Day 6

Going to bed last night we all talked about our sleep issues. As I was walking to my room I said to christian “I will not be seeing you at 6am” since the man wakes up at like 5:30-6 everyday. Unfortunately i was up at 5Am today and showed him how it’s done. I pulled out my little bands I ordered for the trip and had a nice little workout on the balcony here early in the morning. Dont think ill be going to too many crossfit gyms on this leg of the trip since there won’t be any at all where i’m going.

I took my bike down to the bike shop when they opened and these guys are so great. They pulled my bike right in, made me a coffee, told me to go pick out a shirt I can have for free and said the place is my home if I even need to do any laundry while I wait for my bike. I couldn’t believe it. Everyone there was so nice and helpful. They started ripping my bike apart and wouldn’t let me touch anything so I wouldn’t get my hands dirty. They put new front and rear tires on and put some new brake pads on the front. They tightened down every other bolt they could see and looked over the whole bike. We both noticed my forks were leaking oil which is not good. So they called the local suspension guy they use for all their bikes they rent and this guy is a wizard supposedly.

Diego came by about two hours later and we chatted about what to do. We came up with a game plan to pull the forks out, he was going to put new better seals with a dual lip on them so dirt cant get up in there to mess the seal up and he was going to put some thicker oil in there to help make them a bit stiffer since i have so much weight on the bike. He let me help him pull the forks and he threw them on a bike and took them home. He gave me his Instagram and said he will be in touch with what he finds out about why it was leaking oil.

I hopped in an uber and went home, got some food and worked on the blog for a bit, researched what the hell I’m gonna do the next few days since the weather here is absolutely insane. Most of Ecuador is high elevation and the temps are about 25 Degrees F at night time and a high of 40-45 in the daytime. Well….I fucked up. I don’t wanna take a vacation in this sort of weather. I miss those beach days in Mexico eating tacos and Mexican cokes.

I was looking at Diego’s instagram later on and i couldn’t believe my eyes. This guy paraglides as well. I scrolled down even more and I couldn’t believe it again. This guy is a skydiver too. We chatted it up the rest of the day and made some small plans to go paragliding in the morning as long as I didn’t mind that my bike wouldn’t be ready at 10am. I said sure who cares! What a small world. I told him if he ever comes to New York he has a bed, a bike, and gear to go skydiving and paragliding.

I did a lot of research on this big lake south of here that has a lovely hike around it but the catch is i have to start the hike super early because it rains there everyday after 12pm. I really don’t feel like waking up at sunrise to start this 7 mile hike if it’s 26 degrees out with super high winds. Especially if I get caught in rain or snow later on in the day. Also if I arrive in the evening from my ride from Quito it means I’ll be arriving in the rain.

I went out for dinner with the guys to a nice little Indian spot. It’s our last night together. On our walk back we were harassed by people trying to sell us everything from food to girls. We’re all so thankful and lucky to have the lives we have. Pierre and christian are going to the Galapagos Islands in the morning and the German guy is going to Germany on Thursday. Looks like I’ll be leaving tomorrow as well to head south.

Paragliding plans got cancelled tomorrow because the winds don’t look good so I’ll just have a laid back morning and hopefully get to the bike shop at 10AM to grab my bike. Kinda sad to be leaving my first friends I made on this trip but that’s how it goes!