Turning up the Heat in Ecuador

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 14.11.2014

Sometimes the best of plans can go unexpectedly wrong and that’s exactly what happened to us this morning. Last night we made a mad dash to the finish line from TA6 in order to see the first team come in. The plan was to go back out on the course early this morning and catch some of the teams in the middle of the pack. We headed out from Mompiche for the five hour drive to the beginning of the trek section in Y de Cube.

Two hours into the drive we heard two loud bangs and had to pull over to the side of the highway; it looked like we’d blown the radiator on the 4x4 and all of the liquid was running out onto the highway.  Our vehicle has a “For Sale” sign on the back window and as we were inspecting the damage, a woman pulled up along side us and asked what the asking price was. Wladimir put tree branches on the road behind us to signal that we were stalled.

We waited by the side of the highway for the tow truck and another driver from the organization to collect us, watching tankers whizz by. A black jeep pulled a U-turn and a man with a spider web tattoo on his elbow got out and asked our driver what was happening. He made a phone call, got back into his car without saying good-bye and drove off.  At this point we started to get nervous as the race director had told us to be on our guard as we approached to coast and we felt like sitting ducks.

Telling the story to Rob Howard afterwards I joked that I couldn’t get kidnapped because no one would pay the ransom. He graciously said that he was sure that SleepMonsters would start a Kickstarter campaign and we had a good laugh.

After a couple of hours we made it back to Mompiche and were able to catch team Ecudor-Movistar crossing the finish line.  I can tell you about tow trucks in Ecuador, I can tell you about the tiny garages in the back streets of Esmeralda that fix different parts of a car but I cannot tell you about the only thing that is of interest to you, and that is stories from the middle of the pack. So sorry about that! Tomorrow is another day. 

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