The Spoken Road

Carretera Austral

2010-01-16T15:33:00.005-05:00

It´s hard to imagine a place more beautiful than Patagonia…or more wet. Water seems to ooze from every orifice, cascade down the face of every mountainside and fall from the heavens above. We were welcomed back onto our bicycles and the wandering lifestyle as soon as we arrived on the island of Chiloé. It is akin to stepping back in time. The kettles were constantly warming on the wood stoves of most houses and the damp, salty, coastal aromas reminded us of riding in Nova Scotia not that long ago. We are continuously surprised and grateful of the generosity that we receive while traveling and southern Chile is no different. As we rested on the beach on our first day on the island, German and Mariela, a Chilean couple, delighted us with local history, shared their home with us and invited us to use their kayaks, which we gratefully accepted. For a week, we climbed up and down steep hills, shared conversations with the locals and dodged the rain four out of the seven days we were there.

In Quellon, we met up with our friend Femke and took the night ferry to Chaiten, situated at the northern tip of the famous Carretera Austral on the mainland. We arrived to persistent rain and an ominous sky. It was a fitting backdrop to a town that is struggling to revive itself after enduring two devastating eruptions of Volcán Michinmahuida. The first in May 2008, and the following in February of 2009. The bustling port town of about 4000 was utterly destroyed and the population has dwindled to 500-600 of the most die-hard Chaitenitos. They are kind and generous, but you can see in their eyes the heartbreak of losing their town and their determination to rebuild and start again. As we road out of town, we saw a truck that was painted ¨Levántate Chaiten!¨ Lift yourself up! Among it were others signs that damned the government for leaving them ´behind´. Almost a year later, their houses have been burglarized and they still have no running water or electricity. The damage was palpable, many of the houses buried under 5-6 feet of ash and mud that had raged through with a torrent of water as the nearby river swelled and engulfed the homes.

We walked around the town and saw haunting images of homes having been left in a hurry, children´s toys scattered, blankets embedded in the ash, clothes and furniture juxtaposed against walls, five feet off the original ground. As the wind and rain pelted us and we tried to construct some resemblance of breakfast, a local resident invited us in for tea, before we said farewell to two groups of other French cyclists and a bus load of friendly Germans to head on south. The three of us were in good spirits as the freedom of the open road pulled us despite the oppressive rain. Gortex is no match for Patagonia and luckily we knocked on Rodrigo´s door. We only had admired his house for the dry eave under which we had hoped to eat lunch, but he graciously invited us in for tea and great company. We continued for a week of unrelenting rain, but the first day we saw the sun, we basked in its warmth, fished under its brilliance and was in awe of the breathtaking scenery that we had missed under the cloud cover. We instantly realized that even one good day, makes all of the challenging ones worthwhile. We are refueling in Coyhaique, fixing bikes, making granola bars and being treated to pizza and conversation with newly found friends. Tomorrow, we set out….bound for Villa O´Higgins and then on to Argentina.

The Broken Road

2009-04-30T08:41:00.012-04:00

After a day longer than I'd hoped in Coyhaique, watching an endless drip from the sky drowning my hopes of progress, I woke to parting skies, bone-chilling cold and a fresh layer of snow on the surrounding peaks. I left town smothered in down and was soon drenched in sweat, climbing the small sprints only to have it freeze solid to my body as I barreled down the backsides. Despite the added weight on my bike, thanks to a couple of over-zealous shopping excursions anticipating lonely roads ahead, I found myself screaming along with the help of a gale-force tailwind from the north. My grins of good fortune were perhaps a tad premature though as, 60km into my day, I finally stopped to inspect an odd knocking sensation that had finally achieved this-isn't-going-away-on-it's-own status coming from my crank with each revolution. Thinking it was a pesky pedal bearing that had been dogging me for several months, I went to give it the jiggle I usually do that makes it go away for another week or so (out of sound, out of mind, right?). As I grasped my pedal, the usual firmness of my well tuned machine played sloppily in my hand. Another tug and I felt my whole crank, indeed my immediate future on the road, wobble like a drunken man on a unicycle. With a terminally ill bottom bracket, my options were suddenly limited. I pondered this for a moment, trying to imagine exactly how I was going to employ the use of my rations of duct tape and baling wire to solve this problem and suddenly realized that, in short, I was screwed. Return from whence I came (headfirst into the hurricane force winds I had just been enjoying) or continue on, take the shortcut across Lago General Carerra and hope for some miracle in either Chile Chico or Los Antiguos, the last two towns before beginning the long stretch into nowhere on Ruta 40.

I chose option two and, after a long night enduring winds that I have only heard tell of in movies like Twister or The Wizard of Oz, caught the morning ferry to Chile Chico. My enthusiasm for this grand lake I had been looking forward to circling for so long was tempered by the fact that I was missing a fantastic ride around the lake by taking the ferry across it and also by the realization that I would be a fool to continue on in the face of the pending failure of my bottom bracket. Upon reaching the other side, I paused in the small, cozy town of Chile Chico to ascertain the likelihood of finding a modern-day splined bottom bracket in a small touristy border town. After visiting most of the twelve or so buildings that make up the town, it became apparent that there was none to be had as the most modern bike in town looked to be about as old as me.

I again reflected on my journey, where I was and where I wanted to be...two very different places. The glory road in soutern Chile is the Careterra Austral, the best part being from Coyhaique south bisecting glacially carved valleys and passing through impossibly remote countryside. Due to extreme weather conditions during most of the year, critical ferries connecting the route run only in the peak months of December through March, thus making the route virtually impassable the rest of the year (this theory has recently been debunked by our friend Sarah and her compadre and will again be put to test by another road brother in the coming months). As a result, the adventurous off-season cyclist is left with no option but to endure a week or so of some of the worst conditions a biker can imagine on the Argentina side following Ruta 40; horrible roads, extreme distances between food and water supplies and unfathomably strong cross winds that often make cycling impossible (let alone setting up a tent, using a stove, etc.).

A long night in Los Antiguos left me more sure than ever that it was time to pack up, swallow my pride and cut my losses. This trip has never been about the destination, but about the journey; the getting there, anywhere; the adventure of never knowing where we were going to end up when the wheels stopped rolling. I felt that, for the moment at least, the wheels had stopped. The weather was tickling me with the promise of much colder days to come, my bike was hopelessly ill and I had lost some crucial motivation. I vowed to return as soon as the weather and Kirsten's schedule allows, hopped on the once weekly bus out of town and headed north.

So, that's where the story ends for now. Nearly 11,000km, 317 days and a world away from where we started, I was back home. Stay tuned for more tales from the road when we return in mid December.

Patagonian Wonders...

2009-04-21T15:01:00.012-04:00

The cool bite of fall wrapped tightly around me as I left El Bolson, the nostalgic combination of rotting leaves and fallen, fermenting apples taking me back to Octobers of my childhood. Solitude enveloped me as I said goodbye to pavement and entered Parque Nacional Los Alerces, the land that time forgot. Magnificent rivers of sparkling emeralds flowed smoothly and swiftly into lakes of impossible greens, flanked on all sides by monolithic rocky peaks. Stands of massive old-growth coihues reached high amongst them, pushing skyward on near vertical slopes, their deep red color dripping down the mountainsides like fingers of fiery hot lava burning its way through the forest. The rivers were a fishermans´ paradise, pulling me from the road again and again with their promise of the prizes of my dreams. What I wouldn´t have given for a float tube and a pair of waders as the frigid glacial waters kept me on the banks, mostly out of reach of the man-sized trout I could see loafing about. After 2 days, the cool weather and the pull of the south kept me on the move, back to Chile. My friendly crossing at the border, on the Chilean side, turned somewhat sour when the man searching my bags came across my kilo of popcorn, meant to sustain me for the coming lonely stretch of riding on the Careterra Austral. He held it up to his boss, both with a twinkle in their eyes. We´ll have to take this, they said. I rode off dejected, swearing I could hear the popping of my sweet maize on their raging fire behind me.

On through the Futaleufú valley, along another epic river of the same name. I stopped in town to stock up and inquire about fishing with an old guide I met. They won´t be biting, he promised, but come look at my record fish. An impressive creature it was - 18kg of brown trout (that´s almost 40 lbs!) and over 4 feet long. A chilean record, he said as he told me the story of catching it in the river and the hour and a half long battle. It was his pride and joy and hung on his wall as a monument to possiblity. I was jealous.

My welcome to the famous Careterra Austral consisted of rain, mud and a long, lonely stretch of road. Due to a malfunctioning ATM in Futaleufú, I had almost no money and thus very little food leaving me tired , wet and hungry and profoundly unimpressed with this road that for many is a destination itself. Still, even a rainforest sees some sun and after 2 days of misery, the clouds parted and nine seperate rainbows brightened my mood. I stopped for lunch alongside a river bank and as I finished the last of my cheese, I threw a small chunk into the water, where it was immediately devoured by a large trout. Hmm. Still waiting for my introduction to a Patagonian trout, and in spite of what the wise old man had promised, I pieced together my rod that I have luged across two continents for exactly this moment. My first cast...WHAM! My small 4 weight rod double over with the weight of a fish far to large for it. It was gone in seconds, taking my fly and half my leader with it. I quickly tied on another and again, snap. Four flies and several meters of leader later, I landed my first beauty, a spectacular sea-run rainbow. In the next 3 hours, I would have one of the most incredible days of fishing ever, losing count at 12 after the first hour or so. For every one I caught, I lost 2 or 3 more, my stash of flies fast dwindling. The fun ended with the loss of my last fly. They hit hard, on nearly every cast, and fought like whales. What a day!

The road climbed steeply from there and as the air grew frigid, I found myself surrounded on all sides by huge, glacial-capped rocky peaks, reminding me of why I love to ride and taking my mind off the seemingly endless mountain I was climbing. At long last, after 9 days of almost continuous gravel and mud that makes up most of the Austral, I finally reached the one paved section that would lead me on a windy and rolling path into Coyhaique, the capital of southern Chile. Surrounded by sheer granite cliffs and large snow-capped peaks, it is an adventurers´ paradise and a perfect spot for some days of rest before beginning the next leg south, back into Argentina and into the national parks Los Glaciares and Torres del Paine. A few more weeks will find me deep in the south amongst icebergs and penguins and the end of the world.

Patagonia!

2009-04-08T08:53:00.009-04:00

Greetings! Time has somehow escaped me and I find myself gone for more than 3 weeks without an update. I´ve come a long way since then! My departure from Santiago and its associated Ag/Industrial corridor of enormous viñeyards, apple orchards and kiwi plantations took the better part of five days. The riding was fast but boring to say the least and good camping was at a premium, always an endless stretch of barbed wire seperating me and my tent from a scenic, peaceful nights sleep. When the preferred lake or river side epic was not forthcoming, a gas station always proved to be a sure bet, with grassy stretches in back, hot showers and well stocked coolers of cold beer to relieve the pain of a long, hot day of riding.

It was a grand relief to finally depart the madness of freeway riding and the solitude and lack of traffic I was immediately afforded was much welcomed. I took a day off in Villarica, a quaint little tourist destination in the shadow of the magnificent Volcan Villarica before making my way east towards the Argentina border. I left Coñaripe, a small town in the hills and my last stop before the border, hoping to make Argentina that day via a little used route over Paso Carirriñe, but it was not to be that day. The rains began soon after leaving town, pounding so hard that continuing on on the dirt (mud) didn´t seem feasible. A deserted house, dry and cozy in a bombed-out-house sort of way appeared at the perfect moment and I made myself at home for the night. All that night and the following day, rain in heavy sheets turned the already mushy dirt into full on soup. I left amid ongoing drizzle upon realizing that in southern Chile, if I don´t ride in the rain, well, I´m not going to get very far.

The last 20km before the border were the worst, the road becoming unrideable with ankle deep mud on crazy steep slopes, my stubborn mule refusing to budge. I pushed and prodded, yelled obscenities, threatened abandonment and finally dragged her most of the final 10km to the Carabineros (Chilean police). I had some idea of how I must of looked, but the sympathy in the eyes of the men who came out made me realize just how pathetic I looked. They were obviously excited for some company (I was the first person they had seen in 3 days) and after processing my papers showed me the way to the kitchen with a raging fire, a bottomless cup of coffee and the conversation of 3 lonely guys. After a couple hours of warmth, it was tough to leave the that room to get back on the road, the rain now heavier and colder than when I arrived. Don´t worry, they said. There are hot springs 10km up the road. Just knock and someone will let you in.

It was about dark by the time I pushed my way to the entrance of the hot springs and sure enough the gate was closed and all the lights were off. Two men appeared just as I was giving up hope of the steaming bath I had been dreaming about for the last 3 hours. Sorry, it´s closed, they told me. Again, my pathetic appearance must have appealed to their better halves because after looking me up and down, they told me to follow them. Down a path, into a deserted bog onto a small wooden platform. Just make sure you close the gate on the way out, they said before leaving...oh, and don´t tell anyone we let you stay. No problem! I spent 2 hours roasting in near boiling thermals, marvelling at my good fortune and defrosting my fingers and toes.

The land beyond was remote and untouched and I got the feeling I could be passing through 500 years ago and it would all still look the same. Huge old-growth coihues (a type of native beech) and monkey puzzle trees towered over me, silently reminiscing about a life from long ago. Several epic looking trout waters got me drooling, but the continuing drizzle zapped my motivation to stop moving. Somewhere ahead was the Argentina immigration building with another hot fire! Sure enough, after a few frigid hours, I came upon it and recieved another dose of comfort from a lonely pair of Gendarmerians.

San Martin de los Andes was my next stop and is the Aspen of northern Patagonia; a skiing mecca and a pricey destination by a poor bikers standards. Still, a cozy hostel with friendly travellers and staff kept me warm and dry and when it was raining even harder the next morning, I opted to kick it for another day. The 2 days following San Martin pass through the infamous seven lakes district and I was hoping for good weather but, again, it was not to be. A slight break the next morning lasted all of an hour and by mid morning I was soaked again with a long day ahead of me. If there were fantastic views, like everyone says, I didn´t see them. I tried to use my imagination...but to be honest, water was about the last thing I was intersted in. Still, there is a threshold, a point at which it is impossible to get any more wet. I met that moment early in the day and from then on, I was like a five year old playing in the rain, hitting the biggest puddles at full speed, daring it to be deeper than I thought. Shouts of encouragement from the many construction workers I passed as I barreled along kept me smiling and after 7 hours of insanity, I finally reached pavement and yet another cozy little lake town. I have never been so willing to shell out money to camp. I took three long, hot showers in the few hours that followed my arrival and enjoyed the first night in six without rain. The trend continued on into the next morning when I woke to blue skies and a beaming sun. Yeah! I made the short ride to Bariloche for a day of rest and to make some much needed bike repairs before heading south again to the hippy capital of Argentina, El Bolsón, where I am currently. Fall is in full swing, the cottonwoods glowing magnificent shades of gold as the cold bite of winter is reaching out a little earlier each afternoon and holding on a bit longer each morning, leaving me wondering what another month or so and several more degrees of latitude south will bring.

Sweet Home Santiago

2009-02-24T11:56:00.006-05:00

Greetings! This will be the final post for the next month or so as we have taken to the sedentary life of city dwellers and are learning the ways of the Santiago warriors. How quickly things change. For the past 8 months, our lives have been defined by the strokes of our pedals and our minds have been shaped by the worlds those pedals took us through, our days beginning and ending dictated by the rising and setting of the sun. Gone are the days (for the moment) of peaceful hours of riding, lost in our thoughts, engrossed in the wonder of wherever we might be, imagining what might lie around the next bend in road. That tranquility has been replaced by the raucous madness that is downtown Santiago. Riding a bike here is something of a game of chicken, a sort of russian roulette on wheels, never knowing when a car will turn, or when a pedestrian will pop out of a roadside store. This isn't a land where pedestrians rule, where crosswalks offer some semblance of security. No, city life is all about survival. Hard as it is for us to believe, this is home now and we have begun our adjustments.

Our welcome to the city was about as warm as one could hope for. We pulled into the Plaza de Armas midday on a Saturday, filled with emotions as we laid to rest a life we had become so accustomed to. Never more (for now) to wake with the rising sun, to pack a tent still damp with morning dew to begin another days project on wheels. Still, so much unknown and adventure lay before us as we opened ourselves to a life completely foreign to us. We got off our bikes, soaking in the sights, the smells, the incredible quantity of people. We stopped at a nearby cafe for a much needed moment of rest and an even more urgent giant plate of food. Moments later, an overflowing, overwhelming mass of food arrived, only to disappear within minutes. As we sat, contemplating what we had just accomplished and where we were going from there, two men sitting behind us invited us to their table for coffee and conversation. A retired police chief and volunteer firefighters both, our conversation soon expanded to include their familes and before long, they were insisting we join them for lunch (never mind the huge plates of food we just ate) and we began pushing our overloaded bikes down the pedestrian mall, trying to keep up with Luis and his family as they led us to the delectable plates of Chilean ceviche and wine they had just finished describing (the real thing is better...you'll see, they told us). We arrived at the crowded indoor market and as we sat outside pondering exactly what we might do with our massive machines, there was Luis (a teddy-bear of a man reminiscent of "Da Bearss" guy on Saturday Night Live) already well inside the market shrugging off our concerns about our bikes and motioning frantically for us to follow him. Still a little skeptical, we struggled to keep up, weaving our awkward loads down the skinny aisles among stalls of raw fish and the hundreds of people milling about, most of whom were offering us curious glances and the occasional snyde remark. No worries though...we are with the former chief of police and he knows everyone. Before long, he has negotiated a secure storage locker among frozen fish for our bikes and has bypassed the long lines to find us a prime table while ordering a mass of food, wine and pisco sours that arrives like a desert oasis in front of us. Our small group has now expanded to include a good portion of the Octava Company fire department and Luis' wife. We were welcomed warmly into their world, treated to a lunch we might only have dreamed about and we parted ways feeling like old friends and veterans of a city we had just hours ago pedaled into for the first time.

We have just returned from a brief yet joyous reunion with our families in the states and are settling in to life in the city. Stay tuned for more tales from the road as Seth embarks solo sometime in mid March for the epic wonders of Patagonian Chile and Argentina to the south (penguins!!).

Keep in touch all of you!!

S+K

Paso de Agua Negra

2009-01-17T16:17:00.007-05:00

We are quite proud and a little relieved to announce that we have just conquered the last, monolithic obstacle on our quest to Santiago (and eventually to see all of you), Paso de Agua Negra: 4780 meters. For those of you already rummaging around for a calculator, that´s 15,682 feet. This leg of our journey was the greatest point to point elevation gain we´ve made in the shortest amountof time. We started from approximately 600 meters above sea level and completed the climb (190 km)in three days...Thats over 30,000 feet of elevation gained and lost! Eat that, Lance Armstrong! Our journey upward was energized and motivated by the ongoing parade of fan club members that passed us by with waves, smiles, thumbs-up, fistpumps, tobacco tin finger-slaps, musical honks and applause. There were few passersby that didn´t at least give us a friendly wave. A river followed us most of the ride up the canyon, collecting snow melt from the capped peaks and melting (too bad) glaciers. The mountains were void of vegetation, but full of electric colors, contrasting golds, reds and shades of grey. We fell under the good graces of the wind gods for most of the climb, until about 15km from the top of the pass, when hurricane force winds blasted us head-on and we struggled to keep ourbikes upright and moving in a forward direction. One slow kilometer and hairpin turn after another, we arrived at the international border with tears of joy in both of our eyes and a little less breath in our lungs. We struggled to keep from being blown off the mountain as we took photos before bundling up for the steep descent. The next morning, we awoke frozen to the bone and rode in hats, mittens and down jackets until the sun rose above the mountains a few hours later. We abrubtly met the infamous Pacific-to-Andes wind that we had been hearing so much about. Sure, we can handle wind, we thought. At least we´re going downhill. Ha Ha! Not much is worse for the psyche than struggling (hard) to pedal downhill. We passed fairly efficiently through Chilean customs and immigration and rode nearly 100km down, into the wind. Beaten, battered and hungry, we pulled over to locate the first town on the map to buy food. (At this point, we were completely out of food less the powdered milk, tea and mermelada that wasn´t confiscated by customs). A car pulled over to ask us if we wanted help and they ended up turning around and 4 adults peeled out. They offered us water, bread, cheese and Cola de Mono, a drink like Bailey´s Irish Cream, to give us energy they told us. They invited us to stay at their house and this time, we took them up on the offer. So, we bustled as fast as we could another 30km, found their house in the dark and they offered up the greatest hospitality. They sent us away this morning,with cheese, homemade apricot jam, bread and fruit. We feel so grateful. Incredibly, the second Chilean we met today invited us to his house, too! We have just seen the Pacific Ocean from La Serena, about 500km north of Santiago. We plan to hit the beach and indulge in a little Chilean seafood and wine this evening. We are thrilled to be here. You wouldn´t believe the amount of fruits and vegetables in season! We thought we saw a lot of grapes in Argentina. There is little earth that is not covered in them here. As we rode down yesterday, the valley looked like Jean-Claude and Christo´s fabric wrapping, because they hang curtains of fabric over the vineyards to protect them from the wind and sun. Our panniers are currently filled with strawberries, plums,watermelon and lots of veggies. They probably won´t last through the night. Anyway, that´s enough from the Chilean coast. We look forward to seeing you all soon. Put the champagne on ice...we´re coming soon to an airport near you!

Argentina - Land of Plenty

2009-01-17T15:09:00.011-05:00

"We better keep an eye on the bikes, in case the river comes alive" I said to Kirsten with a grin. "Yeah right" she countered. The riverbed was dry as a bone and looked like it hadn`t seen water in a year. It was our first night in Argentina and, still riding the lunar-like altiplano, could find nowhere else out of sight to camp. So we trudged our bikes upstream, laid them against the steep wall of the riverbank and threw our tent down on a sandbar. We crawled inside and within seconds, the black clouds we had been racing against were upon us and made there presence known by unleashing a thrashing for the ages. Our tent shook violently as the inches of hail piled up around us and the water begain seeping into our now less-than-waterproof abode. For 15 minutes the madness continued, the tent exploding with bright flashes every few seconds as the lightening bolts cracked all around us. As the rain subsided, we sat back to enjoy that post storm calmness when everything is strangely silent and the air is fresh and pure. Except...What`s that noise? A strange new gurgling sound that wasn`t there before now emanated from outside the door. With uncomfortable looks, Kirsten unzipped the tent to peak outside. To our amazement, a full raging torrent of black, muddy, sandy, crap-infested water was gushing by, just inches from the edge of our tent. My joke of 15 minutes past had suddenly become a nightmare of reality and our bikes were helplessly sinking. The water rose before our eyes, first to our pedals, then well above our axles, the small logjam of foam, sticks and other crap another foot higher threatening to breach the top of our still-connected rear panniers and drenching their contents. Without considering the importance of documenting such an occasion on film, something I regret as I write this, I stripped down and jumped into the nów knee deep flood waters and wrestled them across from the far side. Every nook and cranny from hub to hub was crammed full of sand and sticks and muck and it would be several hours before they would be rideable again. Lesson from day 1 in Argentina...Beware of Flash Floods!

The high altiplano that we had become accustomed to would soon become a distant memory as we began our descent into the Humahuaca Valley via the Quebrada (canyon) de Humahuaca. The valley was lusciously green, given life by the meandering chocolate brown Rio Grande, the surrounding hills draped in a dozen shades of red, brown and purple and the thin vegetation consisting mostly of the forests of giant, saguaro-like cacti. The canyon soon dissolved, giving way to the lowland forests of Jujuy and Salta. With a 2500m loss of elevation, we were suddenly battling heat we hadn`t known since the Sechura Desert in northern Peru. We pushed on to Salta, passing up a generous offer to stay from the first man we met in Jujuy, the rolling and winding road through thick forest in stark contrast to the long, straight monotonous stretches of the altiplano. We paused in Salta for a much needed 3 day rest as we were generously and warmly welcomed into the home of Ramon Marin and the other 6 members of his family. Another `Casa de Ciclistas`, they welcome any travelling cyclist to stay, with an entire separate part of their house devoted to cyclists. We brought the new year in with them all, in addition to 5 Belgian cyclists who arrived shortly after we did. 14 of us in all, it was a rowdy night, capped off by Ramon`s 75 year old mother setting off fireworks in the back yard...go Tina!

The beautiful countryside continued south of Salta as we followed the historic `Ruta del Vino` (Route of Wine) through the Quebrada de las Conchas, a remarkable canyon they call `the Grand Canyon of Argentina`. Heavily carved sandstone walls of varying shades of red with towering rock monoliths left us in awe. As would become a custom in Argentina, we found ourselves the subject in as many photos as we were stopping for, nearly every car snapping pictures of us as we passed by. As abruptly as the canyon began, it disappeared, with thousands of acres of grapes taking their place. It seemed every house had its own mini-vineyard along with the 6 or 7 large vineyards that dominated the valley. A brief stay in the picturesque town of Cafayete offered us our first experience with the municipal campgrounds of Argentina (almost evey town has one). They are a rowdy bunch, prone to all night parties and to be sure, we prefer the quiet solitude of our usual campsites, but we met some cool people and had another to-die-for plate of Argentine steak and killer wine. From here the road straightened again and at times we could see so far ahead it almost felt like we were looking straight into tomorrow. Though the landscape seemed monotonous, wildlife was spectacular and we encountered some unusual creatures, including grasshoppers over 5" long! If the dinosaurs stood with grasshoppers, surely they were this big...
As midday temperatures rose to the boiling point, we took a cue from Argentine life and began taking siestas in the afternoon. We`d ride until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, find a shady spot, pull out the hammock and devour watermelons, make popcorn and nap for a few hours until the sun had dropped to a tolerable point. On again into the evening to finish our day. After 7 long, hot days we rolled into Chilecito for a day of rest. A cute town, we found ourselves at home in a place that has an ice cream shop on every block! Still punching out 100-130km every day, we arrived in San Jose de Jàchal, our last major stop before Chile and where our last big Andean conquest begins. Only 160km and nearly 4000m of elevation gain separate us from our new homeland.

Commerce in Bolivia

2009-01-02T14:44:00.003-05:00

Although Bolivia was a quick passing in our Latin America riding adventures, it was spectacular at times, frustrating at others and deserves a closer look into the inner workings of its day to day business transactions. Outside of the cities, the scenery was breathtaking and suprisingly free of the litter that pervades LA. We rode through landscapes that reminded us of the desolation of Nevada, the canyons of Arizona and the red rock formations of Utah. Along this stretch of deserted road to the Salar Uyuni in SW Bolivia, only three cars passed in our direction in three entire days. The road was very challenging as we pushed our bikes through sand, shook and girated through washboard and screamed (Kirsten) obscenities as we humped our bikes back and forth from the horrible main road to the nearly as horrible frontage road.

We met a number of incredibly friendly Bolivian women on the road that engaged us in conversations about the history of their towns, their families and had a genuine interest in our curious form of travel. These encounters by far trumped the much left to be desired food and shady business deals in other more ¨touristy¨parts of the country. As we crested a hill in the desert altiplano, we saw kids rush towards us on the road to greet us with their hats upturned, hoping for some coins to walk away with. Panhandling is often directly aimed at us gringos, but we much prefer this less invasive approach to the other common demand, ¨Gringo, Give me money!¨ Within the next 3km, we saw dozens of women scattered along the road selling cheese. There was not even a town in sight, though there was a smattering of mud brick houses way off in the distance. The women shouted, raised their arms in a desperate attempt to lure customers out of their cars and off their bicycles for a sale. Yet, every person was selling exactly the same thing! We think they need a serious economics lesson in supply and demand. It happens this way all over the countries we have visited. Dozens or more selling exactly the same product and they end up aggressively recruiting customers to fight for business. Not a wise economic plan. Remedial math skills would be beneficial, too. 99% of the financial transactions we make are counted incorrectly, often in our favor. If they could count better, maybe they would be more financially stable. That´s some bonus points for education!

Frequently in Bolivia, we´ve entered little stores to purchase food, handed over the bill to pay and they respond in kind with a puppy dog look and whiny tone, ¨Don´t you have anything smaller? I don´t have change.¨ When we say no, they ask us, ¨Don´t you want to buy something else to make up the difference?¨ In turn, ¨No we don´t, but thanks anyway.¨ Often times, they said they didn´t have change, but we could see that they had buckets full. They just didn´t want to disperse their precious change, because they´d run into the same problem somewhere else. Occasionally, they thought it was our responsibility to get change then come back if we wanted to buy something. How absurd! To make matters worse, nothing was ever labeled with a price so we had to blindly trust that we weren´t getting ripped off too badly. Seth went to pick up our laundry one morning, bringing a $50 boliviano bill, about $7USD. She didn´t have change so she wanted to give the bill back to Seth, but keep our laundry instead.

In Uyuni, the day after Christmas, we went out for coffee, ice cream and a few rounds of cribbage. When we went to pay, the waitress told us what we owed, but it was a little more than what we had counted up from the prices on the menu. She insisted that Seth´s coffee was 8 bolivianos. So Seth picked up the menu and showed her that it stated $6. No exaggeration here when she picked up a pen and attempted to change the price on the menu right in front of us. That was a no-go for us. We were flabbergasted! It doesn´t end there, as we were continously being cheated of minutes on the internet, getting skimmed on either side and constantly had to count change in ALL money exchanges. Shady dealings bit us like summer mosquitoes in Minnesota.

Despite these challenges, we didn´t leave Bolivia with a bitter taste in our mouth. In South America, it´s a dog-eat-dog world. Still, we were relieved and excited to enter the modern world in Argentina and we are still adjusting to the welcome changes.

Cusco to La Paz

2008-12-17T09:16:00.014-05:00

After 4 days of Cusco, we´d had enough. Tangled amongst the masses of tourists, constantly targets for the sale of this or that, we ready to leave. Not even the sheets of rain falling early in the morning could keep us off our bikes. After another painfully long (and expensive) visit to the post office, we were headed out of town, our least favorite and most dangerous part of cycling in Peru. Dodging buses, kombis and moto-taxis in dry weather is a feat by itself...add thick fog and a steady rain and we were soon drenched and covered head to toe with slimy mud. We pedaled on though and soon found ourselves cruising smoothly away from town back into our favored rural country. We had one final climb before the much heralded altiplano of eastern Peru, where the mammoth climbs become a thing of the past. Paso La Raya was a long, slow slog, the grade just flat enough to convince our brains we weren´t climbing, but steep enough that our legs knew for sure we were. After what seemed like forever, we finally crested our 10th and final climb over 4000 meters in Peru. The downhill we always anticipate with such long climbs was painfully absent and we were instead faced with an endless ribbon of flatness laid out before us, the 3800+ meter altiplano. Few hills, good wind (sometimes with us, sometimes against us) and steady progress meant we would likely make our goal of Puno before the 2:00 Friday closing of the Bolivian Consulate, our chance to get our visa cheaper and without the hassle typical of South American border crossings. We pushed on clicking off 100+km the first two days, passing small friendly villages and many local cyclists traveling to and from their fields, pick axes and shovels slung over their shoulders. Often they were cute little old ladies in their wide, thick skirts peddling feverishly on their one speed cruisers, offering friendly well wishes as we casually came up alongside them, us wondering why we needed 27 gears when someone older than my grandmother (no offense Grandma!) only needs one.

Day 3 was our toughest push and as we searched for our ideal campsite outside the town-on-steroids pueblo of Juliaca, we came up empty. With 135km behind us and a stiff headwind grinding our already aching thighs to the bone, we opted to push the final 10km into town and find a comfy bed for the night. What chaos we rode into. Juliaca turned into one of the most frenzied and frightening city experiences we´ve yet known. Mototaxis, cyclotaxis and all manners of motorized traffic josteled and jived for their spot on the road, leaving the weary cycle tourist lost somewhere in the middle. With no map and dwindling daylight we fought our way to the center of town and after several attempts, finally found an acceptable room for the night.

We were off at the crack of dawn, determined to beat the traffic and make the final 40km into Puno in time for a fat breakfast. As it turned out, this stretch would prove to be one of the most frightening rides yet in South America. The road was without a shoulder, poorly paved and littered with bus and kombi traffic, all intent on breaking the land speed record for most overloaded vehicle. As they passed us, while passing eachother, we were constantly being pushed off the road, mere inches from the speeding hulks as they exerted their dominance, usually waiting until the split second before they passed us to announce their presence (duh...) with a deafening 10 second blast of their horn.

Puno, on the banks of the famed Lake Titicaca, proved to be a much more laidback town. We immediately sought out the Bolivian Consulate, no easy task in a town with no street signs! We found the non discript doorway though and as we stashed our bikes and prepared the small mountain of paperwork required to receive the visa, we were approached by a friendly American woman leaving the consulate who kindly informed us that they had no stickers available and that our mad dash of a ride from Cusco had been for nothing. Go figure. We settled in for a day and a half off and soon hooked up with Japhy, who we hadn´t seen since Huancayo and his friend Natalie. At our hostel the next day, Japhy introduced us to Ted, another cyclist they had met while wandering through town. What a character! Ted is from the Netherlands and is on his third tour through South America. Ted is also 70 and has logged over 300,000km worldwide since his 45th birthday! We were inspired and entertained by the many crazy tales he had to offer from his bike travels throughout the world, our hotel owner seemingly less than entertained as we all laughed hysterically as Ted acted out his adventures on the floor of the hotel lobby.

We left Puno at the crack of dawn again, facing the same madness of buses and overloaded kombis we enjoyed on the way into town. At least it was flat. As we cycled into the afternoon a car passed with curious license plates...those look familiar, I thought. A few minutes later another...Colorado!! Despite my waves and shouts and obvious enthusiasm, they kept on trucking. Though we missed the chance to chat with our fellow statespeople, we were filled with a momentary twinge of homesickness and an overwhelming longing for a Rio margarita that always comes with thoughts of home these days.

We made the border early the next day. We had opted for the more direct, flatter and decidely sketchier border crossing at Desaquadero. We were quickly stamped out of Peru, but the fun was just beginning. We crossed the bridge into Bolivia and entered immigration, expecting, and finding, the usual fat and shady looking men who held our entrance fate in their chubby little hands. As we began filling out the mountain of paperwork and handing over the equally mountainous stack of $20 US bills (touché, they make Americans jump through the same hoops we make them jump through upon entering the US) I overheard one of the other immigration officials announcing to someone on his phone that 2 Americans on bicycles would be passing through to La Paz. Likely not informing the welcome squad of our arrival, our senses were immediately hightened. After 45 minutes or so of entertaining the fat mans demands, we were finally stamped into Bolivia, no less than 5 times each, and allowed to proceed.

With just the miles to La Paz under our belt, Bolivia looks pretty much the same. The people are slightly more reserved, but we have mostly received an abundance of the smiles and waves we grew accustomed to in Peru. A short climb up Paso Lloco Lloco, our first Bolivian 4000 meter crossing, was our only challenge until we reached the outskirts of La Paz, a 20+km maze of sprawl and suburb. La Paz proper is at the bottom of a massive hill, from the top of which you can grasp exactly how big the city is. It is laid out before you in an almost incomprehensible mass of brick and concrete that seems to stretch on as far as you can see. As we bumped and ground down the poorly paved road amid a sea of cars screaming passed us, all we could think of was having to climb back out. It was nearly enough to stop us in our tracks. We pushed on though and found ourselves in the middle of absolute madness. With heavy bikes on steep cobblestone streets packed curb to curb with buses, we were fighting for survival, mere minnows in a sea of behmouth whales and man eating sharks. After what seemed like hours, we finally found a place to stay and settled down for some much needed rest.

Huancayo to Cusco

2008-12-08T08:59:00.010-05:00

As we continued our descent or ascent (depending on the face of the mountains) towards Cusco and ultimately our departure from Peru, each stretch of road seemed intent on defining itself as our biggest challenge yet. The peaks seemed to get grander, the climbs longer and the roads rougher. Our ride to Ayacucho was no exception. As we headed out of the bustling city of Huancayo on a dreary, drizzling morning, we were flagged down by Epiphanio, a middle-aged Peruano. He invited us into his house, which was a humble, mud-brick walled adobe with a dirt floor and inadequate roofing. They (huge family and neighbors) offered larger than hoped bowls of Mondongo soup, which contained various internal organs of some unknown mammal. We were too afraid to find out what it was and casually stuck to the corn kernels and broth that accompanied the mystery organs. We shared stories and laughed off their only half-joking request to take their young 2-yr old daughter back to the states with us before hitting the road.

Quickly after, we met Michel and Lise, a Quebecois couple that have been traversing the continent for more than a year now. Onward and upward the climbing began and continued for 30 kilometers or so before we reached the top of the pass, where a sweet, long rolling downhill began. We could see the ribbons of the road laid out before us, the real life map of the exhilerating descent that awaited us. The road soon joined Rio Cachi, meandering by with its starkly, un-Peru like emerald grace.

A bit later (next day) we had finally cracked pass number three and began what we hoped would be another unforgettable cruise. Just past the top, we came across another pueblito, this the most colorful, decorated and artistic town we have yet encountered. Every house was electrified in oranges, greens, yellows or reds with a diverse array of marvelous murals depicting the life of the indigenous highland Peruanos. As we sat on the edge of town, admiring it as a whole on the mountainside, an entire school house of children screamed a rambunctious hello in unison from below, with outstretched arms in big waves.

On our last climb before the grungy city of Huancavelica, we were hit with an intense storm that shook the sky in vibrant pounds of thunder. At the mercy of the weather and in a painfully vulnerable spot as the lightning was electrifying the sky, we continued on under rain and hail until we reached the crest of the peak. We quickly bundled up in hats, mittens and layered shirts for the picturesque descent into the valley. Cold and wet, we opted for a hotel and hot shower before heading out the next morning for Chonta Pass.
As soon as we left Huancavelica, the road turned to dirt and was rough in parts, but the climb was gradual and we made decent progress. We quickly found ourselves isolated and surrounded by a dizzying landscape of huge craggy peaks in a myriad of colors. Large herds of alpacas and llamas appeared at every turn as we entered the high Andean breeding grounds. It seemed they out-numbered everything else in the landscape, creating a virtual forest of furry nomads as far as we could see. The road continued steadily upward and by mid-day we were riding at 14,000 ft, without feeling the effects. As another storm brewed, we found a magnificent camp among our fuzzy friends and rested peacefully over 15,000 feet.The following morning we began with the switchbacks that led us to 4853 meters, about 16,000 feet. We quickly took pictures, bundled up and spit out the coca leaves we had been munching on throughout the climb. The descent took an entire day, skipping our tires over protruding rocks and avoiding stubborn potholes. Our arrival on pavement was well-appreciated as we continued our final 140 kilometers to the city of Ayacucho. It turned out to be a very pleasant city, which we explored for two days, as we gave our legs a rest and our bellies a filling.

The following stretch was the most highly anticipated and approached with an unnerving curiosity, the road (if you can call it that) from Ayacucho to Abancay. We had heard stories galore about this stretch, its difficulties and tribulations. The road was dirt/rock for the 400 km and passed over 4 large mountian passes. Many cyclists bypass this section, opting for the 18 hour bus ride instead. Seeing as that sounded about as miserable as hell, we decided to hit tire to road and at least give it a go. We rode steady for 2 days, riding about 65, hard kilometers per day over extremely rocky, bone-crushing roads. It was indeed a test of our patience and endurance. It would take us multiple days to put it in the bag, days which we didn´t have the luxury of enjoying. Although we could have continued on, we were on a strict time schedule and flagged a bus for the remaining passes to get us quickly to Cusco.

Arriving in Cusco was like landing in another century or country for that matter. Gringos nearly out-number the native Peruanos and we stand out like a dollar sign was flashing on our foreheads. We quickly made plans to get to Machu Picchu as quickly and painlessly as possible. Opting for the less expensive route (although there are very few inexpensive ways to get there unless you want to forge documents and walk the railroad tracks for dozens of miles) we took a bus for 3.50 soles, just over $1 to the town of Urubamba, switched to a combi (minivan) for 30 cents to the town of Ollaytantambo to catch to the train with the hyper-inflated rates. The train, which is called PeruRail is actually owned by a Chilean company and conveniently for them is the only way to get to MP short of walking. We grudgingly dealt with the sky-high prices in Aguas Calientes, the town below MP, for a day and a half. We found a decently priced hotel and left it about 3:50 am for the hike to the ruins. We hiked up the hundreds of stairs in darkness, lit by our headlamp as birds were slowly awaking to the day and the mist and sweat fogged up our glasses on the 1 hour-15 minute climb. Amazingly, we were the first to arrive, just as the rain was beginning to fall. We found shelter, ate a little breakfast and felt relieved that we didn´t look like the remaining hikers that were arriving soaked to the bone. We were able to experience a little bit of solitude as we were the first to enter the ruins in the mysterious fog, before the hordes of foot traffic arrived in the following hours. We hiked up Wayna Picchu the overlooking mountain and caught a few brief glimpses of the ruins below as the fog would come and go (mostly come). We were hiking down by 10:30 as hundreds were still filing uphill to get their peek. We have arrived back in Cusco and will head south to Puno and cross the Bolivian border within the week. We are on the fast track schedule to arrive in Santiago, Chile by the last week of January.

Monumental Ride

2008-11-21T12:21:00.007-05:00

Our latest adventure was monumental in a number of ways. First, we rode our longest single-day ride yet: 160km / 100 miles. Second, it was my (Kirsten) first ride over 14,000ft and finally, we have decided to move to Santiago, Chile for an English teaching job at Craighouse international school. Woo Hoo for all three!

We left the dusty, sand-fly ridden city of Huanuco, with our cycling friend Japhy, for the high mountains and central Peruvian altiplano. We climbed slowly and steadily over 100 kilometers, taking in the breathtaking scenery of the green hillsides and the rushing river that guided us up to where the air is thin and the alpacas roam free.

But by far, the best part of the trip was meeting the incredibly generous Peruanos that greeted us with smiles, curousity, questions and gifts galore. About 60km up the canyon, we met our first overwhelming welcome in the small town of Huariaca. Three cyclists, loaded down with gear is a sight not to be taken lightly in a small mtn town. The minute we stopped, we were surrounded by dozens of curious onlookers, old and young. Some were confident enough to ask a lot of questions, some were drunk enough to slur out some responses and others were just too shy to spit out a word, but their eyes remained transfixed on us and the seemingly-foreign machines we were riding. By the time we left, we had to find innovative ways to strap on the steak dinner, juice, toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste and deodorant they offered to sustain our trip.

As the ominous clouds appeared over the horizon, we decided to hit rubber to road before the rain fell. We made it a few kilometers before we took shelter under the eave of a house on the side of the road. There, we met a number of neighbors and conversed with them at length while we waited out the rain. Amazingly, early the next morning after we had climbed 20km from our riverside campsite, we ran into Denise again, a woman that we had met during the rain rendezvous. She wanted us to wait a few minutes and came back with two heaping bags of bread that she had just baked. She was further up the canyon, selling her bread to the small towns that dot the roadside. She insisted that when we return, we stay with her at her house.

With gracious smiles, we grinded out some more climbing until we reached the pueblo, 30 de Agosto. During a water break, a few kids yelled out ¨hola gringos¨from their school courtyard. We returned with a ¨hola Peruanos¨which they thought was hilarious and pretty soon, dozens of children were filing up the hillside to get a closer look at us. Their teachers joined us too as we celebrated Japhy´s 13,000th km on the road. We took one great big picture together, shook eachother´s hands and shared our curiousities with one another. By the time we got to Cerro de Pasco (4333m/14,298ft) we were smitten with the incredible friendliness of the people we had met. We stopped to catch our breath and use a little internet. One of us hung out with the bikes, while the other two were connecting with the outer world. Every time we switched, the crowd grew bigger and so did the things in our arms. We met extremely generous adults that took it upon themselves to make us feel welcome and playful kids with curiousity and questions. It seemed that the adults were trying to out-do eachother with gifts. First, it was bread, soda, then fresh, hot apple juice, yogurt, candy, cake and crackers. It was absolutely amazing. They had fun taking pictures of us with their cell phones. One woman, I remember, being so cute had gold caps on her front teeth, but they were cut out in the shape of hearts!

By this time, we had hit the altiplano, the highland landscape that leveled out into a more or less flat, wind-swept, grassy plain. We continued to receive warm welcomes and friendly smiles as we traversed across the land. The fourth day brought us to the begining of our downhill to Huancayo. We rode steadily all day, clocking in 160km as the landscape changed all around us. By 5:oo, we rode into town, found a comfy bed, a huge $2 meal and crashed.

The High Life

2008-11-11T12:34:00.017-05:00

Here are some photos of my most recent ride. Four days from Huaraz to Huánuco through some of the most desolate, lonely and yet breathtaking land I have encountered. The riding was difficult and exhausting but rewarded me with mountain vistas I have only dreamed about.

Mount Huascaran towers over Huaraz as I roll out of town. It was cloudy every day riding into town and for all the time I was in Huaraz and as a result this was the first good look I got at the highest peak in Peru as I rode off amid glorious sunny skies.

The approach to Huascaran National Park. If you look closely, to the left of the road, there are several small woven huts. They were consistently scattered throughout the valleys as I rode, the humble abodes of sheep and alpaca herders. Though their homes were modest, their landscape was not and I felt privileged to be passing through their homeland.

These were perhaps the most picturesque outhouses I have ever seen, however they seemed out of place as this was a barren road with no traffic and few people.

Puya raimondii. This unique plant is the largest of the bromeliads and is endemic to the Andes of Bolivia and Peru. They have flowers that reach upwards of 10 meters (33ft) and only flower at around 100-150 yrs of age. I came across a large group of them on my second day riding through Huascaran National Park.

My first nights campsite in the shadow of 5418 m (17,775ft) Nevado Huarapasca. I woke to frozen water bottles and a thick layer of frost on everything.

Me celebrating reaching the top of Huarapasca Pass at 4884 meters (16,023 ft). This is the highest I´ve ever been! It was frigid cold and I was racing against a vicious hail storm that caught up with me a ways down the road. The air was thin and forced me to stop every few hundred meters to rest before riding again.

Riding towards the base of Nevado Cajap. Every turn brought another extraordinary view of another unbelievable mountain. I got several views of this peak from all different angles as the road wound its´ way around to the backside.

I finally reached the turnoff for Postoruri Glacier, the only reason anyone travels this road. It was the first landmark on my map and the only way I knew where I was (or that I was making any progress). Beyond here, it was a day and a half before I saw another car. The only people I saw were solitary sheepherders that I would see high up on the mountainside spinning wool and watching their crew. Then their dogs would attack me.

Nevado Tuco reflects her beauty in a small alpine pond.

My second nights campsite overlooking Yanashallash Pass. It was a long night. At about 4700 meters (15,450ft), it was not an ideal spot for camping, but I arrived here late in the day under dark, ominous clouds that were showering me with large hailstones as I put up my tent. The altitude left me throwing up with a pounding headache and no sleep. The view kept me inspired though and it rivaled any other place I have been for its beauty and solitude.

From here it was another 2 days riding through less picturesque landscapes to Huánuco. The dogs were the most aggressive I have ever encountered, several grabbing hold of my panniers and pulling me off my bike (they got swift kicks to the head) and there was a hostility among some of the people I haven´t seen in Peru. I had trash thrown at me several times, a first for me, and often felt unwelcome passing through small rural villages as people would glare at me, eye my bike up and down and spout a growly ¨Gringo¨. The road into Huánuco was 60km of winding downhill on a dirt road that left me feeling as though I had spent the last several hours strapped to a jackhammer. I had a glorious reunion with Kirsten the next morning.

Mountain Mania

2008-11-03T11:28:00.017-05:00

With a heavy heart, I left our new friends at the Casa de Ciclistas and Kirsten behind, bound for Huaraz nestled deep within the mountains of the Cordillera Blanca. I rode off with Japhy, a Nepali-American that has been riding for 11 months from Los Angeles, CA. We had a short stint on the PanAmerican, battling the customary traffic and gruelling headwinds that made progress a significant struggle. The high point of this stretch was early on the second morning outside the small town of Choa when we encountered the Toyodas, a Japanese family that had been riding for 7 months from Ushuai, Argentina bound for Quito, Ecuador. Tsuyoshi and Midor, along with their 12 year old daughter Akane had bottomless smiles and their enthusiasm was truly inspiring. Soon after we were thrilled to leave the PanAm behind for good for a meticulously maintained private dirt road. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by desolate moonscapes of huge rocky peaks conspicuously lacking in vegetation. We followed the road past a small shanty town where, despite what we had been told, there was no way to cross the mighty Santa River to the enviable paved road visible on the other side. We were told we had to follow the road we were on for another 28km before we could cross, so on we went on one of the finer dirt roads either of us could remember riding. By the time we reached the bridge, we had passed most of the paved section and enjoyed a mere 8km to the small village of Chuquicara where the pavement ended abruptly in a pile of rocks that in other worlds would be considered just that, a pile of rocks. Here though, to our dismay, it is the main road and our path for the next 75km or so. As is so often the case here, the desire to put a road between point A and point B is overcome by the ability to adequately put it there and we were caught in the middle. No worries though because we were surrounded by a landscape that would give Ansel Adams the willies. Towering mountain vistas painted in palettes of pastels slashed deeply by the thundering chocolate brown snake of the Santa River offered a constant distraction and resulted in painfully slow progress as we stopped every ten minutes to snap photos and stare in awe at the magnificence surrounding us. Fine camping was in abundance and we found ourselves at home for the night behind a giant boulder alongside the river.

Day 3 was by far the most challenging. Large, loose boulders mixed with sand and gravel made riding an unstable venture at best, us trying our hardest to defy gravity and remain upright while barely inching along. A light afternoon drizzle thickened to saturate an already troubled road adding masses of mud to our already overloaded bikes. At one point, hours from anywhere, an ancient man appeared on the road, hefting an enormous sack on his shoulders. As I approached, it became clear he was blind. He told me he had been walking for three hours from a village far off a side road. Incredible. On a road that would be a strenuous walk for most well-sighted persons, this man was doing it blind, by himself with a huge load, a weathered stick his only guide. We assisted him with several difficult sections before leaving him to try and find a ride.

We soon found ourselves in coal mine country. Dozens of mines littered both sides of the river
and wound deep into the mountainside in spooky, pitch dark, claustrophobia inducing tunnels. We explored as far as we dared (not very) before moving on. On the far side of the river, the miners were just getting our of work for the day. A line of pitch black men wove down the trail as they wandered slowly to the river to wash themselves. We soon ran into Segundo, a miner from Trujillo, on the road hefting an enormous chunk of coal to who-knows-where. Despite the undeniable difficulties of his job and the sacrifices he made to work while leaving his family for extended periods of time, he was incredibly friendly and spoke freely of life in the mines. When I took his picture, he asked if he could see it. I showed him and he was shocked at how dirty he was. Theirs is a hard life.

After a night in Yuramarca surrounded by the curious peering eyes of local youngsters, we were thrilled to encounter a somewhat nicer version of our road. Up a steep set of switchbacks and we were in the grandiose Cañon del Pato. Steep rock walls gave way to a nauseatingly raucous Santa River 500 or so feet below. The road wound through a series of 35 tunnels that offered hair raising stretches through the pitch black, the occasional blaring of a horn announcing our impending death by crushing if we didn´t scoot through to the other end. We had a couple close calls.
Halfway through one of the tunnels we found a small opening that led to an elaborate ledge system that hugged the canyon wall and offered a close up look at exactly where you would end up and how far it would be should you fall. It was an incredible spot and would have offered spectacular camping had we been there at the end of a day. As it was, it was lunchtime so we munched and marveled before heading off for Caraz and much awaited pavement.

Caraz was a beautiful, bustling mountain town filled with elaborately dressed indigenous women selling huge bundles of flowers of a thousand colors. Supposedly, the town is flanked by enormous snow capped mountains but they remained hidden behind low banks of thick clouds. The next morning we rolled through Yungay, a small mountain village that was completely destroyed in an avalanche in 1970 that killed 25,000 people. Only 92 survived. We visited a somber memorial that included remnants of a bus that was crushed, a church and beautiful rose gardens remembering those who perished. It was a crowded site and we got the feeling that most people there had a personal connection to the disaster.

A few hours more hours riding from Yungay found us in our mountain destination of Huaraz. Another town flanked by huge mountains, it is a mecca for mountaineers and trekkers(gringos...), offering the full gamut of outdoor activities from climbing and trekking to rafting and canyoning. Once again, thanks to low clouds, I have yet to catch a glimpse of a single mountain.

I am here for a few days of much needed rest before I make the next 4 day ride to the town of Huánuco where I will meet back up with Kirsten. More on what that lucky woman is up to on the next post!

La Casa de Ciclistas

2008-10-23T13:57:00.008-04:00

We´re writing our rules as we go. Rule #1: If they´re not on a bike, don´t take their advice to heart.

We broke rule #1. Our new buddy, Ricardo informed us that it was going to rain in Cajamarca (our destination) for the next four days. On account of his advice, we detoured to the beach town of Pacasmayo for two days, then took a supposedly 4 hour bus ride, which took 7 ½ hours to the mountain city of Cajamarca. It turns out that, yes, it is the rainy season, but it only showers briefly (half hour at most) in the afternoons. The suckers we are. Regardless of how we actually arrived at 9,000+ ft, it turned out to be a beautiful, colonial hub with manicured plazas (real green grass), stone sculptures depicting indigenous life and a rich cultural history which intertwines native Cajamarcans, the Incas and the Spanish conquistadors. We filled our days by strolling the cobblestone sidewalks, indulging in delectable street food and marveling at the intricate stonework of the cathedrals and engaging in conversations with delightfully friendly Peruanos.

One afternoon, we rode out of town to Los Baños del Inca, the thermal hotsprings (we soaked) where the Incan leader, Atahualpa relaxed with his troops. At this location in 1532, Pizarro arrived with 160 men, horses and cannons. The story goes that Atahualpa was lured into the plaza, given a bible, which he subsequently threw on the ground, at which point the massacre of 7,000 indigenous ensued. Atahualpa was captured, sentenced to burning at the stake, but was rewarded with a lesser punishment of strangulation after he agreed to be baptized. The Spanish stole 18,000kg of gold and silver, now estimated to be worth more than $60 million.

Our next destination lay back on the coast, the grand city of Trujillo, where we were eager to receive our ballots to vote in the U.S. election. The descent from Cajamarca was picturesque, bumpy and dusty. To be more precise: 60+km of bone-jarring, decapitating, spine-crushing, palm-pounding, jaw-grinding, head-wind hell of a road. As hard as it is to believe, the 110+km of pavement wasn´t much better. We were blessed with convoys (up to 10 at a time) of petrol trucks and cement rigs swishing by us at break-neck speeds, spewing exhaust and dust into every crevice and orifice of our bodies. We could have passed as Peruanos by the time our 176km were up. Despite the less than stellar road conditions, the landscape was dynamite. Most of the road crept along Río Chilete, which sat in a wide valley, diverting water for lush rice paddies terraced by boulders and protected by make-shift T-shirt scarecrows hanging from tall poles. We grimaced and fought against the fierce head wind as we eeked out the last few kilometers of our 90km day. Yet, for us, we knew it wasn´t over yet. We had to safely pass through the infamous town of Paiján on the pan-american highway. It is widely known to be dangerous for cyclists as MANY have been robbed in the recent past. After a huge plate of fried fish, rice, salad, lentils and soup, we scoped out our options. We ended up hitching on a bus, whose attendant handled our bikes with a tender care rarely seen in S.A. We passed through Paiján without incident, arriving in Trujillo just in time to find a hotel before dusk set in.

Since it was late, we decided we would call Lucho to tell him we would arrive at the Casa de Ciclistas the following day. ¨We can hook up tonight,¨he told us. Himself, his wife, kids, a German, Spanish, and U.S. cyclist were going out for pizza and we got the invite. At this point, we had only heard stories about how Lucho and his house were legendary. Yet, we really had no idea what to expect. Twenty-five years ago, Lucho, an avid cyclist himself, started hosting touring cyclists in his home as they were passing through Perú. It has since grown into an immense network and hub of cyclists, with over 100 cyclists visiting each month. According to the guest registry, Seth and I are #s 1038 and 1039. There is a repair workshop downstairs, bedrooms for tired cyclists and bike paraphenelia galore. This is where IT is at. Two wheels bringing the heart of the world together. When we arrived, there were already 5 cyclists staying here. We make 7. Lucho helps cyclists order much needed parts, tunes up bikes, organizes races and rides to raise awareness in Trujillo and Perú about cycling. Books abound with hundreds of stories, pictures, suggestions and anecdotes left by previous cyclists. The most legendary being Heniz Stucke, who has been traveling every inch of the globe by bike for over 46 years. Whew! There´s enough inspirational content here to fill the Grand Canyon. On top of cycling mania, we have been humbled by Lucho´s family: his wife Areceli, kids...Angela and Lance (yes, after Armstrong) and dog, Luna. Areceli invited us to her house to teach us how to make empanadas from scratch and share their life and love with open arms. They are a truly beautiful family in every way. We feel so blessed and inspired to be in the company of so many wonderful beings. We´ve fallen into the trap, as others before us. When you arrive here, you imagine it will be a short stay, but soon find out the energy is too electric to leave.

Peruano Passion

2008-10-11T15:22:00.004-04:00

Welcome to Perú. And the desert. We left Macará early Tuesday, attempting to beat the grueling midday heat of lowland South America. The border crossing was at the Rio Macará, 3km out of town. A quick pit stop to fill up our fuel bottle found us tangled amongst a line of 10-15 cars blocking one lane of traffic in front of the station. Sorry, they said, no gas until 7:15 when the military comes to turn the pumps on. It was 7, so we chatted with the guys for a few minutes until one of them motioned for our bottle, went to the pump that they just told us was off, and filled it up with 25 cents worth of gas. Worked for us and we pedaled off, leaving the rest of the folks waiting for the military. Ecuador immigration was manned by an official looking fellow in full military garb who stamped us out of Ecuador without a word. As he worked, we could see guys in the background in their underwear swimming across the river with 10 or so giant jugs in tow. Gas is $1.50/gallon in Ecuador and $5.00/gallon in Perú, so they smuggle it across the border. Illegal to be sure, but no one turned around to see it, so it wasn´t ¨really¨ happening. On the Peruvian side, we were greeted cheerfully by a young guy in jeans and a t-shirt, a sign of the laid-back friendliness of Perú to come. We filled out the requisite paperwork and returned it as he asked us where we were headed. To Lima, we replied…and then where? Uh, Chile. All by bike? He seemed unsure. Yes, all by bike, we said – it really isn´t that far. Apparently unconvinced that we would make it with the customary 90 day visa, he stamped our passports for an extra 2 months.

Scattered amongst the masses of cars waiting to cross on the Peruvian side was a small army of farm animals, all in various stages of confinement. Piles of chickens tied by their feet in groups of 6 or 8 squawked loudly, clearly aware of the fate that awaited them. Similarly captivated turkeys, goats and pigs lay loudly voicing their disapproval as well. The vibe was different right away. Every person we passed had a huge smile, wave or friendly hello to offer. If they missed us as we rode by, they would run behind us and shout until we turned to return their gesture. For the first time in weeks, we cruised relative flatness and enjoyed a pace we haven´t known since Canada. As we stopped to munch on some bananas and crackers, a jeep flew by with a friendly honk and large, toothy grins from both occupants. Before we knew it, they were back to chat and welcome us to Perú. They were excited about our trip and told us to keep an eye out for the pilgrims we would meet on the road making an arduous trek to the mountain town of Ayabaca for an annual festival in 3 days. They would be hard to miss.

The first wave appeared on the horizon 10 minutes down the road and we would be passing them for the next 2 days. They walked in small groups carrying a wide assortment of necessities, knick-knacks and musical instruments. Several were dragging enormous wooden crosses, one end draped over their shoulder, the other with a small wheel attached that they pulled behind them.

The majority carried comfortable looking shoes while limping along in sandals or flip-flops in some kind of ¨Jesus suffered, so so should I¨ kind of sacrifice. Many had been walking for 4 days or more with at least 3 more to go, a journey of hundreds of miles. Our pain paled in comparison and we wished we could have gone to see the amazing spectacle that was sure to unfold when they arrived in Ayabaca. About 25km north of Tambogrande, our final destination for the day, we entered mango country. Mango trees for as far as we could see in any direction. That the trees were heavily laden with not-yet-quite-ripe fruits was a true heartbreaker. I was ready to stop and set up camp for the month or so until they would be ready for harvest. Tambogrande arrived in no time and the best part of town ended up being the gorgeous welcome tower at the entrance to town. ¨Smile, you´re in Tambogrande!¨ We did.

It wasn´t much of a town, but had all the necessities, including internet where we watched the second round of presidential debates (way to go Obama!) . It was also where we were introduced to our new favorite Peruano food, picarones – small blobs of fried dough smothered in sweet molasses syrup. Certainly not the healthiest food on earth, but too tasty to pass up.

Thursday brought us our most enjoyable day of riding yet in Perú, after two blissful evening of camping, with the blessing of a pair of ancient Peruano cowboys unfazed by the presence of two gringos on bikes in the middle of their desert pasture. We were passing through the Sechura Desert, a wide open expanse of not much, along a lonely, desolate stretch of highway.

Wildlife was plentiful, my favorites being the Vermiliion Flycatchers, their stunning electric red glowing against the brown, sandy backdrop, the gray and black Sechuruan foxes and the enormous Tumbesian Tegu lizards that scampered across the highway with the speed and grace of a water snake. After hours of nothingness, we passed through the micro-village of Quepon. As we rode by, two gringos on the side of the road shouted hello and we stopped to say hi. They were Peace Corps volunteers, one had been there for 2 years, the other one month. Dan and Mark were very friendly and soon we were back in Dan´s house chatting it up about American politics, Peruano life and travel and swapping books. Dan even hooked us up with a sweet little Perú map and wrote out an entire sheet of suggested destinations in northern Perú. We bid farewell just as the brutal afternoon sun was beginning to rear its´ ugly head.

A few more hours of riding and passing through other small towns found us in Motupe, our stopping point for the day. As Kirsten checked out our hostal, I met and chatted with Walton, a Peruano sitting out front who told me he worked at the local cerveceria (brewery) and instantly my beer radar was on full alert. After telling him that I had spent the better part of the afternoon dreaming about a cold beer, we agreed to meet up later for a drink. On the way back from dinner, we picked up a couple bombers (large bottles) and found Walton in front of the hostal again with two of his buddies, Walton (#2) and Jorge, both fellow workers and part of a group of 8 guys who travel around the country together working at the various breweries. The two beers disappeared quickly as we passed the bottles around the circle. Two more bottles quickly became four, then six then, well…it was a long night! Our group doubled as the rest of the group arrived and introduced themselves. They were an intensely generous and friendly bunch that treated eachother like family and as we drank, we planned our rendezvous in Lima (where they all live) when we arrive in a few weeks. They argued over who was going to host us! At one point, Kirs asked what time it was, mentioning that her watch was broken and Walton (#1) disappeared for a bit and returned with his watch that he gave to us! We are looking forward to a fun party in Lima!

Our 8th straight day of riding since Loja landed us in Layambeque, a smaller town in the shadow of Chiclayo on the northern Peruvian coast. We polished off the final 65km before lunch and pulled in time for some much anticipated ceviche and a day off (today, Saturday) to recoup, eat good and restock before heading south on Sunday.

Goodbye Ecuador, Hello Peru!

2008-10-07T18:06:00.003-04:00

The day we pulled into Cuenca three weeks ago, my stomach started cramping. It was both a curse and a blessing. The curse being that I was about to battle a 2-week long bout with giardia, the blessing was that we had access to fine hotel rooms with cable TV and private bathrooms. Day after slow day crept by as we watched more television in 2 weeks than we had the previous five years combined! We thank the heavens that brought us the European Champions League and Hollywood blockbusters in English. As restlessness got a hold of both of us, Seth rode solo the 200km south to Loja, a grueling uphill climb with stunning mountain vistas. I, of course took the bus and met him there where we were anxiously awaiting a mound of goodies (books and sour patch kids) that Seth's mom had sent us. (Thank you Susan!) We hurried off to the post office to get our hands on the feast only to be told that only one of two packages had arrived. 'You're kidding right?' we mumble to ourselves. They were sent on the same day and the first package had been there for two weeks now.

Seth gave the lady all of his info as she typed in her computer, then announced 'no, there's nothing here, but if you go over to the other counter maybe they can help you.' So, we walked to the next counter, which was in the same building. The lady there asked for the same info and painstakingly pecked and re-pecked each key into her keyboard. She sorely needed typing lessons. 'No. There's nothing, but let me ask someone else.' A third employee came to help, his knowledge far surpassing the two previous ladies. Yes, he was convinced it was there. They asked for the name of the sender as the keyboard pecker, slammed each key in slow succession. S...A....N...D....E...R...S. 'Oh, here it is.' Then she flipped through 3 books that contained all of the received packages that were hand written one-by-one. Then she needed to re-write the tracking number into the computer. She proceeded to instruct us, 'Sign here. Pay $1 at the next counter and photocopy this form and two copies of your passport and then come back.' Questioninly, we did and then were told we needed to go to the next building over to pick up our package. We waited in customs for awhile, before the unfriendly man looked for our box, slashed it open, had us fill out yet more forms and then fork over $11. The Ecuadorian postal service has to be one of the most antiquated on earth!

We left Loja, anxious to get the blood pumping again and that it did. We had another 200km of mtns to tackle before reaching the Peruvian border. Along the way, we met plenty of friendly folks, including Felipe, a cyclist from Mexico and Fani and Elizabeth, our first Peruvian friends. They were so smitten with us, they were nearly jumping out of their skin when we agreed to let them take pictures of us with their cell phones. They were a hoot! The last Ecuadorian days were hard, but I was getting stronger with each passing day and our last memories of Ecuador will be of coasting downhill to the border crossing. We have made it to Peru (yeah!) and will offer all of our amazing 1st day experiences in the next edition.

S+K 1, Andes 0

2008-09-18T12:11:00.003-04:00

Greetings! It´s been awhile since we´ve updated so we´ll catch you up with where we´ve been, and where we are. After a couple of days in Latacunga, we´d had enough of city life and were freezing, so we headed south towards Baños, riding for the first time in Ecuador on the Pan American. After 2 months of enduring the painfully unpredictable back roads here, the Pan Am was a godsend. We cruised at a pace we haven´t known since Canada and soon found ourselves in the small indigenous community of Salasaca, a weaving village with immaculate dressed residents and where every women we saw was spinning wool as she walked down the street. As we passed through, we happened upon a house owned by a man named Rudy, a master weaver and an incredibly friendly man. After an hour of visiting and hearing about his family´s history with the craft, we bought a couple beautiful pieces from him and bid farewell to our new friend.

With the hills on our side, we had covered the 25 or so remaining kms to Baños by late afternoon. A few days soaking in hot springs and exploring the seemingless endless hillsides of orchards of all different flavors (including avocados!), and any thirst we had (or not) for the excessively touristy Ecuadorian experience was quenched and we headed east for Puyo, where we planned to spend the next couple of weeks volunteering at another WWOOFer farm. The ride was spectacular, with countless waterfalls cascading down either side of the road and the mighty Rio Pastaza pounding by a dizzying 500 feet below us.

Puyo gave way to Centro de Semillas, the ¨organic farm¨ we would be staying at and an experience that failed miserably at living up to our expectations. We left early after six long days, cursing our host, convinced that this was our last volunteer stint for awhile. Facing a 4-5 day ride on some of the worst roads we had yet encountered, we opted for another bus ride back to the highlands and the comfort of smooth pavement on the PanAm. We left Riobamba this past Saturday, facing our most daunting ride yet, but satisfied riding in the shadow of Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador at close to 19,000ft, and our first good look at an Ecuadorian volcano. The next three days proved to be the most difficult we have faced yet. Our destination was Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador and a mere 250 km to the south, but we soon realized we were in for a long ride as the road rose far and high into the horizon. Again, though, our straining legs were appeased by more spectacular views of the mountainside around us. We were surrounded by sprawling hillsides with a seemingly endless patchwork of crops barely clinging to the impossibly steep slopes. I never imagined there could be so many shades of greens and browns. Scattered throughout the fields were weathered indigenous Quichua women, hunched over backbreaking loads of everything from cornstalks to enormous bags of potatoes that made our fully loaded bikes seem paltry in comparison.

Two days of near constant climbing found us in the small mountain town of Zhud. As we sat filling our water bottles, one, two and then a third biker rolled up from the opposite direction...the first group of bikers we´ve seen in Ecuador. Greg, JB and Matt, a trio Frenchman, had been riding for 11 months and had been all over the world. We left amid a group of curious school children that had gathered to hear our shared tales of life on the road.

Another dizzying afternoon of climbing led us to the town of El Tombo, a slight 10km outside of Cañar, our final destination for the day. We were exhausted and hoping our day was nearly over, but we soon found ourselves embroiled in drama. As we rolled into town, me in the lead and Kirs following a handful of meters behind, a man on a motorcycle pulled out after me, cutting Kirs off. She swerved to avoid him and we continued through town, the moto-man keeping pace and swerving between us, eyeing us suspiciously. By the far edge of town, we decided we weren´t comfortable leaving the presence of others on the crowded downtown streets and pulled to the side of the road. The man was now even with me and as I tried to stop, his still moving bike sandwiched me and my bike to the curb and he crashed hard into the back of me. One look at him as I pulled away and it was clear he was raging drunk and he was looking for trouble. As he waved his hands in my face, mumbling unintelligably, I pulled out my mace and took aim. Only Kirsten and a strong gust of wind in my face kept him from getting a painful dose. Tense moments followed as a crowd gathered, but we finally convinced him he was getting nothing from us and we shooed him on his way. After a brief wait to collect our thoughts and calm our nerves, we continued on our way only to see him a ways up the road waiting and beckoning us to come. Determined not to let this fool alter our plans and keep us from the refreshing showers we had been dreaming of, we turned around and paid a visit to the local police station and soon found ourselves with our own personal police escort the rest of the way to Cañar. Take that moto man!

Another half day of riding, our first glorious stretch of sustained descent since Riobamba and we rolled into Cuenca. Ready to enjoy a well deserved rest and city-style gorge, Kirsten promptly succumbed to the stomach cramps she had been battling throughout the day, a suspected bout of food poisoning, stopping our celebration in its tracks and rendering her painfully bedridden. We are here until she bounces back, hopefully by Friday or Saturday.

Thanks for all the well wishes and hellos...we love to hear from all of you and miss you bunches.

S+K

2008-09-04T15:42:00.000-04:00

Happens ¨enough¨

2008-09-01T17:08:00.003-04:00

We left our beloved San Clemente on Friday morning, sad to be leaving but thirsty for the adventure ahead. We headed due east, bound for Latacunga and the central highlands. We were quickly re-aquainted with Ecuador proper and its´associated trash and random roadside smells. If at one point we thought the roads here were good, we have come to find most of them marginal at best. As we began the climb back into the coastal Chindul range, the road wavered, from rough, rocky washboard to something resembling smooth. Kirs likened it to getting worked by one of those shakemaster weight loss systems.

We spent the night camped in a banana plantation and experienced up close the associated after hours flurry of insect and who-knows-what-else screeches and flutters throughout the night. More climbing on Saturday found us in the mountain town of ¨103¨, a bustling center of commerce and curious people. We made several stops for fruit and a machete, and everytime I turned around, there was Kirs holding my bike, surrounded by an ever-growing crowd of enthusiastic and very friendly men. They had fun hearing about where we had been and where we were going and followed us through town until we left. By midday Sunday we had reached our final destination of Quevedo where we caught a bus for the four hour ride (4-5 days by bike, every inch of it up) to Latacunga in the central highlands.

We left late morning expecting to arrive mid-afternoon but our hopes were dashed an hour or so into the ride. As we wound up the thin, windy road amid dense jungle and raging waterfalls, our progress was brought to a grinding halt as we came upon a grossly overloaded semi that had cut a corner too tight (it had no business on a road like this!) and buried its rear axle in the three foot deep canal running along the road with its oversized load tipping at a precarious angle, diesel fuel cascading down the steep road into a large crowd of gathering people (some of whom were smoking!) and its body fully blocking the road. The crowd quickly grew agitated as they all realized they weren´t getting where they were going anytime soon. A conversation with a man who made the trip, when asked if this happened often , told us it happened ¨enough¨. With the road shut down and no way to turn around, we were stuck. No cell phone service meant that someone had to travel the entire distance up or down to notify someone of the situation (we arrived soon after it happened), they had to come see, then travel all the way back to commandeer the appropriate machine for the job, which then moved at 4 miles an hour...well, you get the picture. After 4 or so long hours of sitting around, a tractor finally showed up and a tense heavy-machinery duel ensued as the earth mover proceeded to lift the rear half of the trailer with chains. Thirty minutes later it was back straight again, still occupying three-quarters of the road with its massive girth.

Our driver, clearly in a hurry to get home, made sure we were the first through, honking and pushing our way through the masses of people frantically running back to their vehicles. Though the road was hellishly steep and thin and windy, with nauseatingly sheer drops, our driver made it clear that we would make up for lost time. Blind corners were met, not with cautious decceleration, but a series of loud honks, reminding any potential drivers on the other side that we are bigger so get out of the way. As we peaked at 12,000´or so, the guard-rail less drops became even more dramatic, accentuated by the charred skeletons of cars and buses visible deep within the valleys and ravines. Our four hour turned eight hour extravanganza left us in Latacunga well after dark, exhausted, hungry and in need of a soft bed...which we found.

Taken by Gypsies

2008-08-25T17:49:00.002-04:00

San Clemente is a town that welcomes you without saying a word. Its´permanent residents are warm and inviting, a trait that magnifies with each passing day that we spend here. The smiles become wider and conversations deeper as we become regulars at street stalls selling bread, fruit and seafood. Cordial greetings have become interjected with first name reception and handshakes are thrust forward, indicating we have moved beyond the company of strangers. It is small enough that it is easy to meet people, yet large enough to be home to a town cross-dresser, a few reknowned drunks and eccentric personalities.

On a recent evening, Seth met a couple that invited us to their home (or at least he thought so) the following day for lunch. We walked in the direction where Seth thought they lived at the designated hour (only half-understanding the quick-tongued directions the night before). As we strolled over cobblestone, Seth spotted them up ahead. ¨Jesús!¨he shouted. No response. ¨Jesús! Jesús!¨he tried a second and third time, shocked as this hadn´t grabbed their attention and they were only 20 feet ahead of us. (Red Flag 1) Kirsten asked, ¨Is that them?¨ ¨Sure,¨ he responded confidently. He threw out a whistle to which they immediately turned around and greeted us. We exchanged pleasantries, they shoved two bananas into our hands and led us back to their home.

As we strolled, Marie pronounced her age, 50! She gave us a look. The one that says ¨I´m all that and more!¨ She raised her eyebrows, broke into a crooked smile and waved her hand up and down the side of her body with the flick of a wrist. She could have been taking lessons from Vanna White. Kirsten commented, ¨Yes, you look good for 50.¨ She was short, with a slight protrusion of her belly, demonstrating the memory of birthing 5 children. She definitely wasn´t hot to trot but, heck, every woman deserves a compliment, especially when you are invited to her house for lunch.

Jesús, the husband, pulled open the ubiquitous barbed wire fence for us to pass through, leading us to their house on stilts, hovering three feet above the sandy yard, where mere seedlings were struggling to take root. They promptly gave us the exterior ¨tour¨, pointing out the coleus, aloe vera & piña (which was obviously a bromeliad) (Red Flag 2) none of which were over two feet in height. They invited us up the creaky wood stairs into the brick house, whose mortar was haphazardly applied to the seams. Our hosts offered us plastic chairs under the hammock in the front living room, a space no more than 8x10 feet. Our eyes quickly found their way sideways and took inventory of the round table donned with a navy table cloth. It housed herbs in porcelain bowls, mortar and pestle, an antiquated bust of Jesus among other knick knacks, clearly the tools of alternative healing.

Jesús, missing the top row of teeth, which rarely inhbitied a smile or conversation, asked us if we wanted to listen to music. ¨Sure,¨we respond. He fiddles with a few stations, then leaves it turned off to busy himself with other capacities of entertaining his guests. ¨Where are you staying?¨Marie inquires, her fuschia lipstick drawing Kirsten´s attention as she has clearly invaded her American perception of personal space. Kirsten backs up her face, with a look of suprise and responds casually, ¨Oh, just up on mainstreet.¨ ¨How much do you pay?¨she quizzed us. ¨Well, why don´t you two move in here? We´ll cook all of your meals for you. I´m a good cook. You must pay $20/day in food (NOT!) Stay here. Yes? What do you think of our proposition? Yes?¨ (RED FLAG 3) A completely perplexed, ¨I don´t know,¨ was all Kirsten could mutter. This was obviously not a spur of the moment proposal. They were courting us. Luckily, we could find refuge in our English with eachother and came up with something close to a ¨Hell, no.¨ The air in the room suddenly felt heavier and we were spared when the conversation turned to children (or lack thereof) and our travel plans in Ecuador.

Within five minutes of our arrival, Marie slapped 2 thick decks in Kirsten´s hands. She turned the frayed cards over and peered through the worn out pictures to reveal: tarot. Marie wanted to read Kirsten´s future, for a price, of course. Ten dollars for a reading, but only 2 for you. ¨Friends,¨she suggested. ¨We don´t have any money,¨Seth interjected. ¨Sí? Sí? Come. Sit. Let me read your cards.¨ Kirsten managed to dig out a pathetic 20 cents, which Marie took from her assuredly and without shame and sat down underneatth the hand-scrawled letters on the wall that read, ¨God is Love.¨ As a virgen of tarot, Kirsten had no idea what to expect and with that, expected to be pulled along with every turn of the cards. The reading progressed with half questions. You have brothers.? ¨Yes, ¨ she hesistantly offers. ¨He is very concerned about you. You two, pointing to us, are in love.?¨ ¨Yes,¨ we gingerly respond. ¨He (Seth) looks after you, protects you.¨ She shuffles, Kirsten cuts the deck one, two, three times. Flip. ¨You will have a child in four years, a girl. Your father is worried about you, You are smart, strong, private person. You must work hard to make money. Be careful. Overall, good life.¨ Whew! We were relieved. Seth declined his offer politely. As we were ushered outside for the ¨picnic¨Seth pointed out the large calendar displaying the bare breasts of Augusts´finest, prominently hanging on the wall next to shrine upon shrine of gaudy christian knick knacks.

As the two hosts rambled in barely coherent Spanish, Jesús set about preparing a massive bowl of fish, he claimed were fresh, but we were quickly concluding that not all (or any) of what they said to us could be trusted. (Red Flag 4) Jesús, working over two boards, propped up by four vertical bamboo trunks, rinsed fish on the makeshift counter, alternatively telling us extravagant stories and sticking his nose into the belly of the fish to smell whether it could be salvageable for guests. He proceeded to tell us that he had caught the 8 inch fish, by spearfishing in the surf, though the creatures had no visible signs of pucture wounds. One type he told us was a pirrahna. Seth called him on it, insistent. He wasn´t going to be taken for a willing fool. Jesús backed down, like a dog with his tail between his legs and admitted his trickery as he threw the now empty plastic bag over the fence nonchalantly, where a pile of trash was accumulating. He had travelled all over the world, every country Seth could name. The men across the street: military, murderers. We cast sideways glances at each other, not sure what we´ve gotten ourselves into. They´re gypsies for sure. We asked ourselves if we would get out alive, and if so, when?

The shortage of propane in Ecuador, left Marie and Jesús emptyhanded. They constructed a small fire in a pit, put on a pot of water, threw in potatoes, whole fish and peeled bananas-all raw, all together. If that wasn´t enough to get our appetites fired up, Marie rigged up her own little grill and skillet in which she plopped a large, softball size chunk of lard. A sight that made our stomachs protest the upcoming feast.

As they fried and boiled, Seth asked curiously, ¨What is that hanging on the fence?¨ indicating the pod-like, semi-transparent object dangling by fishing line. ¨A woman´s heart,¨Jesús responded. Sure that we were misunderstanding their Spanish, ¨A woman´s heart?¨we ask in utter disbelief. ¨Yeah, she was murdered. We found it walking along the road…beach.¨ ¨By whom?¨we ask. ¨Who knows,¨he shrugs. We should point out here that though it resembled some internal organ from some kind of small animal-it was most definitely NOT a human heart! (Red Flag Number…by this time, we´ve heard so much BS that it´s not worth counting)

They chatted up about our astrological signs. Our certain compatibility-taurus and pisces, while ending each sentence with ¨¿me entiendes? ¿Sí o no?¨ The food was marginal, swallowable at best. Fried bananas with fish flippers and scales attached. Mmm. Makes you want to cry out for seconds. We excused ourselves by declaring that we had a party to attend (our half-truth), but not before Jesús gave us a rock, a memento to remember them by (not like we needed that!) and asking for our fake U.S. address. Perhaps, they were just a couple looking for a little compay, or more likely, we contend, a pair out to make a buck off of us. We left them disappointed, less the 20 cents worth of tarot.

Beach Bums...We could get used to this!

2008-08-14T11:05:00.002-04:00

If we learned anything from our ride in Maine and Canada, it´s that coastline doesn´t necessarily equate to 0 elevation gain. In more likelihood, the coast is hilly and Ecuador does not stray from that generalization. The breezes blow strong enough near the ocean to impede adequate headway, but it is a welcome gift of nature as our wool t-shirts pool with sweat and we begin dripping from our nose, eyebrows and even elbows. The wind rushed onto our damp skin and it is the only relief from the heat. Fortunately, the sky is mostly overcast, protecting our, (or Kirsten´s) white, northerly skin from the intense equatorial rays.
A late start, albeit due to a scrumptious, home (for the time-being)-cooked breakfast and some watching of the Olympic opening ceremonies left us riding in the heat of the day from Pedernales. The worn out pavement, which exposed battered rocks below contributed to higher rolling resistance on our tires and we felt the day getting away from us as we climbed hill after sweaty hill. A well-intentioned stop at a roadside stand left me, Kirsten, with a sour taste in my mouth. As we were empty-handed on the banana front, we plotted a pit stop at the first sight of the delectable treats. The owner of the thatched roof stall was in his 40s, his shirtless frame showing off his bigger-than-beer-gut. As I took a moment to hop off my bike to inspect the varieties he had available (as there´s more than one) my eyes went to the ripe plantains hanging in a large, 2ft long bunch. ¨No¨ he shouted. ¨The guineos are over here.¨ Was he thinking that a gringa couldn´t possibly want anything other than a ´gringa banana´? The ones, that are almost exclusively the only ones sold in the states. ¨These ones¨he insists, now speaking to me as if I were a child. I couldn´t possibly know what to do with the others, eat them raw? I settled on my choice, four of each. The younger boy assists in pulling them from the bunches. ¨How much?¨I ask. ¨Fifty,¨the boy responds. ¨Fifty?¨I counter questioningly, aknowledging the fact that I know it´s the inflated gringo price. ¨Cents,¨the old man chimes in. ¨Well no s***t sherlock...centavos, ¨ I thought as I walked away deflated. I wanted to get as far away from this man with the sterotypical ¨Americans are yellow-banana-eating morons who can´t understand spanish, so why don´t you leave anyway sort of attitude.¨

The hours continued to creep up on us as did the hills and we were forced to stop in Jama, a seemingly run-down sprawl of a town. On the third attempt to land a bed for the night, we entered Rosa Azul, a gated two-story, concrete house with cheesy mural paintings on the plaster. After repeated knocks with no answer, we discussed our options and turned to leave when we noticed the scraggily old man sound asleep in the hammock. It took multiple shouts to arouse him from his siesta. He rubbed the scratchy face he had failed to shave, scooted into his sandals and jumped onto his rickety cruiser bike with a second wooden saddle on the top tube. ¨Off to find the lady¨he told us. Greta returned, sporting her shower cap. Her recently dyed hair crept from under the pink plastic and the skin near her ears was dyed a rusty black. Sure, she had room. Yes, we´ll take one.

40kms south gives rise to the Cancún at spring break crowd in Canoa. We sang the Bob Marley beats to ourselves, which were pouring out of the speakers at booths selling tacky jewelry. We sat down to eat pescado frito and encebollado, a brothy soup with chunks of fish, delicious yucca, onions and herbs, served with banana chips. It didn´t take long to decide that we would rather spend the night with Ecuadorians, rather than foreigners, so we buggered out of that town in a hurry. As we rolled into San Vicente, the coastline dominated the view, the city of Bahía de Caráquez looming across the bay. As S.V. was a tad drab and uninteresting, except for a stunning mosaic on the side of a church, we headed straight for the ferry that would shuttle us across the bay. We approached with visions of the Princess of Acadia, the grand ship we crossed the Bay of Fundy in, but when we arrived, it was a somewhat decrepit-looking vessel, with room for 20 people and some light cargo on the bow (2 heavily-laden bikes?). As our turn to load came around, we approached cautiously, fully aware of how fast our cargo would drop, unrecoverable, to the bottom of the harbor. I loaded mine first, and as Seth waited, hoping he could catch the next boat, with a wide open bow, the boatman waved him on, despite his skepticism about the lack of room (2 bikes on already). He seemed confident though, so Seth gingerly (or not) lifted his bike carefully across the void that was the open ocean onto the rocking and rolling deck, sure that his bike and himself would soon be sinking to the bottom. He insists that he was NOT going to let go! He shoved his bike on the deck with vague confidence that it would stay. We were comforted little when the boatman loosely looped a rope around the frame. As we pulled away from the dock, the lurch of the boat sent his bike reeling, the front wheel bucking wildly up off the deck and hanging precariously over the edge of the boat. He somehow managed to stay in his seat and watched as the man left his bike to the mercy of the waves and headed to the back, on the way, giving the driver a wink and sly smile, a clear suggestion at the hilarity of it all and the hysterics they would be in when the bike got launched into the depths of the ocean. It was a tense ride, to say the least. Fortunately, it was short and ourselves and the bikes were on dry land in no time, the driver and his buddy having a good laugh at making the gringos nervous as we rolled (or pushed) our bikes up the ramp.

Bahía proved to be a long night. After a relaxing evening at a cute, Australian-run hostal, we were bombarded by drunken enthusiasm, our bedroom window just a hundred feet from a raging all-nighter, complete with wall thumping techno music and even a loud (very loud) fireworks display at 3am. They were just turning their music off as we were dragging our weary, fatigued heads from bed and 6:30am. We left early, wanting to ride far from the town that never sleeps. Rolling away, we stopped to ask the cabbie for directions out of town as he was polishing off his fourth beer (perhaps he was at the neighbors last night, or maybe his daily routine?). He stumbled to his feet, unable to disguise his slobbering drunkeness. After listening to a few, short words of his grovelling, we thanked him kindly and continued on. We soon passed the first group of serious cyclists we have seen yet in Ecuador. They were congregating at the park to train for an upcoming road competition. They waved enthusiastically, so we stopped to say hi and get some more intelligible directions. The man we met had actually been to Colorado, as he had family in Grand Junction-small world indeed.

As we left the throes of the city, we passed through the most wretched, nauseating stretch of road yet. It took all of our strength to contain our breakfast and as we wondered what could possibly smell so rank, we passed the local dump, strategically placed uphill from town-brilliant. The road was hellishly steep, the kind of steep that stalls out trucks. I had to traverse across the road, back and forth, because it was too steep to simply go ¨up¨. Two hours into our ride, we had only made it a handful of kms, but we were fully and completely drenched in sweat. The rest of the first half of the ride would continue to be tough, sustained uphill battles. Though the landscape through this stretch was pretty trashy, lots of garbage and stinks, it was super friendly, with lots of musical horn toots, waves and one couple pulling over their car to say hi, offer their encouragement and let us know about the other times that they had passed us. The second half of the morning was a breeze, smooth downhills and fast straightaways. We rolled into San Clemente early in the afternoon. We were to pass through, but decided to stay over ceviche and fried fish. We were right on the beach, huge waves amid a small, cozy town of fisherman and Ecuadorians enjoying the beach for the weekend. We swam, walked on the beach, hunted for seashells, read a lot and cooked a delectable meal of rice, veggies, pineapple and fried bananas.

As we were cooking, in a beach-side thatched hut, we awoke its´owner from his ¨siesta¨ on a nearby bench. There was an inconspicuous, nearly empty bottle of local firewater made from distilled sugarcane on the sand, hinting at the cause of his ¨drowsiness ¨. As he roused from his stooper, we feared we had picked a bad spot, as we would now be subject to the slobber and stumbled speech of yet another enibriated Ecuadorian. To our pleasant suprise, Eugene, in all his drunken glory, was a hoot and we had a blast listening to him brag about knowing Denver, Colorado (where they make money-we finally realize he means The Mint), his lore and singing of The Rolling Stones and ¨The Boss¨. Fortunatley, he dropped the remaining bottle in the sand before polishing it off. Before he left, other men congregated here, intent on getting in some conversation with us. We chatted about local life in San Clemente, fishing and local archaeological sights. We had a blast and laughed a lot, despite our faltering spanish at such a late hour and our attempt at discerning the slurred spanish of our new compañeros.

2008-08-12T11:32:00.001-04:00

PACIFIC!

2008-08-07T17:11:00.003-04:00

Welcome to El Carmen, a town uniquely Ecuadorian because it isn´t mentioned in the lonely planet. Kirsten´s bum knee had left us here for another day, another day to explore, meet and most importantly, eat! After two days here, we continued to be, I believe, the only gringos in town. It had a rough and tough look when we first rode through, but it quickly grew to our favorite, so far, Ecuadorian town. The people were friendly, the food delicious and cheap, and we could find just about anything (if only we had room on our bikes to liberate one of those poor chickens!). Stall after stall sold the same thing, whether it was fresh-squeezed juice or children´s underwear or a still squirming live catfish. It can be argued that Ecuador still lags behind in public infrastructure, indeed it does, but that doesn´t mean it doesn´t take priority in staying connected. Nearly everyone has a cellphone, even in the most remote regions where U.S. infrastructure would more than likely be insufficient (e.g. our old house in Boulder). Internet rooms (not cafes per se) are as plentiful as the mosquitoes down here, though it is frequently an attempt at a rip off destination. ¨You started at 2:00.¨ they say ¨No, it was 2:30...¨ we´d respond, followed by a deep, exhaustive exhale, resignation and finally, the ¨correct¨ change given in nickels and pennies...uggh. It puts our bargaining skills in spanish to the ultimate test.

We left town the next morning as dawn was breaking (or was that a window across the way...?), long after the first rooster´s crow (the one that woke us up), just as the city was coming to life. There was already a line 50 people deep in front of the bank, and people were already staking out their spot, propane tanks in tow, for the 12 or so hour wait for the truck to arrive. We headed west, stopping for fresh bread and pastries to energize us for the 90+km trek through Las Montañas de Chindu...all that separated us from the Pacific Ocean and the coastal town of Pedernales. As we turned off the main road, passing through yet another construction site, all eyes of the workers were on us, er, Kirsten, their tongues hanging out, drooling and whistling in their crude, utterly obnoxious, yet quintessentially machismo Ecuadorian man sort of way, me resisting all urges to pull my bike off the road and deck them all. I much prefer the shout ¨You´re a lucky man to be traveling with such a beautiful woman¨, acknowledging Kirsten as the beautiful woman she is and not just nice boobs and a butt.

The road was blissfully traffic free and we rode side by side past banana plantation after banana plantation (the banana you might be eating right now probably came from just this region), a virtual sea of giant green sails flapping in the wind. The banana tree is not a particularly attractive plant...many of the human-sized leaves dead or browning at the edges like the sickly dracaenas we tried to nurse back to health in college. As in most poor, rural areas, ingenuity prevails here where money or resources lag behind. Bamboo is plentiful, growing in huge, disproportianately tall groves, and is used for just about everything from houses and furniture to the ladders they use to climb each individual banana tree to cover the clusters in plastic (my heart sinks as I try to imagine why they need to do this...use your Monsanto delusioned imagination).

Though we had been told that the ride was pretty flat and all downhill to Pedernales, we were once again reminded of the age old cycling adage...never trust the advice of a car driving local! Mere hills in a car become nearly impassable mammoths of mountains on a bike, and as we continued to climb up, and up...and up, the road disintegrated from our lusciously well-paved expressway, to a slow, slogging, rut-filled pile of rocks, stretching our patience and indeed our already aching calf muscles to the near breaking point. Will power prevailed, however, coaxed on by the constant honks, waves and shouts of encouragement from the heavily overloaded-with-men pickups that slogged past, barely outpacing us. As we rode, we tried to imagine what the average Ecuadorian thinks of a couple of gringos cycling by on heavily laden bikes and we came up with 3 generalities...Indifference, some people don´t even look up from what they are doing when we pass by, Curiosity, we get some weird looks!, and Enthusiasm. Obviously, we prefer interacting with the latter and their gestures ranging from the above mentioned waves, fist pumping and pleasant musical beeps of the horn to genuine conversations with people that get a sparkle in their eye and large grins of excitement when they hear of our travels.

Without a bike computer or kilometer markers, we could only guess how far our uphill slogging had gotten us with little to distract us other than the familiar sounds of machete whacks, bird calls and growling, barking dogs, the latter of which we have learned to defend ourselves from by arming our bikes with long, pointed dog whipping sticks for the handful that are well-fed enough to chase us, nip at our heels and panniers and bare their gnashing teeth during their rabid display of incessant barking.

We had decided that making the coast was a must, as camping thus far has been a lesson in sketchiness and anyway, any potential camping spots (the rare of the rare flat areas) are well guarded by layer upon layer of the ubiquitous barbed wire, unbroken and unforgiving.
So we pushed on, sure that our much awaited ocean vista lay just around the next curve, just over the crest of the next hill. As our energy reserves teetered on E, we wound our way up the longest climb of the day, finding at the top, not our precious vista, but a kind woman making pure, fresh-squeezed mandarin juice. We stopped for a quaff and tentatively asked how many kms to Pedernales, sure she was going to confirm our fears that we were still hours away based on the endless layers of mountains that still panned out in front of us. Sure enough, to our delight, she informed us that we were less than an hours ride away, and it was almost all downhill! We hopped on our bikes, with renewed energy and enthusiasm (our bodies, caked in dirt, just dying for a swim) and rolled into town 40 minutes later, amid a sea of dust and coconut palms, thatched beach huts and most importantly...the Pacific! We quickly found ourselves a cozy, cheap place to stay, stashed our bikes and headed out for a swim in the bath-like ocean and gorged on fresh ceviche, corviche, corvina, ice cold brews and of course, bananas.

...Continued

2008-08-04T17:09:00.002-04:00

In Mindo, we were still trying to work out the imperfections in our frying of bananas and potatoes, staples in this part of the world. The hotel had some cabañas (thatched huts), an outdoor oven and hammocks outside, each covered in overgrown vines and unique flowers. Each time we brought the stove outside, they insisted that we cook in their kitchen. The owner made us fresh-squeezed lemonade, as we batted away the dogs, cats and chickens that congregated around us each time we cooked a meal.

After relaxing a bit, reading a lot and getting a vacation from our vacation, we headed for a larger town, in fact, as it turns out, a disgusting, dirty, over-populated metropolis. There were two routes to get there, yet only one that actually qualifies as a road. We took the one that didn´t. An hour into our dissection of the mountainous landscape, Luis Mendoza stopped with a hearty smile. We loaded our bikes into the back of his truck and happily jumped into his cab to de-sweat from the heat and talk with this man with a hefty belly and even heftier laugh. Luis was an awesome travelling companion. He´s 61, married, though he called her his woman, has 8 grandchildren, doesn´t smoke and loves to dance. Everytime he said something funny to us, he would do one of either two things. Stare directly at us, not the road mind you, and wear this large grin from ear to ear and puff his eyebrows up and down, moving his cap on his bald head inches at a time. Or, laugh so incredibly loud, raise his right hand up in the air and then slam it down onto Kirsten´s left leg to emphasize the character of the conversation. He was a riot, very genuine and friendly. He dropped us off a good distance from where we started, which turned out to be a good thing, because we had a long way to go on the dirt and rocks that almost qualified as a road.

We passed a number of rivers and small villages that afternoon and as luck would have it, we descended upon Sol Y Agua. The sign seemed to imply that it had cabañas to sleep in and perhaps we could pitch a tent there. It was definitely not a sleeping locale and it took us the two days that we spent there to actually figure the place out. It was a gated piece of land, with a small soccer field, cabañas with restaurant tables and a kitchen along a magnificent river. We pitched the tent, as Graciela, her husband and 2-yr old son, lived on the property. Apparently, they live there in exchange for upkeep of the property, feeding the poultry of all kinds and cooking (only on Sundays). It was Saturday when we arrived, so we didn´t want to miss what spectacle might ensue on Sunday, so we stuck around. Early that morning, we asked Graciela if she had any eggs that we could buy....and boy did she ever! She brought us across the road and uphill to the bird houses...chickens, ducks, geese, what we think were cornish hens and all of their eggs! There were well over 150 birds there. We bought a dozen of these tiny eggs, from the mystery birds and a couple from chickens. They were the best eggs we´ve ever had. Later that day, we ate the mystery bird with rice, lentils, veggie salad and of course bananas, when a large family came that afternoon to swim, eat and drink Pilsener, the Ecuadorian beer. It´s actually just called Pilsener believe it or not.

This morning we rode through the hazy mist to Santo Domingo, ughh. As soon as we rode in, we decided to ride out. It wasn´t worth navigating to find the post office and we´re quite sure it would have taken all day. So, we´re hanging out in El Carmen, resting up to make our early morning break tomorrow to the coastal town of Pedernales. We send love to all of you out there as we´re off to eat more bananas every way imaginable.

Pero...Que VARIEDAD de Plàtano Quieres?

2008-08-04T15:46:00.002-04:00

Maqueño, seda, horito, verde, maduro y más y màs y más. We can´t possibly name every type of banana they have here. Heck, the natives can´t even name them all! And they are absolutely delicious and diverse in flavor, texture, color, size, cooking possibilities and much more. We are smack-dab in the middle of banana heaven. Last night, we were pleasantly suprised when Graciela brought us empanadas de verde. They were not flour empanadas stuffed with banana like we had erroneously thought. The breading itself was boiled verdes, mashed with salt, rolled out into a tortilla, folded, stuffed with cheese and deep fried. Delightful!

It is not unlike us to wake up one morning and think we are headed in one direction and then find ourselves going the complete opposite way. This was the case when we left the farm in the sierra. We originally planned to go to a high elevation, indigenous town called Otavalo and ended up 6000 feet lower than we started that morning...which was awesome, because we coasted probably 15-20 miles on a road we thought did not exist in all of Latin America: newly paved, wide shouldered and little traffic! Suprisingly, the shoulders on the roads thus far have been substantial-though more likely to aid the (savage) drivers, as one native described them to us than for the benefit of cyclists like ourselves. As we dropped in elevation, the air became thicker, waterfalls cascaded down immense canyons and the diversity in vegetation took on a whole new life. The trash littering the sides of the road, couldn´t stop us from stopping to enjoy magnificent vistas of the surrounding mountains and eat our new favorite snack-chiflas and manì´-banana chips and sugar coated peanuts. The descent into the jungle-world continued until we ended up in Mindo, a little town catered to tourists because of it´s delectable environment-orchids, toucans, rivers, waterfalls, bird-watching and anything thing else that could lure in a dollar. We didn´t partake in any expeditions that like to overcharge foreigners, but we went exploring in the jungle, hunting for insects and were mystified by the diversity of plants. We saw one flower that looked like Cindi Lauper´s hair in the 80s, if you can imagine that. We stayed 2 nights at a very eclectic, artsy hotel and then headed back, UP to the next destination. To be continued...

La Vida en el Campo

2008-07-26T17:57:00.002-04:00

Hour after hour passed at the Quito airport, as passersby glanced suspiciously at our cardboard sign, made out of the lid of our pizza box that simply said, ¨Gonzalo.¨ Yet, it wasn´t Gonzalo who picked us up, but his wife Jasmin that greeted us with a hug and smile and proceeded to inform us that the truck was parked three blocks away. With 4 boxes full of bike parts and all of our gear, the three of us managed to ¨borrow¨the luggage cart from the airport and lift it up and down curbs, over cobblestone streets and between people waiting in line at the bus stops. After loading our boxes and ourselves into the bed of the truck, which was already loaded with flowers, we waited our turn to drop off the flowers at the exportation grounds of the airport and head out.

We turned onto the main road and there it was. Proud and omniprescent, volcan Cotopaxi was lapped in a pastel sunset as it towered over the city. We had a splendid view of the snow-capped beast as we looked toward it from the back of the truck. We took in all of the sights, sounds and smells of Quito as it was dinnertime and rush hour. Buses, cars, trucks, bikes and people flowed freely in some kind of organized madness that was unveiling itself before our eyes. We were soon climbing steep inclines as the moon and stars rose into the crisp, chilly sky above. Before long, we were looking down on the clouds below us and the 2 of us marveled at what a different kind of world we landed ourselves in. We continued to climb and climb, until the paved road turned to dirt and the straight bends tightened. We could see that we hovered along the edge of a cliff, but in the dark, we could see little of our surroundings and anxiously awaited morning to see what kind of landsacape we were going to be putting our feet on. Fortunately or not, we´re in the land of ¨not needing an alarm clock¨due to the excessive quantity of roosters in the neighborhood. Morning found us in lush, dense vegetation in a cloud forest in the mountains of the Andes. Every day since, we´ve been woken before 6 am often by 5:30 and have been off to work at the farm before 7.

For 1 and a half weeks so far, our adopted home has been Yunguilla, a small village of 300 poeple perched on the edge of a cliff-no flat land in sight! Therefore, houses, roads, and farms are carved precariously out of the landscape and require frequent descending and climbing the steep hills through the low clouds that often pass over the village leaving it washed in white. Our adopted family is the Colluguazo-Flores family-Gonzalo, Jasmin and their four children Katerine (17), Cecibel (15), Mirella (13), Kevin (10) their dog, Fluke (age unknown) and many other members of their extended family (which is a lot) and handfuls of neighbors. It is always an active home, bustling with laughter, futbol, laundry, cooking, cleaning, making cheese and business deals. This family has something to say about work ethic. The older girls are extremely disciplined. They make a neater bed than I ever could in a lifetime and do more household chores than we could do with a machine. When Seth said one day to Mirella that she works a lot, she responded ¨Es la vida cuando eres pobre¨-That´s life when you´re poor. Nonetheless, the entire family is extremely generous in every way imaginable and are really fun to hang out with. The food here is to die for. Our favorites thus far have been fried bananas, fried yucca, fresh juice and moladas (warm fruit smoothies) soup of every kind with potatoes and fresh bread.

The kids are really funny and entertaining. We´ve played games and exchanged our own versions of slug bug, spin the bottle and some kind of revised version of hot potato. There is a constant sound of laughter and the kids take kindly and warmly to us strangers in their house. Last week was Jasmin´s birthday and we attempted to make a cake with Mirella, Ceci, Kate (another volunteer) and ourselves. It was a total disaster as the cake rose, spilled, burned, and broke into a dozen pieces. We cried from laughter so intense and still the warped cake with runny frosting tasted fantastic.

The pickup leaves for the farm at 10 til 7 with at least a dozen people standing in the bed holding tightly onto the metal railing as our hands become numb in the cold morning air and we duck to avoid overhead vines. The farm lies about a 5 minute truck ride from town, down in a deep valley. Ten regular employees work there, in addition to the kids and volunteers. Fields of sloped calla lillies fill the mountain sides along with vegetables that feed the workers at the farm, the family and some that get sold at market. Lunch is prepared for everyone at the farm, with food that is harvested there and staples brought from above. The meal is usually soup with potatoes, veggies and occasionally meat. Every meal has been fantastic. At the farm, we have peeled potatoes ( a lot of them), picked beans, peas, planted calla lilles, weeded, prepped soil for transplants, mixed compost and prepped flowers for export three days a week. Seth gets (or has) to drive the tractor a lot. He´s not sure whether his tractor-driving experience has been a blessing or a curse, since the boys are always wanting to ride along or worse yet-drive! The lily farm is certified organic so we get to use lots of smelly manure and compost. The work is physically hard most days and we´re relieved whenever we get a break from the monotony of the tasks here. One day, we were taken with a grandfather to his strawberry patch-it was to die for! We were both in heaven. It was a gigantic, terraced piece of mountain side with huge organic plants. We spent hours harvesting them and were nearly full from eating the half-rotten ones, which aren´t to market standards. Some of the harvest Jasmin made into mermelada and the rest went to market to sell for 50 cents a pound.

Last week, the girls taught Kirsten how to make cheese from the milk they get each day from their cows. It was really fun, probably because it was the first time. The novelty probably wears off when it´s your chore every other day of the week. Just as our bikes, tent and other things are a novelty for them. Kevin told Seth that our bikes were from ¨another world¨. Still, the kids are quite well-versed in western culture as they like to say ¨hasta la vista¨and Mirella yelled out ¨No woman no Cry¨to her brother when he started crying. They know Spongebob and a host of other Hollywood movies and music videos.

This weekend, we´re in Quito to 1) get a essential bike part for Seth´s bike 2)Celebrate our 4th anniversary and 3)Get a break from farm life. Quito is pretty much like any other big South American city and we´ll return to the farm on Sunday afternoon and stay until probably Thursday morning. Our next destination will be Otavalo, an indigenous community just north of Quito. Our Spanish is coming along, which is to say we´re learning many things everyday. We haven´t been stopped in our tracks so far because of any miscommunication, although some times we feel more confident than others, depending on who we´re talking to and the content of the conversation.

We hope that all of you that we love dearly are doing great and this finds you in good spirits. Hasta la Proxima!
Kirsten & Seth

Finishing up North America

2008-07-26T17:31:00.002-04:00

Our last weekend in Nova Scotia was incredibly relaxing and filled our bellies with lots of excellent North American favorites before the trip down south. Seth´s dad, Bill, flew up to Halifax to meet us for the weekend and we had a great time. It was fun to share our stories about our travels thus far and hear about the exciting work he´s doing in Tennessee producing a high-tech part for CT machines. Evidently, it´s revolutionary work he´s doing! We drove up the coast north of Halifax and found this really cute country inn run by another German woman and her Canadian husband. Their hospitality was over the top. We were served complimentary brownies over coffee and cribbage, late night oreo cookies and a great more-than continental breakfast. The inn was situated on a river that had a fantastic patio view of the water and amazing sunsets to admire over a glass of wine.

Live From South America

2008-07-16T14:33:00.002-04:00

We made it! We´re really tired after long days of travel, but other than that we´re good. Everything went very smoothly, no problems at customs, changing planes, etc. Gonzalo from the organic flower farm is picking us up and introducing us to life on the farm for the next two weeks. There is no internet access close by there, so we will probably be out of touch for awhile...that means we´ll have a lot to report after we get settled into Ecuadoran life. I wanted to drop all of you anxious family members a line to let you know that we got in ok. We love you all. Kirsten & Seth

2008-07-11T20:03:00.000-04:00

Wrapping up Canada

2008-07-11T19:42:00.002-04:00

Well, we're going out with a bang. We didn't want to regret anything in the unlikely event that our plane nose-dived on the way to Quito. But, our motto recently has been to live for today, so we do.

In the last week, we have tooled around the coast south of Halifax, waking most mornings to early fog before it burns off around 10am. Canada has a great trail network, called "Rails to Trails" which converted old railroad tracks to running and biking trails. They are great to ride, hard-packed and completely flat. We rode through about 70 kilometers of spectacularly stunning lakes, rivers and waterfalls, most of which empty into the ocean. In this stretch, we met a handful of cycle tourers from Quebec, Germany and Nova Scotia. Power in numbers-There's a lot of us out there! We were invited by a local, Paul, to go sailing with him, but unfortunately we had to head back in the direction of Halifax-otherwise we definitely would have taken him up on his offer. We can't emphasize enough how outgoing and genuinely friendly these Canadian folks are.

We've hit up the pizza joints, a French bakery, an I rish pub(with the best sweet potato fries on the planet) and a local cafe. I think we are trying to get in all the food we can possibly cram into our stomachs before flying to the unknown. After a half-day of easy riding, we stumbled into The Trellis Cafe for wine and dessert-absolutely delectable! Thursday night was local jam session night and as we sat and played cribbage as one instrument after another started filtering into this brightly colored, art-filled, eclectic cafe. Three musicians quickly turned into a dozen and they were completely unabashed and fantastic entertainers. We heard from guitars, banjo, ukelele, accordian-like instrument, harmonica, drums and a lot of beautiful voices. They played everything from sea-faring ballads to Simon and Garfunkel to Elton John, the Beatles and traditional folk songs. They were loud, rowdy and having just a fantastically fun evening, as were we. Seth and I could have stayed there all night!

This morning we arrived back in Halifax and are eagerly awaiting for the arrival of Bill, Seth's dad tomorrow. We'll be hitting up some good Nova Scotian fun this weekend and then fly out to Quito on Tuesday. Woo Hoo! We love y'all.

Back to the Mainland

2008-07-05T09:42:00.002-04:00

Martha Stewart would be proud. This particulary outhouse was likely better decorated than anything she had in prison. It must have been heart-breaking for her to live without all of these toiletry luxuries...magazines racks, a calendar (on the right month), a mirrored vanity, air freshener, a posting of upcoming community events, a poster on the history of toilets and sanitation, a Canadian flag, a black and white tinted print, cushy foam toilet seat and of course, the guestbook. Outhouse-shy people...no need to fear. This is a home away from home, although it would be adivsable to wash well after signing the guestbook! We found this upper-class hole-in-the-ground at a community park that was maintained by a community gardening organization. The remains of Canada Day festivities abound, as the gazebos where still adorned this red and white banners whipping in the wind and Canadian flags staked into the ground.

The unrelenting wind drove us back to the mainland. PEI was in no doubt beautiful, rural and friendly. We were able to criss-cross the island in one morning or afternoon and awed at the contrast between the bright green potato fields against the rich, red hue of freshly tilled soil. We ventured to Charlottetown, the capital, for the Canada Day celebration, but were a little disappointed-no parade. We arrived early and was entertained mostly by the young children playing around as we glanced up from our books we were reading in the grass. There was music playing all day and lots of greasy food options to choose from, but it would be a very long day if we stayed for the fireworks and it would be even more difficult and dangerous to leave town in the dark on our bikes. So, we broke out of the mellow celebrations early and headed out of town, which became rural very quickly. That evening we heard maybe 5 fireworks, but nothing else. No raucous revelrie was taking place on this island. People don't seem to drink or party much here. They probably have to get up too early to plow the fields of hay. As this island is so established and settled, we did not find too many places to easily camp and the mosquitoes were the most horrendous we have ever experienced in our lives. No amount of insect repellant could keep those monsters at bay. They existed in a large grey cloud, like an 20-year cyclical infestation of locusts or moths. We had to run back and forth from our bikes to the tent and throw things inside. We had to run around the grass while making dinner and we ate it inside the refuge of the tent. With that said, we soon decided to take the ferry back to Nova Scotia.

We have been having a great couple of days here on the mainland. We battled some more intense headwinds, but we found that listening to our music took our mind off the road and wind. We have camped the last two nights on a river, which we have enthusiastically swam in. We are now headed near Halifax to do some side trips, but primarily base ourselves out of this region for the next week. Seth's dad, Bill, is flying out next weekend to hang out with us for our last weekend here in Canada. We are very excited. We did not celebrate a proper 4th of July, so hopefully some of you made up for our lack of participation. We love you all and miss you. Kirst and Seth

2008-06-29T14:04:00.002-04:00

We were smitten when we met our new friends here, Harry and Judy Wray, from Chicago. Once again, ominous skies backdrop our camping site along the southern shore of P.E.I. near Summerside.

Pedal Power

2008-06-29T13:08:00.003-04:00

Our most recent adventures found us in Tidnish, NS bearing down on PEI amid overscast skies and seriously ominous clouds. We hoped the weather would hold out until we could find our next camping spot, but soon the skies opened and it began to dump (think Asian monsoon rains). The water on the road was up to our rims in no time, and just when we thought we were completely screwed, our favorite sign, the small, brown question mark from heaven, appeared out of nowhere...an information center. We followed the arrow 100yds up the road only to find it closed due to lack of government funds and support (so said the sign on the window). As it turned out, that was the best case scenario, as we commandeered the 10 square feet of covered porch space and took shelter. We had crackers, cheese and a half bottle of wine, left over from our tasting the day before, which we quickly devoured. We just as quickly realized that the rain was not stopping any time soon and that our tenting options were limited to 1)the porch where we stood, in very plain sight of the road or 2)the 4ft wide mowed buffer zone between the back of the building and the jungle-like tall grass wilderness beyond it. We opted for the latter and after waiting for an appropriate level of dusk to settle and an equally appropriate lull in the torrential madness, we quickly got our tent up, threw gear in, and then ourselves. After a restless (at best) nights sleep amid the constant patter of rain on the tent alternating between hard and really hard, we awoke to more rain, soggy everything and...SLUGS!...EVERYWHERE. And where there wasn't a slug, there was a gooey, slimy, disgusting trail of slug grossness where one had been....in our shoes (found 3), helmets, rain gear, soaked socks and all over the tent. We contemplated staying in the tent forever, not wanting to face the prospect of taking down the tent and our slug-infested gear in the rain, but decided our next destination was the nearest hotel and there we could deal with all of the sogginess. We headed to the town of Port Elgin, N.B. and its' one motel, Indian Point, run by a cute German woman and her Nova Scotian husband. We proceeded to assault every square inch of hook, chair-back, hanger and towel-rack space this tiny room offered, hanging clothes, gear and soaked shoes to dry. The German woman then proceeded to cook us a homemade breakfast from heaven with a huge spread of homemade breads, jams, jellies, eggs, bacon and the best coffee we have ever had! We gorged ourselves silly over cribbage and settled into a lovely day of lounging (on a bed!) and watching trashy, daytime television (the best Oprah we've ever watched!). We took long, hot showers with scrubbing, shaving, soap and all over cleanliness. Possibly the first ever haircut with a Gerber tool was conducted on Kirsten's hair in that little room. (Don't try this at home folks!) Seth is considering a new profession-or maybe we found a new sport for the Redneck Olympics!

We watched the weather channel, which included depressing forecasts of rain, rain and more rain! After a long and restful nights' sleep (again, on a real bed) we woke to overcast skies and ominous-looking clouds-by this point we have forgotten what the sun looks like, but it seemed it was holding steady and check-out time loomed, so we packed up our newly dried (mostly) gear and set off to conquer the 25k to the Confederation Bridge, linking New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. If you are unfamiliar with this bridge, as we were, it is an engineering feat of almost incomprehensible proportions. It spans over 8 miles of open ocean and you almost can't see one side from the other. As bikes are not allowed on it, we waited amid the masses of mosquitoes for the shuttle that would take us across. According to some other cyclists we met from Quebec, Francois and Frederique, who had already been to PEI, calling for the shuttle was like calling God..."Hello, we're here on the N.B. side...can you come pick us up?" "I'll be there in ten minutes, replies God" He appears in a white van with a large bike trailer hauling behind.

Having finally made it to the other side after a lengthy wait, we found the nearest Tim Horton's for some coffee and a muffin (or 3...each). We set off then for Summerside, a small town where we hoped to secure a location to watch the Euro Cup finals on Sunday, find a laundromat and get some groceries. We marveled at the rich, deep red soil, abundant seas of potato fields and above all, a new map with a much more bike friendly scale...we were in Summerside in no time (~30k) where we stumbled upon the College of Piping and Celtic Arts weekend long festival of bagpiping, fiddle music and Scottish step-dancing...it was so fun! As we were enjoying the festivities, our bikes found us some new friends. We came back to find Harry, a poly-sci professor at DePaul University in Chicago checking them out and we instantly hit it off. He had done a cross country tour in the mid 70's, is a big fan of all things bike and was interested in our trip. We exchanged stories and talked about our bikes...he has even written a book on politics and biking (Pedal Power...check it out!) and after meeting our respectives wives, they went on their way. After meeting yet another cycle touring couple and chatting for a bit, Harry and his wife Judy returned, offering to take us to dinner!

Never missing an opportunity to make new friends and hear exciting tales from the road (not to mention eat!) we humbly accepted and proceeded to have a magical evening, eating delightful island food (killer mussels!) and talking about traveling, family, politics, etc. By the end of the night, we were exchanging emails and hugs and best wishes for all our travels (they were leaving today to drive back to Chicago). What a truly wonderful, serendipitous occasion (and we found ourselves stuffed full for the first time in weeks...thanks Harry and Judy!!). I can't wait to read Harry's book.

We found yet another superb camping spot a few minutes outside town and just a couple feet from the lapping tide and we are ready for another big day of adventure...and soocer...and rain (it's pouring right now).
Best wishes and love to all...do some "no more rain dances" for us...we love to get your emails and notes on the blog.
S+K

2008-06-26T11:04:00.000-04:00

On the Northumberland Strait

2008-06-26T10:45:00.002-04:00

Headwinds BLOW!!!! Ughh. This is fun, but not every minute in equal measure. We hit a sick, sustained headwind all day yesterday. We decided we needed to rub our tailwind fetishes that Susan gave us a little more! Seth mercifully blocked the wind for me yesterday and made my legs feel a lot better. We also met our first pair of touring cyclists on that ride. They were a young couple our age from Montreal. We had fun chatting it up with them a bit. We've rode past many farms. Some proclaiming how long their farm has been held in family lineage. The oldest one we saw proudly declared "Family Farm Since 1783." The insects here are relentless. We've been peeling them off our face like wallpaper and with it our blood. Yet, we have been able to camp the last four nights on waterfront, which is gloriously scenic for after dinner reading and journaling. And....we managed to stop at a vineyard for wine tasting yesterday. Some of you would be proud and jealous, I know who you are! The winery was beautiful, 45 acres and a classy, large barn to display wines and sell boutique-ish things. We learned that the taproot of a grape vine grows forty feet into the earth. Amazing! Unfortunately, the cheese we bought to go with our crackers and wine melted to an oozy slime, so we just had to drink the wine! Today we are headed NW along the northumberland strait on the way to the PEI confederate bridge. We're in a cute little town,called Pugwash, apparently a world famous peaceful village. The coffee shop here has free internet access and we've been entertaining ourselves with coffee and cribbage. We miss all of you a ton! Kristie-You are hilariously...we totally made a scene laughing out loud in this coffee shop when we read about Edwards St. carrots! I was singing "this is for tha G's and this is for tha hustlas..." the other day...and I kept thinking of you. Thanks everyone for keeping in touch. It's great to hear from all of you. with love- kirst and seth

2008-06-24T16:33:00.002-04:00

We've made a bit of headway since I was able to write last. We've probably rode over 400 miles by now and our ravenous appetites cannot be satiated! We feel like eating everything in sight. I was just in the grocery store and hotdogs looked good to me if that says something. We've run into some exciting people recently. We met an elderly woman named Hilda at Tim Horton's, the Canadian version of Dunkin Donuts- She seemed so lonely and probably had her wits about her in better days, but she was a delight to listen to. She told us she had 6 kids. The 1st four all girls and when her husband said the 5th was a boy, she didn't believe him. So he turned the baby around to show her and he pee'd all over her! She was a hoot. The next morning, Sunday, we were riding through a small town and came across an elderly woman walking across the crosswalk coming out of church. We stopped for her of course and exchanged our customary "good mornings" and she shouted, "I envy you!" I glanced at my fully loaded bike, wondering how she could be jealous of this load and questioned, "Really???" She pumped her fist in the air and shouted a triumphant, "To Be Young!"

That same day we met Allan. He had a dozen bikes all lined up on his front lawn in his "collection" Most had streamers on the handlebars and funky art attached to them. When we stopped to take pictures, he came out to give us the tour. Seth said he had a lot of stuff and even more to talk about. A boy he did. The photo here shows the bike that he put a portable record player in and he kept his records in the front basket. He demonstrated the differing pitches of the horns, the mufflers, the dancing Elvis, the flags, buttons and so much more. Then he took us into his tool shed and showed us his collection of you name it. He like to play a little game with us. It was kind of like 20 questions but only backwards. He asked, "Do you have a garden? What do you think you use this for?" Our reponses were always close but never on the mark and he would say, "You're getting there, I'll give you a hint...." And this went on and on for at least 10 different tools. This man had over 100 tricycles in his garage. He said he brings them all out for July 1st, Canada's independence Day. Can you even imagine? We even signed his guestbook.

Later in the day, we went to a beautiful provincial park to camp. We have a site right on the Meander river and there was no one there since it was Monday. We decided to stay an extra day to give our bodies and well deserved day off. It felt great. Seth made a couple rock sculptures with these river rocks that were extremely flat, we read a lot, ate and just plain laid around. Ooh-and we made strawberry-rhubard otameal-yum! We have decided to head north to the northumberland strait to get a change of scenery. We have heard that the water is really warm for swimming and then we'll head to P.E.I. It is a joy to hear from those of you who have written...Kristie & Jenny...mom...Jess

We love you all! Kirsten&Seth

Slowing Down and Taking it In

2008-06-22T14:30:00.002-04:00

Whew! We feel like we've been riding forever and barely covering inches on the map. Nova Scotia looks so big from this point of view. We have been trying to branch off and take sides roads, but each time we do, it seems to slow our place down to a snails crawl. We've been meeting some really great people though. Yesterday was Yard Sale Saturday. People sell all kinds of junk here & wherever! Tables with crap and a sign that says $1. I have a lot more fun stuff to share, but Seth just came in and informed me that the rain is coming and we might want to get a jump on it. Whoaa more rain-I'm starting to get used to it-almost everyday!
Will write again. From Windsor, N.S. K&S

On Atlantic Time

2008-06-20T09:33:00.002-04:00

Nova Scotia is so far a cyclists paradise. We have been having a splendid morning riding rolling hills on a rural road along the western coast heading north out of Digby. We foung this little internet cafe in Annapolis Royal, the first established town is N.S., (400 yrs old) so we were told. Apparently, we just missed "Riding the Lobster"-an 800 kilometer unicycle relay race! We saw pictures in the paper-it's too bad we barely missed them rolling through town. We were told it was quite a sight seeing the unicyclists bob through town without being able to stop.

After quite a boring ride through SW New Brunswick and iffy weather, we decided to hop the very large ferry across the Bay of Fundy into Digby, N.S. The ferry left at 11pm and therefore, arrived at 2am. Unsure of where we were going to sleep for the night, Seth asked the attendant at the ferry terminal about nearby campgrounds and he offered the little grassy picnic spot next to the ferry dock. He was right on about it being bright and noisy, but we caught some zzz's and ran into no problems. It was quite a sight, setting up in between a concrete slab, a chain-link fence and a huge ship!

The weather is fantastic today. The houses and cottages are quaint and the rhodendrons are bursting with color. Seth described them as being in such full bloom that their buds look like they could topple the whole plant over on its' end. We've run into plenty of friendly folks...some that try to get an word in edge-wise with each other to tell us the "best" places to visit. Our plan so far is to head north along the coast through Cape Chignecto and onto Prince Edward Island. We are having fun, in good spirits and health. Yeah for sunny weather. We love and miss you all. K & S

2008-06-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

Oh Canada!

2008-06-19T14:49:00.002-04:00

Hey Y'all!
We made it to Canada after being holed up in northern Maine because of incessant rain. We took a day off and stayed in a campground for two nights near Lubec, ME to wait out the rain, but it just didn't stop. So after feeling a little ancy, we hit the road in the coldy mist and crossed over the FDR bridge to Campobello Island and ferried to Deer Island and onto mainland New Brunswick. It was too bad the weather was crummy, because the scenic views would have been gorgeous, but we couldn't see a thing! Last night we stayed at a beautiful provincial park on the beach, called New River Beach. I was really thrilled to be on a beach. Believe it or not, we've been riding up the coast for a week, but haven't spent any time on a beach. We're about to catch another ferry from St. John's to Digby, Nova Scotia, a 3 hr ride. We'll catch up again soon....Jess-You go girl!
Love-k&S

2008-06-16T10:57:00.004-04:00

Day #4

2008-06-16T10:35:00.003-04:00

We made it to Machias this morning, which is about 40 miles from the border crossing that we're planning on taking through Campobello Island and then on to mainland New Brunswick. The last couple of days have been going really smoothly. Susan and Nancy met us in Belfast for lunch on Saturday and then we headed north mid afternoon. The roads were really nice and the hills flattened out slightly. Some of the ride was beautiful, especially a scenic byway along the coast. Others were less appealing as we headed inland. The second night we camped next to a beautiful lake and had a nice swim and last night we slept next to a patch of blueberries. It's a good thing they're not in season yet, because we probably wouldn't get very far with Seth's appetite for blueberries.

Yesterday, a front started moving in and we got a little rain last night and a hazy, wet mist as we were riding this morning. It is nice to be in library that is dry! We have been getting across Maine quicker than we thought, riding about 45 miles a day. My legs are starting to feel a little fatigued and are ready for a break on the beach. Talk to you all soon. K&S

Our 1st Day Out!

2008-06-14T10:10:00.003-04:00

Seth and I are doing great! We left Belgrade yesterday morning, 7:15am. Susan, Seth's mom saw us off on our travels and met us further down the road to give us the formal send-off. The morning miles were fantastic...the bikes were riding well and the weather was calm and cool. The first ten miles or so, we rode without a shoulder, but there were pretty few cars, so it was alright. We ran into a stretch of a nice wide shoulder and then on and off again until we got here in Belfast, on the coast this morning. We rode about 45 miles yesterday and stayed at a nice camp spot off the main road. We pretty much crashed as we hadn't slept much the night before. Seth and I both had butterflies in our stomachs and I was pretty much a wrecking ball on Thursday, but we're feeling great now.
Along the way, we met a few cute old folks...One lady, Eva was an 89 year-old cancer survivor that was born and raised in this little town. She was a total hoot and loved to talk with us. Then, we met some old men sitting in front of a gas station, like it was right out of a soda commercial from the early 90s. They were in this podunk town, called Freedom. One fella told us all we had to do was climb 2 big hills and then it was all downhill to the coast from there. I don't know what kind of dementia he had or how much fun he had making suckahs out of us, but it definitely wasn't all downhill...and either is Maine for that matter. We climbed a lot of hills yesterday. Our bodies feel good, except a little saddle sore. The drivers here are very courteous though. They give us a lot of room, which feels reassuring that we won't get run over. Unfortunately, the Belfast Public Library will not allow me to use any type of memory device in their computers (I had to sign a contract) so I can't download any pictures at this time. I will as soon as I can, though.
This afternoon, we're headed further north along the coast on Route 1. Hope all is well with everyone. love-k&s

Kayaking in Maine

2008-06-10T21:03:00.004-04:00

Seth, Susan and I spent a fantastic day kayaking around Bigham's Cove. The weather was a perfect, calm day and very few people were out on the water.

Iowa Wind Turbines

2008-05-31T23:28:00.001-04:00

Iowa turbines,
originally uploaded by Kirsten & Seth.

Hey Y'all

2008-05-10T17:59:00.000-04:00

We're getting ready to take off on our gas-guzzling cruise across America. Buckle up....we're in for a ride of a lifetime!

Christmas Eve is here...

2007-12-24T17:03:00.001-05:00

This is our beautiful Xmas tree kindly donated by Candy to decorate our humble abode. The cinnamon rolls just got pulled out of the oven and the swordfish (yes, that's right) is marinating in the fridge. Seth and I are hanging out, missing all of our family, but we feel very relaxed and content.

Seth, Kirst & Mark

2007-12-24T13:58:00.001-05:00

Seth, Kirst & Mark,
originally uploaded by Kirsten & Seth.

I did it!

2007-12-24T00:56:00.001-05:00

It's official. On December 21st, I walked in the graduation ceremony at CU. I now have a masters degree in Social/Multicultural Education with an emphasis in linguistically diverse education. Yeah!!!!

Spotty

2007-12-24T00:41:00.000-05:00

This is the fawn that was born right outside our front door in Boulder.