Into the Amazon

I write this from a little village on the Amazon by the name of Indiana. How I got here in this vast river system is a little bit of a blur.

Muddy Fun on the Amazon

Starting in the the town of Coca in Ecuador the Napo river is one of the major tributaries of the upper Amazon and is part of the area know as Amazonia.

Arriving in Coca after the cool, high altitude of Cotopaxi was a little bit of a shock as the humidity was near 100% and when it wasn't raining it was about to. It rained almost the entire day and a half I was there and at times it was so intense that it was impossible to see across the river.

Tight Quarters

I found a boat that was able to take me as far as the Peruvian border at Nuevo Roquefuerte. It took a little manhandling to get my bike on board but it was achieved without too many cuss words being heard - from me that it is. Having loaded up the bike the night before and hoping it was there in the morning I embarked in driving rain with 59 other passengers who came and went at various little settlements along the way, sometimes no more than a clearing in the jungle. 8 hours traveling this day with fantastic views along the river banks with very few breaks in the forest.

Nuevo Roqueforte

Offloading

Carving a dugout canoe

Hand tools used for the job

 We arrived in the village of Nuevo Roquefuerte just as the sun was setting and tracked down the immigration official to get an exit stamp for Ecuador. Usually the boat leaves all the passengers in Nuevo Roqueforte before returning to Coca but luckily for us the captain was willing to take us over the border the next morning to Pantoja, on the Peruvian side of the border which was a short 1hour boat ride.

Peru Border in Pantoja

Pantoja was a smaller town and once again we found a place to stay the night - alas the hostel was right next to the discotheque with base that easily penetrated my ear plugs until the electricity to the villages was turned off at 2.30 in the bloody morning!!

The night before departure, in a much smaller boat, my moto ( as all motorbikes are called in this part of the world) was loaded aboard the vessel via the stern in a manner that closely resembled stuffing a turkey

The outboard quit every 1/2 hour or so

30 Passenger Launca

The slowing moving river was negotiated by this 30 passenger craft with great skill but the 12 hours sitting on an aluminum bench was rather tedious, and painful even though we were navigating through one of the most amazing places on the planet.

A lunch stop

Mariposa

A local craft

A passenger pick up spot

Living in paradise

One of the gringo passengers was a 76 year old Hungarian/Dutch man, Scabba, who was traveling alone for three months ( one of many adventures he told us about ). The captain of our vessel flagged down a passing dugout canoe and had them take Scabba to the village of Santa Maria from where he was heading into the jungle. Scabba had two very heavy bags and transferring him and his belongings into a small canoe in the middle of the Napo river was a sight to behold.

Schabba heads our into the void

Onwards to the village of Santa Clothilde after numerous stops to take on more passengers, chickens and turtles ( all of which I suspect would end up in the pot once they arrived at their destinations. A long 12 hours on hard benches  and then another night in a little hostel with loud music preventing sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

Seen on the river - oh for such luxury

Not so bright and early (4am) we departed for the village of Mazan which is the last stop before the Napo River joins the mighty Amazon. This is where the turkey was unstuffed ( or is it destuffed ) and with many helpers standing in the water and mud the KTM arrived safely to shore. A short ride of only a few kilometers brought me to the banks of the Amazon with the expectation that many vessels would be ready and willing to take be across and upriver to the town of Iquitos — wrong!!. Not much happens during the  afternoons here and the only vessel I could find wanted to charge me more than king’s ransom I decided to spend the night in the village of Indiana ( I am going to need to find out how the heck it was so named ), however with the next day being Sunday I might be getting to know this little hamlet quite well. 

Indiana

This town is thousands of miles from the coast where the Amazon empties into the Atlantic but is a mere 300 ft above sea level so for the most part the river is really just one huge lake that creeps, inexorably eastwards across a flat densely forested plain.

The good ship Aurorita came to my rescue and after loading every bit of cargo they could possibly find and my moto we set off up the Amazon with barely inches of freeboard ( I think that is the nautical term ) - meaning “ I hope we do not sink.

The Aurorita

Onboard with the locals and plantanos

Offloading in the town of Iquitos was a little stressful with the local stevedores being very aggressive with trying to get the business. Non the less the task was achieved without the KTM  ending up in the murkey waters of the Amazon

Tense moments

The town of Iquitos has some wonderful old architecture but it also has it’s seedy side as well with some small casinos and many of the vices that seem to go along with that industry.

The Belen market is a very cool place to wander around and take in the riot of colors, smells ( not all good) and sounds.

Armas Plaza Iquitos

Governors House - now a museum

Police Headquarters

Olives

I splashed out and got a more upmarket hotel here as when else I am I going to be able to wake up in bed and watch the sun come up over the mighty Amazon.

From my bedroom

A few days in this town and I will hopefully find a cargo boat heading down the Amazon to the Brazilian border where I will need to find another vessel to take me all the way to Manaus. These boats all tend to be slow and crowded but offer the chance to see local life and watch the mile after mile of forest creep by on the banks which can be almost hypnotic.

Ecuador

For some reason the name Cotopaxi has stuck with me since my high school geography classes. A mythical mountain the other side of the earth. And suddenly there it was in front of me!!

Cotopaxi

At 5897metres ( 19,347 ft) and only just south of the equator it has glaciers and permanent snowfields far down its slopes. The volcano is still active with the last eruption being about two years ago.

I had a fairly easy border crossing from Colombia into Ecuador and then a 5 hour ride south to the capital Quito. This country is so mountainous with such extreme changes in temperatures between the mountain passes and the river valleys it was difficult to ride with the right gear to ensure you either did not freeze or fry, all within a short period of time.

Quito, old town with the National Cathedral, Independence Plaza and Presidential Palace was very cool but apart fro that the city, to my thinking was not that exciting. 

National Cathedral

Independence Plaza

Old Town Quito

Of course I had to get the obligatory photo crossing the equator which is just a short distance north of Quito

A foot in the north and one in the south

I met up with my German friends, Dieter and Katarina who I first met onboard the Stahlratte crossing from Panama to Colombia and we decided to travel together down to Cotopaxi National  Park. We found a wonderful Hacienda by the name of El Porvenir which was very rustic looking but fabulous on the inside with such incredible old-world charm - big fireplaces and fantastic food. The first night I stayed in the “attic” which is a series of small rooms divided by thin mat walls. After a night sitting around the roaring fire with freezing temperatures outside at an altitude of 3500 meters and having eaten an incredible meal in the dining room I slept like a log.

Hacienda El Porvenir

It was a about 4 km to the entrance to the national park and we decided to walk along a road with gorgeous views of not only Cotopaxi but other lesser volcanos in the area. On the side of the road there were a few cows and as Dieter and I got near them one of the cows seemed to be taking undue interest in us. The rest of the herd completely ignored us. This old girl was obviously having a very bad day and decided to take out her frustrations on the two of us - she charged, with head down and sharp horns lowered she stopped no more that three feet from me. I took off my backpack and swung it at her right at the point where I thought she was going to hook me with those not very friendly horns. She missed me and then took off at a run to find her calf in the stream bed below us. - the real reason for her aggression. 

A friend I met on the way

And another

Old man of
 the mountain

Onwards east to Coca in the Amazonia region of Ecuador and the Napo river, a tributary of the Amazon. I have read that it is possible to catch a series of boats here and arrive in Iquitos Peru. If this works out it will not only save me a lot of riding south in Peru but will allow me to see a not well travelled part of the Amazon basin. If this works out I might be out of touch for the next few weeks

Colombian Coffee — thats why I came to this country

Bring on your big drip coffee, your puny Aero Press and your wimpy little Italian expresso machine and I give you this, with a real Colombian at the helm and locally grown beans that will hit you so hard that your eyes pop out on their stalks - now THAT is the way to start the day!!

I DARE you to call this guy a barista

On the road after a quick radiator fix and directions from my hostel hosts to take a beautiful back road on my way to Salento. 

Villa Maria to ChinChina

Alas the temperature gauge on my bike started climbing and I soon realized that the radiator fan was not coming on. As I knew the fan was working before the radiator repair I was fairly confident that it was just a wire that had not been connected during the reassembly. This proved to be the case but it took stripping the gas tank and radiator off the bike to get at this little sucker behind the radiator - a little frustrating but at least I could repair it myself.

I stopped next to a man who had restored two Willy’s Jeeps to their original and had therefor sale

Asking price U$ 90,000

Salento was a cute little town, even though very touristy.

Salento Main street

The hiking in this area is spectacular with the main trails going up the Valle de Cocoro which is famed for its tall wax palms - the national tree of Colombia. I did a 5 hour hike up the valley to the Casa de Colibri ( hummingbird house) which as you may guess had plenty of these amazing little birds entertaining the guests.

Wax Palms

Taking the milk to market

Foot bridge on trail

Casa de Colibris

More palms

A local guy told me about a back road out of town towards the little town of Toche and then onwards to Ibague. Taking the main road would be about 7 1/2 hours on major paved roads or this route was only about 40km across the top of the Andes in what was billed as the first road in the area to have crossed this range of the Andes. Well I have to say that this was probably the most fun I have had on this trip to date and was without a doubt the most beautiful dirt road I have ever ridden on. Even a puncture in the rear tire after about 10 km did not dampen the experience as the view from where I stopped to do the repair was stunning. This stop did add nearly an hour and 45 mins to the trip.

Not a bad place to get a puncture

Salento to Toche

A picturesque farm on the way

The village of Toche on the eastern side of the mountain range was tiny and the only “restaurant” in town put together a great breakfast with eggs, arepas (corn/maize cake - fried or grilled ) with cocoa ( no coffee available here) for a hungry traveller.

Toche - not much here

A beggar at the restaurant door

A night on the road and onwards to St Agustin ( yes that spelling is correct ) which is renowned not only for the very authentic little Andean town but also for the Unesco World Heritage site that boasts more than 6000 statues carved from the volcanic rock. Not a lot is known about the various peoples that have inhabited this area for eons and so archeologists have not named the people from these ancient cultures.

St Agustin 

Smiley

Further south the town of Mocoa, site of a huge mudslide in March of this year that killed more than 300 people. The steep slopes surrounding many of these mountain towns and the massive amounts of rain received annually make this area very vulnerable to these natural disasters. This town is the starting point of the tiny road, known dramatically as the Trampoline del Muerte ( Trampoline of Death ) that weaves its way back west over the mountains to join up with the main Pan American Highway at the town of Pasto. Give a road a name like that and it is sure to attract the inquisitive.

Trampoline Del Muerte winding up the Andes

Narrow road with shrine

Watch for a truck round that corner

The road started off easy but got steeper and narrower very quickly with plenty of loose rock and some river crossings. I only started meeting other traffic after about half an hour of riding. This is when it got very tricky as you had to be prepared for a truck taking up the full width of the road when you came around a corner. At one point I was right up against the rock face on the inside of the road (luckily) and a truck slowly inched by me leaving less than an inch between my pannier and the truck tire. At one highpoint of the road there was an army guardhouse and checkpoint. I rode in a little fast, got my from wheel into some thick loose gravel, hit one of the cones and took a tumble off the bike - right at the foot of two astonished soldiers - That got a laugh out of them.

After that it was uneventful, although at altitudes of 9,000 ft and higher it was a chilly ride. I arrived at the border town of Ipiales mid afternoon and went to check out the Cathedral at Las Lajas just a few kilometers away. A most incredible structure that straddles a deep gorge with the wall behind the altar being the rock face of the canyon. Legend has it that an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on this rock way back in the mists of time with various structures and churches having been built on this spot over the years. This present cathedral was completed in 1949

Sanctuary of Las Lajas

The Altar

That is about it for Colombia -- Crossing the border into Ecuador in the morning