Leaving Peru and Riding my Motorcycle through Ecuador
Update 29 (April 2023)
Trujillo, Peru to Ecuador
I spent four days in Trujillo. It was just a resting time after my previous long days getting there. I just stayed around the local neighbourhood and went to the shopping mall for a few supplies.
It was time to move on from Peru. I’d never really connected with the country. Many people seemed to be a little aggressive and on edge following the protests and government instability. So I headed straight up the highway for the Ecuador border, with one night in Piura.
I wasn’t sure what to expect in Ecuador. The Australian Government was giving it a pretty unsafe report of Reconsider Your Need to Travel. The crossing was quiet and went smoothly on both sides. The Ecuador officials were all very friendly and I was quickly on my way.
I was heading for the town of Loja, where I had booked a hotel. I stopped at a roadside stall and met a nice family. I ended up giving them my leftover Peruvian cash which they were genuinely appreciative of. I tend to do this when I have some left over cash. It is too much hassle trying to exchange it with a money changer at the border. I do keep some local cash while leaving the border, in case there is some exit fee or tax. But once I am through I just look out for a local that looks like they’d appreciate it. If I give it away close to the border they normally have some easy way of changing it into their currency.
I was still up fairly high, mostly around 2,500 metres. Much of the time I was in the cloud and not seeing a lot of scenery.
I arrived in Loja around 4pm and after unloading, walked into town to find a local SIM card. I ended up at Claro again and quickly got something organised. I would normally try to find some third party motor vehicle insurance to cover me with my motorbike, but Ecuador seemed to have moved away from separate SOAT some years back. So I just did without any cover in Ecuador and didn’t have any issues at all.
The town square at Loja. It was a nice town and my first impressions of Ecuador were all positive. As it turned out, that night the Australian Government improved their travel rating for Ecuador to Exercise a High Degree of Caution.
I spent two nights in Loja and then moved on.
This house by the side of the road caught my attention, mainly the colours I think.
There was still a lot of low cloud. In fact it continued that way for all of my visit to Ecuador.
Probably the fanciest roundabout I remember seeing.
Much to my joy the standard of food had gone up a notch in Ecuador. This was a pretty standard lunch, with pollo, or often pork. And the delicious freshly made picante sauce on the left was often served on the side to complement the meat.
I was still travelling at elevations up to around 3,000 metres. Just as I was nearing the town of La Paz, Purin a thunderstorm hit. As soon as I entered the town I took shelter in the driveway of this shop. I bought a few things and the lady was happy for me to park there. I ended up there for about an hour while it hailed and thunder hit. Even though I was almost at the equator it was only about 10°C at this elevation.
I stayed in Cuenca that night and moved on the next day. I was just following the Pan America Highway or route 35. This is not normal for me. I have a philosophy that if I see other adventure motorcycle travellers, I am being boring and it is time to go more off track. But I still wasn’t completely settled about Ecuador for some reason and decided at that stage to just stay on the main highway through the country.
As I was stopped at a lookout and admiring a view of Chunchi, I heard a toot behind me. A young travelling motorcyclist pulled up behind me on his Royal Enfield, Himalayan. He was from Colombia and in fact the second lot of Colombian motorcyclists that I’d met that day. I’d also met a couple of nice young travellers that morning.
We had a chat about our travels and stuff. As he was leaving, he said, do you know about the landslide across the highway? I hadn’t heard about it. He didn’t know much either but explained what he’d done to get around and said it was bigger than he expected. I just left thinking I’d work it out when I arrived at it, and presumably there would be some sort of detour in place.
Further up the road I spotted a nice valley and town, so pulled off to take a photo. I just snapped the photo and then turned away. And then turned back as I realised what I’d seen. This was the landslide, I hadn’t imagined it was on this scale. Later I found out the tragic reality that more than 70 people had died when it hit part of the town of Alausi, about three weeks prior.
I did end up riding as far as I could, until I reached a police roadblock. I had a look at the route Google Maps suggested. The Colombian motorcyclist had said the Google Maps route he took was quite dicey in parts and he doubted I’d get up one muddy section.
So I jumped off my bike and walked over to try and ask the policemen that were working the roadblock and eating their lunch.
They shook their heads at the Google Maps route and before I knew it all four had jumped in the Police pickup and were giving me an escort back the way I’d come. They took me past the Google Maps route and to another turn off about 10km back. They were super friendly and pointed me in the right direction and told me to be careful.
Obviously most people knew of the tragedy and were avoiding the area but there were still locals and trucks using the detour track and it was struggling to cope at times.
Parts of the road were quite steep and slippery, with deep mud patches at times but generally it was okay.
Interestingly there were smatterings of wild poppies growing at times.
They had started bringing in machinery to improve the road. Fixing or detouring the Pan American Highway around the landslide will be a major construction project, so it seems this is all the town will have for access from the north in the meantime?
After a while I reached a small town. I hadn’t found any lunch and it was about 3:30pm. The baker here spoke a little English and had just taken some fresh sweet buns out of the oven. Perfecto!
My destination for the day was a town called Riobamba. I had booked a hotel already but ended up disagreeing with the owner when he wanted to charge me an extra commission above the agreed online booking rate. So I walked (rode) away, and found myself in the rain with no where to go.
But fortune favours the brave and I found an excellent hotel in the suburbs run by a nice lady. I ended up staying eight nights and having a good rest and doing some website work. This is Solar, who along with Lunar would come and hang out with me.
The included breakfast was always a treat. The yoghurt, fruit, spread and freshly blended juice would change every day. And the choice of how you wanted your eggs cooked.
That was about it for me and Ecuador. I rode on to Quito and had a night there. Then it was onwards for the Colombian border. I enjoyed Ecuador but the scenery was a little tame after some of the other countries and with all the low cloud it was actually hard to see much anyway. I did enjoy the food a lot.
Quesadillas for lunch at a very fancy gas station restaurant near Quito, Ecuador.