La Lluvia

Chunchi – El Tambo, Ecuador

Two big things today: rain and ruins.

Well, it finally happened. After tiptoeing around it, we had full on rain. The kind where you’re getting pelted from all directions. From the sky, off of your wheels, off of your partner’s wheels, and from the big puddle-splashes of cars driving by. 

This came with about 25 miles left to go. Within two minutes we were pretty much frozen – or at least I was. It would have been one thing if we had five miles left to go. But, as it was, I started thinking about a cab of some sort. 

We would just need to reach the next town . . .

Or maybe we could flag down one of the numerous pickup trucks that were driving by. 

Fortunately, before I had a chance to talk this through with Diana the rain started to let up. And then we had what amounted to about a 45 minute climb. Nothing like a long climb to warm you up . . .

So the storm literally passed – and, while we were subjected to some drizzle, it never really rained hard on us again. 

I found out afterwards that Diana didn’t care. She wasn’t thinking about a cab. She wasn’t thinking about pickup trucks. She was her normal honey-badger self. Never seen the honey-badger stuff? You should. (Just do a google search for something like “honey badger don’t care”. Or click here.)

The honey badger pretty much summarizes my wife . . . 

It’s raining and cold. “Honey-badger don’t care. Honey-badger just keeps on biking.”

A huge vicious dog tries to run Diana down. “Diana don’t care. She just keeps on biking.”

A volcano erupts and hot lava runs all over the road. “Diana don’t care. She just keeps on biking.”

Well, the language in the honey badger video is a little bit more colorful, but you get the idea. 

So I never mentioned to Diana my opt-out ideas. 

The conversation was more like this:

”What do you think? Should we call . . .”

”Let’s just keep going.”

”Oh. Umm. Yeah. Let’s keep going. That’s what I said . . .”

Maybe don’t mention all this to Diana. I don’t want her to think that her husband is a complete wimp . . .

But it was pretty cold . . . And I was only thinking of Diana . . . I didn’t want her to get frostbite or something . . .

Like yesterday, there were a few times when the fog lifted as the day went along. And, like yesterday, we enjoyed some breathtaking scenery. So lush. So green. Such striking mountains. 

But even taking away the cold and rain, it was another tough day. 6,000’+ of climbing over 37 miles. Any time you have over 1,000’ of elevation gain for every ten miles you bike you are in trouble . . . We almost had 2,000’ for every ten miles today. Rough. 

And, you know when it takes over six hours to cycle 36 miles, you are doing some serious climbing . . .

But we did make it through the ride on time to see the Ingapirca Ruins – an Incan archeological site not far from El Tambo. I guess it’s like the Manchu Picchu of Ecuador. But, if that’s the case, then it’s a little difficult to understand why so many people go to Manchu Picchu. 

It was neat that the Incans moved some stones around and stuff, and that they laid out the main building with the equinoxes in mind, and it was definitely worth the 75 cents for the bus fare to the site, but we found it a bit lacking in the wow department. 

Maybe if there had been some better interpretative stuff it would have been different. And maybe the interpretative stuff was great if you know Spanish well enough. So maybe it’s our fault for not knowing. But if they want to attract more foreign tourists – Americans, Europeans, etc. – they may want to up their game. 

I can never figure out how these places do their translating. I mean, I took some German in high school. But you wouldn’t have me write the German translations for a Minneapolis museum. No, you would find a native German speaker. 

Otherwise you end up with translations something like this:

”It is where they grew potatoes.” (With no explanation of what “it” is, or who “they” were.)

Of course, it was better for us than for the other Gringos on the bus – two young and not-very-friendly Swedes and an Italian. We had a fifteen minute ride to the Ruins. They took the bus from Cuenca – 2.5 hours each direction. Ouch.

But the Ruins was not a complete loss. They had a small herd (is that the right word?) of llamas on the grounds. So that was fun. And the bus ride itself was nice – a change of pace from our normal two wheel view . . . Definitely easier on the legs . . .

One other fun encounter. After we returned from the Ruins we went to the local market to buy some vegetables for dinner. We started talking to one of the vendors – Maria Louise – and she asked where we were staying. When we told her we were staying at the local hostel she lit up. 

“Mi hijo manages el hostel. Carlos.”

When we returned to the hostel there was a man at the desk. He wasn’t there when we checked in so it was the first time we had met him. 

“Tu Carlos?” we asked.

He was confused, so we told him we had met his Madre. He was still confused so we showed him the picture we had taken with Maria Louise. 

I guess Maria Louise is actually his mother-in-law. Carlos’ wife, who was standing right there with him, is Maria Louise’s daughter. 

A few things I’ll say on this. First, when you are just kind of passing through – and you’re kind of outsiders because you’re Gringos, and you’re not great with the language, it’s just kind of fun to make connections like that. And second, Carlos and his wife do a great job with the hostel. Super clean. Nice communal kitchen – which allowed us to make dinner. And endless hot water that was actually hot. Huge bonus points on that one!

Two big events in the world today . . .

The Ecuadorian election. No results yet – but it was fun to see people heading to the polls (voting is mandatory I guess – so pretty much everyone seemed to be mobilized). The next few days should be interesting as we expect the incumbent to win – but whether he wins by enough to avoid a runoff is the big question. And, either way, it will be interesting to see what happens with his biggest challenger – Luisa – and her supporters. They seem awful dedicated . . .

The Super Bowl. We made a half-hearted effort to watch, but we failed. It was funny though – we ended up watching some type of pretend game for a while. There were commentators and everything. Kansas City won the pretend game. Not quite sure what that was all about . . . Similarly, we tried to watch the half time show. Instead, we ended up watching a few minutes of J-Lo from a few years ago

Not sure if this was my incompetence, or if this reflects how much – or how little – Latin America cares about American football.

Tomorrow we head to Cuenca and our stay with our friends Mark and Linda’s friends in the Athens of the Andes. Hoping we can make it there unscathed by more rain . . .

And remember, don’t tell Diana about my failure of willpower . . .