Four day biking tour

         Last week, we went on a four day bike tour, starting in Quito, and ending in Baños. We went from 5,000 meters, to 1,800 meters, or from super cold weather, to warm, humid weather.

We started biking in Cotopaxi National Park on a slightly uphill dirt road at high altitude.  The road was very slowly going up, but at the altitude, I had to take many breaks.   Later, I would be thinking of how much I'd rather be biking up this hill, rather than speeding down a steep downhill. 

Next, we all got into the van with our guide, to drive up Cotopaxi, a rounded mountain with snow on the peak.  The top was 4,600 meters.  It was windy, but not too much for it to be dangerous for biking down.  We got all of our gear on, and started down the long road.  It was a dirt road, which made the ride harder than expected.  The dirt road was bumpy, in addition to all the rocks.  I had thought before, that going downhill on a bike was super easy, but I found that you had to pay attention to the road for sharp turns, and had to press on the brakes a lot, to slow down.  Around a third of the way down, my mom and I got into the van.  We had been jostled enough and our hands were aching from pumping the brakes.  It was a relief to finally relax, but upsetting that we weren't able to go down the whole mountain. Oscar and my dad met us at the bottom. 

When we got to the bottom of Cotopaxi, my mom and I got out of the van, and started riding on the paved road to the visitors center.  There, we picked up Chompy, who was Alberto, the guide's, dog.  We played fetch with him for a while, taking a Dorito break, then we got into the van, and drove a bit.  The Doritos bag said that there was one spicy chip inside.  So every time I picked up a chip, I had to have someone take a tiny bite of my chip to make sure it wasn't the spicy one.  By five o'clock, we stopped at a square in the center of a small town, and had lunch.  We ate delicious curried macaroni with spinach pie, and banana bread for dessert.  We drank ginger tea.  It was late, but still really good. 

That night, we stayed in a town called Quilotoa.  The town was at high altitude, and sometimes you couldn't see more than ten feet  in front of you.

The next day, we started off by taking a hike around a lake.  The afternoon before, we had come to look at the view, but saw none, because of the mist and fog.  In the morning, there wasn't as much fog, it was even pretty sunny out. The hike was a beautiful, narrow path, looking over a lake.  The altitude was pretty high, so I was panting, all the way up to the small peak that we hiked to.  Even though the hike was hard, it was really cool to look down hundreds of meters to the blue/green lake from a high-up point.

When we got back to the van, it was time to bike again.  The ride to the town where we had lunch before, was short, but did have a few uphills. I enjoyed riding on the smooth paved road, even though we had to push our bikes on the uphills.  We saw small stone cottages and mini shops selling ice cream, fields with cows and llamas and alpacas, and people wearing indigenous clothing working near their houses along the way.  People were friendly and waved to us as we went by.  

We got in the van next, for a short drive to a small dirt road at the top of green fields and grass.   A flock of sheep was grazing nearby, and two sheepdogs came over begging for food.  We had lunch there, then started biking downhill.  Half way through the ride, I got into the van.  I think I was pretty lucky to, because there was a huge uphill right where I got in, plus a super bumpy dirt road, and a dog chasing Oscar.  When we reached the paved road, I got onto my bike again.  After descending a huge downhill stretch on the paved road, with a cliff on our right and a valley on our left, we got into the van, and drove to the lodge for the night.

The third day of our biking tour, we drove up to Chimborazo in the morning.  Chimborazo is a very tall mountain, more than 6,000 meters.  We drove up all the way around the mountain, which was scenic and beautiful, but the thought that was in my mind was that I would be riding down this path later.  At the top, we started hiking up a small trail.  It seems like the hike would be easy, but in addition to the altitude, it was really windy.  I made it up to 4,800 meters.  Chompy, Alberto's dog, really liked to play fetch, so we threw him a stone on top of the mountain.  

After our hike, we got out the bikes and started riding down.  It didn't seem quite as steep as Cotopaxi in the beginning, but it was way more bumpy, plus extremely cold.  At first, I started to feel in control, but then, I kept on bouncing up and down on my seat.  In the beginning part, I stopped to put an extra layer of gloves on.  I kept on riding and riding, but eventually, I got into the van.  It was a good call though, because at the next bend, we entered a cloud, where you could only see a few feet in front of you. 

After we got down the mountain, there was a short, 7 kilometer drive.  Then, we stopped for lunch at a bend in the road.  There was a small stream, and we played fetch with Chompy. It was way warmer than the top of Chimborazo, and we didn't need our wind breakers.  Half way through lunch, a man walked up to Alberto and asked him how much he wanted for Chompy.  Alberto said that Chompy wasn't for sale.  The man kept on asking and asking.  Eventually, he went away.

After lunch, we started riding down a really beautiful valley, with cows grazing beneath the cliff we were riding on.  The road followed a small stream that grew bigger and rougher.  It was beautiful and quiet, until we got stopped at a construction site.  After that, was a mix of riding behind giant trucks, and squeezing through traffic jams.  It was kind of stressful trying to stay as close as possible to the side of the road so that delivery trucks could pass.  We got into the van shortly after that.

That night, we drove to Baños, where we are still staying right now. The next day, was the last day of the tour.  We took a short ride on our bikes all the way to a tall and roaring waterfall.  The ride was pretty easy, downhill, with a few uphills.  It was windy though, so I never had to press on the brakes to slow down.  Even on the downhills, I had to lean all the way forward to go fast.

At the waterfall, we bought a whole bag of sugar cane to eat.  Then, we started hiking. When we got to the waterfall, we hiked down a little structure that got you as close to the water as possible.  The water was turquoise, because it came from a glacier.  Water was spraying up on you, and making rainbows on the side of the structure.  We walked back to a restaurant close to the waterfall, which apparently hadn't been noticed by many people.  While the waterfall was crowded, we were the only people in the restaurant.  That afternoon, Alberto drove us back to Baños, where we ended our trip.  After four days of biking, I felt more experienced and I probably could do much more than I did on the first day at Cotopaxi.