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Vilcabamba, Ecuador
4° 15' S 79° 15' W
Jul 05, 2007 21:20
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Stupid dogs and others stories...

Text written in: English

Alistair writes;

 As we are about to cross the border into Peru I thought I'd do a little piece about the differences we've seen between Colombia and Ecuador. 

1. The Dogs

I'd say that the main difference between Colombia and Ecuador are the dogs.  The Ecuadorean dogs are no where near as bright or streetwise as their Colombian counterparts.  This is borne out by the fact that we didn't see a single dead dog in the whole of our time in Colombia (and there are millions of dogs all over the place).  Yet within an hour of crossing the border we'd seen 2 dead dogs in the road.  We've now seen scores of them.  I'm pretty sure that there is a direct correlation between the number of dead dogs and the number of stupid ones who dart out of their hiding places and launch themselves at our front wheels, which is a little unnerving to say the least.  Presumably they get squished by the car behind.  A couple of days ago on a day trip to Ingapirca, a big white dog got a little too close for its own good and got a good hoof for its trouble.  When I looked behind me it was sat in the middle of the road with a confused look on its face.  Some may think it cruel but I like to think I saved it's life!  Put it this way, it wasn't waiting for us on our way back. On the subject of animals we've now heard a few stories from fellow bikers on that front.  On the first day in Bogota we met Jason who had hit a horse in Argentina.  The horse must have been a bit surprised as well as it crapped all over him and his bike.  He had to ride the rest of the day with the whiff of horse manure hanging over him!  He wasn't happy, but I imagine the horse wasn't too pleased either.  I thought that I was going to suffer a similar fate the other day when following a pick-up truck.  The farmer had packed the animals in so tightly that one pig's bottom was hanging over the tailgate.  I was staring down the barrel of a gun and if he'd let fly then I'd have been covered in the smelly stuff.   Another rider told us a story of a group of bikers in Alaska who were chased by a pack of wolves (apparently they think that the bikes resemble caribou).  One got bitten on the leg before the wolves realised they'd made a mistake. 

2. The Wind

It is much windier in Ecuador (and not only because both Maria and I have had a bad case of food poisoning).  It's probably due to the fact that we are riding at much higher altitudes (regularly well over 3000m) than in Colombia.  Sometimes you really have to fight the bike when coming around a corner into gusting winds.  It doesn't help the fact that the bikes, with all the luggage on, have all the aerodynamics of a house brick!  I'm really looking forward to the 70mph cross winds we'll see in Tierra Del Fuego - not. 

3. The Roads

I long for the roads of Colombia, bus drivers, trucks and all (see an earlier entry for why).  The roads in Ecuador are in a pretty poor state.  It all looked good at the start.  When we crossed the border and made our way down to Quito, the Panamerica was a tarmaced, 4 lane highway.  We even reached the dizzy speeds of 70mph, unheard of in Colombia.  Unfortunately, somewhere between Quito and Cuenca, the Panamerica turned from a 4 lane highway into what can best be described as a stony, rutted track.  And not for the 50 - 100m that we regularly saw in Colombia.  This lasted for 20 - 30km.  It got a little better again, but south of Cuenca the Panamerican can only be described as a series of pot holes punctuated every now and then by stretches of decent road!  Combine that fact with the wind (see 2) and you can imagine it's not always fun.  The frequent landslides don't help.  We couldn't get to Banos as the road was completely cut and on our (accidental) trip to Zamora (I'm sure Maria has written about that) we did get a little dirty (Maria a bit more than me) as a result of trying to get around the results of a landslide (see pictures in the previous post).  However, on the plus side the drivers here are much better than in Colombia.  Don't get me wrong, the bus drivers are still maniacs, but not the completely, homicidal maniacs they were in Colombia.  And the truck drivers even pull over to let us past.  The best thing about the roads in Ecuador, and the Panamerican in particular, is that it is deserted.  I reckon we see a 50th of the big trucks here that we used to see in Colombia.  That  can only be good! 

4. The Scenery

The scenery is beautiful in Ecuador, but in a different way to Colombia.  I'm always amazed how green and relatively lush it is even when we are riding above 3000m (which we do on a regular basis).  It even seems to be green up to the snow line on the volcanoes.  It's a lot drier though and a lot dustier as a result.  The green frequently gives way to rock which can vary from pale beige to deep red, which is still beatiful in its own way. 

5. The People

In general, the Ecuadoreans are friendly but nothing in comparison to the Colombians.  I should qualify that by adding that on the way to Quito we stopped on the side of the road to put a few more layers of clothes on and were befriended by a couple (to be fair he was Argentinian) who stopped to speak to us.  We ended up going to their place for dinner that evening (they even insisted on paying for our breakfast shopping on the way), taking us around the bike shops of Quito the next day and we ended up going out with them every day we were in Quito (thanks again to Gabriel and Maria Belen (the radio star)).  We still get a fair amount of attention in Ecuador, but not quite up to Colombian standards. 

It is definitely more prosperous in Ecuador.  You don´t see the total wrecks on the road that you do in Colombia.  I sometimes wondered how some of the cars in Colombia stayed in one piece half the time (some didn´t).  In Ecuador it seems that everyone (who has a car) has a 4x4 or a pick-up truck.  The rest have scooters, motorbikes or a horse.  The big cities in Ecuador don´t have the associated shanty towns which is the case in Colombia.  We stayed in the expensive, prosperous part of Medellin, full of appartment blocks, expensive shops, cafes bars and restaurants, but our trip to Santa Domingo revealed how most of the people in the city lived - in self built shacks most of the time.  Going up in the cable car we saw that someone had written on their roof "Very Dangerous, Only for the Poor and the Illiterate".  That said it all!  You just don´t see that in the cities of Ecuador.  However, there is no doubt that there is still severe poverty in the small villages in Ecuador, especially in the native communities.

Let's see what Peru and Bolivia have in store!  I can't wait!