Quito, Ecuador to Popayan, Colmbia

Back in Quito after my trip to the Galapagos Island where I was preparing to leave the next day on my bike when my Austrian cycling mate, Alex rolls back into the hostel after 7 days of hard riding in the jungle!! That night after a few beers and comparing our stories we delayed our departure for another day and made trip plans and preparations for cycling together into Colombia. Cycling out of Quito was easier than most large cities but the diesel fumes from all the trucks and buses made it a little uncomfortable but once out of the city it was good riding passed highland lakes and volcanoes where I crossed the equator finally leaving the southern hemisphere and into the north after 4 months of cycling. We managed to get up north to the highland market town of Otavalo where we stayed for the night ready for the famous Saturday morning market the next day which was excellent and worth the effort. After the market we decided to continue riding but only about 25km to the next town but once there we decided to go to the next town. This continued for a while until we were in the middle of nowhere with the night fast approaching and a huge mountain to climb in front of us. We manged to roll into a small highland town well after dark after completing 90km not the leisurely 25km we had planned and luckily found a locals place to stay at! The next day was hard riding again to the Ecuador/Colombia border where, as we were being stamped out of Ecuador a cyclist I'd met in La Paz, Bolivia (Ewan, a Welsh guy) turns up so we join forces and head into big bad Colombia. We survived the first night with no problems so it was up early the next day and straight into some hard riding to our first city (Pasto) where we checked into a hostel for the night. The following day we completed some amazing cycling through a spectacular gorge and some highland valleys. The only problem was on one of the extreme downhill sections my front tire had hit one too many potholes and blew out with a huge bang which scared the hell out of me and I nearly crashed over the side of the gorge!! Half an hour later I was all fixed and back riding but trying to take it a bit easier on my now damaged tire. That night the three of us stopped in a little rural town in southern Colombia's lowlands where we had descended from nearly 3000m to only 700m. As it was extremely hot the only remedy to cool down was to drink a few beers at a local street stall which ended up being a good night as pretty much the whole town came out to check us out and have a chat. The Colombians seem genuinely friendly people but the military presence is strong everywhere and they are definitely not hear for show so we are picking our route carefully and only riding in the daylight hours to hopefully avoid any major problems. The riding from Quito has been hard as the region is very mountainous and there have been numerous steep uphill sections followed by steep downhill ones which has continued for the last 7 days so I'm currently relaxing in an old Spanish colonial city called Popayan which is full of beautiful whitewashed churches and cobbled stone bridges before again heading off north through central Colombia.

Riding Stats
> 9th May - 104km
> 10th May - 93km
> 11th May - 68km
> 12th May - 83km
> 13th May - 92km
> 14th May - 123km
> 15th May - 39km
Total - 7389km