12/02 Brrrr! Almost froze this morning. The sun was hiding behind an overcast sky all day and a cool wind was blowing from the southwest, which happened to be the direction I was heading most of the time. I don’t know what the temperature was but I’d guess it was in the low 40′s.
In a few short weeks I’ll be able to check the temperature whenever I want thanks to the new bicycle computer I ordered. It’s the VDO MC1.0+. It has 4.65 million functions including elevation gain, incline stats, service indicator (to remind you to change the oil) and of course it shows the current temperature. Santa is also bringing me a new bike pump (Topeak Road Morph G), 2 new 16GB Flash Drives (for backups–my 32GB died), a set of steel tire levers, 2 new Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, a new fuel pump so I can use my stove, a FiberFix emergency spoke replacement kit, a spare bike chain, 20oz of Bag Balm for my ass and a titanium spork so I can lose the heavy Ozark Trail knife/fork/spoon thing I’ve been using.
I’ve really been enjoying my first two days riding in the northern highlands of Ecuador. The people here are much more outgoing than their neighbors to the north. At least once every other minute someone honks and waves when they drive by. People don’t stare like I’m from another planet either.
The trees haven’t done so well here, much like in every other country in Central/South America. In the highlands, almost all natural forest cover has disappeared. About 95% of the forests of the western Andean slopes and western lowlands have become agricultural land, mostly banana plantations. Although much of the rain forest in the Ecuadorian Amazon remains standing, it is being seriously threatened by fragmentation. Since the discovery of oil, roads have been built, colonists have followed and the destruction of the forest has increased exponentially. The main causes of this destruction are logging, cattle ranching and oil extraction.
This is also the first place in as long as I can remember where the land along the road wasn’t behind a barbwire fence. If I had a stove it would have actually been possible to camp. Even though Ecuador has the highest population density in South America, most people (60%) live in urban areas and half the population lives along the coast. This leaves lots of sections of roads where there’s no sign of people.
Pilsener beer seems to be the most popular. Dinner and lunch is usually a fixed plate of pork/beef that costs about $1.50. Portions are nice and big and it comes with a drink too. Ecuadorians love their soup and every meal comes with a big bowl. There are lots of warnings online about not drinking the water here so it’s back to bottled for a while (unless I boil/UV treat it).
The indigenous people wear these dark felt hats which are cool looking. I’ll probably see a lot more of them when I get into the town of Otavalo tomorrow.
I took the day off yesterday because I’m running a little ahead of schedule for my arrival into Quito on the 5th. Actually, I might have to take one more day off but I need to find a place with internet access.
Being able to ride over 50 miles today was soooo nice. 15 mile days are never fun. Still climbed a bit but 3600 feet over 54 miles is nothing like 3600 feet over 10 miles. The roads here are in excellent shape. Wide shoulders and very little debris.
The ITMB map for Ecuador sucks. Distances between markers are usually missing or the markers themselves are missing. Kind of hard to do any kind of decent planning.
[osm_map lat="-0.072" long="-78.674" zoom="6" type="GoogleStreet" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg3/120210.gpx"]
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