For our final ride in Colombia we chose the famous Devil´s Road ` El Trampolíndel Diablo/ El trampolín de la muerte´. (Taken from Dangerousroads.com: “The road is 69.7km. It’s known as Trampolín del Diablo (Devil’s trampoline), Adiósmi vida (Bye bye my life) or Trampolín de la Muerte (Death’s trampoline).” Once more we met Jason and George on the way south and decided to go together. We all enjoyed the ride and on this windy mountain road. We were lucky with the weather and had great views; only on the last kilometers we had some fog and rain. The gravel road was mostly in good condition and only in few parts has been very narrow. Not too deep river-crossings – so we passed them without any problems. Afterwards we reached the little village San Miguel where we spend our last night in Colombia. All in all an very nice ride, but neither an trampoline nor an devil… We had different roads in much worth condition…
The next morning we head towards the little border cross into Ecuador and within 1,5 hours we had all paperwork for all 4 bikes and us done just before lunch break. Our first night in this new country we spend in a nice place with pool in El Dorado. For the next day we had different plans and we said good bye again to Jason and George.
We continued south, direction Quito. It was a nice ride on the E45 for the first 70 km with not much traffic. Then we had here and there landslides which covered the “street”; muddy parts with rocks and branches to pass but nothing too bad. At one point we had cars lining up and as usual we overtook carefully to go in front; usually it´s a question of construction and just one lane is closed for a while. But in this case it looked completely different.When we reached the end of the line we saw that an massive landslide came down the hill. The next 30 meters of the road was covered with half a meter of mud mixed with big trees and rocks as big as cars. Chatting with the people we were told a little bit further are two or three other landslides and the cleaning will take 2-3 hours probably. In the end it took 4,5 hours and it was clear we won´t make it to Quito today. We found a cheap clean room in El Chaco aside the highway and left early morning to get into Quito. On the way we drove up to 4200 meter and had a breathtaking view on the snow covered Volcán Antisana (5.704m). The only worry was Kerstin´s motorcycle. Again she had power gaps and at one point the engine was even just shutting of… UPPPPSSSSSSS
Nevertheless at noon we reached `Moto Hell´ in Quito and the owner Sada, his wife and the entire crew welcomed us friendly. First we wanted to check Sascha´s bike, valve check and carburetor synchronization. After4 hours and the professional hand of Enrique (Mechanico Magico!) it was done but too late to start with Kerstin´s bike. We left for that day to meet Josh who invited us to stay with him and we spend a great evening with him and his girlfriend Oriana from Venezuela. (Thank you both so much again for having us!And don´t forget to come to Europe soon!!!) The second day at Moto Hell we stripped Kerstin’s bike and Enrique figured out that the membranes of the carburetor had 6 holes. Honda is not having the parts, and not a new speedometer cable which broke a couple of days ago… But Enrique turned out to be our magic hero. He glued the splits and whipped even a new speedometer cable out of his pockets! 6,5 hours of work and the bike was put together. Hurray!!! One more day of laundry and sorting and we happily left Quito to explore more of Ecuador.
George joined us from now on and we did some fabulous roads together. Doing a loop to the Crater Lake, La Laguna del Quilotoa, and to the highest mountain of Ecuador, Volcán Chimborazo (6263m), we drove again and again long parts on the Pan-American Sur highway. And this time we enjoyed and loved it. Most of the time we drove in very high altitudes of above 3800m and the landscapes were gorgeous. Some times we had rain or even hail and snow but mainly sun and breathtaking clear views.Now we reached the south tip, Vilcabamba and for tomorrow we plan to cross the border to Peru. It will be a little dirt road heading towards the border and we are not sure yet where we can get the insurance/SOAT… but we will find out.
For now we enjoy this peaceful valley near the Podocarpus National Park staying at Hostería Izhcayluma while doing some `office work´… just one little defect is running around our brain. On the long way from Quito to here we had once more a complete power outage at Kerstin’s bike… We cannot explain it as it was running perfectly except of that one outage. But!!! It makes us worry a bit and we try now to send a new membrane to any address in Lima… Cross fingers!!!
