After returning from the Galapagos I left Quito and headed south to Baños. Baños is a beautiful town nestled in the mountains and sits in the shadow of an active volcano. From time to time the town is evacuated when the volcano erupts. There are some nice hikes you can take that give great views of the valley below.
One of the many trails in town. Unfortunately, they all go up.
Nice view.
Suspension bridge.
They do a little bungee jumping off of this bridge.
Yet another church.
I left Baños headed to Cuenca. It was a long day of riding through high elevations, sporadic rain showers and dirt roads. I pulled into Cuenca cold, and exhausted, so stopped at the first hostel I found, which turned out to be a dump. All the rooms surround the bar, which has the house music thumping loud until midnight, even though there was no one in the bar. They said that they had hot water, but the shower was ice cold. Oh well, no shower for me either. I was too tired to move all my crap to another place. I slept a total of 5 hours that night, then got up the next morning and promptly rode out of town. I didn’t feel like hanging around in Cuenca as I was a bit burned out on big cities, and the experience in the El Cafecito hostel just sealed the deal for the me the get the heck out of town. Sometimes I just get bummed out on a place and have to leave.
So I headed further south to the small hamlet of Vilcabamba, Ecuador.
Scenic riding as always in Ecuador.
I stayed at a very nice German run hostel just south of town. In my experience, the German owned hostels tend to be well run, and very nice. It was a very tranquilo place to chill for a few days and do nothing but walk around town.
The town church, of course.
I did meet some cool people at the hostel. The guy on the left is my hero. Neil is the real deal. He has been all over the world on a motorcycle. He goes home to the states and works for a while, then flies to some spot on the globe, buys a small thumper and rides his brains out. He is also an avid photographer and showed me some really amazing images from South America. He is currently riding a Falcon 400 and is headed north. Neil is a super cool and interesting guy and I enjoyed hanging out and swapping stories with him.
The folks on the right, and in the below photo are Lars and Janni from Denmark. They have been traveling in South America for a full year now in their VW camper and are headed north to Alaska. Very cool people. So us four overland travelers hung out well into the night and swapped stories of our experiences of life on the road. Very cool stuff to bond with fellow overlanders in the middle of Ecuador. I really enjoyed my time in Vilcabamba just chilling the days away and doing nothing but hiking and being geeky and exchanging GPS maps and route suggestions with Lars and Janni.
I left Vilcabamba headed straight south on 100 miles of dirt road to the tiny border crossing at La Balsa, Peru. This is a highly recommended route and crossing with a caveat………. Make sure you have some time. Iron Butt riders will not like this route.
OK, the crossing. Its all dirt, but easy dirt road. You don’t really even need knobby tires, well, you might during the wet season.
I ran into plenty road construction as they are grading from Vilcabamba south in anticipation of paving. However, there are so many landslides along this route that I cant see that happening anytime soon. The construction areas will slow you down. Twice I got stuck for over a hour waiting at a construction area. Secondly, I had 3 front pinch flats that I had to deal with. Totally my fault for jumping whoops and flying over sharp rocks at 50 mph on a overloaded bike. The throttle on the 990 is like a bad crack habit.
So, with the construction, plan on about 4 hours to get to the border (100 miles of dirt) if everything goes smoothly and you don’t wait too long at construction stops.
This is Fernando, road construction worker. Cool guy. He helped me change the tube from my first flat, number 1 of 3 that day.
At the border, Ecuadorian Migracion and Aduana were very efficient. I was checked out of Ecuador in less than 2 minutes, seriously.
Peru. Well that’s a whole nother Oprah. Seems that the Migacion girl likes to take “lunch” from 11 am to about 4 pm. So, if you show up at noon like I did, you’re pretty much not going anywhere, so kick back, have some lunch, and take nap. Besides that, the girl has an attitude like its a big problem for her to stamp your passport. She was allagitated that I couldn’t understand her rapid fire campesino accented Spanish and asked her to repeat herself. Apparently, from talking to the customs guy, “she is like this all the time.” Great.
However, after she saw I was on a bike, her attitude completely changed. “ah, me encanta tu moto, que linda….” and she smiled at me over and over again and asked me all kinds of question about my trip in nice, slow, clear Spanish of course. I told her that she was pretty when she smiled.
Amazing what an attitude changer the bike can be for people.
The customs guy is very nice and friendly. However, he seemed to have some difficulty doing the paperwork, so I had to politely tell him what I needed, and helped him with the numbers. Make sure that he gets all the numbers correct on your paperwork. That will take another hour or so. But, he is a very nice and mellow guy, very easy to deal with.
By the time I finished up, 5 hours after showing up at the border, it was getting dark. So, the customs dude tells me that I don’t want to go anywhere at night since there have been a lot of car jackings in the area recently. Well I figured that they wouldn’t be quick enough to catch me on the 990, so I took my chances riding to San Ignacio. Besides that, there was really no place to spend the night at the border.
San Ignacio is about one hour away by bike, if you ride fast in the dirt, two hours if you’re slow. It is your best bet for a hotel after your crossing. Its a friendly and tranquilo small town with about a dozen decent hostels.
If you decide to press on in the dark after San Ignacio (like I foolishly did) you will ride 60 miles of really crappy, wide graded dirt road with super deep potholes everywhere. I had to ride at least 50 mph to float the front wheel over the holes, otherwise it was a brutal beating. Besides that, at night, I couldn’t see many of the holes, so I just pinned it and prayed.
Next large town after the pot hole route is Jaén. Once I got a look at Jaén in the dark, I wished that I had stayed in San Ignacio. I wound up paying 25 bucks for a hotel that turned out to be very nice with great parking, but the rest of the town is nothing special. San Ignacio is a nicer place to stay for sure, so I would plan on a night there after your crossing. That way, you don’t have to worry how long the Peru Migracion girl will take for lunch, so you can just chill out, wait, and enjoy the remote little hamlet of La Balsa.
After you leave Jaén, get ready for a spectacular ride through canyons to get to Chachapoyos.
Saludos, Vicente
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