Mancora, Peru to Quito, Ecuador

It was hard to leave the beach town of Mancora but I'd had enough sun and surf plus I was looking forward to getting into a new country and seeing what Ecuador has to offer. Being stamped out of Peru and stamped into Ecuador was pretty drama free but border crossings are always a little dodgy as the area seems to attract an interesting bunch of people! It was amazing how quickly the landscape changed from dry heat desert to extremely humid rain forest and banana plantations. The temperatures were so hot and humid that the next few days riding was more like swimming as each day within a couple of minutes I was totally soaked in sweat. The hot weather only lasted a couple of days before we started to head back into the Andes mountain range and the going started to get really tough. In one day we climbed from 1500m to over 3800m at an incredible 5-6kms an hour up some of the steepest terrain I've encountered to date! It was one of those amazing days on the road though as we meet some great people and scared a whole bunch of kids in one small village who were just totally blown away to see two gringos on bikes. We also had kids running beside us and we even managed to talk a couple of them into pushing us up the hill for a few hundred metres!! They were stoked and so were we! Raising over 2kms vertically in one day was a little too much and I was suffering from altitude sickness with a headache and dizziness but thankfully we then had a big downhill run into the next town where we stayed an extra day as Alex's bike was having a few issues!! Cycle touring is always interesting and never boring as the second day into Ecuador was spent riding by myself as at a cross roads Alex went the wrong way but by the time I came through there I headed in the other direction but the correct way!! A full day and a half later I was sitting in a restaurant on the Pan American highway and there out of nowhere Alex came around the corner cycling up the hill in the pouring rain!! Reunited we compared stories of what we'd been up to for the last couple of days and discussed how the riding was, then we set about preparing for the coming mountain riding and getting some much needed sleep. The next day was my birthday and we had some more hard riding and ended up in this small town where I celebrated with a couple of beers at a local bar! The real celebration was going to have to wait until we arrived in Quito the next day were we hit the town in style and certainly had a few beers! Currently I'm exploring Quito which is an amazing city and also trying to get out to the Galapagos Islands and onto a yacht for a few days before then heading north on my way to Colombia, this time riding back on my own.

Riding Stats
> 18th April - 105km
> 19th April - 111km
> 20th April - 142km
> 21st April - 80km
> 22nd April - 87km
> 24th April - 106km
> 25th April - 98km
Total - 6776km