04.2009 Ecuador & Colombia

Tsiklonaut

GS pervert
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Having been in the mountains for most of the time we came down to sea level before Ecuadorian border and it became bloody hot! The first city on our way was Machala, a self-proclaimed banana capital of the World.

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Over +30C and humid - something we had forgotten after Brazil. It takes weeks to adapt to, being in motorcycle clothing most of the time, not in shorts.

Thankfully we soon headed back into Andes mountains, back into "comfort zone" for us northeners (often a bit cold though, even if you're close to equator line!).

Ecuadorian natives are slightly different from the rest we've seen in South-America:

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Unfortunately lot of wild dogs run around in South-America, and in Ecuador, in the mountains over 3500m one of them came to us. He was very shy, ill, underbred and weak. I started to pity him and gave away a pack of crackers. He started to eat like crazy and didn't even notice when we left:
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We headed to Quilotoa lagoon, that's a lake inside a volcano crater.

Road there was surrounded by some decent scenery. Let me express it in panoramas (click to enlarge each one):




















And the road away from there was a decent offroad:
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Also with nice scenery with volcano or mountain tops:
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Slept in a motel, where usually clients can listen music while doin' the thing:
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And then came the capital of Ecuador - Quito:


Quito old town panoramas












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It's hard to explain, but we liked Quito - the smells, sounds and atmosphere was very nice there.



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As you've guessed - Ecuador means equator.

The road through mountains was curvy and we crossed equator line 3-4 times. Without GPS it would be hard to know when you're directly on the equator line since in most of the places it isn't marked on the road, i.e. on this picture, the bike is directly on the equator:
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Only in one spot on the road it was marked.


Before Colombian border we wanted to sleep somewhere and headed off into the mountain trails again. Some decent scenery there and cloud-movement was superb. I took a sequence from cloud movements in Ecuadorian mountains, the sound is exacly what you hear in the evening there:

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Bordercrossing to Colombia was straight forward. No hassles at all.

And close to the Ecuadorian border there was the famous Las Lajas Sanctuary. We chose a wrong time to visit it - on Sunday, so there were loads of people around, but I got some good shots nonetheless:
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Endless number of thanksgiving plates for the virgin of Las Lajas:





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And the military were everywhere - they have sort of "hidden" civil war in Colombia, so no wonder.



From Colombian mountaneous landscape:


(click to enlarge panorama)


we headed down to the lower grounds of Colombian jungle:
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And cooked a decent regular meal for us:
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While Kariina was cooking I shot some patterns in 10 meter radius from this spot:







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(PS: this leaf was taller than me)










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Those worms had the thickness my forefinger and lenght of 10-15cm - big ones and loads of them in Colombian jungle:
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And the Colombian capital Bogotá greeted us - we had friends in the city who welcomed us and their children enjoyed the "ride" on our GS:
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One of the weird things in Colombia is the Zipaquirá salt cathedral that goes 200 meters deep into the mountain, used to be a salt mine, now a sanctuary:

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Amazingly high holes and ceilings!



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One of the domes.










This wall was over 3 meters thick for example.



We arrived just in time for Easter holidays. But instead of painting the eggs we chose to paint coconuts. They had to be grinded first to remove their "hair":



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And painted them.




















Our coconut was inspired by travelling though.


That's it folks. We're currently in Bogotá still waiting for new tires and Brazilian visas. Will keep you updated if we can get out of Colombia w/o being killed or robbed by guerillas or cocaine-smugglers :)


Margus on Colombian beer :beerjug:
 


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