restday Pasto: Treasure hunting

April 10, 2017

The sky is blue this morning! Today we have four major tasks: getting the laundry dry, finding a shop for bearings to fix Patrick's front wheel, finding a bike shop for new brake pads, and finding an optical shop that can fix Rachel's glasses. So after breakfast at a bakery, we head out on an expedition.

We find the street with all the bike shops. Patrick goes back to the mechanic and together they get the bearing out of the front hub. Then the treasure hunt begins, to find the right size bearing. We are sent in the direction of where all the motorcycle shops are located. Patrick knows this isn't the right place, motorcycle parts are metric and this bearing is American sizing. He asks one shop owner and he sends us to the street of the automobile parts about four blocks away. It's interesting how shops in many countries are grouped together in categories selling the same things.

Finding an auto parts shop brings success! Then back to the bike shop to fix the wheel. New brake pads are purchased and we are off to find the next treasure, an optical shop that hopefully could repair Rachel's glasses.

In Ecuador, walking any street we would almost always see an optical shop. We figure here we need to need to find that street, so we head to the main plaza. After asking in one optical shop, we were pointed to a side street off the main plaza. This is the street! We pick one, and the lady looks at the frames. The earpiece on one side has lost a spring that connects it to the frame. After some calling she can have it fixed today, they cannot replace the spring but will solder a new one on the inside.

We have a nice lunch at a wrap place in the mall, do some grocery shopping and rush back to the hotel to rescue our laundry from the rooftop. Dark clouds are building. In the evening we splurge on a steak dinner.

Early morning breakfast at a bakery. You have to find a place to sit amongst all the fresh bread.

Our Phil Wood hubs take cartridge bearings you an usually find at automotive parts stores. The problem is that ours are imperial size, while most shops only carry metric sizes. After some searching and pointed the way by helpful shop owners, we find a shop that has our size bearings. The bike store guy installs them quickly.

Vertical planter made from recycled plastic bottles.

Cathedral with shop squeezed into a corner.

We like these squeeze packages with mustard and mayonnaise. Makes for nice roadside sandwiches.

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