Soon, I found myself on the Via San Bartolome, a quiet, remote road with solitude and views unspoiled by human activity. With its villages few and far between, Via San Bartolome slowly unfurls across the eastern slopes of the Andes for 80km, merging with a network of other local roads leading down into the Amazon plains. Gone are Cuenca"s busy streets and trendy cafes, replaced by sparse, tiny indigenous settlements, animal pastures and a mountain landscape weighed down by heavy clouds and undisturbed silence.