The Route to Cuenca. Riobamba.

Hard. That is what I have decided, but I did get to see so much. After Riobamba, I made it all the way to Alousi in one day (about 100 Km). This may not seem like a lot, but when your bike is attempting to glue you to the ground becuase it weights so much, you have mountains and feel like you spend all your time going up (time-wise, I am sure you do), and have trouble getting any oxygen, I tell you, it is a lot. I left Riobamba - thank God I didn´t stay there more than one night. As a rememberance of the hostel I stayed at, I am constantly scratching my legs as a result of bedbugs. Disgusting. I have stayed at mostly relatively nice places, but this one was a bit dodgy for sure. Gross. Anyway.

To give you a rundown, Riobamba seems like a Detroit, or something of the like. It does have some redeeming qualities: like every town or pueblo I have been in thus far, it has cobblestone streets (not considered redeeming when travelling by bike, however), and has quite a number of cafes and bars, I think in large part due to it having a University. It also had a cafe that had FANTASTIC, REAL, NOT INSTANT coffee, which you could even get TO GO, about 1 block from my dodgy hostel. Everthing is centered around the train station, which at night had more food stalls then I have seen in any other place thus far in Ecuador. It was really crowded as well, with a lot of people eating and hanging out.

After arriving in Riobamba in the early afternoon (I usually start riding by 6:30), I took a local bus to a nearby village that is famous for its carpets. Not that I planned to strap one on Jake. The village was quaint- small, cobbestone streets nested in the mountains. Like every Ecuadorian town, it had a main plaza and park facing the church. I wandered around some - though even in a village as small as this it is noisier than you would expect with the muffler-less cars and frequently ancient buses, the TVs and radios blaring from all the shops, and the pretty constant honking. In any case, I had a pleasant meander and a good lunch/dinner consisting of rice, chicken and a type of maize. A pretty standard fare around here. I had a hankering to go for a beer when I was back in Riobamba, but alas they were all closed it seemed, because it was Monday. I wandered around the streets for a couple hours (coffee in hand), then went home to give a little love to Jake, and be consumed by bedbugs.