goodbye to Michnus and Elsebie.
If the shock dying wasn’t enough,
about an hour away from Quito my
bike started to stall, until it wouldn’t
start again and something metallic
rattling as I pressed the ignition but-
ton. Ok, best to stop! The plus side was,
having a DR650 the diagnosis would
be quick, and I’d conveniently broken
down outside of a small bike mechan-
ics who quickly informed me one of
the valve seats had dropped. Serious-
ly!! The other convenient thing was,
a guy who I’d met on Facebook called
Martin had added me to the Quito
Dual Sport Club What’s App group,
literally within the last 24 hours, so I
sent a message asking if anyone could
help. Within 5 minutes, I was talking
to Davo Garces who owned Ecuador
Bike Rental (Sleipnir) and after ping-
ing him our location, he informed me
that a tow truck was on its way, that
he had a place to store all of our stuff
and that we were staying at his house.
How nice is that! The only downside
was that it was chucking it down with
rain and it was rush hour. Davo and
his brother Diego were great guys and
were unbelievably hospitable. We’d
already arranged a stay in Otavalo, 90
minutes North of Quito, so the next
day we had to head off and leave the
bike with the mechanic. We already
TRAVERSE 94
had other stuff on the way to the ad-
dress in Otavalo, which turned out
to be a nightmare, although we did
manage to get a shock service kit af-
ter a lot of hassle. We travelled two-up
to Otavalo however 10 days later I re-
turned to Quito on a bus for the return
trip, as the bike really wasn’t prepared
for a pillion and the trip up had been
one of the most uncomfortable jour-
neys I’d ever made.
After the engine was sorted out,
it was off to the shock specialist and
within days we were ready to go again.
During our down time in Quito we’d
also got to meet up with Michnus and
Elsebie again, a guy called Kevin Chow,