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Published: November 18th 2009
I left Quito for Baños, a small town known for its thermal baths. On the first day I cycled along the Pastaza and Verde rivers (the ruta de las cascadas), a route that took us past a number of waterfalls. We took a small basket cable car to the Velo de Novia waterfall - there was only going to be two of us in the cable car until about 5 locals crowded in at the last minute. The most spectacular waterfall was the Pailón del Diablo, which on crawling through a thin passageway in the rocks we could walk behind. That evening I relaxed in the thermal baths.
The next day on my way to a rafting trip I caught my first view of guinea pigs cooking (I still havn't tried them - didn't really fancy it for breakfast!). The rafting trip was good fun - the rapids weren't too big (level III) although one girl did get thrown out!
The plan was to go to Riobamba and catch the train to Alausi and down the 'devils nose' route unfortunately I arrived half an hour after all the tickets had sold out - doh! This ended up to be quite fortunate
as it meant I got to go cycling down Volcano Chimborazo (the highest volcano (6268 m) in Ecuador) instead. The day stared off really clear and sunny although unfortunately the clouds came in and we only managed to get a proper glimpse of the summit near the end of the day. We started off by walking up to, and a little bit past, the upper refuge (at 5000 m I could really feel my heart beating fast as I walked!). Here we had views of the glaciers above and the barren landscape below. We walked back down to the lower refuge were the cycle started. I got my first view of some alpacas (even saw two play fighting) and vicunas and also saw some humming birds along the way. The cycling was really good fun being mostly offroad, it got a bit technical in parts but I managed to stay on my bike!
From Riobamba I carried on to Cuença, a pretty city in the south of ecuador. I spent a couple of days here visiting the museums and wondering around the town and then carried on to Loja. In Loja it was the run up to All Souls day
Banos - Ruta de las Cascadas
Taking a wire cable car across to the Velo de Novia waterfall (2nd November) and there were already celebrations going on. Lining the main square were many stores which were all selling the typical food for All Souls Day, "guaguas de pan" a sweet bread accompanied by "colada morada", a hot drink made with berries and various other fruits - delicous.
I caught the overnight bus from Loja to Piura (Peru) - not the most comfortable ride and I had to get up at 4am to go through passport control!
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