IF OUR MOTHERS ONLY KNEW

Published in Iron and Air Magazine and
Gestalten’s “Riding in the Wide” Hardback Book

INTRO

Billy Anderson and I go back almost two decades, where we spent the majority of our time wandering back alleyways in search of new skate spots. Fast forward almost 20 years, and not much has changed, just the locations. For the last 8 years, we have lived in different states and have made it a point to meet somewhere around the world to keep the adventure alive and going. Never have these trips been about sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the sunshine. Instead, we always opt for the road that takes you a little further and off the grid a little more. We seem to always find ourselves in the same types of places that bring up the same old phrase, “if our mothers only knew where we hang out.” Ecuador was no exception.  

We rented 2 Husqvarna 701’s, packed them to the brim, and set out in search of dirt roads and trails that would take us through the Andes mountain range for 5 days. With around 1200 Kilometers mapped out, we planned to make our way through some volcanic regions, forgotten villages sunk deep in the mountains and eventually end up in the Espeletia fields of the northern border, where Ecuador meets Colombia. But as you may know, Moto trips in foreign countries tend to never go as planned. 

So, let me give you a little on the situation in Ecuador. First off, Quito, it is at 9,300ft in elevation. This is the lowest point we were at our entire trip. To give a point of reference, my hometown is in Salt Lake City, and it is at 4,200’. The highest point we were at was 16,000’. If you have never experienced high elevation like this, let me just say that it makes everything a bit more difficult. Over the course of 4-5 months, Billy and I researched different parts of the country, trails to ride, and things to eat, essentially planning the best that we could for our ride. I will tell you this, I did not plan on the difference in elevation. The weeks leading up to our trip, Ecuador had received record rainfall in parts of the country and had some massive landslides. Also, this is February in the year 2022. The COVID19 pandemic was still alive and affecting the lives of most in this country. It was interesting to see how diligent the people of this country were in wearing their masks. Being a foreign traveller at this time in the world also came with a weight. We were traveling into small villages that more or less had been pretty isolated from the rest of the world and possibly even COVID19. When you think of things in that perspective, it is some heavy stuff and the last thing you want is to be the asshole tourist that brings it in. 

CAYAMBE SCRAMBLE

It is an early morning start and we are anxious to get on the bike. We head to breakfast and make sure we are feed up for the day. After it is game on and head to Freedom Bike Rentals to get all our gear loaded up in our bags and make sure the bikes are dialed. We take off from the rental shop and literally not 2 minutes into the ride the bags on Billy’s bike get clipped by a car and rip off. Quito traffic is no joke. Like 2 bad dogs, we ride back to Freedom Rentals and they where awesome and let us switch out the bags for new ones. Off we went. Soon as we were out of the city it was right into epic riding. 

For most of that day we spent our time riding a mixture of country farming roads to miles of old cobblestone roads that climbed deep into the mounts. The entire time I was riding I couldn’t help but think of the countless hours that it must have taken people to make this cobblestone roads and they were all in pretty remote areas. I was amazed at how diverse the landscape was from Quito to Cayambe. The first super memorable zone that we road through was this valley road that climbed up into the mountains. The long grass covered hills and super dark dirt made them look like they were pulled from a Norwegian photo book. Miles away from the city you would find people living out on their own and farming for everything they needed. This was a pretty common theme for most of the places we road though. About halfway into our ride we made it to a small little town below the accent to Cayambe. We had to ask around town a number of times where to find gas and was led to a little door along one of the streets. Found a guy that was selling gas and filled the bikes up. Let me just stop here for a minute and paint a quick picture of the moment. This was one of those things that really put where I was into perspective. We’ve found a random guy at his house that has barrels of gas stored below where I assume his family lived. He is filling up empty milk bottles with gas, pouring them in the bikes with a makeshift funnel, and measuring the gas by the milk gallon as he puts it in our bikes. It is moments like this that really make me feel alive and know that adventure is on the horizon. We decided to grab a few items of food from the local corner store not knowing what we would get into later and set off on our way. 

Soon as we left town the riding changed from long beautiful country roads to a lot more technical riding. The roads were a lot less maintained and started to introduce rock features that you would likely find in single-track enduro riding. We were having a blast and had a hard time not stopping around every corner to look back and take photos. We started to realize that we were going to be cutting daylight pretty thin if we were going to make it to our final destination of sleeping in the refuge at the base of the Cayambe Volcano. We put a little pace on our riding and stopped a little less frequently so we could make better time. Soon as we entered into the nation park of Cayambe we were greeted by a guard station. The guy running the station let us know that we missed our opportunity to get a permit for visiting and camping the park by a few hours. A little negotiation and an exchange of some cash and we were on our way. We were approximately 15 miles from where we planned on sleeping for the night and the road was only getting worse at this point as the sun was dropping fast. We came up on a grass knoll that overlooked what felt like the whole world and we couldn’t help but stop and grab a couple photos. About 5 minutes after leaving the open knoll area we lost daylight and were greeted with some of the thickest fog that I have ever seen in my life and were fully socked out. I couldn’t see Billy’s headlight which was less that 10 feet away from me and the road was getting steep and pretty gnarly. On one side of us was drop offs that went down easily hundreds of feet and an embankment on the other where the heavy rain falls had tracked out a rut that would make it almost impossible to get the bikes out of. After Billy going down twice and having to ride the clutch for the last mile or two to make it though the super steep and technical zones we made that call that to keep going wasn’t the smart move and decided to head back down to the grassy knoll area we had stopped at before. 

The ride back to that knoll area took about 45 minutes and felt like riding a motorcycle with your eyes closed. As I was making my way down off of this volcano I could barely see the highlight of the side of the road where it dropped off and did my best to stay as centered as I possibly could. I am a religious guy and you could say I spent a good amount of time praying as I was navigating my way back down. When we got back down to the grassy knoll area everything had changed. The wet fog had soaked everything and made it difficult to find the places that were higher ground and not too swampy. We found a spot that seemed to be suitable and setup the tent as quick as we could because it was getting chilly quick. After over a hundred miles of riding that day it felt nice to take the boots off, change into some comfier clothes and chill a little. I will say the smell of the wet boots in the tent was not ideal haha, sorry Bill. We hadn’t planned our meal schedule great and missed our opportunity to grab any sort of dinner before heading up towards the volcano. Luckily we had stopped and grabbed some food at the corner store prior to heading up. Food included, 2 bananas, 2 rolls, grapes, a brick of cheese, & a tube of yogurt. We ended up eating nearly a whole brick of cheese and the rolls for dinner that night. The bananas were mostly smashed and the grapes were making me a little nervous about getting sick because we hadn’t thought to wash them. Needless to say, we went to bed a little hungry. So, let me put things into perspective here. We are sleeping at between 15,000-16,000ft in elevation, it got down to probably the low 30s, and had easily cleared the 100 mile mark of riding that day. To say the least, sleeping was not ideal. At one point Billy and I had a laugh attack because it was probably close to 1 am and neither of us had got a bit of sleep, not to mention because of the altitude we were both breathing like we had just ran a mile. Being up at that elevation really does some weird things to your body. Long story short, it was a terrible nights sleep if you want to call it that. With the first glimpse of sunlight we jumped out of the tent and were greeted by a few Caribou running through the meadow we were sleeping in. The fog that was so thick that you could barely see your hand in front of you was gone and the cloud cover was a few hundred feet below us. You could see the tops of all the mountains and volcanos poking through the clouds and it seemed like an experience from a dream. We spent the next hour or two running around and geeking out over all the epic ness that Cayambe offered. It was incredible to look up at the snow-capped volcano we had tried to climb the night before but feel short of by less than half a kilometer. (Fun fact: Cayambe is the only place on the earth that crosses the equator that it snows). Once we warmed up, we broke down camp, got packed up and headed towards what didn’t realize would be one of the hardest rides of our lives to the forgotten village of Pinan. 

THE FORGOTTEN VILLAGE OF PIÑAN

After going about 20 hours without a real meal, breakfast could not come fast enough. We found the only place in the town of Cayambe that was open first thing in the morning and ordered just about everything on the menu. It was the first time I had ever had a plate full of dragonfruit and it just might be my new favorite fruit. Now being back at a respectable 9,200ft in elevation and having a full belly we were feeling a little better after what felt like the worst nights sleep possible. From what the GPS was telling us this would be the least mile intensive day of what we had planned. We loaded things up and headed north to Piñan. 

We got an early start that day and so we weren’t feeling too rushed. We explored a couple of the cities we passed through and stopped to stock up on snacks again as we did the day before. A couple bananas, some rolls, and a couple oranges. Made a call home to let the family know we were alive and would be going off the grid again and wouldn’t have service. We started towards the foothills of the mountains when we saw the sign that you hope to see on any Moto trip… “Hot springs 5km ahead”. Since we weren’t in a hurry this was a very necessary stop. Having multi-hundred mile days on a bike really does a number on your body. I feel like the older we get this is more of a conversation topic between Billy and I then ever. The hot springs were fantastic and really brought a new life into the day. Before we left the family that ran the hot springs asked if we wanted lunch. We said, “sure” and sat down. After 5 or so minutes had gone by and we hadn’t got a menu we asked if we were going to get one. The dad laughed and said no we don’t have a menu, we only serve one thing, “Pescado de rio”. It was too late at this point to bail and yes they ended up bringing the whole fish out, eyeballs, teeth, skin, and all. Honestly, it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t a meal I was looking to repeat. Mostly I was just hoping this meal wouldn’t haunt us later in our ride. 

We talked to one of the guys in the area before taking off and asked him how long it would take us to get up to Piñan since our GPS hadn’t been reliable the day before. He told us on motorcycles that it would maybe take us an hour and a half. We took off up the canyon dirt road that quickly started to narrow and turn in to some great high speed riding and dodging large rocks. A few of the sections got a little muddy and made for some fun laughs as we decided to run them a couple of times for a photo or two. When we started to get up into the higher mountain range we passed through a split in the hills that resembled gates. On the other side was a valley that if I didn’t know any better I would have thought was somewhere in Iceland. The clouds started to roll in and and it made for a super dramatic landscape and for some epic times. What we didn’t know at that time is that spilt in the mountains would later become affectionately known as the gates of hell. 

As we started to make our way up into the this Icelandic valley a new kind of mud was starting to introduce itself and was kinda unpredictable how the tires would handle it. We started down this double track road with an embankment in the middle of the tracks. If you are familiar with single track riding you know the kind of trail this is where there is a high track and low track and you start to get sucked into the lower track and will all of a sudden go. Well it claimed Billy and unfortunately did so at a pretty quick pace. I was riding right behind him and saw him go down with the helmet taking a slam. My first thought was, “oh shit we are a long way away from help! I really hope that he didn’t break something!” When I got to him he was pretty rattle. The Bell helmet did its job and protected the head. He took a minute to take a breather while I went and got the bike and stood it up. Soon as I got the bike up I noticed half of the key to the ignition was laying in the dirt. My heart sank when I realized that he had someway kicked or hit the key when he went down and broke the key off in the ignition. We were about 2.5 hours into this ride and quite a ways from the nearest town. At this point the GPS was telling us that we were closest to Piñan. We tried putting the half a key in the ignition and it worked to turn it off and on. With the bike still being operable we decided it was probably best to just try and get to Piñan as quick as we could and then we would handle the key situation the next day. In that moment, my gut was telling me to just turn around and go back but everything logically at the moment was saying to keep going. I ended up kicking myself for this decision later. 

We were about 40km from Piñan and had probably 10km of climbing to go before we started our decent into the valley where the village was. The mud went from just cautious riding to fully out cowboy tripod riding with both legs straight out and doing everything we could to keep the bikes from tipping over. We made it to the top of the mountain and started to head down. In my head I thought this would be a good thing but it end up being 2 hours of the most physically difficult thing that I have ever done in my life. It was impossible to keep the bikes up right. Around 70lbs of gear on the bikes and the slickest clay/mud I have ever seen in in my life resulted in Billy and I dropping the bikes no less than 50 times, no exaggeration. This is the part of the ride that we coined moto-crossfit. At one point I was mid deadlift on the bike when both of my feet went opposite direction and the bike came down in my lap. It hurt, but honestly I was just more discouraged than anything. I killed the bike and shimmied out from under in and just laid my head in helmet down on the mud and just laid there for a couple of minutes. I live for these moments but this one was hard. I looked up at the sky and could see that we were loosing daylight and I had no idea how much longer it would take to get to this town. I knew I had no time to sit there and mope in the muddy and I had to pick up my bike and go but truly felt like I wasn’t physically capable of picking it up. I got the bike upright somehow and for what felt like the millionth time, I threw my leg over the bike and kept moving forward. It is truly incredible what the human bodies are capable of. My mind had checked out long ago if I was being honest with myself and in that moment I had no desire to keep going. I really haven’t ever been in that kind of situation before. There have been lots of trails or rides that were more technically or on paper were harder but all of them seemed to offer a way to turn around and get yourself out of the situation option. This ride however, did not offer an option to turn around and head back. At this point, if I didn’t get up and keep riding we would be wet and sleeping in the mud and could possibly be in a serious situation. 

Despite the one of the hardest rides of my entire life, we made it to Piñan right before the sun went down. We were greeted to the village with a gate with a handful of horses behind it up to their knees in mud. We Hadn’t been given a whole lot of direction on what to expect when we got there. All we knew is that they had a bunk room, and that they would supposedly make you a meal. But let me give you a quick overview on Piñan. It is a sleepy little village that seemed to be fully self sustainable and lived off the land. There was between 30-40 clay huts with grass roofs that everyone lived in, heated by a burning fire. Judging by the road to get into this village and the fact that they really had no outside support, I would guess that the people here hadn’t seen anyone from the outside in at least 6 months. 

We found a field where the local kids were playing some form of volleyball with a soccer ball and started to ask around about the bunk room. The told us to find a guy name Pedro and that he would have information for us. Due to the mud being so thick and not knowing how to get our bikes through the gate we left them there and went by foot into the village to find Pedro. After asking around a few times we found the hut where Pedro lived. He was very surprised to see us and after talking for a moment agreed to letting us sleep in the bunk house. Right after that conversation, the rain really started to come in. The kids had a blast as they ran behind us riding our bikes through the muddy town while we roosted them with a spray of mud. The bunk house was across a hanging bridge over a river and up a hill. We started unpacking our bikes to carry our things crossed and up the hill went it hit me… To get gas into the bikes you had to use the key to unlock the gas cap and the key to Billy’s bike had broke off in the ignition! We had packed in an extra gallon of gas to make sure we could get out. Not gonna lie, this is when panic set in. We tried my key in his gas cap a couple of times unsuccessfully before giving up and heading into the bunkhouse. So, at this point 1 of 2 things was true about what to expect in Piñan. Yes, they did indeed have a clean bed in a bunkhouse for us to sleep in but the meal that I was definitely looking forward to was not there haha. Most of the food we had thrown in our bags was smashed from going down on the bikes so many times. So once again, no dinner. I was really just hoping the nasty fish meal I had earlier in the day wouldn’t be my last. The bed in the bunkhouse was a million times better than sleeping on the ground in a freezing tent the night before but my racing mind kept me awake all night. Sidenote, I was totally geeking out about how rad the alpaca blanket was on the bed that I was sleeping in and it was crazy how warm it kept me. Warmer than any sleeping bag I had ever slept in. 

Eventually, morning came and it came in true village fashion by the crow of a rooster. I scrambled through my things to find my glasses and went and peeked out the window. It looked like the rain had stopped and the fog had cleared out. I was feeling hopeful that we would be able to have a good chance of making it out in the morning. We got cleaned up and went and walked around the village. It was absolutely incredible and exciting to see the life that these people lived. It made me so happy to see kids out running around and playing in the field with sticks and rocks instead of on iPads or watching TVs. I think I counted at least 5-6 of just about any animal you could think of. The whole village was occupied with animals just roaming freely though the houses. We talked with a few people and asked around about a store since we hadn’t eaten since our infamous fish lunch. We ended up finding what they called the store… I would more of called it a stash haha. One of the houses had some sort of Kool-aid packets, crackers, and orange drink… no water and than was about it. We got a couple things but honestly I was worried that if I ate or drank them that I would be dried out even more and not having water to wash it down. 

After wondering around for an hour or so and the weather giving us a good window we decided it it would be best to give it an honest attempt to get out of there before we got stuck and couldn’t get out. We got our things loaded up and before we took off I told Billy that I had to try and see if we could get his gas cap open one more time. We pulled a couple things off and I used my key again and this time shook it around and massaged the pins as much as I could when all of a sudden, POP! The cap popped off! I feel to my knees and yelled, “Thank you, God!!!” We dumped the extra gallon of gas we had into the bikes and were instantly filled with a lot more optimism. The road getting out of Piñan was hard as to be expected, but slowly we made it out. After we had cleared most of the mud and right before the Gates of Hell, we stopped to lay in a field of grass for a while. I sat there and was just super grateful for the experiences that we had an my anxieties that had kept me awake most of the night before were mostly put to ease. With Billy’s key breaking off in the ignition and my bike making a clicking noise we decided to change up our plans and instead of heading north up to the Columbian border we were going to head back to Quito to have the bikes checked out and make sure they were good. At this point I had really just been through an emotional rollercoaster the last two nights and was running on minimal sleep. The last thing I wanted was night 3 of racing sunlight and ending up in a hairy situation. We opted for the 5 hour highway route back to town. One thing to note when doing these types of trips, is always make sure you give yourself a good rest day. Rest we did. Booked a night at the JW Marriot, ate steak and slept in a real bed. I think I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow that night. 

SOCKED IN ON PINCHINCHA

It is amazing what starting your day off with a shower will do for you. Soon as we cleaned up, we headed over to Freedom Bike Rentals to get the bikes looked out. They did a once over and fixed a few things and cleaned the 6” of mud off each of our bikes from the ride the day before. We jumped on the road and headed out to Pinchincha, the volcano in the clouds. It was good to be back on the bikes and feeling confident about riding them. 

If you haven’t ever ridden through a large city on motorcycles I will let you know it is intense, especially when you are splitting lanes. Quito is no exception. We wanted to see a few sites on the way to Pinchincha so we ended up taking the long way out of the city and that meant lots of city traffic, but we saw some cool spots and got some great views of the city. Luckily we made it out of the hustle and on to the dirt. Before we started up the climb we made a mandatory stop to fill up on the local favorite drink of Jugo De Caña and grab some snacks. From the first glance you might not be able to tell Jugo de Caña and gasoline in the reused bottles apart, but it is a must try. From there on out it was mostly rural farm road riding, the kind where you sit back take a deep breath and just realize how fortunate you are to be right where you are. We stopped a couple times to take in the view and shoot a few photos. The fog started to roll in pretty heavy so we finished decided not to take too much time and got back at it.

From the base of the volcano the road got nice and step and turned into endless switch backs climbing higher into the clouds. Of all the places that we road it was super interesting to see how the vegetation varied from place to pace. Some were rolling hills covered in grass, others were super rocky and dramatic, this one was some of my favorite as it had the dramatic lava formations with fields of small vibrant flowers covering them. We made it up to the refuge right below the rim of Pinchincha where we walked around and explored the bunkhouse there. We were sitting just below 16,000’ in elevation the bikes did not love being up that high even though they were fuel injected. They would do this thing were they would try and sputter out when taking off and so you would really have to give it a go when taking off. It made it a little try for the final accent up to the rim of the volcano but we made it to the top. Unfortunately, at this time the fog had fully socked it in and we never got to see down inside the volcano. We road around up top and checked out all the memorials at the top. Even though we never got to see inside of the volcano you couldn’t help but think about how badass it was that you were on a motorcycle at the rim of a volcano. 

It started raining pretty good and once again we were going to be pushing daylight to get back to where we were staying. Within a few minutes of winding down the switchbacks we were pulling our goggles off because they were so wet and fogging from the heavy rain. We found an overhang in the side of the mountain and pulled under it and threw our rain pants over our gear. I will say it again, make sure yo got the gear to cover you in all climate conditions when you are on a ride like this. The rain pants saved us as we navigated our way back into town. We spent the rest of our time in Ecuador being tourists. Our bodies were beat up and tired from the hundreds of miles we road and who knows when we would be back in the area to see it again. 

Towards the end of the trip I found myself thinking back over all the memories that were packed into the short time that we were in Ecuador. Now coming out favorable on the other side it made me smile and grateful for all that we had experienced in our short stay. I called my wife to give her a download on what had been going on over the last few days. She said “Did you even enjoy your trip?” Her response made me laugh and I had a hard time answering her but ultimately my response to her was, “these are the things that make me feel alive! For me it isn’t about going somewhere to sit and relax on a chair by sea, it is about reminding myself of what I am capable of and seeing the world in ways that most don’t get too.” When we got on the plane to head back home I felt lighter than when I had landed. My anxieties and pressures from the day to day life weren’t looming. I think for some people they travel to escape the life they live but for me I travel to ignite the life I live and come back full of energy. I have always said if I don’t come home from vacation fully exhausted and needing a few days of rest, I’ve done it all wrong. Everything about this trip was right.