With the death of my oldest friend our plans were up in the air and Layne was looking for flights from Quito to Rome. Then we got word Giovanni’s funeral is set for Thursday. I don’t know why the rush, I had been hoping for Saturday to give me time to cross the hemisphere but that was that. We got on the road driving south toward Cuenca. I was worn out and we stopped early at a camping spot run by a young Ecuadoran Victor who grew up in the US. I wasn’t much in the mood to socialize with the French campers already there but heading north. That was our day. Herewith some pictures. Life goes on no matter how painful.
An Ecuadoran traffic light: do as the locals do…
The government recently announced there was no money for railways or postal services so they were shut down and everyone involved laid off. The signs remain.
Google suggested there was a supermarket in this small town. Off we went over the bouncy cobbles.
We got lost of course and the streets were not the best. We did not get stuck. There was no supermarket that we could find. The small stores have beer and chips and not much else.
We needed toilet paper milk and vinegar (which we use to clean as well as cook). These staples have been difficult to find in central Ecuador which is a land of poverty it turns out.
E35 is the PanAmerican Highway down the middle of the country and it’s mostly very good.
These are the high plains called the páramo in Colombia and Ecuador and we are traveling around 11,000 feet.
Up and down, brakes and transmission working hard and me trying not to think of Giovanni.
He was crawling preserving his brakes so I buzzed past him. Me in Ecuador.
And then we met a checkpoint. The car in front only had a bill and they spent minutes organizing his change. I had a dollar coin ready and that indeed was the toll as it is at all official toll booths. This lot did not look official but they had a barrier and the locals paid to pass.
Later we found out from the campground owner Victor that there had been a massive mudslide months ago and the temporary road runs through private indigenously owned property and they are collecting a toll.
As usual the photos don’t show the grade which was ridiculous.
And the surface was not great.
By now we have learned GANNET2 can cope with this stuff better than we can.
And off to the side there is the town of Alausi, our destination.
The red line was our drive and the arrow is our route Wednesday toward the Inca ruins in the direction of the city of Cuenca in E35.
If an 18 wheeler was taking the hair pin coming up our job was to stop (“pare”) and not block the turn.
And at the bottom of this brief nightmare was a toll booth for up bound traffic.
Alausi had its own too steep streets. Tantalizingly we passed a supermarket with absolutely no parking. Great.
Young bullfighters in the making? I have no idea what that was about.
And the railways are gone but the statue remains of something to do with trains.
The drive across town down to the campground was on streets so narrow and difficult neither of us took pictures. It was a maze and we were ready to hit a dead end but we got through it.
The driveway pretty fancy.
I was so tired I forgot to photograph the parking area and I slept the afternoon away in my misery.
That’s Rusty having dinner. My consolation in the face of death, a supportive wife and a furry dog.
