Ecuador II: Helping Hans and Other Acts of Rescue

In 2019 there was a series of protests and riots in Ecuador due to the introduction of austerity measures and more importantly, cancellation of fuel subsidies. This led to road blocks and a national curfew and the motorcycle groups were telling us not to come in. Entry into Ecuador this time was proving to be potentially as tricky. With the current state of emergency a new rule was in force: all entries by land had to be accompanied by an apostilled certificate attesting to one’s good character, i.e. showing a lack of criminal record. Well…..no overlander was going to have one of those handy but thankfully somebody else had thought of that too. There was a finca in Ibarra popular among travelers with their own vehicles and the owner approached the Ministry of Tourism in Quito. He explained how most of his guests hadn’t been home in months, or even years, and so an exception was made.  

We and the bike signed-out of Colombia with no problems. Over on the Ecuador side there was a moderate line in Migración. When we reached the counter we were asked for our police reports, and as instructed, we said we were on the Ministry of Tourism’s list. The confirmation of this took some time and was temporarily complicated by comparisons with our entry back in 2019.  Finally he stamped a decisive double click on Fran’s passport and wrote in the length of stay. Mine followed and we exited happily with 90 days each. Then it was over to the Customs window where we got our temporary vehicle import permit. Piece of cake.  Thank you Hans!

Speaking of the vehicle, there is a second piece of good news. The boy now has a name: Bolívar, after South America’s great liberator. It seemed apt for our situation and while it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easy, the fact is the names chooses us, not the other way around. I think we can be forgiven too for excluding the full “Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Julio Iglesias Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco” and making do with the simple “Bolívar”.

The finca in Ibarra hadn’t changed. The beer garden was still cheerful and well-stocked with German beer and the lake shimmered through the trees. We spent a peaceful few days in a cabana on the hill, compared notes with an Italian-Dominican Republican couple travelling in their van and got an Ecuador SIM card. Before we left Hans took our picture to send to the Minister of Tourism.

We were revisiting a farm in Sigchos and unfortunately had to drive through Quito to get there. Of course we took the wrong turn and sat squashed and choking in city traffic and fumes. The sign-posting here doesn’t usually appear until it’s too late and often has a name other than that on the map. Oh, and we missed the equator, again!  Finally, on the forested ring road the white city below grew smaller and smaller and we were back in the countryside. A while later we turned off the Pan American Hwy onto the Quilotoa Loop, one of the most beautiful regions in Ecuador. It winds through the mountains and links several Andean villages and the Quilotoa crater lake. Up and down we climbed, about 1,500m above the highway. In the deepest, narrowest valleys the switchbacks made for slow going as we spiraled our way down between dark green shadows and emerald slopes dazzling with patches of dappled sunlight.

Sigchos hadn’t changed but the road out looked different.  It might have been because we were now using Google Maps. The app had come a long way in the past four years, like it had finally discovered the America to the south. It was also partnered with Bolivar’s nav system so naturally we followed its lead.  Initially the road was good but eventually it turned off into the forest and was no longer paved. The surface got so rutted and bumpy that I finally got off, and shortly thereafter Fran got off too, though not voluntarily. It was then we realized it led nowhere but to a small house in a hollow at the bottom. Luckily a young boy of about fourteen or fifteen was home and came up to inspect us while Fran unloaded the boxes. When they were empty enough the three of us heaved and pulled and finally, after the second attempt, got the bike upright. Then the older brother appeared but ole Bolívar was still too heavy to get going up the hill. So with that, the younger fellow hopped on, in full OSHA-approved shorts and flip flops, and with Fran and big brother pushing, he drove skidding and sliding up the rocky slope to the top.

While I was collecting our bags from the ditch and struggling up the hill, I was calling our friend at the farm. “Send me a photo of where you are” she kept saying, and so I did, picture after picture of mountains and trees and sky. It just doesn’t get any sillier than that. In the end I put the fifteen year-old on and the two of them figured out who was where. Bolívar meanwhile still had a ways to go to the road so Fran drove up there while I got a lift with the boys. Back on tarmac, they hung around while the family running the store on the bend stared down at us from their garden. Their dogs had chased us on the way down but now I was glad I hadn’t given them the finger. (I’d wanted to.) I smiled up at the women washing clothes in the stone sink and they grinned back. The dogs, up close not much more than puppies, were now attacking each other while a bored llama looked on. By the time our rescue appeared, a man had joined the women and proceeded, in the dying light, to have his Saturday evening bath.

We had been on the right road, just not the one we’d taken last time. Our only wrong turn was the “driveway” to the kids’ house. Mila, in her red pick-up, with two strong men in the back for emergencies, drove us bumping down, down to the farm while Fran followed. It was 8k of deeply rutted mountain road and took a very long 45 minutes. What’s with this trip? Never a dirt road in four years and now two in less than four weeks?

At the farm nothing had changed except the geese Fernando and Frederica were gone, no doubt terrorizing some celestial farmyard in the sky, and the child was now seven instead of three.  We had our old room back, the river bubbled beneath the bathroom window and the dairy cows grazed in the fields. The drive to the village, some twenty-five minutes away, was still rocky and precarious in parts but better than the one we arrived on. We ate fruit from the orchard and eggs from the chickens who liked to keep a close eye on things, scurrying about in their own gossipy world of fuss, squawks and feather-flying. We had reached the Land of Milk and Honey and whoever says you can’t go back couldn’t have been more wrong.

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Forced to abandon paradise, in the small town of Guamote our accommodations turned out to be quite luxurious: a hacienda with dark wood paneling, overstuffed sofas and a roaring fireplace. The seven rooms were full, just us and a large family, half of whom showed up for breakfast in their pyjamas. The children said “buenos días” and “buenas tardes” when we passed in the corridors and in the evenings they played music and games.  We felt like the distant cousins, on the fringes but pleasantly tolerated. It was a haven on the outskirts of the town where life was colorful but hard. Nobody on those streets was ever going to spend an evening inside these hallowed walls.   

The road south was tough. In the mountains we got stopped at a makeshift roadblock (a rope across the road) operated by two women. They had a little food stall too, in case you got hungry while looking for your wallet. For the cost of $0.50 we were detoured through their town. We couldn’t argue; down the hill our road was out of commission. Higher up we passed forgotten villages and isolated houses on the edge of the mountain, one with a rearing horse whose only connection to earth was three young boys struggling with thin ropes.  A vision that lasted a split second but stayed with me long after. Then the fog came, a white mass with visibility of less than two meters, and lasted at least an hour. By the time we got beneath the clouds we were stiff from the stress and the new seats were getting awful reviews. What a day, five hours to drive 214k.

In Cuenca the ground shifted beneath us once again with the diversity and contradictions of life in Ecuador. Here in the foothills the Andean culture meets old Spain but mingling now among the descendants of both are ex pats from the US. It gets confusing sitting down to a pancake breakfast with old friends while down the street women in wide skirts and bowler hats sell live guinea pigs for dinner. It was here we found an upholsterer who stripped Bolivar’s seats, added two layers of extra foam and sewed it all up again, all for $20.00. They got a good test run on the way to the border town of Huaquillas and while not perfect, they weren’t half bad. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Peru’s 2,500k long coast was ahead and there was no doubt in my mind we’d be in need of the extra padding.

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