Down to the Coast

ihana.com - big trip - diary - ecuador - july 2003

Didn't manage to crash into the equator

Steep dry hills

Waking up to see Cotopaxi

Sunday 13 - Wednesday 16 July

Sunday morning we headed north to find the equator line (the second time on the trip, first time in Macapa) and get a pic. We took the main road which leads to Colombia, the GPS was plugged in for the first time since Uyuni and was steadily counting down our approach to the invisible line that encircles the earth. The equator came and went without so much as a post to mark it. There was supposed to be a theme park and a big globe monument, had it disappeared? Turns out that we were on the wrong road, yeah, the wrong way to the equator. Bollocks to that then, we'd had enough trundling up steep climbs with the strong wind kicking up dust whirlwinds and we wanted to get to Cotopaxi, a ways south of Quito, before dark so we had to settle for having no equator pics.

As we descended into Quito we could see Cotopaxi far in the distance bathed in sun instead of the usual clouds. The landy managed to escape the city traffic with ease and we were soon seeing the sun descending, casting a pink light on the 5897m high volcano. We stopped at a roadside eatery for dinner and watched Terminator on the telly while a group of campesinos who'd got out of the back of a lorry watched us. As it was dark it was time to use our tried and tested stealth technique to slip into the nearby Cotopaxi national park, passing the entry buildings unnoticed. The national park here (like many in Ecuador) costs us $10 each to enter which, in comparison to other south american parks, is an extortionate amount of money. After about 15kms on entertaining dirt roads we came to a campsite with a good view of the volcano and set up camp. Our plans to get an early morning pic didn't work out and we dragged ourselves out of the tent at 11am. Luckily there wasn't much cloud cover until at midday when a huge cloudbank rolled in. Sneaking into parks is fine, getting out is a matter of speed and nerves of steel, well, aluminium in this case. We managed to run through the checkpoint at high speed, falling victim to a cunningly placed speedbump and bouncing our way past the pay booth in a cloud of dust and laughter. Time to take the long road downhill to the coast.

Lush and green on the way down

Restaurant with typical pig carcass outside

Wooden farmhouse

Fancy bullbar on this landy

Warm and rolling country makes a nice change

More friendly coppers

After an immensely long descent through mountains as green as you like, we found ourselves driving through banana plantations and small farms with cows and suchlike. The weather was dull but warm and, as the sun went down in the coastal town of Bahia de Caraquez, we found a hotel with a car park by the side of the estuary.

Wicked taxi, check the brake

Where do you want to go today?

Fruity bike

The bay of Puerto Lopez

Montañitas plaza has more...

...life than the beach!

We drove in a generally southerly direction, hugging the humid coastline, passing through bustling small towns with muddy side streets and over plenty of annoying speedbumps. Fresh fish has to be the choice for lunch so we sat by the muddy promenade of Puerto Lopez watching the locals and the surprising number of gringos go about their business.

The night was spent in the disappointingly dull (both weather, location and people) Montañitas, a tiny seaside village of muddy streets and gringo style restaurants. In the evening we had some beers with a decent Swiss guy we bumped into then spent the night in our dollar campsite.

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