Ecuador Overland

Hi to all our friends around the world as we continue our life on the road.

We arrived in Ecuador from Peru on January 8th 2014. Lonely Planet once again wrote that the border area was all very dodgy but as usual they were completely wrong because in fact the whole border area was brand new and it was so easy to pass through.

It was a lovely ride from Mancora Peru right up and our first major town in Ecuador was Santa Rosa where we were searching for a place to stay until a lady came over and offered her home to us for the night. What a great start to Ecuador.

Ecuador is a relatively small country by South American standards at 109,483 square miles or about the same size as Japan, New Zealand and the UK incl. Ireland, with a population hovering around 13 - 16 Million.
It appears to be heavily influenced by the USA though, as most imported manufactured goods tend to be from the States, like all cigarettes, canned foods, machinery, trucking and a lot of the cars etc. They even use the US Dollar which we find bizarre, but after their disaster with their own sucre currency in 2000, they could only stabilise the situation by adopting the dollar. Of course with the use of the dollar it has made goods and services more expensive so it is not a cheap country except where and how the poor live. Americans and Canadians flock there to retire as anyone with $25,000 can buy a property or business and live there forever as long as you have about $1000 a month coming in, per person. It is paradise for some but not for us.

We cycled through the banana growing areas via Manchala and onto Guayaquil which is the largest city and a major export port for Bananas and other fruits. It is deemed to be a very dangerous city of 2.5 million but we had no choice as the only way to the coast was to go from one corner of it to the other and only once did we meet a very dodgy person but managed to escape. It is a very hot and sticky place and not offering a good vibe, to us anyway. Onward on one of many new roads (paid for by their oil exports), to the coast

A few days in Salinas at a run down camping place with a few rooms but a great host, Roberto, and onward up the coast. Salinas is a local and international tourist resort beach with large beach front apartments and hotels.

We then took off up north, following the coast, passing small towns and some lovely beaches but as is normal the housing is shockingly bad. The frontages are mostly completed but the sides and rear are raw breeze blocks and bricks. It just ruins what would otherwise be nice towns.

We stayed in some nice cheap places on the way but nothing very exciting, camping was out of the question for us and it was so hot day and night that the few times we did camp previously, we just perspired all night.

So we arrived in Manta after some gruelling hill climbs where no thought had been given to anything other than a tough motor. We discovered a hostel overlooking the sea and with a nice swimming pool and spacious areas so low and behold we ended up there for about six weeks. That must seem strange for a tourist or backpacker but the difference is that we live on the road and are not merely passing through doing all the must see things determined by the guide books, in fact we dislike the guide books and vow never to look at one again. We will live and travel as we want to and not as a book tells us to. Anyway I discovered a crack on the side of my rear wheel rim but it did not look too bad but emailed David the Bikefixer in London about it and the morning we were going to take off his email arrived saying "Don't ride that bike because the wheel will blow and can throw you off the bike and it is extremely dangerous" or words to that effect. So with a few enquiries around Manta and a couple of bike shops later, no suitable rim was to be found as we have 28inch wheels where as most bikes have 26inch. Finally no choice but to go back to London to get four new rims but also more importantly it coincided with our son Leon having a dangerous eye operation which required someone to look after him post op so who better than yours truly. So with a gruelling bus ride to Quito then a flight to Houston then to London I finally arrived after 40 hours travelling, to a freezing cold rainy London and a soggy farm where our RV is parked, then to find the leisure batteries had died so I could not use any lights or pumps so packed up and stayed with our Leon at his new cottage in St Margarets. Anyway all went well and got some bits and rims and went back to Ecuador three weeks later. Mary had stayed in Manta during this period.

We finally dragged ourselves away from our abode in Manta and headed for Quito. The final climb from 500 metres to 3000 metres had to be by bus because of the little air at that altitude and the steep climb, it just was not worth the risk again.

The hostel "The Secret Garden" in Quito was way over priced at $30 a night for a dark pokey room but they charge that for the free coffee's, the great view of the old town from the fifth floor and for speaking English. Of course it was full of backpackers from all over so it was good fun socialising with all the different nationalities. Alas after exploring the town, it was time to head north. Once again it was necessary for us at least to get a bus up and out and over the mountains to a more suitable place to cycle. Anyway we finally ended up in Tulcan as the last town before Colombia so stayed there for a few days always searching for good food but alas good food is only a dream in South America unless you spend big at only the top restaurants which are never present in small cities or towns. We just cannot understand why it is, in this continent of everything growing, the people eat the same things and almost all the restaurants serve the same food. Rice with fries and spagetti with a piece of meat of some description, mostly chicken. It is all very boring stuff. The supermarkets don't really have the range either. No such thing as a ready meal.

Well Ecuador is now our fifth country travelled in this continent, with five to go but another seven in Central America. We have been in this continent for 17 months now. If we get a three month visa for a country which is normal, then we stay the three months but with the smaller central American countries it will be more like a month in each and with 108 countries left to travel of the 200 in the world (excluding Island and protectorate nations) we will be on target to cover the world during what is left of our lifetime. Anyway, dreams are free and they can't tax your memories which are now mounting up to the point of overload.

We are actually in Cali, Colombia as we speak. (Yes the most dangerous city in Colombia they say) and are slowly heading north but sadly, the food is only a touch better than the rest but more on all that in three to four months time. It is possible to extend a visa here so who knows, if we like it enough we will stay longer, in fact if we do find our paradise then we would stay there forever and to hell with the rest of the world, but somehow we doubt we will ever find that elusive paradise. It was New Zealand thirty years ago but that country has priced itself out of the options.

The photos tell the story really, so scroll down to view.

Our web site morrisonlife.com is updated with all things Morrison.

If you cannot read this Newsletter then click. Here

The Video Slideshows of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador at 7mins (in Full HD) are here: Morrisonlifedotcom

Description of the Photos are below.....