Southern Exposure

Wednesday, February 4

Breakfast wasn’t included in this hotel, so we had a quick breakfast next door for $6 total. Peru was much cheaper than Ecuador if you avoided the obvious tourist places. We were on the road by 9, only to go park ourselves back at the Yamaha dealer. I had decided overnight I wanted at least one more quart of oil on hand as the red bike uses great amount of oil on the straight line grinds. Our mechanic friend was there, so he speed off to find us chain lube while we waited. Half an hour later he returned, lube in hand. Score!

We were heading south by 10, not as early as we would have liked, but early enough. It was more desert landscape. The desert vistas can be very beautiful, but when the road is just a bee line to the horizon, the miles really stretch out. Just south of Chimbote we were appalled at how the desert south of town was used as a garbage dump. What would have been a beautiful landscape was just covered in trash. The poverty of Peru was evident as you could see shacks built amidst the garbage. I couldn’t bring myself to stop and take a picture.

When we reached Trujillo, we stopped at the ruins of Chan Chan. This was a 900 year old city built out of mud. It’s a testament to the desert aridity that you can build something this large out of mud and some part of it will still be standing 900 years later. There aren’t any guards or fences or seemingly any restrictions on visiting the exterior, and we were able to ride around at will between the buildings.

Some of the walls were nearly melted, but the main complex had been rebuilt. We parked to have a drink and take the tour as we were curious what was inside the walls. We ran into a young Canadian couple in the parking lot. They were on a long trip traveling by bus. The man was a fellow KLR rider and it was clear he’d rather be riding than taking the bus.

We bought our entrance tickets and hired an English speaking guide. We told our guide we wanted a bit of an abbreviated tour as walking around in the desert sun in riding gear for an hour didn’t lend itself to lingering. We learned a bit of the history of the city, which was only 1 km from the ocean. Most of the reliefs on the walls were ocean related, with pelicans, fish, and fishing nets the principle decoration. It was interesting to learn, and again, impressive that something could be built so enduring with a primitive mud concrete.

After the tour, it was back on the bike to cool ourselves off in the wind. We made it through Trujillo with only a gas stop, and then it was back to the desert riding. The sand dunes were becoming larger and more striking. The sand blew across the roads in streams, and the bike would leave a wake as it rode through.

When we arrived in Chimbote, we were given another lesson in the kindness of Peruvians. We had pulled over to see if we had a map of the city when a car stopped in front of us. The driver asked us in passable english if we needed any help, and we told him we were looking for a hotel. He told us where a few were, and gave us directions, but ultimately, with his family in the car, told us to follow him. He led us to a nice hotel and the main plaza. We thanked him and he was off.

The hotel was more than we wanted to spend, and had no parking. We decided to try the official “tourist” hotel he had mentioned, down on the water. It was even more expensive, so I left Inna with the bikes to admire the ocean while I went on foot to check another hotel we’d seen on the way over. Apparently Chimbote is a hub of the fishing industry as the harbor was filled with hundreds of anchored fishing vessels.

The 3rd hotel was only slightly cheaper, but it seemed nice and had an attached garage. We rode over, parked in the garage, and lugged our bags up a few flights of stairs. We were tired from all of the heat, so we quickly cleaned up and got out to try and get an early dinner. Chimbote was like Chiclayo in that was another crowded, bustling city. Neither of us was in the mood to deal with this, so after some searching around, we settled on a gigantic roasted chicken restaurant close to the hotel. Another easy menu, chicken or chicken junior, 1/4, 1/2, or whole.

After dinner it was back to the room for more writing. We were determined to get caught up and not always feel so behind on writing.

The next morning I did mange to record a traffic scene to capture how noisy the traffic can be. There aren’t that many cars, but it’s like the drivers are blind like bats and only feel their way via echolocation. Every meter covered requires a small tap of the horn, and they seem to have adapted the car alarm chirping sounds as some kind of ping. It’s constant, constant noise.

Tuesday, February 3rd

It felt like it had been ages since we crossed into Ecuador so anticipation was high for a border crossing. I actually felt rusty about the procedure, but we’d read this was going to be a very chill crossing that wouldn’t take too much time. We had breakfast at the hotel, went to the bank for our last easy access to US dollars, and packed the bikes.

After refueling the bikes, we were off on the 5 minute ride to the border. I think this was the first time we had stayed in a border town before a crossing, and it makes the day very stress free. The border was indeed a small, quiet crossing. It only took a few minutes to get stamped out of Ecuador and through immigration on the Peruvian side. At the aduana, our customs officer was an elderly gentleman who was clearly not in a hurry. As he processed our paperwork it seemed like it was the first time he’d ever done it before as he laboriously filled out the forms. I was surprised at how informal the Peruvian paperwork was as the principle immigration document was printed on a single sheet of paper and then torn into 3 sections by hand once filled out.

All in all, the border crossing took about an hour, and we were on our way. We were under 2000 ft in elevation, the lowest we had been on the motorcycles since Panama. The vegetation was a darker shade of green, and instead of the smooth green grass covered hills, the hillsides in this part of Peru were fuzzy looking, covered in short trees and bushes.

We worked our way south cautiously. We had read reports of numerous highway police waiting in ambush for real or otherwise speeding violations as an excuse to get a bribe. We actually did see a lot of police parked on the roadside near the entrance and exits of the small villages, but we were so paranoid in obeying the absurdly low speed limits we made it through without incident.

In less than 100 miles, we had descended to sea level and left the vegetation behind us. Due to the rain shadow of the Andes, the western half of Peru is desert. The vegetation becomes smaller and more dispersed the farther south we rode.

We stopped in Piura to find an ATM to acquire Peruvian Soles and fill up our tanks. We had a gas station lunch of water, gatorade, chips, and fruit. The town served as our proper introduction to the Peruvian tuk tuks, the three wheeled motorbike taxis that are omnipresent on the streets. One of them kindly offered to trade bike with me but I declined. It would be too comfortable having all that space.

It took a few tries to find the right road out of town as more than one is called the Panamerican, or 1. We finally got it right and entered a long desert stretch. The vegetation went from minimal to non existent. The landscape was just dirt, rock, and sand dunes which occasionally blew sand across the highway.

At first it was a pleasant change of scenery, as both Inna and I are fans of desert landscapes, but after 100 miles of it, the ride became more of a straight line grind in the heat. The wind picked up to give us something to worry about, and the last 50 miles or so were spent leaned into the wind.

We arrived in late after in Chiclayo, our stopping point for the night. On the main road into town, we stopped at a Yamaha dealer to buy more oil for Inna’s bike. With no hope of fixing the leak, we needed to keep an ample supply on hand. We’d also run out of chain lube, but they didn’t sell it. The mechanic displayed the usual above and beyond kindness and led us a few blocks away to a shop that should have had it, but didn’t. He told us we could come back in the morning and he’d find it somewhere else. We are constantly amazed at the kindness shown to us by strangers.

Once safely parked in our nice but very stuffy hotel room, we headed out for dinner. Chiclayo was a real culture shock compared even to Quito. The sidewalks were packed with people, and the streets packed with cars and taxis. The sounds of honking and strange car sirens created an ever present cacophony. It actually felt like we were in New York with so much hustle and bustle on the street.

The sidewalks felt like a mass of people always going the opposite direction that we wanted to go. Apparently all everyone does in Chiclayo is take pictures and then talk about it on the phone. I’ve never seen so many photo stores in one place, and if it wasn’t a photo store, it was probably a cell phone store. The other 20% are shops and restaurants.

We tried a restaurant from the book, hoping to get the local specialty, arroz con pato, a duck dish. The first restaurant we tried said they had no duck, so we went to another, more bustling place. No duck either, we presume it’s out of season and are seated to choose something else. I try chicharrones de pollo, which I discover means chopped into little bits and fried. Inna orders arroz con mariscos, a huge, huge pile of seafood and rice.

Our restaurant includes a walk up hamburger stand. The man making the burgers was a real burger machine, laying out 16 buns topped with french fries. He then goes to work rapidly making various different kinds of burgers – chicken, meat and pork. He was in demand as the line was never less than six persons deep and usually twice that many. Sitting there watching him crank out the burgers actually made us regret not ordering them instead as they looked great and were clearly highly popular.

After dinner, it was back to the room to watch some cable news, do some writing, and sleep.

Monday, February 2

I have really enjoyed Cuenca. It is a very neat and orderly city with stunning architecture set in the beautiful rolling hills of southern Ecuador. It was time for us to move on and try to get as close as possible to the border with Peru.

After the usual jumble of trying to navigate our way out of the city and on to the main highway we finally got on the road south. The first hour was filled with exhaust smell from the large trucks and busses we were trying to pass.

As we left the city behind, we started climbing deeper into the Andes. We were rewarded with beautiful views of the mountains painted in brown and deep green colors, as well as mountain peaks covered in a veil of cottony clouds.

We stopped in a small town of Saraguro that our book said was known for its textiles and hats. After riding around town in circles we haven’t spotted a single store selling hats so we moved on realizing that Matt’s hat might not get purchased in Ecuador after all.

We forgot to fill up on gas in Cuenca, so were coasting for about 50 miles downhill enjoying the scenery of lush green hills, neatly manicured crop fields, roaming animals, and colorful houses set on the mountain hills in the distance.

We finally reached a one road town with a gas station. Once we filled our tanks and rode through more of the bright green hills, it started getting cooler and the clouds ahead were looking more and more fierce.

There was also some extensive road construction going on so we were moving quite slow, many times having to ride on gravel.

I was afraid we were going to have to ride in the rain again, but thankfully as we descended into the valley overlooking the city of Loja it became much warmer and nicer.

We messed up after Loja and took an alternative road towards Macara, which was longer going through a number of small towns in the mountains. We decided to press on, knowing that we will get to Macara in the dark.

The scenery however was gorgeous and despite time constraints we stopped frequently for pictures.

We were moving pretty fast thinking we had avoided the mountain passes that were soaked in clouds in the distance, but our luck was such that on the last stretch of the road we started climbing up again into a thick fog and cold nasty rain. I had to keep my visor up as it was impossible to see the road, which was covered in mud and pot holes. Finally out of the fog, we rode the last 20 miles in complete darkness. My face was colliding with hundreds of fire flies and heavy bugs, but the smell in the air was pleasantly fragrant and the thought of a dinner and a bed to come was keeping my spirits up.

We finally reached Macara and quickly found a surprisingly nice hotel with a parking garage for $20. We grabbed a quick dinner and were out cold soon there after.

Sunday, February 1

I was very happy with our selection of hostal Chordeleg. It was a converted colonial home right in the center of Cuenca. Not only did we get to park our bikes in the lobby, our room was clean and spacious with a little balcony overlooking one of the churches. The included breakfast was tasty and the overall service was great. We even were able to connect to the public wi-fi network that was available for free in the center of the city. What a great concept!

After breakfast, while Matt was doing minor bike maintenance downstairs, I caught a glimpse of a parade from our balcony. A procession of people dressed in colorful traditional outfits, some on foot, some on horses, some dancing, and others playing instruments, was moving towards the church outside our hostal.

It seemed like a great opportunity to get a taste of local culture, so we joined in the festivities.

Out on the plaza, judging by the groups of people in their traditional outfits, the different countries’ flags they were carrying and the large number of children dressed in folk and religious costumes, we concluded it was some kind of a cultural festival, aimed mainly at kids and adolescents.

Nobody at our hostal could tell us what that all was about.

After snapping photos of the fiesta, we went to visit one of the local markets, Mercado 10 de Agosto, which is mainly known for its selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and local food.

While there was nothing to buy in terms of the touristy stuff, it was quite a fascinating view of a day-to-day Cuencan life.

We each sampled one of their fresh fruit smoothies (for 30 cents each!), starred at the full roasted pigs on display, got some fruits for the road and headed off to continue our tour of the city.

Strangely enough, apart from the morning’s parade, the city felt very deserted. I guess, as true Catholics the locals spend their Sundays at home with the family.

We wondered around the center (UNESCO World Heritage Cultural site) looking at the striking churches and buildings, grabbed a quick lunch and some ice cream at the very popular “Tutto Fredo” cafe on the main square, and after discovering that all artisan shops were closed (Matt was still looking for his perfect Ecuadorian hat) we went back to the hotel to figure out our plans for the rest of the afternoon.

After a quick rest we decided to venture off for a walk along the river and see the sunset from the Turi overlook, a hill to the south of the city.

As we were approaching the river, we were hit with a water balloon from one of the apartment buildings on the street. It mainly hit me in the back soaking my t-shirts and jeans pretty badly.

Earlier that day we noticed that throwing water bombs was one of the favourite kids’ activities in Cuenca. We busted a little girl who was eyeballing us to throw the water filled balloon, missing us barely. This time they got me good. Its funny, because as a kid I remember throwing water bombs from the balcony of my 10th floor apartment in Moscow, and having so much fun with it. Karma surely does catch up with you sooner or later. For that reason I was not mad at whoever did it. I hope they had a good laugh hearing me scream. 🙂

After our river walk we realized the clouds were pretty thick and we were not going to have a good sunset, so we abandoned the idea of Turi, and took a cab to the local mall in hopes of giving Matt a haircut. The people at the salon did not acknowledge our presence for 10 minutes so we left. Took a bus (with a long detour) back to the hotel, got some pizza for the room and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on the blog.

Saturday, January 31

We did the impossible and actually were up and out of our hotel room before eight. The staff of the hotel had been fighting or partying or something all night, so we had not slept well. Our efforts were rewarded with every single breakfast place we had picked out the night before being closed. Apparently not many people eat early in Baños.

We walked around, found a busy restaurant and took our seats at a table. We sat for a few minutes waiting for service, and then we were asked to move from our nice table to some picnic table setup behind a curtain against the wall. I don’t know what that was all about, but we weren’t having it and just walked out. We decided to eat at a hostel because they must be up early, and chose the French hostel near our hotel. The food was fine but the service was slow.

When we were doing our final packing, we could hear loud music coming from the park across the street. Inna went out onto the balcony and watched the local middle school girls doing dance aerobics. It was a huge group being led in doing dance calisthenics by an instructor. It was a strange sight for a Saturday morning and it must have been compulsory judging by the turnout. As we were packing the bikes, the boys of the town marched by led in cadence by a few soldiers.

Once we were on the road, we had to backtrack. Although the map indicated there was a road going south to Riobamba, the sign pointing to Riobamba pointed to a pile of dirt. Our best guess was that a mudslide had closed the road because there wasn’t anything even remotely resembling even a dirt road south from Baños.

Once the backtracking was done, we were headed south. The scenery was lightly populated countryside, but not terribly scenic. Once we were past Riobamba, the scenery was back to the green rolling hills of high altitude Ecuador. We had heard that Riobamba to Cuenca was a tough ride, but the road was nice and the scenery spectacular.

Some of the days’ rides are a grind, just transiting from one location to another, but this was one of the rides where we are constantly stopping to take pictures. Every corner brings a new vista and another stop to take it in and a few photos.

The native dress of highland Ecuador is charming. The little ladies in their felt hats and brightly colored shawls stand out as brightly colored dots in the green fields. We were shy about taking their pictures and invading their privacy, but on one occasion we couldn’t resist and pulled over. One of the two women tending some sheep was willing to have her picture taken, for a price. Inna didn’t understand the price, but gave her $.50 and she seemed happy.

Nothing good lasts forever, and we could see rain on the horizon. It looked like we weren’t going through those mountains, but the road soon turned in the direction of the rain. The rain was relatively light, and we switched to rain gloves as we already had our rain gear on.

We ascended to the level of the clouds and the rain became heavier. We were riding inside the clouds, which meant both moisture and low visibility. Progress was slow as we worked our way through the invisible curves, just following the painted line at the right edge of the road.

We finally made our way through the clouds, and what we gained in visibility we lost in road quality. The road along this section was really torn up, full of huge pot holes and rocks. Some sections were just dirt. Other sections were actively under construction, meaning mostly chopped up dirt. It was slow, tough going, and now we knew why this was considered a tough ride.

We had one final climb ahead, and the steady rain was accompanied by lower temperatures. The lowest temperature I saw on my dash was upper 40s, and we were only wearing shorts and tshirts under our riding gear. The heated grips were on high. We had one more pass through the cloud layer, with the high point of this last leg of the ride being 11,678 ft.

The descent to Cuenca was more traffic and potholes. It finally smoothed out, and the sky cleared a bit, even showing an occasional bit of sunlight. Without getting too lost, we found our way into downtown Cuenca and found our hotel. There was no normal parking garage, so the hotel manager invited us to park our bikes in the in the hotel lobby. We felt bad riding our bikes covered in mud and dripping wet into the nice, clean hotel lobby, but the manager seemed happy. This was the first time on the trip we’d ridden our bikes inside a hotel.

It had been a tough ride of only 233 miles. The scenery had been great, but rain, clouds, road construction, and general poor condition of the last third of the ride had been exhausting, and we were so happy to have hot showers and a warm meal.

Friday, January 30

We were ready to be out of the big city and our goal for the day was only a modest distance to the town of Baños. With good directions from the staff at our hotel, we managed to navigate out of Quito without too much trouble. The freeway we were on didn’t last and we found ourselves lost in a suburb. The signs pointed south, but the road was blocked. When I asked the police where the detour went, he told us bikes could go through.

After following a few more detours and aborted run at the very under construction dirt Road of the Volcanos, we were back on the Panamerican headed south. We were supposed to be able to see several spectacular volcanic peaks including Cotapaxi along our ride south, but our streak of zero volcanos continued as the clouds concealed all. We did manage to see some local restaurants grilling cuy.

The only highlight of this day’s ride was playing leapfrog with a local riding south. He was on a 250 and liked to ride fast, but the 250 was no match for the uphill grades above 10,000 ft. He would fly by us going downhill, catching air over speed bumps, and then we would cruise by him on the next uphill. The scenery was unremarkable today so this was our entertainment.

We descended into Baños, located at the bottom of a narrow valley surrounded by steep, green mountainsides. We found the hotel we had made a reservation at the night before without too much trouble as Baños had actually bothered to put up street signs. The hotel seemed nice enough and continued our run of oversized rooms.

It was early afternoon when we arrived, so we thought we would take advantage of the town’s namesake, natural hot springs heated by the nearby volcanos. We put our bathing suits on and walked down the street towards the waterfall which marked the location of the public baths.

We climbed towards the base of the waterfall, so we could get a view of the hot springs before paying admission. The hot springs were swimming pool like squares filled with brown water and plenty of locals. Nothing about it was enticing so we decided to head back to the spa we had walked by. They were advertising hour massages for $25, which was hard to pass up considering we had an afternoon to kill.

We each got massages, and while Inna stayed to get a facial, I walked around the small downtown. If I had been here 10 years earlier, I probably would have loved this place. It’s the South American Interlaken, dedicated to outdoor sports. Small dune buggies were everpresent in town, and half the stores were renting motorcycles, mountain bikes, or horses. The rest were selling tourist junk or expedition stores.

After I picked up Inna, we went out to a Swiss dinner. My food was good, but Inna sent her first dish back, only to have them make the wrong replacement dish. Not a good dinner and we were happy to get out of there and to head out of Baños the next day.

Thursday, January 29

Finally, after being in Quito for two and a half days running errands and scheduling our Galapagos tour we had a full day to enjoy some sightseeing. We were mainly interested in visiting the Centro Historico, which features colonial architecture the Spanish constructed over the remains of the Inca city.

We had a quick breakfast at the hostel and rolled out around 10 am. Matt was not feeling well – his minor cough from the Galapagos developed into a full on flu.

We decided to visit the National Museum first, which our Viva Guide advertised as a must see. We got a cab and told him to take us to “Museo Nacional.” The driver looked confused, so I repeated the full name of the museum as was written in our guide book – “Museo Nacional del Banco Central del Ecuador.” It should have been a five-minute ride, but the route he chose seemed incorrect to us, and we only realized that he dropped us off at the actual Banco Central del Ecuador after we let the cab go. We decided to ask another cab for directions to the museum, and he pointed to the same bank building. We went inside and were told the museum was at another location. Baffled at the ignorance of some local taxi dirvers, we continued on for more cab drama. This time the driver wanted triple of what it actually cost to get us to the museum and refused to turn on the meter, getting all mad about it. We got out and got another cab, only this time we were stuck in traffic for longer than we were moving. We finally decided to walk and got there in 10 minutes.

The museum was definitely worth the visit, though the impressive “gold exhibit” was under construction, and both of us felt completely faint towards the end. Matt feeling under the weather and I must have been under the influence of high altitude. The exhibits were well organized, from fascinating ancient artifacts to contemporary paintings, and we spent about two hours wondering around the museum learning about Ecuador’s history and culture.

After the museum we headed to the historical district. We stopped for a quick lunch and much needed cup of java, before our tour of the numerous plazas and cathedrals.

On one of the plazas, we were approached by a local artist who was selling his paintings that were quite good. We saw similar style paintings in one of the tourist shops for $200 each and he was selling them for $20-$40. I had to buy one for my art collection, and after some bargaining ended up with two pieces for $52.

We then stopped by a hat store where I purchased a black felt hat with a little feather – the fashion staple of all Ecuadorian women (and men).

Matt didn’t have much energy left it him, so we headed to the last stop on our tour La Basilica del Voto Nacional, a striking church that stands on a steep hill to the northeast of Centro Historico. As we were walking to the church, dark grey clouds covered the sky and it started raining heavily.

At the church, we climbed up the tower that offered several vantage points along the way. At the very top we were rewarded with excellent views of the city – if only it was a clear day. It cleared up slightly towards the end, so I was able to snap a few worthy pictures of Quito stretching over old and new parts of the city. We had a quick snack at the “sky cafe” and headed home for some rest.

By the time we got to the hostel it was already 6 pm. I ran out to get pizza to go and we concluded the day by watching Dexter and eating pizza in bed.

Wednesday, January 28

Before we left for the Galapagos, we had scheduled an appointment with their Kawasaki dealer to take a final shot at fixing Inna’s oil leak. I also wanted to get both bike’s an oil change as this would be the last major city we’d be in for a while. Additionally, my rear tire had maybe 1000 miles left on it on pavement, but with Peru ahead, it was time to finally put the rear tires we had been lugging down from Los Angeles on.

Inna’s had more tread left than mine, but ultimately we decided to change tires on both bikes. We were at the halfway point of the journey and there were plenty of dirt roads ahead, so any extra traction would help.

The mechanics at the dealer were very helpful, and I gave them the usual description of where it was leaking and what had been done so far. He popped off the latest seal, took a look, and did something no one else had looked at yet, the o-ring. Inside the bushing there is an o-ring, and it looked a bit worn. Ultimately we replaced the o-ring and put on the 4th or 5th new seal of the trip, but at least the o-ring was a new idea. The bad news is that if the new seal and o-ring don’t fix it, the shaft is probably warped and will need replacing. Major surgery I won’t do until we get home.

We spent 4 hours at the dealer, most of our day, and since we were so behind on the blog, and I was feeling under the weather, we chose to have an early dinner and spend the evening catching up on our writing and posting. While I had been supervising the mechanics, Inna had been in at the dealer writing and organizing photos, so we had a lot to post.

For an early British style dinner, we went to the famous Turtle’s Head Pub owned by an ADV rider. Back at the hotel, we wrote, posted, and went to bed early, determined to actually see something of Quito before we left town.

We have plenty more images and videos from our Galapagos trip, so rather than crush the main page with them, we’ve added a collection of pages with images from each island.

You can find the images and video here: Galapagos.

Tuesday, January 27

We had one final stop in the Galapagos before being taken to Baltra to the airport. We were stopping at Las Bachas, to see more flamingos. It was another wet beach landing and once ashore, we walked the short distance to the tiny brackish pond. No flamingos. This made for a fairly disappointing final stop for the only animals around were a few iguanas and the ever present crabs.

Since we were going directly from here to the airport dropoff, there was no time for snorkeling or swimming. We wandered up and down the beach, admittedly a bit bored, but soaking our final Galapagos moments and taking our last pictures. As we were boarding the dinghy to go back to the boat, I did manage to finally see a marine iguana swimming – I had missed the one Inna saw.

We spent our last 40 minutes of boat transit packing up. We arrived at the dropoff for Baltra, and took our last dinghy ride ashore with our bags. It was a short bus ride to the airport, and we were there a few hours early. We killed time looking at the souvenir shops clustered out front and then had a quick snack in the cafe before boarding.

The flight back was uneventful and a bit sad. The Galapagos had been an incredible experience, and we are so glad we seized the opportunity to visit while we were so nearby. Even with all of the strict rules about where you can and can’t go on the island, it was magical and is surely one of the jewels of this journey. It was also a nice vacation from our trip because we were in the same bed every night, there was no bike maintenance, and we had three good meals a day without having to go searching for them.

Once we landed in Quito, we took a cab back to our travel agent’s house, where her elderly father let us in. We repacked our bikes and put on all of our riding gear, which was quite different than our previous four days’ attire of swimsuit and t-shirt. We rode to a new hostel that Brian had recommended, the Travellers Inn, and they had a room for us. The parking was much easier than Casa Helbling and the rooms much nicer. It was a good upgrade and we owe Brian for that tip.

We went out for a pizza dinner, which despite being cooked in a wood burning oven, was not that great and overpriced to boot. At least the salads were huge and tasty. We went back to the hostal for some rest, and Inna could still feel the bed rocking as she fell asleep.