I arrived in Ecuador the day before spring arrives. But, so far for this winter, I’ve seen first time snow. It’s still hight up though, but I’m coming closer…

 arrived in Ecuador

After all that border time wasting for immigration, I didn’t have time left to do much the first day. I went to San Gabriel, the second town in the northern province. I had to go up for 20km, even though I was already almost 3000m up. Well, it helps for my condition, because the Panamericana through the Andes is a permanent up and down. I spent a week always being between 2500 - 3000m. In between, huge cañons, with high speed up to 80km/h down and low speed of 7km/h up. The runs are always about 20 - 40km long.

 cañon before Ibarra splits my way

My first town of interest was Otavalo. The Otavalo indigenous people made their town to a real tourist attraction, because of their colorful waving products. The biggest market of Ecuador takes place every Saturday right here. So, I arrived Friday right on time to check this out. There was lots of action this weekend anyways, because of easter. A big Friday Easter celebration was held at Otavalos streets. Thousends of people lined the streets and watched the parade.

     church at Easter Friday and central square of Otavalo

I got up early the next day for the market. I didn’t want to get jamed in between all the tourist who arrive with busses from Quito just before noon. So, 7 o’clock was a good morning hour to wander around. I could have spend a fair amount of money for some products, but carrying by bike - no way.

       at the fruit market and…

       …the textile one

Instead, I rode towards the equator and was happy to reach this destination by bike ones in my live. The sun will shine in my back from now on. Well, right now it’s more likely the top. But it doesn’t burn too bad, because of my elevation and the cloudy sky. Through the next cañon and ones more up of about 2900m and I reached Quito, the capital. The city is located on the eastern flank of some volcanos in a high valley. It’s perfect for all the smog which can’t escape like Mexico city. Two entire days in the city was fine to me to get an overfew. But the best overfew, going up to 4000m with a cable car, I missed.

                         8686km until the equator and just a few more ’til Quito

Further I rode through the heartland of the "Avenida de los Volcanes", with giants like Antisana (5758m), Cotopaxi (5897m), Tungurahua (5023m), Altar (5319m) to my left and Corazon (4788m), Iliniza (5263m), Carihuairazo (5020m) and last but not least the 20703ft/6310m monster Chimborazo. And this list shows just a few of those giants who strech along the 200km from Quito towards Riobamba in the south. I rode over passes up to 3600m, but it was easy, because the ascending slope was always moderate. And the downhills were amazing on smooth pavement with wide shoulders.

         beautiful landscape above 3000m, just the volcanos aren’t to see

I got to Riobamba after two days. The vulcanos were mostly covered by clouds, but sometimes, even short, I could see the summits. Especially Tungurahua had a nice look throughout the streets of Riobamba. This volcano is the smogmaster of the region, a super active guy, this 5000m giant! I had to do a job in Riobamba. I needed to find some climbing equipment and a mountain guide plus a little more acclimatization, because Riobamba is with just below 3000m not high enough for me. This Chimborazo volcano with it’s 20703 feet hit me and I wanted to know if I could climb in such hights. I found a good climbing shop with gear and guide and left after one night in town for bigger hights. The shop suggested me, riding up to Casa Condor, at the small mountain village of San Pablo (3840m). There is a bunch of hikes available, I could go on, if I’ve got the power after riding 1000m in elevation. I was there by 2.30 and at 3pm on the trail to some woods in 4300m hight. I went on such nice paramo hike, I felt like being in Sweden. Just the snow was missing and I could have done a nice fjeld ski tour. But the scandinavian fjelt is just 1000m hight, here, close to the equator, you gotta go at least up to 4500m for snow.

   San Pablo, a high montain village at the base of Chimborazo…

       …where woman take care of keeping sheep and lama

That was my plan and I got picked up by by mountain guide the next morning. We drove by car a high as possible, to the second last hut at 4850m. Another short walk brought us up to the ultimate last hut at 5000m, just below the rock and ice massive of Chimborazo. We slept here by freshly 0 degrees. I couldn’t sleep, not so much because of cold, more likely because of high altitude and excitement! I waited in bed 4 hours and got up 11pm to get ready for the midnight climb. There were 4 other groups beside me and my guide. I tought a last time about all the grave rocks I saw yesterday and kept on walking very slow behind my guide. The night was super beautiful, no wind, not too cold and the stars were out. We had to take an advenced trail, because of avalanche danger. That was the best part and I loved to use the ice axe for real and being totally secured on rope and harness. The difficult part tooks 2 hours, 3 hours since the hut. I could see some lights at the hut, so much further down. I asked for our hight. Raul, my guide, said 5400m. Damn it, just 400m done, I thought we were much higher. We left two other groups behind us and their head lamp lights got smaller and smaller. Out of two groups who went the danger avalanche route, only one got up the ridge just before up. All other groups turned around earlier or later. As we went, I needed more and more breaks. My pulse beat seemed to go out of controll. I stopped, took some deep breaths, but after ten or so steps, same thing happens. Men, it’s a different world I experianced in such extreme hights. The moon came up and gave us more light. I could just sink into the snow and enjoy the scene…, but Raul, he pulled the rope and reminded me on my mission. The last 1000 feet were totally exhausting. I couldn’t believe, how possible to put one foot ahead the other. It was 6.30am and Raul said, it’s not far anymore. Shortly after, the ascent slope decreased and I thought we were up. But nothing to see of those two others who were ahead of us. Raul asked me if I were alright. I gave him a thumb up, too weak to speak much. And now I saw, it wasn’t the top, we had to go down a bit to get up the the very end. For moments I thought, what ever, but my good guide pulled on the rope again and brought me up. It was exactly 6.51am. Exactly 9000km riding, 6 hours and 51 minutes climbing to the highest pleasure in my live and, of course, of the entire bike trip since I left Mexico. Some other facts; with it’s 20703ft., I was on top of the most furthest place on earth you can get, if you take the center of earth as a measure, not the sea level. So, Chimborazo is not just some mountain, it’s a mountain who brought me on the edge of my human power and showed me how far my condition reaches.

     on the way and on top of Chimborazo (20703ft.)

We sat there for 20 min. I got back up on my legs, puked and went down for two hours. It was time to drop all the nice warm gear and say good bye to Raul. The 4 degrees back at the hut went on my bones and I decided riding my bike down the paramo to some warmer regions. So, I quit the street of the volcanos and went down towards the western side 4000m in elevation, since the top.

   just a few hours after the top…

The last days and kilometers to Peru were going through flat lands. It feels good, just flat, no rollercoasters anymore. And the landscape wasn’t boring either. Half of the way towards Peru was flooded and rice fields were everywhere. Interesting I thought were the towns, build sometimes entirely on stilts. So, I didn’t have to think were to put my tent. There wasn’t any place and I stayed in Hotels. The other half of the way until Peru were fields or plantations of starting with sugar cane, fading to cacao and turning into banana. I rode for about 150km just through banana plantations. I swear, I’ve never seen and ate so much bananas in my live. Normally it’s difficult to find ripe bananas, because they always get harvested green. But sometimes the plant collapse under the weight of their own fruits and has time to ripe on the ground and gives me 40 nice bananas in one shot. Good appetite!

       in tropical heat, between rice fields and banana farms