Farmer’s Market

We were told of a farmers market run by the expatriate community of Cotacachi (“kota-catchee”) where we might find all sorts of things we haven’t seen for a while, foods from home. 

After a gray rainy morning the sun came out during the 45 minute drive from the campground, we parked in the street and found ourselves magically transported to a farmers market you might find anywhere back home. 

Yes, but with chocolate chip cookies. 

Andrew, a Canadian married to an Ecuadorean brews craft beer so we bought a couple of bottles of his lighter offerings. 

And an Italian woman who spent the past fifty years opening ice cream stores around the world now sells limoncello in Ecuador. 

And we got some pierogis (Polish dumplings) for the freezer and an extraordinary Polish sausage. He was quite surprised when I mentioned Key West has a large Polish community. You may be surprised to learn there are six Polish families in this small town. 

I’ve started reading a book about the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire and I find it not only interesting but easy to read which is lucky because we have arrived in the northern reaches of the Incan Empire.

And outside the market they had this statue staring down imperiously upon us. 

I’ve only just got to the part where Pizarro slaughters the Incas and catches their emperor so this character hasn’t appeared just yet. Luckily Wikipedia knows all about him:

Meanwhile Layne got waylaid by an elderly saleswoman with a bucket. 

And it turns out, strawberries. GANNET2 groans under the weight of our haul of fruit in this productive country. 

Rusty had a walk through the market but after a while he started looking for shade and plopping fish in it so I got the hint and brought him back to the van while intense shopping proceeded without him. 

Some brisket, pickles, breads and of all things sushi was for sale so we had that for lunch: 

The campground has a washer but no dryer so in light of the uncertain weather we sought out a do-it-yourself laundry in the town of Ibarra, with dryers which worked out very well. 

Clean and efficient we got our stuff done in less than two hours for five bucks with free WiFi. Score! 

Rusty enjoyed the cement floor and was not keen to rejoin the expedition…

The Finca (“farm” ) Sommerwind campground is around a lake about 15 minutes from the town of Ibarra. 

Hans the owner of Sommerwind is German and this lake ambiance has a Central European flavor to it, perhaps Switzerland on a slightly run down untidy day. 

Hans has lived in Ecuador for years with his wife who is from Ibarra and during Ecuador’s state of emergency has been helping overlanders drive into Ecuador. The government is trying to break the cartels which ship cocaine up the coast, and part of that plan  has tried to lock down the borders for overland travel. You have to present a clean criminal history to drive in but we don’t have such a document in the US so for foreigners Hans has worked out a deal for us with the tourism ministry. We mentioned Hans at the border, they checked his list and we got 90 days. 

He also lets overlanders park their vehicles for a dollar a day. Check them all out sitting waiting for owners to return. 

There are also cabins to overnight in at I think $22. To park an RV you get charged $6 a person with electricity included, a hot shower and a dump station and some views too. 

German beer, cakes and bread for sale along with a restaurant during the day. 

And Rusty likes the walks though not with the campground puppy because he’s a grumpy old dog. 

Into Ecuador

The fact is we don’t know much about Ecuador so the next few weeks will be a new voyage of discovery in this country.

Customs formalities were simple enough, immigration, customs for the van and agriculture to make Rusty legal. Then it was the open road. 

Ecuador is bigger than you think and with a population of 19 million it’s half the size of Colombia. It’s oddly American with fuel sold by the gallon and the currency is the US dollar, plus it’s the last country we will pass through with 110 volt electricity and US style plugs. I saw an ad for a Remax Realty company and road numbering signs look like US interstate signs: 

Fuel is cheap here too. Regular gas is $2:47 a gallon and diesel is $1:80. The roads so far have been smooth clean and well signposted and there are hardly any motorcycles which is lovely especially in cities. Driving is pretty aggressive and crazy passing is the order of the day. This is the border town of Tulcán ten minutes from Colombia and we stopped to buy some food and see what we could find.  Check out the usual crazy steep street with a traffic jam: 

The automated teller machine spat out 25 $20 bills and this fruit stand was selling delicious fruit for one dollar a bag. We got apples pears peaches and oranges, all delicious. A Swiss camper walking past Layne’s drying rack for the fruit she washed made a joke about a fruit market. 

A pleasant small community not feeling at all like a stressful border town. Ecuador looked good, so far. 

Our goal after the border crossing was a German owned campground two hours from Tulcán. 

And a road like this doubled our expected speed on Google Maps from what we were used to in Colombia. No pot holes. Not one. 

The countryside was a mixture of agriculture and wild mountain scenery. We drove between 8,000 and ten thousand feet minding our own business at forty to fifty miles an hour letting the locals pass and take risks. It was a great drive. 

We saw a bunch of trucks at the border driving into Colombia loaded with fruits and vegetables and then we saw greenhouses draped across the hillsides. 

Ecuador has a drug problem and the country is engaged in a struggle to defeat traffickers shipping cocaine through Ecuador. There has been a nationwide state of emergency  for months as the government tries to take down the cartels. The emergency is now in effect along the coast and the border with Colombia where there is a curfew in effect and the army is policing the countryside. 

In fact we passed though several police checkpoints and they were not taking their jobs lightly. We got waved through when they established we were foreigners but buses were being indicted and passengers were being identified, trunks were open and trucks were being search. Traffic was at a standstill at each checkpoint. It never felt scary and the cops were totally professional but very serious. Ecuador is in existential survival mode and I wasn’t going to risk taking a photo at these checkpoints. 

Check out these pick ups and boy they looked suspicious to me. They all looked identical, they drove fast and passed everyone everywhere, they ran red lights and everyone got out of their way. What they were hauling I don’t know but at one intersection there was a car with a woman leaning out the window frantically waving the trucks in front of us onto a side road. Around the corner we found … a police checkpoint. 

Eyes front and keep driving; I saw nothing. 

The lake was a sign we were closing in on the campground and there was still plenty of daylight, and no rain in sight. 

We found a spot at Sommerwind, $12 a night for the two of us, hot showers, electrical hook up and a restaurant with German food and beer. 

German brat and German beer was for dinner. 

An interesting campground at 7,250 feet. 

Tiny homes for  rent on the property. 

This is a well known overlander campground in Ecuador. 

The facilities are good as you might expect. There are washing machines and a dump station as well. 

For a dollar a day you can store your vehicle here and go home for a while. 

And the views aren’t bad. At least for a few days. And Layne has some touring planned from here to discover more about Ecuador.