a self-supported bicycle tour through South America

7th - 9th August 07 Total: 360 miles / 576km

Guayaquil > Machala (95miles/152km)

We set off early from Guayaquil to avoid traffic, and to make the most of the incredibly flat route and lovely road conditions. Very muggy and humid, but loving the fact that we aren’t out of breath after 2 minutes of mountains! Hooray, decision well made.
This day was my first real enjoyable day of cycling and I can now see where Simon gets his buzz for it from. Making your way from place to place under your own steam is such an empowering thing to do, and I have so thoroughly loved watching the kilometers tick over, and the speed pick up. In the mountains we were averaging about 3km/h and only making 25km in four hours. Very disheartening.
But today the average was 22km/h, and after four hours of cycling we had done 70kms! Such a pleasure. We stopped for lunch at a bizarre roadside yoghurt stand that sold the most delicious smoothies you could imagine. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by banana plantations and poverty rife shanty towns, and …. a yoghurt oasis smack bang in the middle! When the Pilsner truck pulled up delivering supplies, the driver took pity and gave us two beers “..for strength..” he said as he flexed his muscles at us. Nice. The locals we have met though have just been so incredibly friendly. All of the trucks and buses beep their horns as they wizz passed and give us the thumbs up. I am getting a little tired of this though as they are now seeming to beep their horns just on going passed, which nearly throws me off my bike!
We had only planned to make it a short days’ cycling but as our surroundings proved (once again) not to be camper friendly (note dead rats and 4 meter snake road kill! – and no, we weren’t collecting for dinner) we pushed onto the next town, and then the next, and then the next.
We both get a little nervous when the day reaches near end as we have been told on a number of occasions to watch out for thieves. It is better to already be settled in camp by this time of the day, but the vegetation just hasn’t allowed us to do so. So, we push on to the next dodgy shanty town. By this stage, most of the workers from the plantations are on their way home, either by bike or foot, carrying giant machetes swishing them over the grass as they go (just for fun we suspect). Not much fun for the oncoming cyclist doing 26km/h!
So we pushed onto the next town (again too dodgy) and then decided to push for Machala. After a full day totaling 152km (I repeat that - 152km – and am told, by you know who, that I haven’t reached my century [he in miles], but I retort that I was brought up in kilometer so milestones will be more often and he can’t take it away from me!) we arrived in Machala at about 1800hrs in search of suitable accommodation for the night with incredibly weary limbs and tired eyes. Exhausted and only after one full day of cycling!
I have not experienced much “saddle” time before this, and for those that are interested, it can be quite … uncomfortable shall I say? One has to adjust one’s self every few minutes which requires less pedaling, and when you have someone cycling right on your back wheel (to assist with headwind and drag etc) can prove to be incredibly precarious!
Sore bum aside, the stress at the moment for us stems from the fact that we don’t have any idea if there will be a suitable place to pitch a tent at the end of the day. And because of that, we have to push onto towns to find accommodation (that are proving less safe than the dodgy banana plantations!) We are hoping that this will change. This aspect hasn’t been much fun so far. But we are hopeful that this will change as we move further down the coast into Peru.
We were hoping , and were fairly confident through our research, that we would be able to avoid these major roads and hence the dodgy shanty towns (the poverty really is saddening) but the condition of the back roads is appalling and not really doable by bike, especially carrying the amount of gear we are. Ah the trauma of adventure travelling!
Thank you all for the great text messages and the comments on the blogs and in the guestbook. It means so much to us that you are following our journey with us. Although we do suspect that it is a good way to waste time at work…Gary J?????

Sorry for the boring pickies…x