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Where one lake has a floating bridge , the next has ferries ; a barge for vehicles and a wooden boat for foot passengers . Yet , as is the case in most of Central and South America , motorcycles are not really considered proper vehicles . Not even big , fully loaded travel machines . So , the motorcycles are painfully loaded onto the passenger boat together with bicycles , cows and whoever else needs to cross .
After some dark , shadowy palm groves , it ’ s knees-to-the ground pristine tarmac curves up the cocoa plantation hills . Before you know it , you find yourself among fields of sugar cane in the grey mists of the cloud forest . In the rain the road gets muddy as it hugs the deep green hillsides , switching ever up into the clouds past cows and pigs grazing by the wayside . Small dwellings appear at the last minute from the mist , as do dogs , donkeys , and chickens .
Ecuador Freedom have found a small sugar cane processing place that ’ ll let you pop in and look around . The sugar cane is squeezed and runs through a pipe , downhill , straight into a big rectangular basin . A fire fed with bamboo and squeezed-out sugar cane boils down the juice to a thick paste , which is then filled into rectangular wooden forms and pressed . The blocks can be seen for sale roadside and in markets . It ’ s raw cane sugar at its finest with an intense brown sugar taste . Locally it ’ s drunk with hot water like tea or mixed with water and lime juice over ice as a sort of lemonade . And of course , it is fermented and distilled into flavoured alcohol with very regional recipes .
Hidden in this mysterious mist are tiny towns where old
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