Jan 5 th, ???, Ecuador to ???, Ecuador – 500km – Pan American Highway

Isaac and I slept in until 9am at the crazy residencia. We had a rough day the day before and we didn’t get to bed until late. The beds were extremely comfortable and warm.

Once we did get on the road I noticed my back tire feeling a bit squirrelly. We pulled over for a rest and I asked Isaac if he noticed the pavement feeling weird at all? He hadn’t noticed anything weird so we took a look at my tire. At first nothing seemed wrong with it. When I get down on the ground I could actually hear the air coming out.

This was my first flat tire on a motorcycle! It was the best kind of flat to have, one with a slow leak.

As luck would have it we were about a hundred yards away from a tire repair shop. The guy working there with is son was really nice. He also had the most kick ass, state of the art, tire machine; I haven’t seen one like it since. His shop was nothing compared to the tire machine. His sign was written in magic marker yet his tire machine was worth ten grand.

Awwwww, my first flat tire

Bike with no tire

I can’t imagine why the tire was leaking air, it was a nail

His Dad was laughing because he was too shy to smile for the picture

This was the last day Isaac and I would be riding together. He was meeting his girl here in Quito, Ecuador in a few days and I had to move my ass to get to Cusco, Peru in time to meet my girl, the lovely Zoe.

I would feel the need to get us lost one last time before we parted ways. The burden of having a GPS and always riding in front means you can’t blame anyone but yourself. Oh well, the roads in Quito were nuts anyway, I don’t feel too bad.

I had a blast riding with Isaac. Our personalities complimented each other well. He tended to slow me down. And I tended to speed him up. We got along well enough that the speed thing was never really an issue. I am not talking about velocity either. I’m talking more about “lets take a day here or a day there” sort of thing. The last I heard a couple of months later was that he and his girlfriend were headed to Bolivia. He lives in Oakland, Ca and I’m sure we will ride again some day. Later man.

After Quito I just kept riding. It felt strange and really good at the same time to be totally alone on the road again. Then scenery was amazing heading into the afternoon. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings and I was riding through the shire. There were perfectly manicured farms, each one having a house built into the hillside. It seemed like every house had there own plot of land that was used to grow food. Kind of like how it used to be up North way back when.

Andean peak covered in clouds

I just kept driving. I knew I was on the right road but the towns I passed were too small to have a hotel. I didn’t want to go knocking on people’s doors asking for a place to stay either. So I kept driving.

The road took me right into a cloud. Sounds cool right? It wasn’t. It was cold and the visibility was about two feet. This was a mountain road too. It was about as straight as cooked fettuccini. I turned all my lights on and stood up on my foot pegs so I could look down at the pavement. I passed a few big trucks that had pulled over to wait for the cloud to pass. I would have pulled over too if I had a toasty truck cabin to nap in.

This is also a notorious point of the Pan American Highway. It is one of the few sections on the entire Pan Am that is not paved. Oh it was paved at some point but now it is just a black crumbly mess. Together with it being dark, a twisty road, no visibility, and no towns, I wasn’t feeling like the smartest most responsible man on the planet.

I had gas though. I also had heated grips and a heated vest so I was comfortable. I was in good spirits, and in full on concentration mode to get myself out of this mess of a night. I eventually got to a mountain town and a mountain hotel. Spent the night and hit it hard at first light.

Jan 6 th, Mountain Town, Peru to Town North of Piurra, Peru – 800km on the Pan American Highway

Cool little kid that I met at 7am when I was buying batteries for my camera

The road was paved the rest of the way out. I narrowly missed riding through another cloud on my way down from the mountains.

Imagine riding through that at night, up a mountain, with trucks

On the way down to the PeruvianCoast

It seemed like all of a sudden I was back at sea level again. I dropped over 10,000 feet in a couple of hours.

This was a nice detour because of construction