On the 28th of May we freewheeled over the border between Colombia and Ecuador. The border crossing was a breeze once we realised that we needed a passport stamp on both sides of the border, cue dismounting our bikes and pushing back to the Colombian side to collect our exit stamps. Whoopsie! We decided to give ourselves an easy introduction and stayed in Tulcan for the first night, resulting in an afternoon to do admin and to get used to a new country. We then realised it was a Sunday and getting hold of an Ecuadorean SIM card proved a little harder than we expected. We keep getting caught out by Sundays!
The result was that our first full day in Ecuador was my (Eleanor’s) birthday! This meant no early start and a nice bakery breakfast. Them’s the birthday rules! The other birthday rule is to have a nice day, which we certainly did!
Through Ecuador we are going to be mostly following the Trans Ecuador Mountain Bike Route or TEMBR for short. This route comes in two versions, the first is a hike-a-bike obsessed singletrack version and the other a more mellow but still suitably character forming dirt road version. We have opted for the latter because we’re riding with a decent load and we do want to come back from this trip still together! We will mix up the ride a little further south adding in some singletrack and bike pushing from the Tres Volcanes route, depending on how we feel, the weather, etc. This blog post covers our ride from Tulcan on the border to Tumbaco, a suburb of Quito where we’re staying at another Casa del Ciclistas.
The TEMBR dirt road ride started off with a bang as we climbed up to the El Angel nature reserve on some quintessential Ecuadorean cobbles. Aside from negotiating the occasional landslide and putting our rain coats on, off, on again, off again for passing showers, the climb was pleasant with a gentle gradient and fantastic scenery. Even if the cobbles were a little bit of a ‘welcome to Ecuador’ for the ole backsides!
El Angel is the most expansive paramo ecosystem we have visited to date with frailejones as far as the eye could see. The rain and cloud cleared as we neared the summit we were treated to some really special views. We left our bikes at the park guard office and set off for a short walk to the nearby lagunas. The frailejones in full yellow blooms against the blue skies the beauty of the landscape were a welcome distraction from how hard the steep steps were on our legs and lungs (we were at 3,700 meters above sea level).
Returning to the park hut, the guard had changed and the new one was less keen on us camping in the deserted car park, but after a phone call to his colleagues, was more relaxed about it and left us to pitch our highest camp to date.
During the night we were woken by a fox having a wee poke around and treated to front row seats to the Milky Way when we got up for midnight wees. In the morning however, Liam’s voile straps were nowhere to be found. After searching everywhere for them there was only one logical conclusion to be drawn, the fox had pinched them! A re-jig of the packing system later and we eventually set off quite late, a move we would live to regret.
The descent into El Angel town was a rip-roaring cobble bouncing thrill. They are much better taken at speed when you can bounce along the tops of them. After a very cheap almuerzo in the market of San Isidro (relieved to find that cheap, homemade 2 course lunches were still a thing here), we then dropped a few thousand meters of elevation; first on some slightly overgrown, rutted “bridleway”, then some crazy steep cobbles (finding the optimum speed wasn’t a problem on this section, if anything it was difficult to slow down!), then tarmac.
Down and down we dropped. After a about 70km, we started looking for suitable camp spots. 80km…we were still looking, this giant canyon not offering any flat spots that didn’t already have houses on. Everything was either too steep, too visible from the road, or right in the ditch. Night fell as we rode along a crazy old rail trail cut into the cliff at the bottom of the canyon. At this point, we realised that it wasn’t all that far until a hotel that was marked on the route. After a sweaty afternoon in the dusty gorge a shower and clean sheets sounded just right.
Feeling slightly shell shocked that we’d woken up in the paramo and were going to sleep in the hot and humid land of the cacti was one thing. Realising that we’d have to make all the elevation back again was another! The next two days were spent winching ourselves up to the Pinan Paramo with an overnight stay in Buenos Aires (not the one in Argentina). We spent these few days hopscotching with Kate, another Brit on a quit your job and go to South America on your bicycle mission. Once again it was great to swap stories from the road and share impressions of Colombia and Ecuador. We’d previously thought how difficult it would be to be vegetarian on this trip without a great command of the Spanish language but Kate was doing just this! Respect.
Ecuador is certainly more sparse than Colombia and we’ve found ourselves requiring more packed lunches as our beloved almuerzos have been harder to find. It was chopping up some bread rolls, cheese and tomato on the side of the hill on day 2 of climbing up to the pinan paramo that I felt very close to Liam. Perhaps its my childhood but I find rustic DIY sandwiches to be very romantic. I feel very grateful to be sharing this whole experience with him even if it means I do end up eating more porridge than I would like (perhaps I’m not cut out for the role of Goldilocks after all).
The notes on the bikepacking.com route page for the TEMBR had informed us that in the final portion of this climb (yes, there would be a time when it would end) the track deteriorated significantly. I think we were broadly lucky that it was reasonably dry and not too muddy but as we were negotiating our way around ruts and puddles a commotion came trotting around the corner. Heaps of children and mothers, some walking and others on horseback came gaggling down in the other direction. Perhaps on their way back from school or just returning from a mission in the next village it was quite the sight! There we were feeling all intrepid and this was us their daily commute!
This landscape was remarkably different to all previous paramo with frailejones replaced with plenty of moss and grassy tufts, it was a decidedly Welsh or Scottish landscape. The comparison aided by large swathes of perma cloud, wind and drizzle. Our camp was a bit colder, wetter and windier as we tested out some of our cold weather setups which had mostly been languishing in the bottom of our panniers up until this moment. I’m glad we weren’t slogging it all around for nothing!
As we are always learning, one man’s rutted and loose deteriorating track is another woman’s playground. On the way down from the paramo we both enjoyed picking lines and feeling the air get warmer with each twist and turn to the bottom where the waterproof trousers could finally come off!
At this point we realised far too late that we should have taken a track to our right instead of following the gpx track which took us through a farmyard, up a too-steep cobbled climb and then through a too-overgrown meadow. Later we also had to re-route around some more private land, but we were helpfully directed by a lovely older Ecuadorean lady in traditional dress poking her scythe around in the air at us. Ok, we get the point, we’ll turn around and take the cobbled road. It does boggle the mind that bikepacking.com puts these routes out and doesn’t bother to update the gpx in response to rider feedback.
We rolled into Imantag alongside Kate, who had taken a completely different route thanks to some komoot special re-routing. We had lunch together, retelling stories from the last 12 hours. A lot can happen on a bike tour. From here it was a ‘plano’ (Ecuadorean ‘flat’) stretch of cobbled roads to Otavalo. This highland town is famous for its Saturday market in the well named Plaza de Ponchos. Rolling in on Friday, we had timed ourselves to perfection for a half day off the bikes to enjoy the bright colours and artisanal fayre. Liam replaced his lost spork (no foxes involved with this one, just carelessness) with a wooden spoon and he also got me some knitted socks and fingerless gloves as practical birthday gifts for staying warm and stylish at camp. It is probably just as well that we are bike touring because I could have easily come home with a suitcase of blankets, beads and alpaca jumpers.
Somewhere between Otavalo and our current location in Tumbaco we unknowingly crossed the equator. Clearly we had better things on our mind. We set off from the market just before lunchtime, setting our sights on a restaurant marked as a point of interest on the outskirts. The previous establishment indicated in the POI was clearly no more, but two Ecuadorean women welcomed us into their not-yet-really-open restaurant. As they rearranged the furniture and got some freshly caught trout in the fryer, we were not sure what to expect. We had no need to worry – they soon brought out plates laden with fish, pulses and a fried cheese pastry. Some promotional photos were taken. Hopefully nothing sells a hearty lunch like two sweaty Gringos! After lunch we had a ‘short’ climb up to Laguna Mojanda on the slopes of Volcan Fuya-Fuya.
Once again camping above 3,700 meters above sea level but it was much more pleasant than our last high altitude camp, especially in the morning when the sun rose and wasn’t immediately obscured by clouds. The only downside of a nice morning is that it means we take longer to get moving, savouring our lovely lakeside spot.
From the lake we climbed up over a saddle and began the rutted descent into Malchingui. This would have been absolutely horrendous in the wet but fortunately, it was pretty dry. Liam was in his element riding the ruts and I was getting into the flow of it as well. Enjoying some actual mountain biking… until I misjudged a channel and nearly went over the bars!
From here we just kept descending and it got dustier and sandier as we wound through a quarry down to 2,000m. Sometime after lunch I was overcome with a wave of ‘oh gosh, I really need to get to a toilet right away’ and ran into a small roadside fast-food cafe (we got some ice cream to be polite!) With a poorly tummy we took a hotel in El Quinche for the night. This left a nice easy 40km roll in to Tumbaco, tapering into our rest stop at the Casa del Ciclistas along another old railway line.
This Casa del Ciclistas has been run by Santiago and his wife for 30 years, welcoming over 3,000 cyclists to camp in their garden. Pitched under an avocado tree enjoying the peace and quiet of the walled garden, we have been on a repair and replace mission. Now two months into our tour, some of our equipment is not managing so well and the outdoor shops of Quito have provided a rare opportunity to browse for spare parts and replacements. Unfortunately, my sleeping mat has sprung a leak and a delaminating seam. It isn’t possible to leave it here for several days while the distributor assesses if it is repairable. So that’s another thing to problem solve. Liam also repaired, then decided to replace, a broken saddle and I repaired my bladder with some spare silicone seam sealer supplied by a rider we met at the Casa. We even popped into Quito for a few hours to see the historic centre and be reminded that we really don’t like cities! Although we managed to stick around long enough to find a coffee roasters!
Next up, Cotopaxi!