November 20, 2015

The road from Loja south to Zumba is 96 miles, comprised mostly of fresh two-lane concrete road, occasionally interrupted by sections of gravel, because the highway builders haven’t been able to widen the road, divert the water, or prevent the landslides in those areas yet. In fact, in some areas where there is new concrete, the road is covered in dirt from landslides, or the concrete has collapsed due to a landslide under the road. Regardless, this is an incredibly scenic stretch of road. If you could turn the volume down a couple of notches on the scenery between just south of Vilcabamba and Zumba, you might think you were somewhere in Wyoming, near Yellowstone or Grand Tetons, or perhaps somewhere in Montana, but with higher, more jagged mountain peaks. It’s that good.

That would be the normal route from Loja south to the border at Peru. But that’s not the way I’m going. Oh, I’ll do that stretch of road, but I’ll do it at the end of my two-day ride, from south to north. Instead, I’ve been invited by Ian Willcox to ride along on a more remote route that loops through the Yacuri National Park.

I arrange to meet Ian at a petrol station just south of Loja at 11am. Unfortunately, at 10:45, I am still at my hotel. The parking arrangement at this downtown hotel is such that there is basically a one-lane garage about 6 cars deep in the lobby of the hotel, and my motorcycle is in the very front of all of the cars. As I’m waiting for the cars to move so I can get my bike out, I’m watching a video crew shoot a promotional video about the newly remodeled Villonaco hotel. The video crew takes an interest in the “American in the astronaut suit” standing in the lobby and asks to interview me. What the heck, I’m not going anywhere…

After the interview, and a few photos with the hotel staff and video crew, I finally get the bike out and head south to meet Ian, a half hour late.

Ian is there waiting for me and we head south to Malacatos, then start west toward Gonzanamá, where we stop for lunch. The locals here also look at us like astronauts, or something else they’ve never seen. This is clearly not the typical tourist route.

 

The road out of Gonzanamá is freshly paved, with nice new concrete curbing. It’s obviously new, and we keep thinking it will end and turn to dirt soon. But it continues nearly all the way to Amaluza before finally turning to construction. We find a hotel (the hotel) in Amaluza and check in.

In the morning we awake to low clouds, but at least it isn’t raining.

 

From Amaluza on, the road is dirt. The clouds are low and we climb into them. Visibility drops to less than 100 feet, it starts to drizzle, and it gets colder.

We ride like this through the Yacuri National Park. I can “feel” that the views would be spectacular if we could see anything. We stop at the Lagunas de Jimbura and climb the hiking trail, but after about 500 feet of vertical climbing, we realize that we will not see further than 100 feet regardless of direction, so we return to the bikes and keep riding. Incredibly, within a quarter of a mile of cresting the summit and heading down the other side, the sun breaks out and the views are fantastic.

 

 

 

From here on, the weather warms up, the roads dry up, and it gets dusty. Yet there are still waterfalls everywhere. We ride through San Andres, just about touching the Peru border, and continue to follow the Rio Jorupe for another 20 miles or so. Eventually we round a mountain curve and Zumba comes into view below us. It takes another 30 minutes or so to descend the mountain into Zumba. On this last section, my GPS dies a quiet death. It won’t do anything.

We stop at the PetroEcuador petrol station and fill up, then say goodbye. Ian heads for the border and I head north for 120 kilometers up that incredibly scenic road to Vilcabamba. Without my GPS, I’m left to find my way back to Vilcabamba by “feel”, finding the road out of the other side of small towns. It’s actually a pretty easy route.

 

(Post-Ride Note: I got a text from Ian after I arrived in Vilcabamba. He had made it through the Ecuador border process and was officially out of Ecuador — a big concern, since he had lost his paperwork for the bike — but when he got to the Peru side, there was nobody there. So Ian is in No Man’s Land….not officially in either country. Sounds like he may be camping there tonight to wait for the Peru officials in the morning.)