Le tour de South America: February 2015

The way to Cuenca sucked, it was basically all uphill and I HATE climbing. The mix of going at a turtle pace and having your legs light on fire sucks. If I wanted to go slow I'd walk, I ride a bike to haul ass.
There were alpacas and all sorts of neat animals. Random lakes and strange vegetation. I recommend riding it just for the sake of gorgeous pics and epic stealth camping.

I rode to the center of the city and BOOM, that place is gorgeous. Tons of old buildings and cathedrals. You can see the mountains in the distance and boy is it a sight to behold. I spent two days in Cuenca while the carnavals started. Didn't get wet once. I also tried "Canelazo", a very traditional hot alcoholic beverage composed of aguardiente and fruit juice. I drank a whole pitcher and got pretty buzzed. 10/10 would recommend it. Tastes delicious.

The ride to Loja was pretty intense. Tons and tons and tons of climbing and beautiful sceneries. I tend to go over 130km every time I ride, it's a bad (good?) Habit. This time it was around 230km with a massive amount of climbing so I had to stealth camp in this very odd place located on top of a road. I also got soaked by a few water balloons and some asshole thought it'd be hilarious to pelt me with a bucket of water saturated with ice cubes while I descended at around 45mph. That fucking hurt and I seriously wanted to kick his ass, pretty sure I'd end up as pig food. Those dudes wield some serious machetes.

Loja was empty when I got there. Everybody was hung over from the carnivals and everything was closed. Seriously, you can't even get food, you'll starve and die like I did. The city is relatively small but has a lot of plazas and stuff to check out. The main plazas have free, 45min WiFi which is pretty awesome. Overall I recommend it there.

From Loja to Macara was by far the most intense ride up to date. 114miles and 15k feet of elevation. Originally this ride was supposed to be two days. Around the middle of the ride the sun was starting to set and I was starting to look for somewhere to camp....well....nothing. It's all mountain sides and weird farmer's land, like from a horror movie. So I decided to ride through the night, it was terrifying. It was pitch black and pretty much uphill the entire goddamn time. My bike light is powered by a dynamo hub but I was going so slow it was struggling to keep the light on. I was shitting my pants to be honest and I did not want to stop. The sounds of scary animals kept me moving. Around three hours into the night ride it started raining, just a little extra fun.

Finally, the descent, it lasted about one hour and I was on the brakes for the most part. The shiny, slick, wet pavement made me kind of nervous so I was cautious the whole time. Once in Macará I checked in to a shitty hostel and passed out.

The next day I was looking around to get a haircut. I found this small barber shop with one person working there and a few other older gentlemen just sitting and reading newspapers. I don't recall the name but it said "unisex" on the sign. I walk inside and all the older guys get up and leave, kinda weird. The person who works there greeted me and asked me to sit. She was trans, tons of surgeries (I have nothing against it, just setting the scene). She started cutting my hair and asking standard questions. How old am I, what was I doing around there, am I married etc. I couldn't understand her strong accent very well so some questions I just answered with a "yeah" and a smile. After the cutting part she asked me to sit on the special chair to get my hair shampooed. I sit down and she asks, "Eres Huevon?". In Colombia that means " are you an idiot?" So I was a bit confused. She asked again and clarified, "do you have a big d**k." What the fuck? I just chuckled and said nothing. "I bet you have a big one, let me touch it real quick". She goes for it and I grab her hand mid-way and tell her not to touch me and that it was not cool at all. " just let me touch it", I was still grabbing her hand after two long minutes of her asking me again and again and really trying to grab my d**k. "I'LL GIVE YOU $100 IF YOU LET ME SUCK IT", yeah, no, I stood up, paid her the $3 for the haircut and got the hell out of there. " I'll be here if you change your mind baby". That has to be one of my top 3 most awkward and weird experiences, the haircut came out good though.

Next day I set off for Piura, it's around 170km from Macarà but doesn't have a lot of climbing so I was pretty confident about it. I had done the passport stamping the day before so I just crossed the border bridge without stopping, I got some weird looks. About an hour in to the ride I hear a car approaching very fast. The police Mitsubishi triton passes me, gets in front and slams on the breaks. The driver waves his hand out the window and asks me to stop. Both of the men get out of the car, the passenger walks towards the fence next to the road and starts taking a leak. "You did not get your passport stamped and you weren't coming back, are you Peruvian?" Asked the immigration police guy. "I'm Colombian and I did get my passport stamped yesterday", I said. " I don't believe you, let me see it", so I showed it to him. The other guy comes by and asks "is he cool?", I just smile. They both get in the car and say " good luck", and off they went.

The further I rode in to Peru the more arid it got. It started out with tons of farms and plantations, small towns and quite a few bit of people to the point where there was not a single tree for coverage and it was 40°c. If you are white (which I'm not) be prepared to get called "gringo" by the locals. They will wave and smile at you, point at you and yell "Mira al gringo!" and "mister!", that one is kinda cute, makes me feel like a teacher. I'm not a gringo and I'm not even white. Regardless of that the people out there are very nice, they have innocence and sincerity in their eyes, unbroken by our fast paced life.

I get to a town called Sullana, there's just sand everywhere, a lot of wind, lots of semi-trucks and the heat is just immense, that's all you need to know. I doubt there's anywhere to stay there and even if there was, I wasn't interested.

I continue on to the hardest stretch. From Sullana to Piura. Insaneeeeeee heat, insane head/cross/every damn direction wind. There are no trees or structures to hide from the sun so it's just suckage all the way there. I was hammering hard since it was decently flat to get it over with asap. You absolutely need long sleeves and a ton of sunblock, oh and water...lots of it.

Once in Piura there's one thing you'll notice. Holy wow! People drive like its a demolition derby. I have never in my life witnessed such mayhem on the roads. Everything goes, that simple. The honking is straight up abuse and noise pollution. Its like everybody has a nervous tick and that tick is to honk at literally EVERYTHING, every second, everybody at the same time. I just wanted to shower because I was covered in sand, tons of dry sweat and layers of road grime and I was getting realllll moody with all that noise. I was told this was the case but I had no idea it was that crazy. Once I settled in it's pretty cool here. The center of the city has it's nice restaurants and places to visit.

Another very evident thing is cat calling. It's pretty prevalent in Colombia too but a lot less in Ecuador. If you think this is bad in the U.S, you have absolutely no idea, It's a cultural macho thing, not that it makes anything better.

I've had no issues adjusting to using Soles. A dollar is basically 3.2 soles or something like that. The price of food is super cheap like in Ecuador. You can get a meal for about 10 soles or about/under 3 dollars.

That about sums it up. My next stop is in Trujillo. Taking a bus there, I was told by many locals that it's a very dangerous and long road from here to there. There has been a few bike tourers who've gotten everything stolen, I do not want to go through that.

Note: I'm not bashing on Piura or anything for that matter, I'm just writing about my experience. I've had a great time so far.

Bye Ecuador

Pain

Maximum cooling

Hello Perú

Cuenca

Stealth Camp location

Camp

On the way to Loja

Loja down there

Loja plaza

Loja

Loja plaza de armas

Loja

Cuenca sunset

Somewhere

Nomada Loco

Insanely fast descent

Egghead

Cuenca

I've been lagging hard with this blog, my apologies. The past few days have been great and I've been struggling to find time to type on my phone and be antisocial.

From Chone to Bahia de Caraquez was a brutally hot ride. The mixture of that hellish sun and jungle humidity is the perfect recipe for dehydration and severe sunburns. Getting in to Bahia is pretty nice, there's a really long bridge that connects two small towns and the view is nice. I looked down and there was a turtle eating jellyfish, not expecting that.

I stayed at two hostels, Tropical hostel and coco-something. The first one sucked, it was so fucking hot and mosquitoes everywhere. The stupid fan had the blades inverted or something because it wasn't doing shit. I got out of there next day with no sleep. The second hostel was way, way nicer and about the same price. It had a bar/restaurant at the entrance and the staff was pretty cool, owner was a bit of a dick to his employees. I met some cool Danish girls and we went out to get some food and beers a few times. It was honestly eye opening how well travelled, mature and eloquent these 20yr olds are. I guess that's what happens when you have like 2 months a year of PTO to travel and a great social system. One of the girls said she was meeting a local military dude for a date, they had been talking previously. I was kinda concerned for her safety and asked if she wanted me to tag along just on the way there, she looked at me like I was an idiot, fair enough.

On to Manta, it rained the whole time I was there, hostal was leaking, expensive, lots of traffic and the North entrance to the city smells like shit, I think its from the fish processing plants, that's about it. I heard the beaches were nice but I didn't see them.

I strongly suggest Puerto Lopez, small party town with really nice beaches and a cool little island off the coast. There are a lot of activities in case you don't like drinking beer by yourself like I do. Tons of biking/hiking trails, diving, coastal exploration by the rocks etc. I tried camping at the beach nearby, it was friggin' HOT and there are tons of mosquitoes as well. I didn't like leaving my bike outside on a beach, too many drunkards and sketchy people roaming at night. The next night I stayed at a hostel to the north end of the beach front street, I forgot the name but it's Portuguese. Hands down one of the best hostals I've stayed in so far.

Montañita can be summed up pretty quickly. Drugs, party, women, Billabong-clad surfers with really long torso/short legs and Argentinians. Holy shit 90% of the people here are from Argentina, the street performers, hostel owners, hostel people, employees, everyone! To be honest I felt too old for that vibe. They sell weed brownies openly on the streets, smoke weed in front of the 5-0's and just are in a constant state of fuckedupness. The town itself is nice and the beaches too but the whole vibe isn't really for me. If you like getting shitfaced go to Montañita, 24/7 party boludooo!

I'm currently in Guayaquil, I recommend the area around las Peñas. Its a mixture of colonial and very modern architecture. The "boardwalk" by the river is a pretty nice walk. The surrounding areas are PACKED with cops that look like they're ready to fuck shit up but at the same time are extremely friendly and helpful with foreigners and locals. I'd say it's amongst the safest places I've been to. I met a random South African lady, probably late 40's, she was asking for money. She had a bit of a whacky story about her passport being stolen and other misfortunes, my gut told me she was just zonked out on drugs and ended up homeless. Hope she's ok.

The walk up the 400+ steps to the lighthouse is nice, the view is spectacular and there are bars along the steps so you can get hammered for really cheap and tumble down the steps for extra adventure. I like how they managed to integrate this attraction/monument into this area where people live in, it kinda' feels like invasion of privacy but the good kind. The locals were happy to show me around their homes.