BIKEPACKING ECUADOR - Part 1

Hey, this is Sam, welcome back to Bicycle Touring Pro. I'm really excited to bring you some more details and information on my latest trip to Ecuador. So I think this is going to be a multi-part video because I've got a lot of, I was there for 11 days and so I've got a lot of things to talk about and a lot of video. But I'm very excited to tell you a little bit about the trip. It was beautiful and challenging and rewarding. So my plan was to follow a significant portion of the Trans-Ecuador mountain bike route, specifically the dirt road version. There's a single track version and there's a dirt road version. The single track version is apparently hike a bike, very challenging terrain. And I didn't bring a mountain bike, so I did the dirt road version, which ended up being plenty challenging. But I'll try to put a link to the route itself down below. I definitely recommend it. I mean, it's a very challenging trip, very challenging route, but it's absolutely beautiful. So to prepare, I used my Komotion Deschutes touring bike with some wider tires, which ended up working okay. I at times wish I had even wider tires and maybe even suspension and at times it was just fine. But obviously I survived and I got through with what I had. So it worked really well, though the bike itself held up quite well. The biggest challenge really with this particular route and this trip is the elevation and the climbing. Cycling through the Andes Mountains, absolutely beautiful, also very challenging. And so as you'll see, most of the route and the trip was above 10,000 feet of elevation and I got all the way up to 17,500 feet, as you'll see. So yeah, really excited to bring you some details about this trip. So step one is getting there. And so I flew from where I live now in Washington DC down to Atlanta to connect at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport. And all right, made it to Atlanta, which is where I'm connecting. When I checked my bag in for my flight, my bike weighed in at 55 pounds, which is apparently over the weight limit. The weight limit is 40 pounds for Delta, I guess. The guy said that if I got it down to 52 pounds, he could waive the overweight fee, which is $100. And so I opened up my bag and took out my big Portlieb seat pack and got it down to 52 pounds exactly. So I didn't get charged an overweight fee and I was able to pay for the bag with miles. So I was able to fly my bike to Ecuador for free, essentially, just with the cost of my ticket. So there's a tip, if you're flying Delta at least, you get a nice gate agent. They can waive the overweight fee as long as it's under 52 pounds, just so you're aware. And now we're off to Ecuador. The other thing that I did on this trip, which I highly recommend doing, is I put a tracker and air tag in my bike, which was both really useful in case something went wrong or got lost, but also just interesting and fun to kind of track the bike as it like went into the plane. And I could always kind of see where in the airport it was. Obviously, the worst case scenario in something like this is the airline losing the box or the bike or something. And so Apple air tags are really cool and I bought one just for this trip so I could do that. And so I was able to kind of track the bike through the airport and make sure that it was on the plane when it needed to be and things like that. So that was helpful. But got down to Atlanta and then got ultimately down to Ecuador and I arrived pretty late in the evening in Ecuador, I guess not that late, probably like eight or nine o'clock. And I decided to go ahead and build my bike at the airport. I was staying in an Airbnb that first evening in Quito, where I flew into. So I could have hired a cab and then built the bike in the apartment. I decided to just build it in the airport. It wasn't going to take me all that long to build it, I didn't think, and I think it ended up taking about a half an hour. I was able to get it built up in the airport, no problem. And so I built the bike up. I met a very nice gentleman who is an American expat living in Ecuador, teaching English, who also was a cyclist. So if you're watching this, it was wonderful to meet you. And he was able to watch my bike while I went to the bathroom and stuff. But I got the bike all built up. Really excited to test out some new things on this trip. And as always, love my Comotion bike, it's carried me a lot of miles. And I'm really excited to test out this new-ish Comotion model on this trip. So built the bike up in the airport, took me about a half an hour, and then I had about probably a 45-minute ride to my Airbnb that evening from the airport, which ended up being okay. I guess for future knowledge, if you have to ride a bike from the Quito airport, it is possible. You leave on this highway, which is sort of busy, but there's a pretty big shoulder, which is nice. It was at night, so that is obviously not great. All right, good evening from Quito, Ecuador. I have arrived, got my bike all built up in the airport, I've met a very nice gentleman from Arizona who gave me some tips and watched my bike for me. Shout out to this gentleman if he ends up watching this video. Quito is at a really high elevation, even the city, it's about 8,000 feet, which is obviously pretty different from what I'm used to in the states where I live. So I'm feeling the elevation a little bit, but not too bad. I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow, and tomorrow I'm going to climb up to, I think, 11,000 or 12,000 feet, if I remember rightly, and I'll get up to at least 15,000 at some point on this trip. But Quito itself is also about 30 miles from the Quito airport, which I didn't quite realize initially, so I decided that I'm actually not going to spend any time in Quito proper on this trip. And so the first night I booked an Airbnb, which is about a half an hour bike ride from the airport, a little bit closer to where I'll be starting the route tomorrow. So that's where I'm headed now. Left the airport on this semi-sketchy highway, leaving the airport, there are a lot of trucks and such and I'm sure they're not used to cyclists, but luckily there is a ginormous shoulder that I'm riding on, and I'll be off in a couple miles. So it's very late, it's like 11, it took forever to get through immigration, and I also haven't had any dinner, so I'm very hungry. My Airbnb host apparently has graciously left some dinner for me, which is very nice of him. So I'm gonna get there, call it a night, bike feels great, my Comotion Deschutes is carrying me on this trip, and yeah, having a great trip so far. Good night everybody. But it wasn't too bad, and I pretty quickly got off the highway. I would have maybe wished that I would have stayed on it longer, because the route that I took off the highway to my Airbnb was also very challenging. You went down into this ravine on this super rough stone road, and then a very steep climb out of the ravine. So I got my first taste of Ecuador and the hills that first night. And I was riding through not maybe the nicest part of town, not the part of town you want to be riding through late at night, unfortunately. But made it just fine, no issues, got to my Airbnb the first night. It was nice to have a bed to sleep in the first night before I actually set off. So Airbnb was just fine. I didn't actually go all the way into Quito. The airport in Quito is like 30 miles outside of the city, and so I stayed in a little town called Tumbaco, which is kind of like a suburb of Quito. I really wish that I could have gone into Quito. Again, it's like 30 miles from the airport, and so I would have basically had to take another day to go all the way into Quito, and then all the way back out, follow my route. And so I just decided not to. Another trip, I hope I'll be able to. So got a good night's sleep, and then headed off the next day to start the trip. And so started just kind of riding through Tumbaco. I wanted to ride through the city a little bit and get a feel for it, and then I left and started climbing. Quito itself, or the city, is about 9,000 feet or something like that, maybe 9,500. And so you're already starting at a pretty high elevation, but day one, the objective was Cotopaxi National Park, riding from Tumbaco and the Quito area out of the city and towards Cotopaxi, which is this beautiful volcano, one of many volcanoes in Ecuador, and really the first big climb of the trip. And so this first day was really challenging. I decided to do this trip at this time because it was apparently a dry season in Ecuador. There's a wet season where it rains constantly, and there's supposed to be a dry season, and the dry season is kind of in the summer, generally. I guess I didn't realize that the dry season means it just rains less. And so it rained quite a bit the first day, once I kind of got into the mountains, which was not great. It wasn't super fun. As an example of how quickly the weather can change, 30 minutes ago I was in a t-shirt and the sun was out, and now it's foggy. I can see maybe a half kilometer ahead. And I can't see any of the surrounding mountains anymore, and I have a jacket on and gloves and my hands are cold. It's crazy how quickly things can change here. But the road quality is good and I think I'm descending for a bit, which is great. I'm in Cotopaxi National Park. And the roads were very challenging, both the climbing, obviously, which is challenging, but the roads themselves were just super rugged. It was these stone roads, not cobblestone, not brick, but these big stones that just made it very difficult to go fast at all on a bike. I imagine if I had a suspension fork or a true mountain bike, it would have made it a little bit easier. I had no suspension on my bike and 45 millimeter tires. The roads were just very challenging. It was hard to go fast and make good progress with the roads, in addition to the climbing and then the rain. And so that was definitely a challenge, I guess, the first day is those roads. But some beautiful scenery. There are times where you're riding and you just come across someone herding cattle or something like that, which is interesting. But yeah, just a lot of climbing on the first day and just dealing with difficult roads. So I did not get quite as far the first day, I was hoping. I was hoping to average 50 or 60 miles a day for this trip, which is, I think, generally less than I would normally ride on a longer tour. I generally like to ride as much as possible every day, you know, but with the elevation and the climbing and stuff, it took me like seven hours to ride just like 40 miles the first day. It was just so slow going with these roads. And so I think I only rode about 40 miles the first day. I came into a town and was able to stop and get some lunch, which was delicious, and explored the town a little bit, and then continued on. And eventually that evening, after some more very difficult roads, it started to get dark out and so I was trying to go a little bit farther and get a little bit farther down my route. I came across this gate on the route for this road. It was, calling this a road is maybe an overstatement. You know, it was a dirt path, kind of, that I was riding on. And I came across this big gate over the road, and a lot of times I think the farmers and stuff in this area is very rural, you know, there's no one around, and they don't want necessarily people traveling through this road that maybe goes through their property. And so they put up these gates. And it was dark and I was tired, you know, it was a tough first day of riding. I tried to kind of lift my bike over and it was really challenging. I tried to go around, there wasn't a good place to go around. And so I kind of sat there for 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do. And I think I just had it. I was done for the day. I needed to rest. And so I decided that I was going to try to camp nearby. And so I hiked up to this ridge and I made camp kind of on this ridge. And unfortunately, it was still raining, it was really wet, wasn't the best place to make camp. But it was what it was. And that's where I stayed the first night. And it was super dark, it got dark pretty quickly. But there's a lot of fog and rain and I couldn't really see anything off this ridge. It was just kind of my tent there in the middle of nowhere. And yeah, so that's where I camped the first night, got a decent night's sleep, I think all things considered. And then woke up the next morning and thankfully the clouds and the fog had lifted a little bit. And so it was a little bit better view. The next morning I could actually see a little bit, but still some fog. And I'm kind of getting into Cotopaxi National Park at this point. And so the next morning, my first objective was making it over this gate. And so I think I was generally successful in that. I got over the gate pretty quickly. I basically had to like, I had more strength in the morning than I did the day before, but I lifted my bike over the gate. And actually, one of the, there's barbed wire on the gate of course, because you know, you gotta have that. And one of the barbs punctured my tire as I was like lifting it over. I was like, oh no, am I going to have a flat already? But thankfully, tubeless tires, as I'm going to talk more about on the channel, saved the day. And even though there's a puncture, the tubeless sealant sealed it right up. And so that was crisis averted for sure, but I basically had to like throw the bike over the gate. It was the only way, you know, I was like, please don't break anything. And like lifted as high as I could, kind of like tossed it over, ended up being fine. I got over, I climbed over myself, and that was that, we did it. And so now, continuing into Cotopaxi National Park, was able to find a stream and wash off a little bit. It warmed up quick out here, I took all my extra clothes off, I'm going to have to take my pants off too. But I came across this nice little stream here, and so I think I'm going to take a bath a little bit. My shoes got super muddy from yesterday's riding, so it'll feel good. Because I needed it from the day before, it was very muddy, and I got pretty dirty, and so I took a little bath in this stream. The water is just wonderful, because it's water coming down off of the volcano, so the water's very clean. Yeah, riding this next day, it was a great day of riding. The first part of the day was challenging. The route itself kind of, the route that I was following didn't follow real well with the road. So I'm trying to follow the GPS track, and there's no road there. It's just this field, and it's very bumpy, and there's no path. And so, it was getting frustrating, because I was like, this is not a road, I'm just riding through this field, and it's almost impossible to actually ride. You have to get off every 10 feet to hike or something. And so eventually, I kind of followed the route close enough where I realized there's a road that's kind of adjacent to the route, and that's actually what you're supposed to be following. The GPS just wasn't perfectly aligned. So I eventually made it over to the road, which is so much better. And yeah, took this road into Cotopaxi National Park, which is absolutely beautiful. I was able to stop and fill up some water, another stream. Time to refill on water, and hope I don't drop my camera in this creek. That is pretty clear. And yeah, just taking these very, these dirt roads, you know, into the national park. Some of it was single track too, and some of it, you know, was sandy, and there's sandy trails and things, but the mountain and the volcano itself was beautiful. Kind of rode around the mountain, and through the national park, and eventually was able to descend a little bit, which is great. Eventually descended to this little town, you know, below the mountain, and then another big climb to finish the day, up to the town of Insanlivi, I believe is how it's pronounced, Insanlivi. It was a beautiful little mountain town, and another big climb to get up there the rest of the day. But decided to stay there for the night, and there was this wonderful hostel that I stayed in. Just absolutely beautiful area. Got there around sunset, I would say, so it was pretty foggy, kind of descending into the town, and more rain, which I've kind of gotten used to at this point. But made it to this town, and it was wonderful, and the hostel was absolutely great, and the people there were wonderful, and there were all kinds of other travelers, and hikers, and such. The hostel, they served dinner, which was great, and then was able to get a decent night's sleep as well. So this hostel in this town of Insanlivi, it's right outside of Quilotoa, which is another volcano in Ecuador, and Quilotoa is apparently very popular with hikers. There's apparently a very famous kind of hiking route around Quilotoa, and Quilotoa is also incredibly beautiful, and it's a volcano, but inside the volcano is this giant lake, so it's very cool, and you climb up the volcano, and then there's hiking all around. So the hostel, there was a lot of hikers there who were coming to hike the Quilotoa kind of loop. So the next day, leaving Insanlivi, the destination was Quilotoa, and so I climbed all the way up to Quilotoa, and it was a challenging, really challenging climb, even more challenging than Cotopaxi. Just some really long, steep climbs, but eventually made it up to Quilotoa, and went and kind of saw the volcano, it was absolutely just beautiful, and there's this little kind of resort town at the top, kind of touristy, because it's a popular tourist destination. Made it all the way up there, and kind of stopped and had something to eat, and unfortunately, I got hit by another huge rainstorm, which tends to happen pretty much every afternoon, especially at the higher elevations. And so I waited out part of the rainstorm, I was like, do I wait here for longer, like I don't want to lose the entire day, but also it was pouring rain, and also cold, I really didn't want to descend with the wind, and the pouring rain, and just get super cold, and so I waited a little bit, eventually the rain descended down the mountain, and left Quilotoa. Alright, and that's going to do it for episode one of my Ecuador tour recap, I hope you enjoyed it. And don't forget, the best way to support the channel and Bicycle Touring Pro is checking us out online, and checking out the Bicycle Touring Pro store. We've got awesome books, and Ortlieb products, just like the ones that I used on this trip. They don't cost any more than you would pay to buy them anywhere else, so might as well help out the channel, and get them from us. And you'll get a nice note from me, and maybe some bonus goodies as well. So check us out at the Bicycle Touring Pro shop, link will be in the description. And hope you enjoyed the video, and tune in for episode two, hopefully coming next week. Alright, see ya!