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Published: November 8th 2015
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Columbia to Ecuador and Peru
Leaving Medellin looked like a big challenge for me,so I had a bit of a restless nights sleep,but I should not of worried so much as my notes and GPS all came together on the day and we headed south towards Santender de Quilichao for the night. The mountain roads just seemed to get better and better as the day went on.
These few days in Columbia have been the best riding so far. Just stunning scenery.
22km from Pasto and we got dumped on, we managed to find some shelter through the worst of it and put on our wet gear.
It stopped raining as we reached the hotel, where we parked all the bikes in a house/hotel garage/lounge. Our room was a cupboard with no where to dry anything.
The next day dawned fine overcast and cool,down to 17deg so we set off in good spirits with more fabulous mountain riding to fill our day to the city of Pasto which clings to the mountains and fills the valley's also.
The ride from Pasto to the border was again a great ride with a division to check out this amazing church built across a
steep ravine,why,I would ask?
I really enjoyed Columbia, the people, the riding and the diverse scenery would tempt me back again.
The exit from Columbia was painless as was the entry to Ecuador.
We rode to Quito and crossed the imaginary Equator which we went back to on our rest day.
Quito is a huge city spread up a mountain valley as many cities here are as there is no flat land anywhere!!! and two and a half million people live here!!
Way back in September when we were in Florida and String set off for the Keys and finished up at Treasure Coast Honda and Kawasaki in Fort Pierce when his BMW fuel pump let him down.
While we were there we met Paul the mechanic and he is from Ecuador and his father has a garage work shop in Cuenca,which is south of Quito and we had done around 9,000km since our last oil change in Harlingen,Texas......so long story short we made contact with Paul and a plan to meet his Father at his work shop.
We arrived in Cuenca around 5.00pm as darkness closed in and made a plan to meet at 9.00am at the workshop.
Cuenca
was pretty lively that evening as they were celebrating a centenary of the founding of the City. This is one of the oldest cities in Ecuador and they have preserved it very well,we enjoyed the short time we had there.
After a hearty breakfast at the hotel we made our way to meet Pauls Father at his workshop.
Genaro, is Pauls father and what a great guy he turned out to be. We all got to work on changing oil and filters and a general tidy up of any loose bits and pieces. All Genaro would accept was we paid for the oil,which we happily did. He is also a rider and rides a KTM 1150 and he got so excited with us all there,that he raced home and got his wife, Carmen and his KTM, phoned a good buddy of his and they rode outa town with us, which was great as he knew all the shortest routes to pick up the highway to the Border.
They took us the shortest main route,but it was in fact the worst road that we had ridden on in Ecuador. There were many man sized pot holes that kept us alert,along with
some very challenging badly deteriorated sections,but all in all another good ride.
We finally got to see the massive banana plantations that Ecuador is famous for, D Duke from Invercargill would would've been in heaven!!
We all stopped just short of the border and had a great lunch together with Genaro, Carmen and their friend Luis.
After lunch they escorted us to the border with Peru to be sure that we were not only escorted outa town but the country!!! That's a first for me..with hugs all round we parted company and we made our exit from Ecuador and a painless entry to Peru with no fuss at all.
As we were later into Peru than expected (read too good a lunch break) it was getting dark and we were not at our hotel. It was on the main road but very difficult to find with people telling us to go back the way we came,then others telling us it was further on, we eventually found it. By now it was after 8.00pm so it was a couple of Pisco Sours and into bed after a big day in the office!!
Up at sparrow fart the next morning as we
had 673kms to our next sleep in the coastal city of Trujillo. This was a long day but we needed to make up the kilometres, so another early night for me straight after dinner. We had a great little hotel that allowed us to park some of our bikes inside and the rest in a gated court yard in front of the hotel.
The next day was a 573 km run down the desert coast to Lima. This part of the world is so dry, dusty and barren, but many people eking out a living either off the land or the sea.
We arrived to Lima, a city of 10 million people around 4.00pm on a Friday!!! The traffic at least kept moving and we had the hotel logged on our GPS's not that that is total security as we don't always read it correctly at some divided roads, so with mine,Gerardo's and Trev's we made it to our hotel without too much fuss.
Today we have a well needed rest day,so we took the city tour bus around downtown Lima,being a Saturday there was not too much traffic in the morning,but by 1.00pm the city became alive.
Did I
Church Lagas
Why you would build s church here is beyond me. mention that 10 million people live in Lima!! The football stadium holds 88,000 fans!!! And the fact that it never rains in Lima accounts for all the dirty buildings.
The temperature is now down around 20/24deg and more manageable for us after the extremes of Central America,so I am looking forward to heading into the mountains tomorrow on our way to Cusco and the Sacred Valley. Trev,Kim,Dean and GB are headed to Machu Pichu when we get there. So until the next blog be happy with your lot.......Rosco
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Tot: 0.187s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 23; qc: 80; dbt: 0.1132s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Welf
Welf Herfurth
Awesome trip
Just stumbled over your blog and it is a joy to read. I have been in the area where you are and love the place. And good on you doing this on the bikes. Enjoy life....