Every Miles A Memory
Expedition Leader
That last installment was well worth the wait Clark. Great to hear you got the bike back and are have met up with some fellow Americans
My Grand Vacation begins
- Thread starter Clark White
- Start date
Clark White
Explorer
Some of the locals I took pictures of
The mud flinger
Tuesday morning we had a decent though small breakfast at the hotel and made a beeline for Cuenca.
Alausi as we were leaving town
The next town to the south with some amazing twisties
Radioman while stopped looking at the twisties
Radioman caught a good shot of me enjoying the view during the same stop...
We made it to Cuenca by early afternoon despite many stops to play with vidos and sight seeing. After a little work Young James found that the problem with the Wee was that somehow it had water in the tire, but not wanting to change the tires multiple times they just went ahead and put an older tire on anyway to make sure, problem solved. Brian will remount the new tire in Lima when it can be done with a machine rather then small wrenches. We rode around town and got heavily involved in the celebrations, picking up bags of water balloons and silly string and riding around ambushing the unsuspecting locals who were all sitting on the street and roof tops unsure if we were apart of the city wide water fights or not. Everyone was involved, from little kids barely big enough to pick up the water balloons to grandma and grandpa. The look on their faces was fantastic when the 4 of us would ride up looking all innocent, then suddenly start lobbing water balloons and spraying silly string at them before racing off. For the record, the ambushes only worked a few times, on any second pass at a group they exacted revenge using 5 gallon buckets of water. The last group we tried to hit had seen us coming, and our disastrous attempt to ambush them can only be described as Custer's last stand, with Young James getting hit by a half dozen buckets of water at once. Hands down, that was some of the most fun any of us have ever had on a bike, and the whole town thought it fantastic that these Gringo's would get involved like that! Radioman had a waterproof camera along, so he took some pictures and has a good write up of the water wars here; http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18048554&postcount=2347
Brian left early yesterday in a hurry to get to the beach, while the three of us slept in and wandered around town until about noon. While walking around I took some more photos of the locals. Some known with permission, and some candidly which isn't too effective bing a twice their size white boy with a big camera.
I thought this little boy was great, sitting on a Policia moto
Church door down town, one of my favorites this trip
Church tower in the center of town. It is a massive multi block cathedral listed on the UNESCO list
Another local who thought it was the coolest thing to sit on Young James bike
Ice cream was popular, and was available on every street corner
I had found that the foot peg brackets for my luggage racks had cracked on both sides, and the lock box my rear Pelican was mounted to had cracked it's welds, so we wen't back to the Hostel and Young James and I changed out oil and then I dropped my bike off at a welding shop next door to have some new brackets made and the box welded up. We then went out and had some amazing pasta for dinner, some ice cream for desert, and then called it a night.
One of the MANY churches in town lit up while we were walking back to the hostel
I picked up the bike today with 4mm steal brackets in place of the 2mm AL brackets and the lock box all welded up. I could have left today, but decided it sounded nicer to just sit here, have some stickers made for the bike, and get caught up with photo's, writing, and relaxing. Off tomorrow for northern Peru
Clark
The mud flinger
Tuesday morning we had a decent though small breakfast at the hotel and made a beeline for Cuenca.
Alausi as we were leaving town
The next town to the south with some amazing twisties
Radioman while stopped looking at the twisties
Radioman caught a good shot of me enjoying the view during the same stop...
We made it to Cuenca by early afternoon despite many stops to play with vidos and sight seeing. After a little work Young James found that the problem with the Wee was that somehow it had water in the tire, but not wanting to change the tires multiple times they just went ahead and put an older tire on anyway to make sure, problem solved. Brian will remount the new tire in Lima when it can be done with a machine rather then small wrenches. We rode around town and got heavily involved in the celebrations, picking up bags of water balloons and silly string and riding around ambushing the unsuspecting locals who were all sitting on the street and roof tops unsure if we were apart of the city wide water fights or not. Everyone was involved, from little kids barely big enough to pick up the water balloons to grandma and grandpa. The look on their faces was fantastic when the 4 of us would ride up looking all innocent, then suddenly start lobbing water balloons and spraying silly string at them before racing off. For the record, the ambushes only worked a few times, on any second pass at a group they exacted revenge using 5 gallon buckets of water. The last group we tried to hit had seen us coming, and our disastrous attempt to ambush them can only be described as Custer's last stand, with Young James getting hit by a half dozen buckets of water at once. Hands down, that was some of the most fun any of us have ever had on a bike, and the whole town thought it fantastic that these Gringo's would get involved like that! Radioman had a waterproof camera along, so he took some pictures and has a good write up of the water wars here; http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18048554&postcount=2347
Brian left early yesterday in a hurry to get to the beach, while the three of us slept in and wandered around town until about noon. While walking around I took some more photos of the locals. Some known with permission, and some candidly which isn't too effective bing a twice their size white boy with a big camera.
I thought this little boy was great, sitting on a Policia moto
Church door down town, one of my favorites this trip
Church tower in the center of town. It is a massive multi block cathedral listed on the UNESCO list
Another local who thought it was the coolest thing to sit on Young James bike
Ice cream was popular, and was available on every street corner
I had found that the foot peg brackets for my luggage racks had cracked on both sides, and the lock box my rear Pelican was mounted to had cracked it's welds, so we wen't back to the Hostel and Young James and I changed out oil and then I dropped my bike off at a welding shop next door to have some new brackets made and the box welded up. We then went out and had some amazing pasta for dinner, some ice cream for desert, and then called it a night.
One of the MANY churches in town lit up while we were walking back to the hostel
I picked up the bike today with 4mm steal brackets in place of the 2mm AL brackets and the lock box all welded up. I could have left today, but decided it sounded nicer to just sit here, have some stickers made for the bike, and get caught up with photo's, writing, and relaxing. Off tomorrow for northern Peru
Clark
Clark White
Explorer
Thanks! I forgot to put it in the post, but Radioman is an American traveling around the world on his BMW F800GS and Young James is actually a Britt traveling around on his BMW 1200GSA.
Clark
Ruined Adventures
Brenton Cooper
Note to self:
Where? Cuenca, Ecuador
When? Carnival
Why? Awesome waterfights and silly-string
...or do you suppose I could find this anywhere in Latin America on Carnival?
I can't wait to find out.
Where? Cuenca, Ecuador
When? Carnival
Why? Awesome waterfights and silly-string
...or do you suppose I could find this anywhere in Latin America on Carnival?
I can't wait to find out.
Clark White
Explorer
I think you can probably find that anywhere in Latin America during Carnival. It is certainly everywhere in Ecuador as we had randome water balloons and buckets of water thrown at us in almost every town we went through.
Clark
Streakerfreak
Jan-Kee
The water fight is a fantastic story. Turning out to be a great read and an awesome trip for you.
Clark White
Explorer
Just had a spectacular ride up to 4168m (13,668') in El Cajas National Park. I'll try to post pictures this evening, but hiking around the lakes and chasing llamas at that altitude took it out of me, it's now time to take a nap!
Clark
Clark
Clark White
Explorer
This time around will be a quick update in terms of writing. I'm exhausted (not sur why?), my throat hurts, and I have less then a week not be sick before Ustadza arrives in Lima, so I am looking to go to bed early. But really, there isn't much to write since I last updated, I just have a ton of pictures that I think are worth posting. I had planned to leave Cuenca yesterday, but then the idea of riding to El Cajas National Park came up, so I stuck around. Thank God, that was an amazing ride! New plan was to leave today, but then I decided I didn't NEED to leave today, so I stuck around and took it easy. While riding through El Cajas I set a new record for Porky and this trip, 4,168m (13,668ft), which was pretty cool. That wont stand for long since much of the Bolivian Altiplano is well over that, and many passes in the Andes are pushing and over 18,000ft, but it was still pretty cool! Anywhere, here are the pictures of the last two days which tell far more story then I could possibly put in text right now.
For those of you who haven't rode on wet, grass/moss covered cobble stones, there is no good way to do it besides having suction-cup tires. We were sliding all over the place!
Mark (Radioman)
Young James (the Britt)
Radioman
Clark
For those of you who haven't rode on wet, grass/moss covered cobble stones, there is no good way to do it besides having suction-cup tires. We were sliding all over the place!
Mark (Radioman)
Young James (the Britt)
Radioman
Clark
Clark White
Explorer
Clark
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Clark White
Explorer
From the market today
This little girl smiled and waived when I did the same to her, but she was none too sure about this big white boy pointing this big black thing at her...
Grandma didn't want her picture taken, but after some thought and some polite words on my part she agreed
No idea what these were, but they looked cool!
Old James, these are for you! They had more eggs in one stand then Costco has ever dreamed of having in one store...
We bought some chocolate from her, and Radioman got her to hold a piece up so he could take a picture. I took these while she was talking to Mark
Taken for Young James, a line of fruit
It is now bed time for me, of for Canyon del Pato tomorrow where I will likely camp rather then stay in a hotel, but we shall see. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!
Clark
This little girl smiled and waived when I did the same to her, but she was none too sure about this big white boy pointing this big black thing at her...
Grandma didn't want her picture taken, but after some thought and some polite words on my part she agreed
No idea what these were, but they looked cool!
Old James, these are for you! They had more eggs in one stand then Costco has ever dreamed of having in one store...
We bought some chocolate from her, and Radioman got her to hold a piece up so he could take a picture. I took these while she was talking to Mark
Taken for Young James, a line of fruit
It is now bed time for me, of for Canyon del Pato tomorrow where I will likely camp rather then stay in a hotel, but we shall see. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!
Clark
trailsurfer
Explorer
Great Pics. looks like you and Radioman are having a fantastic time.
bernardbarbour
Observer
LOL, Clark you are absolutely right about the nap thing. I spent a week in Cuenca (looking for a retirement spot) and I also visited the park. Chasing the Llama's and being chased by wild horses
I guess living at that altitude will just do that to you. Enjoying your trip reports, keep em coming.
