Author: Neill

Originally written at sea on 10. March 2020

Sometimes you see motivational posters saying something like

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

That could have been written by a blue ocean sailor. We left Bahia in Ecuador three days ago heading for Easter Island. As soon as we cleared the sandbar we had the sails up and were heading west according to plan. We were continually reducing sail to keep the boat in control. That first day we covered over one hundred miles and Easter Island seemed just round the corner.

Then the wind dropped. First we set all the sails again then the Parasailor to milk the last miles out of the breeze. But eventually we were left drifting where the current took us – luckily onwards rather than back to Ecuador. Over the next two days we occasionally felt a breath of wind and tried various sails but nothing worked. The sails just flogged and added almost nothing to our speed.

But that is when “the peace to accept what you can’t change” comes in. We were stranded but it was warm and dry so life was good. Heidi sewed a bag she had been planning for cycle parts, Neill worked on his astral navigation and together we made pizza and cleaned stuff. We also enjoyed a swim in the beautiful clear, blue Pacific with the fish swimming under us.

Almost to the minute at the start of Day 4 the wind came in from the south so we set our full sails and set off again to whatever life brings next.

This post was written in the Pacific after 13 days at sea – 20 March 2020

Five degrees south is nothing. Three hundred nautical miles. Less than six hundred kilometers. Five hours along the motorway.

Or 12 days at sea! It is now thirteen days since we left Bahia de Caraquez and twelve since we turned south looking for the trade winds. We only had to sail five degrees south but with no wind, wind from the wrong direction and counter currents, it all became a bit of an adventure. Today, after two weeks at sea we are at 4.5° south and we still have no real wind.

And then there is the virus panic. Our plan was 2300 miles to Easter Island, pop in to Pitcairn and then on to Gambier Island. But we received information that Pitcairn is totally closed. No landing allowed. And then a few days later we heard that Easter Island may mean waiting off shore for two weeks quarantine or may be impossible.

So after six hundred miles towards Easter Island we are now turning west for the 3100 miles to the Marquesas in French Polynesia. Good that we are flexible – and well provisioned.

The Pacific is huge. After six hundred miles we have hardly started across it. After the same distance we had done a third of the Atlantic. The Pacific is also much more “lively”. An armada of fish are crossing the Pacific under our boat. They attracted a huge black ray one evening for dinner. Birds also circle us hungrily and one is sat on the bow – no idea where they come from. We drifted through a pod of massive whales and dolphins regularly show off with aerial displays. Even a turtle swam slowly up to us for a better look which just shows what great speed we are making. There are worse places to be while Corona rampages across the world.

I am not a great fan of cities and particularly city sightseeing but today we “did” Quito (highest capital in the world) and it was brilliant fun.

We took a taxi to the cathedral and looked around inside and out. It was “cathedrally” and huge and maybe worth the two dollars entrance fee. Then we went round the corner, paid another two dollars each and climbed the towers. Wow! Over one hundred meters of steps took us to the top and breathtaking views across the city and to the surrounding mountains.

Notre Dame has Quasimodo in the belfry. Quito has Lenin. Lenin Pat Borhorquez runs the restaurant near the top of the tower. He is an accomplished linguist who effortlessly switched between Spanish, English and German. We spent an hour in conversation with him, all the time with the city far far below.

We wandered through town until we spotted a long flight of steps heading up the mountain to a huge winged statue. As soon as I saw the steps I knew this was a “Heidi sort of thing”. 945 steps and over 200 meters of climbing later we reached the top.

Some time during the first century Saint John went off on some mind altering trip. He must have been very very “infected with the spirit” and afterwards he wrote the last chapter of the bible – Revelations. By Chapter 12 he has the Virgin Mary wearing the wings of an eagle and fighting a dragon. In the 1970s the Ecuadorians built a 41 meter high statue of winged Mary atop the chained dragon on this 3000 meter high hill. Amazing!

Next we met a real person who was just as amazing. Jan is the founder and owner of Biking Dutchman, the company who we cycled Cotopaxi with yesterday. We enjoyed his life story over a coffee. People think we are crazy but Jan leaves us standing. Failing to get deported from Australia, sailing in front of a military fleet and couriering gold for the Chinese mafia – we want to buy a signed copy of his autobiography.

Quito is a huge sprawling city high in the Andes; a massive urban sprawl that smothers the valley floor. But just over the mountains and less than twenty kilometers away is the tiny, peaceful village of Nono.

We reached Nono cycling up a long steep valley through the rain forest. This is Ecuador and it is the rainy season so everything looked succulent and green. We, after six days cycling, were wet, dirty, cold and tired. It was less than an hour until sunset when we rode in to town and everything was closed. We were not as happy as we had been.

We used our best Spanish to ask a young lady where there was a hotel. She knocked on the door of the restaurant “Tierras del Fuego” and Marcelo appeared. He smiled, told us to give him five minutes and got on his mobile. He then collected his dogs and walked us to his father’s house where he made us coffee and showed us to the most amazing holiday flat.

Villa Doris is a stunning apartment with beautiful details, a gorgeous garden and a log burning stove. The only sound is the neighbouring stream. Definitely the best overnight we spent in Ecuador. The owner, Lorena, drove us back to the restaurant and, despite being closed, Marcelo created a dream meal which left no doubt about his international expertise as a chef. It was accompanied by a lovely wine from Patagonia.

Lorena drove us back “home” where the log fire was burning and she had collected and dried all our wet clothes. We were in paradise.

The breakfast looked too good to eat but we ate it anyway. Fresh local fruit, fresh local baked breads and coffee. All with a view of the humming birds in the garden. Lorena knows how to fuel and motivate cyclists for the rest of the climb to Quito.

Our last view of Nono was from a curve on the pass. Small houses huddled amongst green fields surrounded by the imposing Andes. Beautiful!

In Panama Heidi was ill and tired from just the journey from bed to toilet and back. I was reading about Ecuador and specifically about the volcano Cotopaxi. The internet mentioned that you could cycle down from 4600 meters above sea level. I was excited. Heidi was totally disinterested.

But then she recovered and mentioned that it sounded like fun. So we left Panama and sailed south for eight days to Bahia de Caraquez. There we put the bikes together, did some rudimentary training and cycled nearly 400 kilometers from the Pacific to the Andes. The trip took seven days and we climbed 7000 meters before reaching Quito.

On the eighth day we joined five other mountain bikers on a tour organized by the Biking Dutchman. We drove up the side of the volcano to the car park at 4600 meters. Here it was freezing and we put on every item of clothing we had with us before beginning the descent. Luckily all seven members of the group were mountain bikers – a pair from New Zealand cycled across the Himalayas and another girl cycles amateur races in the USA. As a result the descents were very fast and huge fun. The whole route was flowy and technically easy and left huge grins on all our faces.

We cycled past wild horses, wild cattle and Llamas. We saw a condor in the distance soaring above the bare, Tolkien like landscape. We visited a spring where a stream exits the side of the volcano and a pre-Inca hill fort. The route was mostly downhill but the few uphill sections immediately reminded us that we were still well above 3500 meters.

Cotopaxi itself only briefly peeped out of the clouds but that could not detract from a fantastically enjoyable ride in a stunning landscape with a group of fun people.

The GPS was hidden in the rucsac and lost signal a few times but the track is at alltrails.com

The last two days of our trip to Quito were where we hit the Andes and the going got tough.

We left our bird lodge after a long sleep and filling breakfast. We cycled up and down hills for the first 27 kilometers and climbed six hundred meters. Then we turned off up a dirt track and began the real days work. 1400 meters of climbing up thirty kilometers of the “old pass”.

The road was stony, muddy, wet and slippy. In a few places parts had slipped away in to the valley below and in a few other places it was like cycling in a stream. Progress was slow and by two in the afternoon we were looking for food and accommodation. “No problem” a local told us. “Just go to Nono. Seven or eight kilometers.” After eight kilometers we asked the next local – “Not far. Eight kilometers maximum.” By now it was really wet and sunset was getting closer. The next local promised “30 minutes or so”.

Eventually we found Nono and knocked on the door of a closed restaurant. Marcelo came out, smiled at us and organized beautiful accommodation and amazing food. The day was a success.

On our last day we only had 29 kilometers and 700 meters of climbing and for the first time reached our destination dry. We cycled up through the cloud to the top of the pass at 3340 meters. From there the only route was down to Quito – at 2900 meters the highest capital in the world – and through the city to finish at the office of Jan – the biking dutchman.

A GPS recording of the complete trip is at alltrails.com. Ignore the huge spike at the beginning which is not true – it is a problem with the way alltrails deal with the data. We “only did” about eight or eleven thousand meters, depending on which program you use.

Seven days, nearly 400 kilometers and maybe 10000 meters of climbing. But we did it. We cycled from the Pacific to the Andes.

At the end of our last blog we were in a motel which offered no breakfast so we left at seven after a few biscuits. Our route immediately turned off down a stony track which later became a path. We descended to a river and were faced with stripping off and fording it but then we noticed a bamboo bridge which we balanced across. Later we found an even more exciting bridge with two bamboo sticks to stand on and a very bendy handrail. But we negotiated it successfully.

We were in the middle of nowhere and hungry so when we finally rode in to a town, we stopped at the first shop to buy fluids and bread. Then it was back in to the stunningly green countryside and extremely stony trails. By midday I was “only firing on three cylinders” and needed food. Luckily after crossing the Rio Blanco, we found a beautiful hotel facing a huge waterfall. The rest of Sunday was declared an afternoon off. Pinacolada, swimming, lieing in the sun and lazing around was ordered.

By the evening we were seriously hungry and each ate two main courses and almost took a second dessert. The body is quite happy to cycle to the Andes but it demands fuel.

On Day 5 we did it all correctly. Started the day with a big breakfast and then began the long uphill slog in to the mountains. By eleven we were soaking so hid in a coffee shop with warm mugs of milk coffee until the worst passed. At three we were at 1100 meters and had cycled 50 kilometers. The tank was once again empty but we found a restaurant to refill. More food; more drinks; and then we quickly polished off the final 20 kilometer climbing through the rain forest to spend the night in a lodge above 1700 meters.

At least that is the way I remember cycling. But today is the third day and we enjoyed it.

After our “two training days” Heidi suggested we continue to train as we head towards the Andes. Sort of “getting fit on the job” concept. It sounded “adventurous” and adventure is what we do.

We had a neighbouring sailor pick us up in his dinghy and take us ashore to our bikes. It was drizzling when we woke and stayed that way all day. Just enough to keep us damp with the occasional periods of real rain. We left Bahia de Caraquez and followed the river up to Chone passing strings of shrimp farms. At lunch time we stopped at a restaurant to check the taste of the shrimps. We reached Chone and found a hotel just as it began really raining so arrived soaked through.

Day two we left the river and followed a local road heading in to the hills. The countryside was a hundreds of shades of green. The daily rain ensures that everything grows big, succulent and green. It also makes every track without tarmac a mud bath. I made the mistake of taking a 1.2km shortcut and we nearly disappeared in the mud. The bike wheels didn’t turn and the bikes were twice their normal weight. When we eventually reached a road we scraped mud off the bikes and off our shoes and then cycled further. A short while later it poured with rain for two hours so the bikes got cleaner.

And today we stayed on the road all day. No shortcuts. No mud. The last two days we did fifty kilometers per day but today we needed to cycle seventy to reach the next town with hotels. And there was a pass to cross. We climbed 1070 meters.

Loads of cars sound their horn or flash their lights and show the thumbs up sign when they see us. The people ask where we are going and when we say “Quito” they stare at us and say “Frigo!” (cold!) Or they turn to their friends and say “they are going to Quito” and every one shakes their head.

We got soaked going up the pass but dried off on the way back down and during the lunch stop. Just before the rain started again we found a great hotel. They charge by the hour but we negotiated a price until seven tomorrow morning. Everything is decorated in red with hearts. But free wifi and endless hot water to wash clothes and bodies.

So now we have 170 kilometers behind us. The training program is running well. By the time we are finished, we will probably be fit.

Our mountain bikes have been neatly folded in their bags and hidden away in the quarter berth since our ride from Shelter Bay in Panama. It had been three months since we last used them and we were a little worried how our legs and bottoms were going to hold up.

The ride to the dinghy dock was the first time with bikes and new dinghy. It works great. Much more stable than the old dinghy where Heidi had to squat on the side. And, of course, there being no swell and no waves here makes it all so much more fun.

The first “get back in to the swing of it” tour was over a tiny (hundred meter high) pass to a beach on the Pacific coast. Only six kilometers to the sea. Easy! On the way back, we thought we would take the off-road track across the hill. This route was also only six kilometers but crossed a two hundred meter high ridge, had sections of up to 50% and was all mud. And through the jungle with lianas trying to grab your bike. It was “challenging” especially when both wheels are so full of mud that neither would turn.

When we eventually exited the forest we received a telling off from a lady because we had just descended through her private nature reserve. We apologized.

Just as we entered civilization, Heidi’s phone rang so we stopped. Neill scraped dirt off the bikes and drank beer given to him by the locals stood outside a bar. Later we discovered that this part of town is the “dangerous bit” but obviously we looked too filthy to be worth robbing.

The track is at https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/20200216-bahia-de-caraquez-74de5f9

The next trip was much more civilized. We cycled the forty kilometers to the seaside resort of Canoa. The route was almost entirely on a cycle path and the only hill climbing was across the long bridge which took us across the estuary. Neill got a puncture – our first in Ecuador.

In Canoa we found a restaurant for lunch and chatted to the locals on the neighboring table. He emigrated to the USA long ago but the two ladies were from Bahia. All were amazed to hear about our adventures and warned us that when we go further inland it is “freezing”.

The track is at https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/20200218-ecuador-seaside-ride-21be992

So now the training is finished. Tomorrow we plan on setting off for Quito. Four hundred kilometers and four thousand meters of climbing. I hope my cycling shoes last that long; the muddy jungle was not kind to them.