Out of the bubble......... One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.-- Henry Miller

...from here to Macará- heading towards the coast (not quite - more like the foothills of the Andes) and into Peru. Taking a side road again and being quite pleased with the choice until we hit the downhill gravel. Some motorist had warned us about the bad road closer to Macará and here it is......bumpedy bumpedy bump....It's hard to enjoy the view when balancing on the bike, locking up the brakes and hoping not to be thrown off the bike entirely while hitting some bigger rocks in the road...not to mention the crazy drivers passing us or coming towards us dragging a cloud of dust behind them to make us blind for seconds at a time which is long enough to have your life endangered. It's a pretty high stress level mentally and physically. Can't imagine riding the road the other way - up the mountain, but even riding down is hard, hard work! Before we hit the rocky road we came across a sugar cane juice stand which was a perfect break slurping down the sweet substance enhanced with lime and orange juice......at home in CA the natural food store would have charged us an arm and a leg and here on the road between trucks, sheep and goats we drank at least a liter each spending a whole dollar while I stored some more of the yummy liquid in my insulated traveling cup - the sugar rush made me feel like I can go on forever and never run out of energy.....