February 20-21 Quito to Cuenca

As I have been riding with Young James it has been interesting as I am 21 years older than he is. I do not feel Old, but have certainly reflected on the differences in perspectives and life experiences. At Casa Helbling one of the staff asked James; ” is He your dad?”

Now Clark is riding with us and he is the same age as James. Young Clark.

Anyway off we ride to Cuenca to take a tire down to Brad a Canadian Rider who was having a front end wobble after having a new tire installed in Quito. More on this later.

We packed up and headed south. There is a National Holiday so everything was closed Sunday/Monday/Tuesday. So the roads in Quito which are normally packed were very light. But at the lights we still saw a few Jugglers. These young guys had fire

Before Leaving town we stopped to see Court from Freedom Rentals. He is a US guy who runs tours and rents bikes in Quito!

Now we had a third rider. Welcome Clark. Hang on

There are toll booths in Ecuador and as Motorcycles we have to stop and pay .20 Cent. Ecuador uses US dollars as currency so it is sort of strange to be using Dollars and Cents. We really appreciate the free tolls in Colombia!!

Look where I am?

We had a few spots where there was lots of traffic, but as Motos….. You just go left (or right) and go by. No one seems to care or get upset even the police.

We were basically on the Pan American Hwy (but there is rarely anything that tells you this, and if you come to a big town is just goes right into the center …. you have to try to figure your way out as the signs are pour at best). But outside Rio Bomba the traffic was totally stopped. And three lanes was somehow 4 lanes ….

We spent over an hour, jostling and splitting forward until we could see the town. It was Packed with the Festival and it was crazy. We finally worked our way past and headed south. It was raining a bit but picked up. Had about 3 hours in the Rain and it was clear that it would be dark before we reached Cuenca.

So we stopped in Alausi

At a hotel that looked over the town. Nothing fancy but was only $30 for the three of us. Had internet of sorts and Hot shower! We rode back into town and had dinner. The town was right in the middle of the festival with a bull fight going on.

The local staple is potato.

Clark took this shot.

Huge Statue of San Pedro

It is all tile.

http://radioman.smugmug.com/Other/ri…DSC08612-M.jpg

James posing with “the Jedi”

http://radioman.smugmug.com/Other/ri…DSC08614-M.jpg

There is a train called Nariz del Diablo that goes through here. Supposed to be pretty cool train ride.

It is a beautiful area to ride!

Clark (Clark White on ADV) took some awesome Photos of the people in town. Here are a few.

(and here is a link to his Blog http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru…acation-begins )

Here is his Blog Link:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru…acation-begins

Lots of local foods waiting for!

The views are awesome as we ride out of town.

Clark enjoying the view

We rolled down the road to Cuenca the next day. We told Clark how often we had people take photo and sit on our bikes. First stop it started. A dad and his 3 daughters stopped (we had seen him driving and giving us the thumbs up).
He was really excited as we had his daughters get photos on the bikes….