Riobamba…

OK, so Im here resting my legs with a coffee… after yesterday’s climb (see below) and having now experienced the road from Ambato I’m glad I didn’t press on all the way to Riobamba yesterday… I totally underestimated the climbing, there was me thinking it would be a relatively easy 60km cruise down to Riobamba…. It wasn’t… The road climbed to just under 4000m on the eastern slopes of Chimborazo, it was a bit of a bugger really, I climbed for almost 2hrs solid to get out of Ambato, then dropped a few hundred metres before climbing back up to 4000m. The final 15km were simply a plummet into Riobamba. It was beautiful up there though, I left Ambato at 7am to beat the traffic so had a nice low sun much of the morning. Typically for mountains at this altitude the sun was baking hot but the air in the shadows was icy cold… Sadly aside from a few brief moments Chimborazo’s summit stayed in the cloud, it was nice to see the glacier on the north eastern slopes though as I passed. With a bit of luck I will have a clear day when I ride the dirt roads across her (yes, Chimborazo is a volcano…) southern slopes to Guaranda on Saturday….

Riobamba is a pleasant town, nice and colourful with a cool patina of delapidation to the pastel coloured buildings.

I haven’t done much this afternoon… my legs are pretty tired to be honest. Food is good here though… and there are loads of bananas at the market :o)

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