Stopover in Riobamba

During our check-out in Banos, the hotel owner approached us. He had to go to the city and asked if he should take us to the bus station. This way, we could save the dollars for the taxi. Of course, we found it very nice of him and in a flash, he had already thrown the suitcases onto the pick-up truck and we were sitting in the car. The ride took less than 5 minutes. He gave us a bus recommendation for the trip to Riobamba. We went to the counter and Daniela was about to order when the hotel owner came running to us and grabbed our suitcases. He pointed to a bus that was about to start towards Riobamba. Phew, that was a perfect landing and really nice of the boss :-)!

The bus ride lasted about 2 hours, this time without a movie, but with Spanish music. Yes people, that automatically made us sway our hips from left to right. I found the bus ride very exciting again, as we drove through some beautiful places. It was also uphill again. You could see how the landscape changed. Just behind Banos and still relatively low, you could see mandarin, apple, and peach plantations and the higher we went, the more steppe landscape reappeared. We arrived in Riobamba early. We are now at an altitude of about 2,750 meters. After we checked into our room, we went straight out again. We have our next adventure ahead of us here. The plan was: a downhill mountain bike tour from the Chimborazo volcano (6310m). We quickly found the right provider, but the guy was amazing. He told us about the tour, the area, the biting dogs, etc. for about 2.5 hours. Daniela looked at me sideways in the meantime and I had to hold back laughter. Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well and I burst out laughing. The guy from the agency didn't even notice, but kept talking happily. Then Daniela put a stop to it and said, now let's talk about the contractual details, we still have to go to the supermarket. No, that guy was really something. So, the tour looks like this tomorrow: pick-up time - 6:30 am, then a two-hour drive up to 4,800m and then the fun begins :-)! There is one thing that bothers me, and that is the point with the biting dogs. Over the last few days, I have repeatedly seen stray dogs chasing after moving cars. The guy also said that we should definitely stop and use the bike as protection in case of an attack. well, I came up with another option. Just at the supermarket, we stocked up on dog treats. If a mean dog comes, I'll just throw the treats a little further away and then pedal away. Well, hopefully that works as planned. So, cross your fingers and we're going to bed early now so we'll be fit tomorrow!