The next morning, as I go from the hotel to the car staging area, I see Loja in the daylight. Many of the sidewalks are missing
huge sections. Instead, there are great open sewage pits 10 or 15 feet deep. How we cavorted so drunkenly through those streets
the night before! That would have been someway to go - drowning in an open sewer.

It's two hours down the rutted Pan Americano that turns dirt now and again until we reach the very tense and fortified border with Peru.A car count as we leave Ecuador: 72 cars and 11 motorcycles. The rest simply disappeared,and were never seen again. Many of the remaining cars are just tourists now, disqualified for not being at morning start times but catching up later, either by circumventing the worst roads or driving through the night just to be along for the party, which despite grueling days, the event turns into most nights.