PowerCycle

01/23 After a very quiet night camped next to the volcano we woke up to a sprinkle of rain and cool temperatures. Some more bulls must have come by the campsite last night because I could hear them snorting right outside my tent. I kept having visions of one of them deciding to barrel right through my tent.

The rain stopped soon after we left and it stayed dry for the rest of the ride even though it looked pretty ugly all day. The road from the campground to the west park entrance was mostly downhill but there were a couple little climbs made harder by some pretty soft dirt.

On the way down I stopped to put on my rain jacket since it was freezing and the zipper broke. Karin did a quick roadside sewing repair for me and I can zip it up now; I just can’t unzip it all the way since the fix was to sew the bottom of the zipper together. I can probably get it fixed when I get back to Tumbaco.

The exit out of the park landed us in the PanAm highway town of Lasso. Since my new bike frame is still quite a few days away I took K&M up on their offer to ride around the Quilotoa Loop. The loop is basically a bumpy road that heads away from the highway into the back country for a 3-4 day tour of small indigenous villages. The northern entrance to the loop is in Lasso and we only had to ride across the PanAm to get to it.

Sunday is usually a big drinking day in Latin America and this town is certainly no exception. Everyone we passed riding through town looked like they were wasted. The place we are staying is run by a local couple who have a huge organic farm out back. The room is nice enough ($15) but the very expensive shower is horrible. I had about a foot on all sides and there’s a two foot drop to get out of it which nearly resulted in my naked ass flying through the window and crashing on the car below with 5 nuns in it (no joke).

GPX track