5-Jan-2010 6402 Miles

I got back to Quito in the wee hours yesterday after a long flying ordeal but all is well. I had a fantastic time back in Utah including a wonderful New Years with the Newby's at thier cabin getting my butt kicked by snowmobiles and 2 feet of powder.

We spent yesterday getting the bikes ready and working on some business stuff. All the time chomping at the bit to get going again. Diego did a great job of taking care of the bikes and Nick had a good time here while he was waiting for me to get back. But we are both ready to hit the road. We travel to Banos(i know, Spanish for toilet) and it is a great trip. The highway out of Quito was quite busy but after we got off the main road it was great. Banos is a cool little tourist town, although I don't know who comes here, it is pretty remote. It is at about 6000 ft MSL with 15000-16000 foot peaks all around. We are deep in this valley, I doubt we will see the sun till 10 am.

We are going to stay here a day or 2 and go to a jungle lodge on Thursday. That should be an adventure as well. We are to drive to Shell, take a small plane(probably a C182) to a jungle strip by the river and then canoe for a half hour or so to the lodge. Should be interesting. Here's some pics of Quito, Banos and the trip there. Also one of Diego.

Don't be too critical of the video. I shot it with my left had while riding a narrow curvy road with the right. BTW, the road is a lot narrower than it looks in the video. Oops, guess the video isn't going to load. It must be too big.

OK. Here's some more of my brand of BS. You knew you wouldn't get away very long without it. Why? And Nick always called this the Japenese Why Desease but it has transmuted into the Latin American Why Desease. Anyway, Why is everything so locked down, ie security parking, shuttered windows, steel bars, etc, everywhere, even in the country, when we have never seen any evidence of crime or felt threatened in any way?

We are walking around Banos tonight. The volcanic peak right next to town rises to over 16000 feet. There are a lot of lights on top of this peak and it is so vertical that the lights almost look like they are right over our heads. It just doesn't look right. It is kind of like the Mother ship is about to land on our heads and these lights are 10000 feet above us. Weird. I wish I was better at capturing the depth of this country in pictures. None of the pics I have taken come close to capturing that depth.