The Mountain Biking Part

What a day! This is what travel should be: At times you are scared, sometimes you are tired and sometimes you wish you could be 3 feet tall and Quechuan, and not the only gringo at the market! Three nights ago I got to Quito, slept a bit and mostly wondered what I was gonna do in all this rain. As it pounded down I realized my plans to ride mountain bikes around the foot hills of the big volcanoes were dashed. I got up and walked hungrily around a section of Quito that looked sort of like Beirut -- security fences were pulled over store fronts and the liveliest thing was some macho Rottweiler (EC version of pit bull, mucho popular.) I dove into some Gringo cafe and was at home. Four people sat in silence pounding away on laptops in WiFi oblivion. FInally I asked for help and got good advice --"Get your scaredy-cat ass on the Bus and go to Riobamba" (Chimborazo volcano-land.)
The 4 hour bus ride was not too bad and the landscape opened into incredible terraced fields and green, green hills. My guide (Galo from Probici , probici.com) met me at the train station, he is the biking company owner, wow, that is service. After he fitted my bike and found me a hotel, he took me shopping for lunch meat. All of this and the next day´s tour (with a follow vehicle) for $55. The 4 hour bus ride was $4.
Our first stop was the ´Indigenious market´in Guamote. Wow! For two hours we walked among the local folks selling cows, pigs, chickens and of course, guinea pigs that look like cocker spaniels. I loved it. The highlight was potato shopping. No kidding. They have a section of the market big as a football field for selling potatoes. My guide (a local boy educated at the fine Jesuit schools of Bellarmine and Tulane), transformed from guide to shopper as he haggled for their version of Yukon gold potatoes. Cracked me up. I shot lots of pictures from my waist, they are a bit hinky about getting photographed. So I have lots of colorful photos, with no heads. !! Or heads turned.


I loved every minute of it. The bike ride was gorgeous, endless hills of green, marked with splashes of yellow from mustard flowers and of course, lined with little Quechua ladies with 50 pounds of green onions on their backs, slowly trudging home.

We rode about 25 miles, luckily 2/3 of which were downhill! The volcanoes (Chimbo and Cotopaxi) are still obscured by clouds. But the little volcanic valley town of Banos where I stayed last night was stunning. Hot springs everywhere. I soaked to my heart’s content and today rode back to Quito on the bus under a pile of litle ´Quechua' ladies heading back north. They are simply stunning with their mahogany faces, and bright green shawls, black panama hats and shocking pink necklaces.
Anyway, kayaking starts on Sunday, am excited. Water looks high, we´ll see how it affects the tour. Am living on scrambled eggs and potato chips, have yet to figure out the food thing and no, haven’t tried the roasted guinea pig yet!