AUGUST 14 - ARCHIDONA TO PUYO

I told you I would try to take some pix of the resort in Archidona.   Sorry, it started raining overnight and throughout our ride it was either drizzling or outright pouring.  We all got very wet.

Ride details:  86km, 1280 m up, 369 m down.  Only about half the climbing was on one uphill section, the rest was in bits and pieces.  Should have been a nice ride, except for the rain.
First picture is of the Napo River.  Swollen and dirty due to the rain - I don't know what its normal state would be.  Thjis river eventually joins the Amazon and flows all the way across the continent.

A couple of rain forest photos from Laura.  We'll take some more with a person in them to give you perspective.

Definitely very dense and lush.












Lunch was at the top of a small pass (the top of the 500 vertical meter climb).  Laura left first and I chased her for a few km until I caught up.  But wet, wet, wet. We made it into Puyo without a problem.

Puyo is a biggish town (25 - 30 K people) and is the provincial capital.  For reference, the coordinates are S 1 deg 29 min. by W 77 deg, 60 min.  On the Pastaza River, which also leads to the Amazon.  We are at the 'Hosteria Finco El Pigual' resort.  Beautiful place, even in the rain.

Here's the bridge which is the entrance to the resort. 

And the Puyo River that the bridge crosses.












This is a great place.  We have a 'rest day' tomorrow.  The practice of the tour is to book us into hotels or similar on rest days to give us chance to get laundry done, and have a bit of R & R.

The resort consists of a number of small buildings each with 4 or more units. Here is the view from our second floor balcony.  Laura wants to do a botanical tour tomorrow, so we should have some info on the more exotic plants here.







I'll end this for today.  Our unit and balcony are full of things drying out.  I talked to Christiano (tour coordinator from Brazil) about the weather and the best suggestion he had was "pray."  It's not looking good, but it can change.  Does anybody have any suggestions for drying out shoes in a hurry?  No stove, oven, microwave or baseboards in the unit.  

PS - it is still raining - hard.