The Big Trip

We organized the two day mountain bike tour through the Biking Dutchman (not "Flying Dutchman" as I thought), a travel agency specialized in mountain biking tours and which came recommended by a Dutch girl who we met in Nicaragua.

The tour started early in the morning 7.00 a.m. when we were picked up by our tour guide, Fernando, who took us in his jeep to the highest point of our tour, 4400 m. Fortunately the tour was going to be essentially downhill, so we wouldn’t be tortured too much. At 4400 m the wind was blowing awfully and we had to really wrap ourselves up. I even put on my long underpants and several layers of sweaters. Harry, always trying to be the tough guy, decided to wear shorts. The first kilometers of the tour led through beautiful sceneries with paramo landscapes – the Ecuadorian equivalent of arctic tundra - and we were rewarded by incredible views. The ground made of grit and gravel was easy to handle by our mountain bikes and the only thing that in particular I had to struggle with the first kilometers was the cow dung that was spread over in the middle of the path. I ended up with cow dung freckles in my face and a moustache. Mhhh!!! Later on we cycled on paved roads and the difficulty of biking became another one, this time not only for me. Already earlier Fernando, our guide, had told us that we could expect some unfriendly dogs that would bum around at the edges of the road. He gave us the following advice:

Case 1: If the dog walks slowly towards you, cycle as fast as you can.
Case 2: If the dog comes quickly at you, slow down or even stop.
Case 3: If the dog shows signs of wanting to attack, use the cycle as protection.
Case 4: Worst case scenario (which happened to Fredrik and me after Harry had put up the dogs several meters in front of us), 7 dogs attack at the same time, here all the above rules apply and the guide in the car drives between the attacking dogs and the victims and honks.

Luckily we managed to pass the about 25 dogs unharmed thanks to the good advice from Fernando.

At about 1.00 p.m. we arrived at 1900 m where we took our lunch and finished our cycling for the day.

Later we drove to Ecuador’s biggest water fall, San Rafael Falls, where we walked through some beautiful tropical rainforest before we reached the spectacular falls. Fernando also took us to a far less known waterfall “Rio Malo” which was smaller but quite unique. We had to wade through a river to get there and once close to the fall it felt like taking a shower. Everybody got wet.

We spent the night at Baeza, a hotel with quite comfortable rooms, private bathroom, hot showers and TV. The best of all was that there was only one remote control for the whole floor which luckily was in our possession or I should say Fredrik’s. So both Harry and our other next door neighbors had to put up with that Fredrik was in charge of the night program selection.

The other day started with a jeep ride to Papallacta, maybe Ecuador’s best natural thermal hot springs, where we enjoyed bathing in hot pools with different temperatures between 25 and 40 C and in between we cooled off in a river which was close by. The surroundings were magical with rain forest and mountains all around.

After this wonderful relaxing start of the day, we were driven back up to 4400 m from were we started our mountain bike tour for the second day. It was even chillier and also rainy, but we enjoyed it a lot. Again we passed beautiful sceneries and every now and then we stopped for a photo. We finished up the day cycling through a “mountain bike park”, where we biked along an old rail way track in a canyon. Sometimes we had to pass through some really dark and long tunnels (there was no light) and we took particular care after Fernando had told us the story about the tourist who was cycling fast leading the group and all of a sudden there was a loud “MUUUUU” echoing through the tunnel. The tourist cycled into a cow!!! Fortunately both the tourist and the cow survived the accident!!!

Once back in Quito we had a farewell dinner with Harry. We spent 5 weeks travelling with him in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador and now he is off to Mexico and USA before travelling home to Germany. We had great fun travelling together and are looking forward to our next reunion in Germany, first Bretten and then Seelenfeld.

Take care, amigos!!!

Sabrina and Fredrik