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when the truck braked suddenly. Bernie hit his anchors, burned out his
brakes and blew two tyres. So tonight Bernie is about 100 kilometres
back on the road with Juan, trying to get the Winnebago repaired. It's
going to cost us the Ecuadorian equivalent of a few thousand dollars. I
hope they catch us up before we hit the Peruvian border, in a few days.
To make matters worse, today, while Bernie was away, I got lost.
The guys in the other Winnebago were using Google Maps, and the
roads that we were making for turned out not to exist. That cost me
three hours. Luckily, the Red Cross turned up and guided us to the
right route.
Through Colombia, and now in Ecuador, I seem to have been
climbing at a 45-degree angle the whole way. Soon I'll start descending
to the coast, and I'll stick to it as much as I can, taking in rejuvenating
glimpses of the mighty Pacific. It will be good to get out of the moun-
tains; they've been taking a toll on my body. It's not just that they're
steep: I'm up so high that the altitude has played havoc with my breath-
ing. I take lots of short, sharp breaths to keep the oxygen flowing. What
are really killing me, though, are the fumes and smoke I'm inhaling from
passing vehicles. Petrol is incredibly cheap here, just 30 cents a litre, but
I don't think it's the best quality. There's a black petrol haze hanging in
the air. Because petrol is affordable, there are a lot of vehicles on the
roads. The natural air here is clean and fresh, but you'd never know.
october 18
Ecuador is incredibly beautiful and diverse, with enormous snow-
topped volcanoes soaring out of the plains. I'm running up in the
clouds, 3000 metres above sea level. It's similar to Mount Kosciuszko,
with short brown grass and snow patches, and not a lot else. Every-
where, we're seeing signs directing travellers to Inca ruins, but, guess
what, I'm not even tempted. I have to keep running. One day I'll be
a tourist in this country and see every Inca ruin there is. The photo
boys have taken some terrific pictures of the gorgeous scenery but
have to frame the mountains carefully so that they avoid photograph-
ing the litter on the ground. Rubbish, in the form of plastic bottles
and food containers, discarded household goods and dead animals,
is just tossed onto the ground and left to fester. No one gives a damn,
and it makes me realise how the Clean Up Australia campaign worked
