Ecuador, Quito to Palmira

Where are the Volcano's?


-What´s your name?
-Juana - replied a shy voice grabbing her dad´s arm and hiding her small face burnt by the sun.
-I am also called Joana - I answered.
Juana revealed her big brown eyes again and smiled just before she hid herself again.
- Where are you from and what are you doing in Ecuador? - her dad asked.
- I am from Portugal and I am cycling Ecuador.
- Oh! That´s great I wish you good luck! - he said
I asked if I could take a photo and when he said yes I positioned my camera hoping to frame that moment of complicity between daughter and dad.

There at 4000 metres of altitude the silence reigned, but also there at 4000 metres was the last bastion of human life - a small population formed by 22 families, some of their houses were still built in a traditional way: roofs made of straw and the house itself built on a hole as if to reach for the mother hearth´s warmth. The other few houses were made of cement, they looked unfinished with some of the walls to be built or staircases that lead to nowhere. They are built according to the needs and as the family grows. They look like dream houses that went wrong, constructions perhaps inspired by the thousands of soap operas that portray a lifestyle very detached from the reality of Andean life. The children of that village rehearsed the typical dances on the streets, they would be performing for visitors on Christmas day and their laughter and colourful movements fulfilled with life and sound the atmosphere that otherwise was grey, cold and silent.

After a warm soup and some herbal tea, we followed our way climbing up to 4390 metres. The cold and the fog hid everything around us, just like a mystical experience or as if we shouldn't´t be there, because at that altitude one feels that that space is destined for the goods and not human beings. But it wasn´t a dream, the map indicated that we were standing next to the Chimborazo, the big white colossus that rises above the 6000 metres and that at this time of the year hides itself constantly.

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Life can be made of contrasts if we chose to, one day we are in one of the biggest urban metropolis like London and on the other, on the most complete silence surrounded by snow and fog, climbing distant mountains on a bicycle.

When Nuno dreamt his ciclo adventure from Pole to Pole, his dream slowly started to be my dream...

I remember that at school I was always the last to be picked for the sport teams. I never enjoyed competing or to expose my body to physical extremes and I was never any good at any kind of sports. But I have learned that the physical effort done between you and nature to overcome altitude and the elements gains a new meaning because that effort becomes the mean to continue the journey, to feel the reality closer and slowly my body gets used to the hardship of climbing the Andes.

And I thank Nuno for believing in me (more that I have) and of choosing me for his team without hesitating, to be part of his journey and his dream, and slowly I am conquering my physical and mental mountains in my donkey - Marina (Marin Muirhoods).

I also want to pay homage to the way of transport that is perhaps the most democratic and revolutionary of all - the bicycle. 1880 was a very important year, the year when the bicycle became a way of transport widely accessible to all, and interestingly enough the bicycle was also a way for women's emancipation - they started to be able to go where they wanted to go, when they wanted to go and because they wanted to go - and this is also the big charm of ciclotourism!

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Is this the M4? - No it´s the Panamerican Highway!

After spending the night excluding things to my luggage I finally managed, making Nuno laugh his socks out because of the amounts of things I had and that I thought I would be able to carry, to reduce my luggage to a weight possible to carry on my panniers.

We left Quito late the following morning and the heavy traffic made the way out of town pretty unmemorable: the city and its outskirts extended themselves for endless and uninteresting kilometres. In the middle of the afternoon we finally arrived to the Panamerican highway and when I saw the large road, with large shoulders and little traffic I started to dream about the relaxed cycling ahead. The dream lasted only a few minutes, soon the road became a way for heavy traffic full of trucks and buses that displayed their superiority by sounding their horns and releasing clouds of black smoke in bigger amounts than the ones released by the volcanoes in Ecuador and that we had no choice but to breath. I almost thought that I had cycled too much and I was returning to England doing ciclotourism on the M4.

The first days of cycling tested my will to continue the adventure -the landscape had no interest whatsoever, it rained frequently, the traffic was quite intense and I felt like grabbing my donkey, sticking it on a bus to take me to more interesting landscapes.

On this cloud of boredom and worry I started my dialogues with my grandad Jose, as I was cycling between those heavy trucks and it was hard to keep my bike going straight, when I anticipated a big climb or most of all on the downhills, that like him, are my unfavourite part specially when I have to do them side by side trucks and mad buses I kept asking him to look after me and as I was talking with my grandad in one of these descents the rain started to get quite heavy when I get a puncture. I said to my granddad: - hey grandpa did you get distracted or something? The answer came later in a way that only people that are in other plans of existence can reply. We had to stop to fix the puncture and there where we had to stop the bikes to fix the puncture was a little road that would take us to where we wanted to go away from the heavy traffic. Thanks granddad!

On that night we camped close to a village where we supposedly should have amazing views over the Cotopaxi Volcano, an active volcano shaped in a perfect cone. The clouds that surrounded it, those were perfect, perfectly white and thick. We packed our things next morning and left heading south without even a glimpse of the photogenic volcano!

Unfortunately we no longer had an alternative route and so we had to return to the Panamerican. At the end of the day we reached Ambato. I rose my arms in the air just like a cyclist does, when I saw the sign "Bienvenidos a Amabto". But my happiness was precocious, just like Quito the outskirts of the city extended for miles of downhill and a painful uphill. After all that effort I was expecting and amazing city on the flanks of those steep hills, but on that cloudy and rainy Sunday, it was just another messy and chaotic Latin city with ugly buildings.

The following morning the city woke up with other colours - market colours, where the social life of the people from the Andes happens, where everyone seems to be busy buying or selling something. We entered the market with cameras as our third eye freezing those fractions of time that compose the colourful images that we extracted from the market.

We left the market very happy, I however, was slightly heavier, I had bought some herbs, fruits, spices and some alpargatas (typical shoes) under the excuse of speaking with the vendors and off course, to increase my shoe collection. Nuno was laughing again!

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We conquered the road that took us to the base of the Chimborazo Volcano in two days. As we cycled our way up, the patchwork of greens that covered the Andean Mountains was occasionally interrupted by the locals in their colourful outfits, they would then disappear up to their part of the "patchwork" where they plant their means of survival. The cultivation in the Andes is made mostly by hand due to the high inclinations of the terrain and by the ingenious irrigation systems that canalises all the water through the mountain.

When we thought that we couldn't´t be more rewarded by the beautiful landscape the downhill at the end of the two days of climbing, revealed a deep valley with colourful canyons and villages full of friendly people who unfortunately were also used to tourists. Tourists by ignorance or negligence give the children sweets or money, failing to understand the real impact of their actions. These children learn from young age to beg. Why would they want to spend their time in the fields working hard when the "gringos" will give them money from doing nothing? I was even more shocked when we did the train ride to La Nariz del Diablo, a ride on a very old train now used mainly for tourist purposes, that runs through a rail track so old that sometimes you can see the pieces of wood missing, but that presents those who dare to go on it (you can ride on the top of the train if you wish) with amazing views over some very steep hills. This journey confirmed the advantages of ciclotourism and of keeping away from the tourist trail. Some of the tourists were trowing sweets to the children that came to greet us, just like you do to the monkeys in a zoo and then taking photos. I feel its an unfair exchange: these tourists get the amazing feeling that these pseudo altruistic actions cause and these children get untreated rotten teeth, at night surely their plates will still be empty of the nutrients that they need to grow healthily and perhaps wondering about the disparities of this world.

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After the touristic ride we stayed in Riobamba resting and updating websites and enjoying the funny Christmas parades - they were more like Carnival parades. The streets were full of people dressed up and dancing to the sound of repetitive Ecuadorean music.

With 20 dollars we bought our Christmas Eve meal and food for the following days without forgetting the wine bottle. The 24th December was spent cycling a mountain on a off road track and hoping that after the next hair pin bend we would reach the top. We didn´t and we started to get worried because it was getting dark and we couldn't´t find a place to set our tent. When we did, it was on the tiniest piece of uncultivated land, it had great views of the valley that we had climbed, but was also very close to the road where everyone could see us and unfortunately a twisted eye old men passed by, pretty affected by the copious amounts of alchool that he surely had drunk that day, he thought that we shouldn't´t be there and threatened come at night and burn our tent.

We cooked our ciclotourist meal, full of pasta as requested by a cyclist´s body, we exchanged presents and we drank our wine, talked about politics in Latin America, stared at the round full moon and when the fog descended over the mountains and penetrated our bones we went to the tent to sleep. We woke up with the morning dew and not with the flames burning our tent, as I feared it would happen. Ironically the old man passed by us again in the morning without saying more than an embarassed and surely hungover "buenos dias".


Christmas morning was spent cycling the endless mountain and once again at the end of the hard climb we were rewarded with a valley full of little villages with children running after our bikes. We got to the main road at the beginning of the afternoon going up and down when a thick fog settled in. We took a cut to Palmira, a little village where we were trying to find a place to spend the night. Palmira became our true Christmas treat, there we were offered place to sleep in an old convent and when we got there to leave our things, a family composed by children and adults where was difficult to understand the relationships between them, received us with great excitement. One of the ladies had a bad experience in Spain and people there helped her out and so now she feels the has to retribute. They offered us food, we played with their children and we were invited to the annual Gala that they have every year to celebrate the local saint. It was in itself a very bizarre event that consisted of a beauty contest and performances by national artists that seemed to play all the songs they knew instead of the bearable one or two. The beauty contest was something taken out of a comedy, two of the participants were physically ugly and one was more pleasant to the eye, she was the predictable winner.


We woke up in the morning to the sound of a wondering band, we were offered breakfast and then we left. I felt really sad to leave, but this is ciclotourism...full of surprises, of amazing people and of departures!


See more about my adventures on Nuno´s website http://www.ontheroad.eu.com/