The last Ecuador’s night. I’m sitting in a stuffy room in a cheap hotel of a small city, situated near the border of Peru. I’m recalling with a little smile, how I told Stas a year ago, that I didn’t want to go to Ecuador, how I didn’t include this country in my route at first, how I read about its dangers on different tourist sites on my last night in Colombia...
Now, a month and a half later, when I overcame more than 800 km, riding this country, I’m recalling these thoughts with a smile. I was afraid of uncertainty, but de facto Ecuador happened to be one of the most interesting and impressive countries in this journey.
My first opinion about Ecuador formed from different scraps of news (i remember, for example, a story about Indians, who pelted tourists with stones), and from general knowledge about the country (a poor one). My image of Ecuador now consists of samponio sounds, different smells, breathtaking landscapes and greetings from Indians, living far from big cities, interesting acquaintances and occasional smiles, contrasts between the inhabitants of Andes and those, who live along the shore of the Pacific.
In the next 9 hours I’ll cross the border and find myself in the tenth country of the journey — in a country, where I’ll do more, than a half of the distance remained — 2500 km. What do I know about Peru? Machu-Picchu, of course, but the rest I better shouldn’t know. People say, that stealing is widely spread there; that bands of thieves on cars near Trujillo rob bicycles. I read also about volcano, which “terrorizes locals”. It lies on my route…
I know nothing about Peru, which means the more interesting it’s gonna be.
Translated by Erik Maker.
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