a huge plus in my book. My guide book sings highly of quito and damns guayaquil with faint praise (and very few pages), probably because there is "nothing to do" here, but, for me, this trip is intentionally very light on things to do (not counting the bike) and heavy on trying to get under the skin. guayaquil feels even more citylike than medellin.
the way i speak and understand spanish is improving too. very few improvements to grammar and vocab, but i'm speaking and asking questions with much more confidence, and ignoring the fact that my pronunciation sucks, because it changes so much from place to place there really is not much of a center to adhere to, anyway.
a day or two here, errands and things (definitely new shorts), then off to the pacific for a day or two....i've been pining for a swim there for weeks now.
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