We rose kind of early – hit the fuel station to gas up and got on the road to the border. Popayun was at about 9,000 foot elevation and we were both huffing and puffing while walking up and down the stairs in the hotel. Leaving Popayun the road began a climb even higher into the mountains. On our way out of Popayun we spotted these guys hitching a ride up a hill by grabbing a truck… the truck driver didn’t appear to have any idea these guys were back there.
The bikes have done surprisingly well with the altitude – other than when they are first started in the morning. When we first start them they sputter and die easily – sometimes at inconvenient times but after they are warmed up they run fine but at the higher altitudes they have a distinct lack of power.
We weaved our way to the border of Ecuador and arrived there fairly early – like 10:30ish. Exiting Columbia was a piece of cake and somewhat obvious. Hit the customs shack (DIAN), he looked at the bikes for about 2 seconds and took the paperwork – then off to the immigration building – stamp the passport and we’re off to nomans land between Columbia and Ecuador.
Entering Ecuador was more of a puzzle – stand in line in the immigration office only to find out that I was in the wrong line – so go stand in another line for a bit and that guy told me I needed a form from another guy…get that form, fill it out and back in line – stamp the passport and done. Then need to figure out the bikes – found a building that had a sign on it for temporary vehicle permits – talk to that guy and he sends me to some other guy – once we got to the right guy he pumped the paperwork out quickly and with just a couple questions – total cost: $0 – amazing.
While watching the bikes and waiting for Dan to get stamped, This guy comes up and we start kinda start chatting about our trip, me in my worst spanish and him in his worst english. As he gets ready to leave he sticks out his hand and says “I’m so glad you come to seen my country” we liked Ecuador already!
We rode another couple hundred kilometers into Ecuador – through some fantastic scenery – steep and deep canyons with lush green foliage and rivers running in the bottoms of the canyons. Three things were readily apparent in Ecuador: the roads were AWESOME, there was actual road signs, and the drivers were somewhat well behaved. Compared to Columbia anyway – the drivers actually seemed like they believed there were rules/laws that needed to be followed as opposed to abused for their benefit. The road surfaces were smooth, painted lines, and very wide. The signs were amazing – almost as good as in the states and we managed to navigate our way without getting lost in every little town that we went through. Also we both agreed that the “edge” we felt in Columbia was gone and we cruised carefree in the wind again….
Got to the hotel around 3ish – we were again at 9,000 feet elevation and both of us were pretty shagged out from the altitude. Headaches and a bit of queasy stomach feeling so we took a nap, then caught up on some email stuffs and then tried to get some food… which turned out to be a challenge… the hotel we were staying at had a restaurant that closed at 7 – and we missed that… so we took a cab downtown and found a forgettable chicken type of place … but most things were closed for some reason – maybe Sunday night or something?
Heading to the coast in the morning –
Cheers.
We got up early from room 123 (which strangely enough was on the second floor?) and hit the road. We were eager to hit the equator… as we left town we kept checking our GPS’s and watching the numbers count down. We saw at the hotel that there was this big tourist deal with a HUGE sundial right on the equator. As we rounded turns the GPS went up then down teasing us as we were getting closer and then further away from the equator. We had constant chatter on the intercom. We must be close. Then the curve would take us away… Where the hell is this tourist spot. Well, we finally passed 00.00000 and no tourist spot… So we decided to turn around and go back to make sure we got a photo of the GPS reading 0. We must of looked kinda funny inching along the road looking at the GPS 00.00040 then 00.0003 and bingo! We are sitting on the Equator!!! No sign, No tourist deal, nothing… After we took the pictures we headed out thinking for sure the tourist deal is going to be right around the corner… Well we never found it and just kept cruising towards Quito. 
We then desended down this amazing moutain road on the way to the ocean. We stopped to check out this super cool waterfall. You can get an idea of the scale of it by looking at the truck in the picture to the left. The foliage was getting really rainforest like as we headed towards the coast. There was two ways to get to Manta, one was the main highway we were on, the other looked like a main road that went pasts some big lakes on the map. We decided the lakes would be cool to see so we took a left and headed down the other road. We could see the lakes on the GPS but we could not see the lakes when we looked for them. Nothing. Nada. Shortly there after the road deterated to asphalt with broken chunks missing. No worries, we pressed on. Shortly there after the road deterated to gaint pot holes and gravel sections. We began chatting about the time and how long it would take us to get to Manta. Would we make it by dark. Then the road deteriated to all gravel with section of mud. We thought, “we got this, at least its not raining” Shortly there after the rain came. And it rained… big time… tropical downpour. This made the road about the consistacy on baby shit after banana pudding. We were plowing our front end through the mud, however we could not slow too much as we were worried about being on the road after dark…
Well the road did improve after about 45 miles of baby crap and again we were carellessy cruising down the pavement at 70. We arrived in Manta shot to hell and muddy from the knees down. We gave up trying to find the hostel and checked into the first place that had a room. We found some beers and called it a night.
We stayed at an expensive hotel (relatively anyway – it was $73 a night) and decided we should sleep in and work on a place to stay for a couple nights. We finally dragged our butts out of bed about 10 – searched out some breakfast and some internet. 
So we suited up, packed all the stuff and got on the road about 1pm. We rode on a brand new road with no lane markings and spanking smooth asphalt surface for about the first 30 miles and then the road sort of dropped off to a nice road but with rough patches. And of course it wouldn’t be Latin America if there wasn’t some construction underway.
We rode around the dirt streets looking for the hostel and after a couple loops around town we found the place. The lady who ran it – Gladis was super nice – not a word of Enlgish but she worked the 3rd grade Spanish for us. 
Dan pulled out the silver Sharpie pen so that Gladis could sign the bike – and it didn’t work too well so he began shaking it to get the ink down to the tip – well, this turned out to be a bad idea and the ink was flying out all over the bike, the seat, Dan’s helmet and riding jacket. Of course, John found this to be funny but Dan just looked at the ink sprayed all over and was thinking about how much work it was going to be to clean it off …
We ripped down the main road and got to the side road in no time. It started out nice. Winding up into the hills alongside a beautiful stream. The road quickly turned sour though. With massive potholes and some rocks the size of softballs. Throw in some mud, broken pavement, buses and trucks. Lucky for us the road was only 95 miles long!! So 3 hours of singing “American Women” and slipping and sliding in the gravel we arrived back on the main road. “We both commented that was fun. We are truly sick. Most motorcyclists would kringe at the thought of a 600 pound bike on slick mud and loose deep rocky roads. But we really did kinda enjoyed it. The views at the top were fantastic. We also saw a tourist bus half off the road kinda hanging on a cliff with the passengers sitting around on the ground and road – waiting for something different to happen….
We were going to go south into Peru from here however, we found out the road south was in bad shape. They had a big storm a couple weeks ago and now the road is very rough with 3 or 4 water crossings. They estimated 10 hours in a bus to get back to good road. We had no idea how deep the water crossing were and the communication problems weren’t making the road sound any better.
We also banked a little flat tire karma. We ran across this guy and his family pushing his bike. We stopped to find out he had a flat rear tire. We got out our little electric pump and pumped it up. Only to find out he had a leak in the tube. We couldn’t really fix it without pulling the tire and all that. So we got him rolling and then stopped again a few miles down the road to pump it up again. That was enough for him and his family to get into to town to have it fixed. We hardly exchanged a word, But the brotherhood of motor-cyclists was all that needed to be said. A biker in need, you stop.
We arrived at the border with Peru in a few hours. That is after we circled the town looking for it. It was kinda funny that the locals in town would just point… Like they see dumb gringos on bikes all the time looking for the border. We found a road that lead out of town. Dirt and gravel, “this can’t be it” “We came in on a nice two lane paved road.” Well it was and shortly after leaving town it turned back into a nice road and we rolled up to customs. We processed out of Ecuador in about 30 minutes total. No worries.
We had been cruising through Ecuador and continuously seeing restaurants with entire pig carcasses hanging in the eating area. I kept thinking I should take some pictures of these things because it is so wierd. 
The patrons literally are sitting in the restaurant with the pig hanging from the rafters on a hook. They point to the part of the pig they want to eat and the cook cuts it off and tosses it on the grill for them.