biker become backpacker

Around 350km southwest of Quito in Ecuador I decided to stop biking.

A truck driver was passing me and saw me struggling up a small hill. He actually stopped his truck some hundreds meter ahead, and was waiting for me because he wanted to know everything was ok. He probably saw my head almost on the bike steer/handlebars. Typically thing I do when I am tired.

He drove me to the next city, a nice man.

At that moment I decided to stop this journey from the bike seat.

My motivation has been very very low the last month of several reason. I have tried and tried to get my motivation back, but it getting almost worse.

I did this trip/journey just for myself, so when I lost my motivation I don´t see any point to continue. Is just wasted of time and money.

7616,1 km from San Francisco to Quito in Ecuador is enough.

I will now be a backpacker and visit some friends from Lima and La Paz, and some Norwegians in Santiago and Buenos Aires, before I take the plane back to Norway.

Bergans of Norway

Ecuador is amazing, the little I have seen so far. Ecuador has the biggest biodiversity per area in the world. Ecuador has 4 diverse and unique regions: the Amazon rain forest, the highland Andes, the coast and the Galapogos Archipelago. So far I have been in the highlands and I will bike to the coast. I also want to go to Galapogos islands, but I don´t have money or time for that.

Right now I am in Quito, a very nice and special city. The elevation of the city is 2800 meter, making the city second highest capitol in the world after La Paz in Bolivia.

I was just passing this bicycle clothes shop and stopped to buy a bike rain-jacket. After discussing the price I surprisingly saw this lady had a Bergans of Norway jacket. I asked her where she has bought that, because is not normal to get this brand outside Europe. Then she said she was a Norwegian and had bought it in Norway. Then I really got surprised. And of course I also said I was from Norway and wear a Bergans of Norway jacket that day too. After that we had a good and long chat. To make the story short, she is from Ecuador but married to a Norwegian man. She is a artist, a painter, but also have this bicycle clothes shop. Good and cheap clothes for biking and training. She invited me to her home in Quito, so I will stay there some days from today. Then she will leave to Norway and to her husband on 23th of December. Then I will continue to hang and celebrate the christmas with her Norwegian son (will soon move back to Norway, and also have Ecuador passport) and with his father and his family here in Quito. Really looking forward to that. Much better than to be alone in a cheap ugly hotel room. I will blog some pictures of Quito and Ecuador later, when I get a faster internet.Until then, stay blessed and feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo!!!!!!!!!!

transportation

trucks with 4 cargos with sugarcane, shoppingwagon and a horse.

food vendor sellers

it´s lot of them and they sell differents things like grilled meat on a stick, corn, fruits, cocnuts, self-made chips and pasteries.

so good!

the bridge

In Pereira, Colombia

Walking

I met this man when I was biking uphill. He was walking from Manizales to Cali, about 250 km. I don´t know how long that take, but for me it took 2 days to bike. He said he couldn´t take the bus, because he didn´t have money. I felt sorry for him so I gave him bottle of water, bottle of coca cola, bag of food from the bakery and sunglasses I don´t use. I normally never give money to people, because I don´t know they will use the money on the things they should use it on. So I feel better to give food, drinks or something else they need.

hilly, hard to bike, but also beautiful

Colombia has lot of mountains (it will be worse, the Andes is waiting for me). The landscape is beautiful.

To bad, but Colombia have had lot of heavy rainfalls and it still rain a lot. So many people have lost their homes and people have also died.

I have seen some homes that has been destroyed by the water.