The biking begins

Finally the cycling of the ‘cycle tour’ has commenced. We have now notched up three consecutive days of riding. So far the only flat pieces of road has been the few bridges at the bottom of valleys we’ve crossed, everything else has either been slow, steep climbs or fast descents.

We started in Cuenca (c.2500m) and finished three days later in Loja (c.2100m). What those elevation numbers do not illustrate is the c.3000m of climbing in between.

Leaving Cuenca in the rain

Day 1 we rode for 4 hours climbing up to 3500m from Cuenca. We set up camp on an old farm track tucked away off the main road. It absolutely poured down during the night and we woke to a cold drizzly morning.

Leanne making friends with the shop owners in Cumbe
(they smiled before and after the photo)

View from our campsite at 3500m

Not a very nice start to the day

Day 2 was another 4 hours of riding with our first taste of Ecuador downhill, with a 15km decent before the uphill, climbing c.700m over 12km to a tiny little town called Oña. We started in drizzle then roasted for a couple of hours before finishing in a down pour. Being soaked we decided to stay in the one and only ‘hotel’ in Oña. It was very basic but suited us fine.

Great roads with virtually no traffic

15km descent to the valley below

Day 3 - 104km to Loja, piece of cake - yeah right. We knew this day was going to be tough. The distance was not overly long but there were at least 3 big hills/mountains to tackle plus a couple of minor ones. We started at sunrise with a 2.5h climb out of Oña. This was followed by a fast 15km descent before another 2.5h climb. A few ups and downs then a great 10km descent dropped us to c.2200m. The final climb of the day took us up again to c.2800m before another 15km descent to Loja at c.2100m. We were both absolutely shattered on arrival. All up is was a 12 hour day with 9 hours of riding and over 2000 vertical metres of climbing. Thankfully our hostel had hot showers and we found a good pasta restaurant with creamy cabonara.

Start of the 9 hr ride to Loja

Taking a rest on one of the many climbs to Loja

We have just had a couple of rest days. The first one was spent checking out the city of Loja. Today we caught a bus to a nearby town called Vilcabamba. The place is renowned as a relaxing town and is famous for having inhabitants who live forever. We bumped in to a Kiwi guy who owned a horse trekking business and has been living there for 27 years. He set us up with a guide and we headed up into the hills to a medicinal waterfall on horse back. The track was steep and Ben had the only tumble of the day when his saddle came undone and he slide off the horse while heading uphill, no harm done though.





Tomorrow we are back on our bikes with 200km to travel to reach the boarder with Peru. We will do this over a few days as there is still a number of passed to tackle along the way.