Terranova Expedition: Vilcabamba, John, and some tire woes.

We left Cuenca and rode most of the day, before coming through Loja and onwards to Vilcabamba, a small Ecuadorian town, a little off the beaten path, but from the looks of things, incredibly popular with the more hippie type crowd.

Our hostel for the night was similar to many we have stayed at. They have all the ingredients for an amazing place, but they just can't seem to put it all together.

They had a pool, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, spa, massage, but the pool was freezing, the main jacuzzi was empty, the other ones were luke warm, and the massage was closed.

As we were sitting in the luke warm Jacuzzi, one of the staff came by and I explained to him that the water wasn't very warm. He stuck his hand in, looked at me and said. "It's warm enough" and walked away.

I got out a bit later, and went to my room, but the shower only produced freezing cold water.

I was prepared for an uneventful night, until I came out to find a man named John sitting at a table outside my room.

John is an American from California, who has been living at the hostel for the last 12 months, and teaching english in town.

I sat down at the table, and we introduced ourselves and he seemed incredibly normal… until he opened his mouth.

He began by warning me that the hotel had recently sprayed for insects in the rooms. I have come to expect this, as there are thousands of creepy crawly things down here, and everyone seems to be spraying all the time to get rid of them.

That's when John let loose this statement: "They're spraying for Dengue fever, which isn't here, it's too high in the mountains for it, and the US government didn't design it to work at high altitudes"

me: "Huh?

John (totally matter of fact): "Sure, they use Dengue to control the populations of Equatorial countries, that's also why they put the fluoride in the salt here, for mind control, because they can't control the water supply, there are too many sources. So they use the salt. That's why I carry my own salt with me".

By this point, I was so fascinated by this guy I didn't even want to say anything, I just nodded along as he continued talking. I didn't want to argue with him, as I was afraid he might stop. This was fascinating!

Here are some of the things John explained to me:

1, The trails in the sky behind planes are actually "Chem-Trails" which are chemicals sprayed by the US government to control the weather.

2. The clouds in the sky in Ecuador are obviously Chem Clouds and are not natural.

3. The US Government puts Fluoride in the water in North America, and Fluoride in the Salt in Latin America for Mind control purposes.

4. The Earthquake in Japan could have been natural, but was likely caused by HAARP, which is a US government program to control the ionosphere, and cause earthquakes and hurricanes.

5. The entire world is controlled by the "New World Order", which is a secret group who control all the governments.

6. Dengue fever was created by the US Government, along with AIDS.

6. If anyone thinks 19 arabs were responsible for 9/11, then they need to get their head examined, the Twin Towers were obviously demolished from within.

All of this happened in a whirlwind of about 5 minutes, and he wasn't raving crazy eyed as we talked, but matter of fact, as if this was just so much common knowledge.

Tutu and Troy came by just then and wanted to go for dinner, so I didn't get to talk to John much more that night.

I learned later, that he freaked out so badly when they were spraying for mosquitos, they had to call the police. John must have thought the spraying was authorized by the CIA to try and get him.

The next night, I was in my room, and John and another guy were just outside my door talking about the Japanese earthquake and the nuclear power plants. John had been thinking about going back to the US, but wasn't going to now, since the Radiation was likely going to blow across the Pacific from Japan and contaminate California. They guy he was talking to said it wasn't very likely, since Japan was so far away, and the amount of radiation released so far is very small (which is accurate)

Then they started talking about Chernobyl. Since I have been to Chernobyl, and know a bit about it, I got up and joined the discussion.

As I went through the history of Chernobyl with them, John got pretty quiet. Then I showed them pictures from my visit. John didn't say much at all.

When I got up to leave, he looked relieved.

I think he was worried I might be radioactive.. :)

I went back in my room, closed the door and tired not to laugh.

(I couldn't get a picture of John, I am sure because he likely thought I might send it to Homeland Security or something…)

The next morning, we got up to leave, but first I needed to put on a new front tire, so Troy and I went into town to find a tire shop. It turned out to be a kid of about 12, but he sure could change a tire fast. I had bought a new tire in Cuenca, which we brought with us.

The only problem we had was when I went to unscrew the front wheel axle, I realized that my tools (which had been stolen in Medellin) no longer contained the proper Axle removal tool that I had brought along. So we spent the next 5 minutes rummaging around in their rustic shop, trying to find something that would work to remove the front tire. We finally settled on a long lug nut from a truck, that was the right size and shape, and I could get a lug wrench on it enough to remove the axle. Problem solved.

The kid had my old tire removed and the new one put on the rim in no time, and we reversed the process to re-install it. Total time, about 15 minutes. Cost: $2.00

We rode back to the Hostel, where we did an oil change on Troy's bike, packed up, sadly said our goodbye's to Tutu who was taking a bus on a different route at 1:00 am, and rode off, heading back north to Loja, so we could once again meet up with the Pan-American Highway, before turning south towards Peru.

The only problem is, the GPS, which doesn't seem to have the most accurate maps for Ecuador, sent us along another road, that bypassed Loja, but seemed shorter. At first the road was gravel, before turning in to a wonderful two lane blacktop that was as nice as anything we have ridden. This continued for about 15-20 km, until it turned back to gravel. Then it got rougher. And rougher. And narrower. Then it just kind of fell apart and we literally ended up in the backyard of some guys house. The "road" continued out the other side, but we decided to ask if this "road" went back to Loja. "No" was the answer, and he pointed in the opposite direction, back the way we had come.

Seems the way to Loja didn't come this way, and we would have to turn around and back track pretty much all the way to where we started.

By the time we did this, and made it back to where we had turned off, it was approaching 5:00 pm. So we continued and went back to Vilcabamba, where we met up with a very surprised and happy Tutu, and booked back in to the same hostel and same rooms.

Sadly, John was nowhere to be found this night, so I wasn't able to talk to him about the Lizard people who actually run the world.

After a wonderful meal at a restaurant down the street, I went to bed. Troy got up at midnight and drove Tutu to the bus station.

We got up this morning, and again packed the bikes and started out. This time, we went all the way back to Loja, before turing west and rejoining the Pan-American highway. We hadn't got 20 minutes out of town when Troy stopped and said his bike was riding funny. We looked it over, and found a nail stuck in his rear tire. We turned about, rode back to Loja, found a place to change tires (he has been carrying a spare), and had the old tire off and the new on in about and hour. Again the price was $2.00.

We got back on the road about 2:00 pm, and rode for most of the day in the bright sunshine. As we climbed however, we ended up in dense fog, where visibility was 20 feet, and our visors and glasses were useless. I ended up riding with my visor up, sunglasses down my nose, squinting between the two of them and over my windscreen to see 20 feet. We rode like this for an hour, before coming to a small town, where we are tonight. The border with Peru is about 100 km further down the road.