Date:      Thu, 29 Jan 2009 (extremely delayed)

To:          touring@phred.org

From:     Michael Ayers <michael@terminalia.org>

Subject: Gondwana - Eruptive residue and Equatorially complete in Ecuador

Hola Phreds,

The small country I reached next, Ecuador, literally the Republic of the Equator, promised to present much that appealed to me, but its most important aspect, sadly, was that it marked my final days in the Southern Hemisphere.

In geographic terms, like Peru, Ecuador possesses three regions created by its central spine, the Andes. However, the country’s location, being bisected by the 0-degree latitude arc, causes these to be significantly different from their counterparts to the south. The primary cause for this is the absence of the easterly trade winds in the region. Consequently, while the lowlands east of the Andes are covered with humid tropical forest, like the corresponding region in Peru, the remainder of the country shares fewer environmental features with the Andean countries further south. Specifically, the high altitude regions in the center of the country are more uniformly covered with thick, green vegetation than most of the mountains I had visited in previous months. Additionally, the western coastal plain contrasted diametrically to the bone-dry strip of territory west of the mountains in Peru, as the lack of a significant rain shadow allowed that area to be covered by a dense carpet of greenery. Many of the people in the sierras share a common heritage and customs with the majority indigenous populations of Bolivia and Peru, however, the country as a whole exhibits much greater segments of society with European and African ancestry, creating a greater melting-pot type feeling. Food was on par with Peru, both in terms of availability in restaurants and markets, as well as expense, accommodation proved to be similar as well. Though I had heard comments from others that Ecuador showed a high level of poverty, I found it to be relatively well off compared to other nations I had seen before.  Though I couldn’t say if its proceeds had reached all levels of the society, the country had been exporting petroleum for a number of years, a situation that must have brought in considerable income. Indeed, I did notice a higher number of what most people would consider “modern-style” homes, even in small rural towns. One other relevant economic factor was put in place in the year 02000, when Ecuador abandoned the Sucre, its original currency, in favor of the U.S. Dollar, which provided the first opportunity I had in a long while to carry some greenbacks. All of these factors had me looking forward to my tour quite a bit, and I contemplated from time to time that Ecuador may be an excellent choice for bike tourists who are looking for a small country in which to do an extensive tour, and that provides a wide variety of environments and cultures, combined with relatively good facilities and services. However, as my time was a little tight, preventing me from visiting the eastern lowlands, or indeed few out of the way locations of any sort, and the weather while I was there wasn’t exactly ideal, hiding many of the reportedly impressive vistas, I didn’t exactly make the most of my tour there. My actual route briefly visited the western coastal region, as far as Guayaquil, then climbed back into the Andes once again, and continued north along that chain, more or less following the Panamericana Highway and seeing most of the major towns and sights along its path. Guayaquil was, years before, the city that I had selected to be the end point for Stage 4, as it is a major port with potential sea connections back to North America. However, when I decided to continue the Stage route further north I no longer needed to visit the city, but I did after all, as it became my departure point for the Galapagos Islands, described in the previous post.

The transition from an arid environment to a more fertile one occurred surprisingly quickly, in the general vicinity of the southern border, and after a very lengthy process passing through Peruvian immigration in the late afternoon, I chose to stop for the night in the first Ecuadorian town, Huaquillas. It was typically hectic and commercial, as many border towns are, but had a few decent options for lodging. Otherwise, it was only notable for two reasons. One being that it was necessary to ride a further 4 kilometers past the town to where the Ecuadorian immigration station was inconveniently located, and then return to the centro where the all the services were located. The other reason was that many of the younger residents of the town seemed to be getting warmed up for the festivities of Carnival, still a couple of weeks away, and that seemed to involve spraying people walking along the street with some sort of sudsy solution. I managed to only get hit a couple of times, though after a long couple of weeks, I really didn’t need that sort of “fun” at all. At least it wasn’t as intense an experience as the Holi festival in India had been.  From there it was 260 kilometers to Guayaquil, and it was relatively easy to reach the city in a day and a long half. There was not much of interest along the way, though the countryside was lush and green, with much of the area being taken up by some rather huge banana plantations. Most of the towns in that area were either small, unremarkable places, or junction towns useful only as food stops.  The only other item worthy of mentioning was the return of the obvious and annoying proclivity the local traffic had for overtaking whoever was ahead of them on the rather narrow two-lane highways, a situation that was just slightly less common than it had been in Argentina but just as aggravating. Nevertheless, without much other difficulty I reached the vicinity of the city without too much difficulty. Guayaquil lies on the west bank of the Rio Guayas, and I had heard that there was a ferry that could take one right to the center of town. I asked a few people about that as I drew near, though I never received anything resembling a knowledgeable response. When I reached the smaller town of Duran, on the east shore, there, in realty, was no ferry to be found anywhere. At one time it had existed to take passengers arriving on the railroad from Quito and the mountain regions into Guayaquil, though some time in the past the train had disappeared due to the neglected state of the railroad and some severe damage during an El Nino year, and with it the ferry disappeared too.

The only options left for getting into the city were the main bridge across the river, a busy expressway, or a newer bridge further north, also an expressway. I had no information as to the nature of those roads, and so I rode across the main bridge and soon realized that I was in the middle of one of the worst highway approaches to any city of the Tour, the type that makes one feel that he was lucky to arrive in one piece. Once into the city proper, things calmed down a little and were not much different from any other big Latin American city, so I found my way to the centro without much more worry. Guayaquil has had a bad reputation for general wickedness for a long time, though I didn’t see anything especially threatening while I was there. I had a couple of days to wait for my flight to the islands, but since I would return again afterwards, I didn’t do much more than have a few good meals and walk along the riverfront malecons, which have been sanitized in recent years and are now lined with pleasant gardens. Upon my return, two weeks later, I took a couple extra days off in the city once more, again, not doing anything beyond a few errands. It was on the return flight, however, that I noticed that I, for once, had been on the right side of some luck regarding the weather. For most of the time while I was on the islands, mainland Ecuador, the coastal region in particular, had been blitzed by one of the rainiest “winters” in recent memory. From the air, on approach to the city, I could see large areas of countryside that were still underwater, with occasional homes or other buildings standing tall and isolated in the center of newly created lakes. So, perhaps I was lucky to have been forced to lengthen my trip to the islands after all.  When it came time to continue on, I had no interest in riding across that horrible bridge again, and, with no useable transit alternatives, I had to load everything into a taxi and transfer back over to Duran. From there I planned on using a secondary road that looked like the most direct route to my next destination, the mountain city of Cuenca, and getting to that junction required a repeat ride of about 55 kilometers of along the same highway I used to enter the city. I had hopes of getting a start on the next big climb that afternoon, but just as I reached the junction town of Puerto Inca/Jesus Maria I got delayed by a really torrential thunderstorm.  I had stopped for a quick drink, but just then a huge swarm of dragonflies traveling in force, in a direction away from the approaching black cloud, indicated the approach of the big tempest. Indeed it was a good two hours of solid downpour before I was able to go again. At that point it seemed that I should just stay in town and stay dry, but, though it looked like there should have been some accommodation there, in fact there was none.  Fortunately, I was told that about 25 kilometers further on there was a very basic guesthouse, in an even smaller village just before the start of the climb, and that proved to be just reachable in the daylight that remained.

The base of the climb, where I began the following morning, couldn’t have been even 100 meters above sea level and, as the summit was indicated on my map as being just over 4,000 meters, I once again had the opportunity to surpass my personal record for climbing in a single day, which I established way back in the Himalaya. I failed to do that on a previous opportunity a month earlier in Peru, and this time it looked like conditions were going to prevent me from doing so once more. At first everything seemed fine, but before much longer the fog and clouds rolled in, which occasionally morphed into light drizzle, and that removed what would certainly have been some incredible scenery from my view, turning the rest of the day into a dreary and constant toil. At least there were numerous beautiful flowers along the way to lift my mood a little. More troublesome, though, were the numerous mud- or rockslides disrupting the road at frequent intervals. Most of those were caused by the recent rainy spell, and while they were already under repair, none were far enough along in that process to be more than a muddy mess. I was actually a little surprised that I did not have more trouble with those, but somehow I was only partly dirt-covered by the afternoon, though at that time my main concern was hunger, as there were only a few tiny settlements with only basic food available for most of the day. By early evening I was feeling very cold and tired, and was quite relieved to see that the small village of Chapurco had a reasonable-looking restaurant, which allowed me to get a much-needed hot meal and to dry out for a few minutes. As I sat there, my enthusiasm for camping that night, as I had originally planned to do, rapidly drained away. I asked the man who ran the restaurant if there was any place to stay in the area and he indicated that the next town, only a handful of kilometers farther on, had something available. With little of the day remaining, I set out for there, a tiny place called Molleturo. I was a little disappointed that, shortly thereafter, the climb paused and began a small descent of about 300 meters, including the loss along the 3-kilometer side road to the village, for while it was nice to coast for a while, it meant that I would need to add that amount onto the next day’s climb as well. It also meant that I didn’t really gain quite as much altitude as I had hoped, and though I did, in fact, set a new record of 2,600 meters for the day (over a paltry 47 kilometers,) it was only a tiny 30 meters greater than my previous best, so it was really more like a tie.  Upon rolling into the very small village rather late in the evening, I didn’t see anything resembling a hotel there. After asking around for a while I learned that the church had a dormitory available, so I went off to try that option. It took a good deal of knocking by me, and by some passing villagers, but eventually someone opened the door. At first I thought that I may have been out of luck, since the place seemed to be fully occupied by a unit of the Ecuadorian Army.  After a little while, though, I got the impression that people were being rearranged upstairs to make room for me.  One of the officers spoke English well, which, he said, was because his girlfriend lived in New York, and he sort of befriended the unexpected gringo vagrant. He explained that his unit was in the area to help out the rural people in the area who had been badly affected by the recent deluges, and he eventually took me down to their makeshift mess hall, where I was given a plate of rice and beans. That was appreciated, though I had actually been planning on trying to find something more substantial out in the village. In the end, I had what I really needed, which was a dry place to sleep, and a free one at that. The following day involved only 70 kilometers, the remaining 1,600 meters of the climb, and then a subsequent 1,500-meter decent, with somewhat improved weather and road conditions, especially after the pass, in Parque Nacioanl El Cajas, before I reached my next stop, the historic town of Cuenca.

I really didn’t absolutely need to go through Cuenca, as there was a more direct road that would have kept me on my generally northerly course, which probably involved a less intense climb, and would have saved a day or two in the process. However, the old center of Cuenca is a World Heritage Site, and that fact alone was enough to pull me in that direction. The city itself spreads out through the local valley for quite a distance in most directions, and navigating through that area was decidedly confusing, as among countries exhibiting a noticeable lack of informational signage, Ecuador has few peers. Eventually, I did find the old part of town and located a moderate-level place to stay for a day off. The center did have some fine colonial architecture, but the best examples seemed to be scattered around, intermixed with modern buildings, so taken as a whole Cuenca was not the best example of an historic district that I had seen on the continent. Once on the move again, my route continued northward, and there were a number of places that I was interested in visiting, or at least seeing, between Cuenca and the Colombian border, some of which I actually would. I had allowed my self to assume that this section would be similar to the other north-south oriented routes I had used in the Andes, and would be consist of relatively mild terrain in the valleys between the main ranges. In that respect, I was way off base. The central sierra of Ecuador are volcanic in origin, with fewer long parallel ranges, and proved to be one of the more physically demanding sections of the Stage 4 route.  For though I never again reached the 4,000-meter mark, there were three climbs greater than 1,000 meters, numerous moderate climbs and descents, and a distinct lack of gentle valley terrain, replaced instead by heavier than normal rolling hills. That fact, combined with the afternoon fog, drizzle, or occasional thunderstorms that were a fixture of the season in that region, caused me to stop short of my intended distance on more than a few occasions. The first of those was the initial day out of Cuenca, and in that instance I had pulled into the little town of Canar to find a meal, and decided to stay for the afternoon and evening, partly because I was felling rather sluggish, but mostly because I found the town slightly endearing. As opposed to some other Latin American countries, I found small towns in Ecuador to be quite nice, at least in terms of having a traditional town center with plazas, slightly useful shops, and restaurants. Stopping there also gave me time to arrange local transport to the nearby Inca ruins at Ingapirca, the most northerly of the known, and easily accessible, Inca sites. It was a small, but well-constructed site, which I probably would not have made the effort to ride out to see had the free afternoon not been available. The next major town was Riobamba, 194 kilometers to the north, and it took me a surprising two full days to get there, in part due to one of the big climbs, which appeared, without much warning, at the start of the second day. Near the end of that day, I also decided to try a short-cut into Riobamba. The main highway veered to the west and started what looked like a long climb at the village of Guamote, where a gravel road also split off and appeared on my map to follow a river valley along a more direct, and presumably flatter, route to the city. For a while, that was true and the riding was pleasant and quiet. Then, as I should have known would happen, the road left the river and, itself, began a climb of about 400 meters, deteriorating in quality somewhat. After all, I doubt that particular short-cut saved any time at all, and I admonished myself for apparently not yet learning that such a result is the rule more often than not.

From Riobamba, I wanted to take an alternate route on a secondary road that ran for 75 kilometers directly to the resort town of Baños (appropriately named due to its enticing thermal baths, which seemed to be calling to me,) and which passed by Parque Nacional Sangay, another World Heritage Site that I, at least, hoped to see from the road. However, I had heard reports of that road’s closure, though I didn’t know how current that information was. I asked at least five people in the area whether it would be possible to go that way, and, as you might expect, received five different answers ranging from “it’s no problem” to “it’s impossible,” with a few stating something in between.  It had been my experience in the past that whenever a road was closed in a rural area, the people who lived in the surrounding countryside subsequently established a path for walking, animal use, and, by default, bikes, in order to maintain some minimal access for their homes. I assumed that something similar would be in effect whatever the problems were on that road, and that, in the worst case, it would just take longer than I hoped to get to Baños. After about 35 kilometers on a nice road, including a 300-meter descent, I came upon a small town called, I believe, Penipe, and stopped there for a snack. That village was one of the places where I had made an inquiry about the status of the road and received the “impossible” reply. Of course, I should have placed more weight on the opinion of someone who actually lived close by, but I convinced myself that I had received a typical “impossible for cars” response from someone who didn’t have any idea whether a bike could get through. Without really wanting to backtrack up the hill to Riobamba at that time, I chose to go ahead and try anyway. The road started out fine, following a rolling valley of the Rio Chambo, though after several kilometers I began to notice a fair amount of sand across its surface. Not far beyond that point the road surfaced vanished into a small gorge and, after a bit of searching I found the footpath that I had expected to see there, farther down towards the river. Walking along that path wasn’t completely difficult, though there were a few sandy hills to scale and some soft ground in between as well. After about thirty minutes, it seemed, the path led back up to the road again and I thought, “oh, that wasn’t too bad.” It was, of course, a case of speaking too soon. For after a kilometer or so more, a similar end of the road appeared. I set out along a similar footpath over what resembled an open, dry sandbar or floodplain. At first things seemed to be going ok, but after dragging the heavy bike and gear down, and then back up, a couple of steep, sandy canyons carved into the soil by swift streams flowing off the mountain, I began to understand what the situation actually was.

That was no ordinary road closure due to a run-of-the-mill landslide, but rather a hardened lahar, which had once shattered its way down from the steep slopes of one of the two nearby volcanoes, Volcan Altar, or Volcan Tunagurahua. Actually, walking along its surface wasn’t too difficult, at least most of the time, and I sort of enjoyed the solitude for a while. The material composing the new land was often cement-like, as might be expected due to its fine pumice-based composition, though there were also many sandy sections, some occasional water, boulders, logs, and, more problematic, several more increasingly difficult canyons to cross. When the path traversed a few of the more featureless, hard, surfaces, someone had staked its course with little flags, which lead me to believe that it was indeed frequented by local people and would eventually return to the road.  However, the only such person that I actually saw was a man on his burro going the other direction, and his less than clear exclamations reversed that view, leading me to believe that things would get worse ahead. At that moment, I felt that I had already spent so much time on that exercise that turning back without seeing what was up ahead would be a waste, so I continued on for a while longer. However, it was becoming clear that, since the road and the lahar both followed the narrow river valley, there could be a considerable distance of disruption still left to pass. At one point, I saw some abandoned homes and, later, what appeared to have been a school, or perhaps a hotel, similarly deserted. In that vicinity, an optimistic return up to the remnants of the paved road proved short-lived and forced my return back to the lahar. I didn’t really pay much attention to the distance that I had walked up to that point, but it was on the order of several kilometers, and I had also lost track of the time, but knew I had already spent at least a couple of hours on that effort.

Eventually, sometime in the early afternoon, I came upon what obviously comprised the true scope of the damage. Namely, another canyon cutting through the lahar, though this one meant business, being at least 30 meters deep, with steep, messy, sides that obliterated any possibility of climbing down and then up the other side. To make matters worse was the so close and yet so far effect, caused by the sight of the rough edge of a nice, wide two-lane road jutting out into thin air on the opposite side. There were road signs visible there, a building a little father on, and I thought that I could hear the sound of people as well. If I could just get myself and the bike across, I believed that I would be through and could still get to Baños that evening. My first thought was to try walking along the riverbed, then across the creek that caused the canyon, and finally back up the steep bank on the other side. However that plan was met only with large boulders, swift water, and cliffs. Strike one. The next plan was to walk uphill where, theoretically, the canyon might not be so deep and could potentially be crossed. After a tiring period exploring the upper reaches of the steep mountain slope, I abandoned that idea too, as there wasn’t any notable difference in the depth of the chasm. Strike two. There were a few more abandoned homes in the vicinity, with fruit trees and green pastures on their grounds, and at one point I was shocked to see two cows going about their business in one of the fields. Even more surprising was a fleeting glimpse of a human form slipping behind one of the ramshackle structures. The man on the burro had tried to explain, using charades, that a rope would be needed to get across the break, though I didn’t understand what he meant at the time. If I could find the person I saw, or get the attention of someone on the other side, perhaps a way could be arranged to haul the bike across, while I climbed by foot. However, the specter I saw never returned and no one appeared on the opposite bank, so that wasn’t likely to happen any time soon. Strike three.

That, was that, finally, and as it was now getting rather late in the day, I turned around and began to retrace my steps back to where the road had ended. The path I had spent so much time on already was clearly only meant for the people who formerly inhabited that part of the mountain to return to their property and make whatever use of it they could. The return hike was decidedly less enjoyable than the original one had been, as frustration was now taking hold of my frame of mind, and each of the small gorges, which now needed to be negotiated for the second time, became progressively more tiring as my level of exhaustion, not to mention hunger, increased. By the time I neared the end of the lahar, the clouds that had, fortunately, been keeping the day gray and cool, briefly parted to reveal the summit of Tunagurahua, which lies inside the national park. So, at least, I could say that I actually did see the place, if only briefly. That didn’t last long, however, and a light rain began to fall just as I dragged everything up the last big hill up to the road. By the time I finally reached Penipe again, it was after dark, and I was in no mood for a damp night of camping so I looked around for a place to stay there. Nothing of that sort was available in the little village, but a shopkeeper said a bus would be leaving shortly for Riobamba, and I thought that I would go back that way in order to be able to clean up and take much-needed hot shower. As I was getting my gear ready, however, a taxi came by, and I was able to flag it down, as I thought it would get me back much faster. Indeed it probably did, but somewhere in the process, I left me helmet behind. I know that many tourists don’t like them, but I have always used one, and am now completely used to it. It was getting rather old, but I had been hopeful that it would last for the entire tour, but sadly, no. I would then need to finish the last month of the Stage without one, which seemed surprisingly unnatural.  Finally back in Riobamba, I did get that shower, and eventually a good night’s rest, ending one of the least productive days of the Stage.  Later, a little Web searching revealed that the lahar I had walked across (twice) was caused in the year 02000, when a huge chunk of rock near the summit of Volcan Altar broke off, and crashed down into the crater lake that had been near its peak. The impact pushed much of the lake’s water over the rim of the volcano, from where it careened down the slopes, causing the damage that I observed, and killing 13 people in the process. Surely one of the most freakish natural disasters to have occurred in recent years.

Quito, the capital, was about 200 kilometers father north, and I could have gotten close with one long day and a little extra, giving a myself longer break, but the terrain was still tiresome, and I got only to the edge of the city in a day and a half. Along the way were a few useful towns, and what should have been impressive views of two grand volcanoes, the 6,300-meter Chimborazo, and 5,900-meter Cotopaxi. However, just as had occurred with the volcanoes of Chile, clouds prevented any appearance at all of their peaks, though I was still made aware of their presence by the climbs and descents on their lower slopes. The weather began to get increasingly cool and damp as I arrived at a little town on the outskirts of the city, and I was less than enthusiastic about riding into the center at that time. No transit appeared to be available, but I did notice something labeled a “cargo taxi,” basically a small taxi in the form of a truck, which appeared to be used by rural folks to bring their produce or crafts into city and its markets. It worked well for bikes, too, and, though I had been bypassing my old practice of taking transport into big cities during most of the Tour, I took advantage of the opportunity on that occasion. That may have been a good choice as the more contemporary outskirts of the metro area, which is shoehorned into a long, fairly narrow, valley, appeared to present rather grim cycling conditions.  However, the old center of the town was much more to my liking. In fact, of all the historic city centers I had visited in South America, I think that Quito was my favorite. I had a nice day off there, checking out the picturesque grand plazas and the surrounding neighborhoods. When it was time to move on, I decided to taxi out to the northern edge of the city again, as I had hopes of making an early arrival in a town 100 kilometers to the north that afternoon.

The area between Quito and Colombia had two more places that I wanted to visit. The first, not far from the city itself, was a well-known monument to the Equator, called the Mitad del Mundo, though it was not located along the main highway, but off along a secondary road in the town of San Antonio. With the transfer out of the city center, it was still before 9:00 AM when I reached the site, and there were only two other visitors there at that time, and most of the cafes and souvenir shops had yet to open. After I bought my ticket and started to roll the bike into the complex, which consists of a stone globe atop a large monument, with the obligatory yellow line running though its base and across the plaza, the man at the gate refused to let me take the bike in with me as they weren’t allowed inside the complex, which was mostly open areas paved with smooth flagstone. I tried to explain that I wasn’t planning to ride it, but only wanted to take a photo of me making my last crossing of the Equator, though I couldn’t seem to explain that idea well enough, and he couldn’t allow himself to bend the rules and let me walk it across the deserted plaza. The same result came from my attempts to ask permission to enter from the guy at the ticket booth.  Neither of them spoke any English, and my Espanol was not nearly good enough to explain exactly how much time and effort I had expended to get to that place over the past few years, and why crossing the line for the final time was important to me. To demonstrate my annoyance, I asked for my two-dollar entrance fee back and skulked off, preparing to leave. After a couple more minutes of grumbling, I thought I would try one more time, and asked the ticket guy to call his boss to ask if I could please go in to take one photo with the bike. He did and, of course, was told that it would be no problem at all. Sometimes it’s a good idea to go right to the top. After that slightly exasperating, though ultimately successful visit, I avoided returning to Quito, by taking another short-cut back to the main highway, and, as before, it was a fairly rough gravel affair, with a moderate climb along the way. Only later on, when I saw someone else’s tour photos from that area, did I learn that there is a similar, though slightly smaller Equator moment located right along the main highway, which probably would have been just as good, and a whole lot simpler. Typical.

With all the slowness of the morning, and my tiredness during a 790-meter climb in the afternoon, I never did reach the town I had been planning on.  That was Otavalo, which is famous for its big Saturday arts and crafts market. I had been trying to keep to a schedule over the previous week or so that would get me there on that day, any I just barely missed it. Had I pushed on that evening, I might have made it the rest of the way, but by then the market would have been closed anyway, so there was no point.  Instead I stopped in a little town at the top of the climb, Tabacundo, and finished the last 31 kilometers to Otavalo on Sunday morning. To my good fortune, the market is so popular that it now runs on a smaller scale during the rest of the week. That was fine for me as I just wanted to pick up a few small things. I thought about visiting just long enough to do that and the riding on, but the town seemed quite nice so I stayed for the rest of the day. Otavalo is one of the more distinctive towns in Ecuador, and its residents have their own unique style of dress. Ladies wear white embroidered shirts, dark satin skirts, and great numbers of gold necklaces, while men wear solid deep blue ponchos over white pants, with formal hats.  I was able to see everyone at their best that day, as a wedding was in progress in the church on the main plaza. So being there on a Sunday was probably just as good as if I had arrived a day earlier.  The last section to the border was 168 kilometers, without anything of particular interest, but I took a day and a half to reach the border, as it included the final big climb in the country.

I did enjoy Ecuador quite a bit, and I think that I was correct that it would be a good small country in which to do an extensive tour. Mine would have been a little more enjoyable, however, if I had better luck with the weather. However, on a long tour such drawbacks simply need to be overlooked.

Five days earlier, however, on the day that I arrived in Quito, the Colombian military launched a surprise attack on a suspected FARC rebel encampment, without much regard for the fact that the camp was on Ecuadorian territory. Needless to say, that sparked an international incident, with most countries in the region supporting Ecuador’s vocal protests. The situation did posses some potential for escalation, but my selfish concern was whether the border crossing that I would need to use shortly would remain open. I had no way of knowing for sure.

Gracias,

Mike

The Tour of Gondwana

May 5, 02005-August 22, 02008

http://www.terminalia.org/tour