life @ 13
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
learning and sleeping
we left off in quito, right? originially i wanted to leave friday and julian monday, but he moved his day up to saturday so i stuck around to ride out with him.
we did a fairly good job at one of the harder parts of the trip (for me)...getting up early after several city days. the good news was that the only way to beat the crazy quito traffic is to leave before the sunrise, which is more or less out of the question on the bike -- so we got going a little after 7. once we got away from the center there was a well-graded road out of the city...only 300m, which doesn't register as a climb around here. the andes in our legs? anyway, shortly after lunch ran into a swiss lady who was cycling the other direction...very friendly lady, who was clearly a lifelong traveller and sportswoman and just had a very good air about her. she let me take pictures of her nicely detailed peru and south ecuador map.
kept going...knew that the top pass was 3500 from our low point of 2700. nice 1% grades up to 3100, then we got some steady rain, the grade increased, and our shoulder disappeared for a while. at arond 3200 i started feeling the altitude (a little strange....i've been much higher without feeling it). anway, it's happened before and i know that if i take it very easy for 30 mins i will return to normal, which i did. got some spectacular views of the 5900m volcano copotaxi just at the top of the pass. one of the most rewarding descents of the trip...first 300m down were steep and straight and i stayed above 60 km/hr for 5-10 mins. then the grade drops to .5-1%, which allows you to cover spectacular distances very quickly. on flat ground i average about 24-25 km/hr, but at a 1% descent this goes to about 38.
Anyway...made it to Latacunga really early, even with a long stop talking to the swiss woman. not too much to say about the town...it's seemingly engulfed by a large market, where i got hat #4, pictures to come. Julian was to climb the volcano the next day and i was planning on splitting, up and over the mountains and then down to the coast. but met a couple kids in the hostel who were going to a volcanic lake Quilotoa and decided to tag along for the day.
The lake was very cool, pictures to come..only drawback was one that i have noticed quite a bit in ecuador, that the locals tend to look at you like walking money and treat you as such too. i sympathize, but that doesn't make it much less annoying. this was almost nonexistant in colombia. One of the kids, Eli, was planning to hike the next day...which goes halfway around the rim of the volcano then descends into the local towns. i decided to tag along. we stayed at one of the little guesthouses at the top of the volcano, but didn't sleep entirely well at 3850 (12, 500).
started off early the next morning, and the big challenge of the day was instantly apparent...we were in the clouds, and couldn't see much more than 20 fet in front of us. the other big challenge was that the main path was not entirely clear...sometimes the side paths were bigger and more worn. and, to top it off, it _seems_ that someone removed all the signs from the signposts, which _may_ be related to the fact that everyone you enconter is offering to guide you for a price. anyway, we got a little lost, found our way back, etc, etc...but missed the main turnoff that would lead from the top of the volcano to the next town. we got a break in the clouds, could see a fairly clear descent into the valley, as well as a road, and jumped on it. but because we had walked to far around the rim, after descending the mistake was amplified....to keep this short, what was supposed to be a 4 hour 11km hike turned into a 9 hour 23-ish km hike with well over 1500m of vertical. the good news was that after the town on the rim, everyone was very friendly, giving us shelter from the rain and good directions to the next towns.
Found a good hostel in Chuchilan, dried off by the fire, ate our first meal in 11 hours, and enjoyed some beers (i, um, realized that it was just a couple hours to my, um, birthday). woke up at 2am to catch a ride back to Latacunga with the hostel owner...quite an interesting experience riding in his large delivery truck, with your face right up against the front of the truck, driving in the dark, in the clouds, with debris all over the road, mud, sharp curves, narrow passes with oncoming traffic, etc, etc. my kind of fun.
said the goodbyes to julian (again) this morning...heard about his conequest of the 5800m volcano and all that good stuff. he's got a damn good plan...descending today to a town at 1800 with hot springs, then a few days riding in the amazon region, and then taking a boat for 5ish days, crossing into peru. we made a pretty damn good riding team, and the first couple days will probably be a little strange. one thing that made him different was the fact that he was not at all a cyclist before starting his trip. we balanced each other out...i helped him with tips and tricks about efficient cycling, and he helped remind me that the trip is not about the bike.
i'm going to Ambato this afternoon, a short 40 k. then, what should be an interesting day...climbing (with ups and downs) from 2600 to 4300 (above 14!), around Chimborazo (6300m) and, according to my book, about 30k of alti-desert.
as always, pictures soon.
we left off in quito, right? originially i wanted to leave friday and julian monday, but he moved his day up to saturday so i stuck around to ride out with him.
we did a fairly good job at one of the harder parts of the trip (for me)...getting up early after several city days. the good news was that the only way to beat the crazy quito traffic is to leave before the sunrise, which is more or less out of the question on the bike -- so we got going a little after 7. once we got away from the center there was a well-graded road out of the city...only 300m, which doesn't register as a climb around here. the andes in our legs? anyway, shortly after lunch ran into a swiss lady who was cycling the other direction...very friendly lady, who was clearly a lifelong traveller and sportswoman and just had a very good air about her. she let me take pictures of her nicely detailed peru and south ecuador map.
kept going...knew that the top pass was 3500 from our low point of 2700. nice 1% grades up to 3100, then we got some steady rain, the grade increased, and our shoulder disappeared for a while. at arond 3200 i started feeling the altitude (a little strange....i've been much higher without feeling it). anway, it's happened before and i know that if i take it very easy for 30 mins i will return to normal, which i did. got some spectacular views of the 5900m volcano copotaxi just at the top of the pass. one of the most rewarding descents of the trip...first 300m down were steep and straight and i stayed above 60 km/hr for 5-10 mins. then the grade drops to .5-1%, which allows you to cover spectacular distances very quickly. on flat ground i average about 24-25 km/hr, but at a 1% descent this goes to about 38.
Anyway...made it to Latacunga really early, even with a long stop talking to the swiss woman. not too much to say about the town...it's seemingly engulfed by a large market, where i got hat #4, pictures to come. Julian was to climb the volcano the next day and i was planning on splitting, up and over the mountains and then down to the coast. but met a couple kids in the hostel who were going to a volcanic lake Quilotoa and decided to tag along for the day.
The lake was very cool, pictures to come..only drawback was one that i have noticed quite a bit in ecuador, that the locals tend to look at you like walking money and treat you as such too. i sympathize, but that doesn't make it much less annoying. this was almost nonexistant in colombia. One of the kids, Eli, was planning to hike the next day...which goes halfway around the rim of the volcano then descends into the local towns. i decided to tag along. we stayed at one of the little guesthouses at the top of the volcano, but didn't sleep entirely well at 3850 (12, 500).
started off early the next morning, and the big challenge of the day was instantly apparent...we were in the clouds, and couldn't see much more than 20 fet in front of us. the other big challenge was that the main path was not entirely clear...sometimes the side paths were bigger and more worn. and, to top it off, it _seems_ that someone removed all the signs from the signposts, which _may_ be related to the fact that everyone you enconter is offering to guide you for a price. anyway, we got a little lost, found our way back, etc, etc...but missed the main turnoff that would lead from the top of the volcano to the next town. we got a break in the clouds, could see a fairly clear descent into the valley, as well as a road, and jumped on it. but because we had walked to far around the rim, after descending the mistake was amplified....to keep this short, what was supposed to be a 4 hour 11km hike turned into a 9 hour 23-ish km hike with well over 1500m of vertical. the good news was that after the town on the rim, everyone was very friendly, giving us shelter from the rain and good directions to the next towns.
Found a good hostel in Chuchilan, dried off by the fire, ate our first meal in 11 hours, and enjoyed some beers (i, um, realized that it was just a couple hours to my, um, birthday). woke up at 2am to catch a ride back to Latacunga with the hostel owner...quite an interesting experience riding in his large delivery truck, with your face right up against the front of the truck, driving in the dark, in the clouds, with debris all over the road, mud, sharp curves, narrow passes with oncoming traffic, etc, etc. my kind of fun.
said the goodbyes to julian (again) this morning...heard about his conequest of the 5800m volcano and all that good stuff. he's got a damn good plan...descending today to a town at 1800 with hot springs, then a few days riding in the amazon region, and then taking a boat for 5ish days, crossing into peru. we made a pretty damn good riding team, and the first couple days will probably be a little strange. one thing that made him different was the fact that he was not at all a cyclist before starting his trip. we balanced each other out...i helped him with tips and tricks about efficient cycling, and he helped remind me that the trip is not about the bike.
i'm going to Ambato this afternoon, a short 40 k. then, what should be an interesting day...climbing (with ups and downs) from 2600 to 4300 (above 14!), around Chimborazo (6300m) and, according to my book, about 30k of alti-desert.
as always, pictures soon.
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