Hello friends, family and those we've met on the road! Welcome to the eighteenth edition of our newsletter, this time penned from Cajamarca, Peru.
We’ve spent the past month riding the Trans Ecuador Mountain Biking Route, also known as the Tembr, and it’s been an absolute treat. We’d heard the route’s inclines, cobbles and conditions could be pretty brutal, and we were a little scared before setting off from Tulcan, just south of the country’s northern border (the tough few weeks we’d had in the south of a Colombia probably didn’t help with our anxiety either). And although at times the road did prove testing, the breathtaking scenery certainly made all the effort feel worthwhile.
The route as we did it (skipping a few sections) centred around a number of high-altitude points of interest: El Angel páramo; Lake Mojanda; and the Cotopaxi, Quilotoa and Chimborazo volcanoes. All of these peaks required us to climb challenging roads featuring rutted dirt, cobblestones and bumpy bedrock, but each rewarded us with mind-blowing camping. After getting a little hostel-heavy in Colombia, it felt great to once again set up our beds beside rivers, lakes and in the shadow of glorious peaks, enjoying the (very slowly) improving weather and an opportunity to sip coffee in the stillness. Although we loved the vibrancy and noise of Central America and Colombia, we have appreciated Ecuador’s national bedtime being a bit earlier - although the high altitude has often ensured our sleep has been fitful nonetheless.
The lack of 24-hour music isn’t the only thing that’s signalled a shift to a more Andean culture - indigenous Kichwa communities are abundant in the Ecuadorean sierras, and with that comes the very visible change of locals wearing traditional dress and displaying the wiphala flag on their homes. Particularly between Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, where the Tembr treaded through more isolated areas, we encountered close-knit villages that were focused around subsistence farming and for whom Spanish was very much a second language. People here were understandably more wary of outsiders, but the popularity of the Tembr meant they were used to seeing cyclists and were aware of our camping needs. We will not forget in a hurry a night spent camped outside a school building in a hillside town, where Manuel and his family (pictured above) quizzed us ceaseless about our trip, our kit and our life in the U.K. His assumption, when we indicated that the U.K. had no high-altitude peaks, that this meant our homeland was very hot (as is the case for Ecuador’s coastal lowlands), gave us a little giggle before we explained that the country’s distance from the equator somewhat changes the climate.
Speaking of the equator, we crossed it. Despite doing so on a piece of dirt road with no sign or fanfare, Ed and I were sure to make a fuss of this landmark in both the world and our journey. Our friend Brendon had told us that when sailors cross, they sometimes execute a ‘line-crossing ceremony’, which often references Neptune and has some hazing overtones. I decided that more my style would be to dance around like a loon to Jimmy Eat World’s appropriately named ‘The Middle’. You can watch me acting daft here.
Despite all the larks and beauty, we must mention that we had a week of absolutely insane wind. Locals were clear that high winds are to be expected at this time of year, but also that the spell we went through was notable. There were times that we were unable to push our bikes into the gale, and points at which we were able to ascend double-digit inclines without pedalling, due to terrifying tailwinds. It was incredibly challenging, reducing me to tears on a number of occasions, but we were always able to reach the campsites we had planned to, even if it took us a few more hours than we would have liked. Thankfully we experienced these conditions during the prettiest part of the route, so it didn’t feel completely thankless, but we have now become more wary of camping under trees, after one was felled by the elements mere metres from our shuddering tent.
Speaking of our tent, we recently received a new fly for it thanks to the generosity of a US cyclist called Jenna we met via a WhatsApp group, who was flying to Quito and agreed to lug our warranty replacement across a continent for us. She is merely one of the huge array of people who have helped us on this stretch, either by offering accommodation or keeping us incredibly good company while in it. Thanks so much to Mari, Santiago, Geronimono, Jesus and Alex, who deserve whole newsletters to themselves but have the misfortune of having met us during a jam-packed month.
But most of all, thanks to Greg, and Lynn and Jorge. As we mentioned in our last newsletter, we decided that we simply had to prioritise seeing Greg in the beautiful town of Cuenca, as we hadn’t since Ed had his accident in Guatemala and we were really missing him. We got an Airbnb in town and spent a few days doing very little; we enjoyed being together again, doing bike admin and laughing a lot. It felt hugely restorative and we are excited to see each other again in Peru, where he is only a few days ahead of us on the trail.
As for Lynn and Jorge, I won’t explain the incredibly convoluted chain of events that led to us staying with them for a few nights, but I will say it involves my great aunt and uncle, my aunt, Brazil and a chance encounter in Northern Ireland. They welcomed us into their family, fed us ridiculously well, ensured the shower was stinking hot and, overall, treated us like royalty. We are so, so thankful and we dearly hope to see them again someday, maybe on the other side of the world.
After our extended stay in Cuenca we tackled the last week of the Tembr feeling refreshed, reaching the southern terminus of Vilcabamba before taking two days of buses to the Peruvian city of Cajamarca. We only get a 90-day visa here and considering we know riders that have taken a year in Peru alone, we decided to skip ahead to the beginning of a route that’s famous among bikepackers and touring cyclists. We’ve long considered Peru and its Great Divide route to be the heart of our whole trip, so we are delighted to finally be here and are raring to go.
Finally, if you’ve been enjoying our newsletter all these months, we’d love it if you’d please consider sending a small donation to Hogar Esperanza, a Cuenca-based charity that we’re keen to support to thank Jenna for her help with the tent. It’s very easy to donate, but feel free to get in touch if you need help navigating the process.
Until next time!
Toot or boot
Peanut butter being $6 BOOT
Pasta de maní - which is peanut butter but with less additives - being $1 TOOT
Ed losing his down jacket on a bus BOOT
Cuenca fortuitously being home to an outdoor shop selling replacements from a hard-to-find Japanese brand TOOT
Roadside dogs getting more aggressive BOOT
The increasing presence of llamas and alpacas TOOT
Thanks and shoutouts
Simon and Lizzie and Eleanor and Liam for their eternal breadcrumb trail of information about routes and places to stay
Mari
Santiago, Geronimono, Jesus
Alex
Greg
Lynn, Jorge and family
Jenna
The Guamote bomberos
Manuel, Washington and Sandy
About us
We are Edwin Foote and Suzie McCracken - thanks for signing up for our newsletter! Edwin is from England and Suzie is from Northern Ireland and normally we live together in Deptford, south-east London. We arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska, in May 2022 and are attempting to ride our bicycles the length of the Americas, hoping to finish in Argentina in 2024. If you have any recommendations of things we should do, people we should meet or places we should stay, we'd love to hear from you! Please reply to this email, leave a comment on Substack, or follow us on Instagram at ed_win and _suziemccracken.