Mark and Neil Trekin' South: Goodbye to Ecuador; Onto Peru

We left Cuenca in good time on Thursday morning and had another awesome ride on good highways with light traffic. The highways are very well designed. They have nice banking in the corners with a constant radius so they are perfect for motorcycles. It's nice to be able to use all the rubber on the tire and not have little chicken strips on the side. We stopped for gas near the summit (a little over 3000 m) between Cuenca and Loja and met another rider on a BMW1100GS from Germany. We ended up riding together for a while then he caught up to us again in Loja. We chatted for a while on the street while Neil went to Western Union. Rudolf leaves his 1100 in South America and comes every year to do some riding. He has a 1200GS he keeps at home in Germany. I think his wife must really love him.

Can't get enough of this.

Nice roads in Ecuador

Rudolf...no wonder he's smiling.

After Rudolf left another passerby on the street started chatting.We ended up exchanging phone numbers and emails and he gave us advice on a hotel in Loja. Leonidas wants to do a moto trip some day and wants to keep in touch to hear of our travels. He also gave us some good advice on the road we were planning to travel into Peru. Altogether I think we spent almost an hour and a half talking on the street in Loja.
Our destination that afternoon was Vilcabamba where we ran into Rudolf again. We ended up staying at the same hostel as him. For $25 for two including breakfast and hot-water how can you go wrong?
Our plan was to continue south on this road to cross into Peru at a very quiet and somewhat remote border crossing. We had read that the road could be rough and sometimes muddy so we made some inquiries in the town. Leonidas, in Loja, had already warned us about the road. After the usual town hall meeting regarding our routing we decided that as long as it didn't rain too much we should be okay to take this route through Zumba into Peru. Apparently when it rains there are a lot of mudslides.
It started raining around 7 pm that night. While we had dinner with Rudolf it rained. We even had extra drinks hoping a hangover might make the sky blue in the morning. It didn't help. The drinks and chatting were good, but it didn't help. It continued to rain all night, sometimes heavy.
We decided to take everyone's advice and head to Peru by a different route. As we left Vilcabamba towards Loja the rivers were noticeably swollen with muddy water. I think we probably made the right choice. Thanks Leonidas.
We got back on the Pan American planning to stay on it to the fronterra at Macara. I made a wrong turn in the town of Catamayo and we ended up taking a secondary road that took us through Gonzanama and Cariamanga. It was a mountain road that ran in part along some very high and precipitous ridges. In spots the road had washed away and there was not enough room for two cars to pass, with a sheer drop on either side. The amazing thing is people have homes all along this road. I fear for them in case of an earthquake. We stopped and ate our packed breakfast in this cool city, Cariamanga, perched on a hillside. I tried to buy a coffee from a street vendor there but she gave it to me for free; wouldn't take any money for it. Nice people. We had some heavy rain and dense fog after that which made for slow going but we got to to the border just after noon. It took about an hour for the formalities and we headed for Piura in Peru. We had been strongly advised by everyone not to stay in Sullana as it was not safe. We had a nice ride through desert landscape and saw a lot of domestic goats, pigs and donkeys just roaming free along the roadside. Yet another reminder of the dangers of riding at night.