[28.02.2024 – 06.03.2024[

Intro

First things first, I am missing people close to my heart and certain acquaintances. This pushed itself very much in the foreground once, I got the message that my father got checked into a hospital and the earliest i could make it home was five days from then. And the five days did not even account for finding a place to stash the bike.

So why is the missing people, things, whatever important. I got asked whether or not – sabbatical and all – I am thinking about my life choices. And honest hand to heart, no I am not. One of my life´s goal was to travel the world. And since I started working, i have been doing exactly that. In addition I love my job. All things of the job, well don´t be ridiculous there are always tasks you like more then others, but in the grand scheme of things I love my job. And also, the job and the employer is the reason why I am where i am currently (which is Quito, Ecuador btw. 😉 ). Of course if someone would offer me to become an astronaut or a helicopter pilot I would not think twice in taking that opportunity but short of that I am where i wanna be.
So let´s talk about the missing. People, obviously duh, everytime i was travelling in the past I was missing the people i consider close and the moments I am unable to share with them at that moment. Let´s be honest, messages and pictures/photos just aren´t the same. Besides that, my wardrobe, after three months of wearing the same clothes, they look like it and I´d really love to dress up, go to the opera or another event similar, where you start with dinner, then the event and then some partying. On this trip the wardrobe is even more limited then on other trips. Back in Munich I had to wonderful bakeries close to me. One was run by a Moroccon and he is making the best croissants and pan au chocolate that even the French are jealous, no I am not over exaggerating. And the other one named chocolate, is doing really great Pretzel plaits (Laugenzopf), one of those with butter and Nutella for breakfast, hell yeah. And the last thing i am really missing is a proper IT problem that is in need of fixing. Stefan offered to f*** up the laptop, but no that is not it. Something complex, something people look at and say: “nah that is not for me.” Something you have to swim through an ocean of shit not knowing whether you will drown or not.

Before I left, I met with a colleague and at the end of our meeting I told him: “see you in one and a half years”. To which he replied: “I think you might be home earlier then that.” Currently it does not look like it.

Mancora

The surfing, I figured out, that while I am a regular on a snowboard, I am a goofy on the surfboard, no idea why. Other then that it was fun, but not overly successful. Well not to bad, there will be chances again to go surfing further down the road, on the other hand, I do have a few hobbies and adding another one might not be the wisest of all choices. The rest of our stay in Mancora was rather uneventful, with the exception of a lesson in ocean currents I got first and then Stefan and me got again together. Took us quite a while and some doing to reach shore again but yes one needs to be careful in the ocean. And keep in mind to not panic, work with the waves and the current and relax in between, and be aware that it might take a while.

Mancora – Santa Rosa

Today is the day, we want to cross the border into Ecuador. In light of the incident at the TV Studio from Mid of January if you want to enter Ecuador by land you are required to have your criminal record certificate with you, translated into Spanish. If you do not have that, border control may refuse to let you enter the country. There is an option that they will let you enter for 10 days for transit reasons, but that is basically up to the border agent in question. A while back i wrote to the German Embassy in Bolivia as well as to the one in Ecuador, if they can give more information about this transit “visa” which they both declined. However on the eve of our trip to Ecuador i reread the page of the German Foreign Ministry and there they wrote that the local Embassies could help in retaining your criminal record certification. Well none of the embassies I wrote to mentioned that fact.

At the border they asked for it, and we explained them we did not have it, that we are travelling the Pan American Highway, that we are underway since November. The Peruvians did not even want to touch our passport before the Ecuadorians made their ruling. So they let us sweat for about 30 minutes before they gave their thumbs up. They reminded us, that we are only allowed in the country for 10 days, and to be honest I do not want to find out what they´ll do if we are in Ecuador for 10 days and 1 second. Anyway we are in, and we can keep our appointment in Medellin on the 19th of March. My girlfriend and the girlz are coming to travel Colombia with us, something we have been looking forward to ever since we started the trip.

Santa Rosa – Cuenca

Currently the German foreign ministry says to better not be at the Ecuadorian coast, so hello again Andes. They are different here, green lush, very clean and overall just enjoyable. Upside of the hight (around 3000m elevation) is as well the cooler temperatures and less humidity, even though at the beginning Stefan was complaining about the “cold”. Cuenca itself is a nice little town with a historic city center, within ever present mountains. Oh yes it is still rainy season, so 5 minutes (yes literally 5 minutes) before we reached the accomodation for the night it started raining, properly raining. Up to the point that we were wet to our underwear by the time we reached the hotel. That night a Reggea band was playing in the hotel bar and after walk around the inner city we chose that as evenings entertainment.

Cuenca – Guamote

It is only 1000km to the border so we are taking it a bit slow, enjyoing the landscape, the ever changing weather, including the rain. Guamote is a small village at the E35 at an elevation of 3100m. The landscape shortly before the village did remind me of home, conifers (Nadelbaeume), cattle on the fields and rolling hills. Not much more to say about it. The only thing we decided up there was to not miss Quito, but in fact spent three nights there.

Guamote – Quito

While at the beginning of our trip through Ecuador motorcycle where exempt from any tolls. Around Quito, we had to pay tolls on the highways, 20 cent per motorcycle. The entry into Quito was one the easiest and most relaxed city entry we have had yet. In comparison to La Paz or Lima, there is no traffic, and even now two days later, while I am writing this entry it does not seem to be an uptick in traffic. In general traffic in Ecuador is much more relaxed then in Peru, where the usage of the horn is comparable to India. Where it seems to be rule, that as soon as you sit in your car or on your motorbike you have to honk, and are only allowed to stop once you park your ride.

On the day of our arrival – Monday – we had some trouble to find a proper place to eat at first, but found a spot. However yesterday we made a bad choice in restaurant and had the worst food experience of the past three months. That is especially bad as Stefan tried Guniea Pig. Might have been better to do that at one of the road side street vendors. But other then that Ecuador is a very friendly and beautiful place and i hope that they will overcome whatever problems they currently have quickly.