Pedal For The People

2006-03-28T08:07:00.000-08:00

Chugchilan Canyon

2006-03-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Chugchilan sunset

Nuestra guia, Bernardo

2006-03-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

Baños, Ecuador,
Buendia, Ecuador continues to amaze and we are slowly making our way south. We spent a very educational week in Quito, studying and seeing the city’s amazing architecture. I believe the Basilica is the most impressive church I have ever seen. We acquired some things needed for mountain adventures (like shoes). Shoe stores in Ecuador do not exactly tailor to gringo sized feet, I finally found a pair that fit in the 6th store. St Patty´s day was a bit of a let down, trade the Reggatone for some Irish jams and it would have been fine (can’t a fella get some Pouges!)… John and I left Quito for Latacunga, but after one look at the city, got right on another bus bound for the tiny mountain town of Chugchilan. Here are some excerpts from my journal…

3/21/06
Overlooking a canyon outside Chugchilan, Ecuador about 150 km from a paved road. Have been here for 2 days… The valley is almost overwhelming to the senses. Below is the canyon, steep walls traversed by footpaths and covered in terraced crop fields where the slope is shallow enough. Sheep feed on the steeper slopes, cows on the upper plateaus and river floodplain, while the brown river continues to carve its name deeper and deeper into the Ecuadorian bedrock. Most human inhabitants of the valley are on the plateaus or the hillsides directly above them. Above the dwellings are the patchwork fields, clinging to the mountainsides and stiched together by the thread of so many indigenous backs, hands, and sweat. Above all this is the plano or high alpine plains and the bosque nublina, or cloud forests. The bosque nublina houses an amazing array of biodiversity and is almost continuously shrouded in clouds which seep in and out of the valley according to pressures from the nearby coastal plain and Pacific Ocean. On a good day, the twin volcanoes Iliniza Norte and Sur are visible, blanketed in snow.

I cannot help but feel like an intruder here, a rich gringo coming to this place of beauty to experience a little part of it. Sure, I bring some money to the town and behave as respectful as I can (speaking Spanish helps), but what am I taking away? How am I affecting the moods and attitudes of the people that give me that quizzical look? Some of the locals have no problem letting me know how poor they are, but I am sure they realize how rich they are in sight, smell, and grandeur.

We are stuck here for the time being, as there are repeated protests around the country over the TLC or Tratado de Libre Comercio. Essentially, this is a proposed free trade agreement between the US and all South American countries. If the Ecuadorian president signs this agreement, as all of Ecuador’s neighbors already have, it will allow North American interests to privatize Ecuadorian land and natural resources. As you can imagine, the indigenous and many of the middle class are quite upset over this. Many have protested by blockading all roads (felling trees across and burning tires) in and out of Quito and a large portion of the Pan American and secondary roads. This has also resulted in the shutdown of the phone systems, whether due to the hand of the government or the indigenous themselves. For us, it is not a bad place to be stuck, quite inspiring on the contrary. It may, however, present a problem in 4 days or so when our money begins to dwindle. (As I am writing, a group of sheep have been making their way across what appears to be an immensely precarious ledge to another wash. Nimble little creatures…)

Our horseback excursion yesterday has left me a bit tender. I felt quite bad for the poor creature I was put upon, and felt I should have given HIM a ride part of the way. Obviously, mi caballo was used to a smaller rider, he was half the size of any other horse I have ever ridden, and quite skinny. I believe my Aunt Sharon may have protested. The change in mode of transportation is both refreshing and dissappointing. On one hand, we never would have biked the 150 km up the side of a mountain on gnarly dirt roads to reach this impressive valley, and then the 10 or 15 more on worse roads to reach the bosque nublina. For that, the bus and steed were appreciated. On the other hand, the soccer game, the indigenous children, the fruit stand, the viewpoints, and those obscure villages that we raced past and are so faint in our memories would have been a substantial part of my experience in Ecuador had I been manejando mi bici. This reiterates the fact to me that the point of a cycle tour is to put yourself in those situations that you would otherwise not choose to.

The air is growing cold, and the canyon dark. The afternoon lluvia (rain) is approaching and I better return up the trail to town before it turns into a mudslide...

3/24/06
On the roof of a hostel in the dramatic mountain town of Baños. The active Volcan Tungurahua looks overhead, occasionally spewing forth ash and smoke.

The day after my last journal entry, with the strike still in effect, John and I tok off on foot for the crater lake of Quilotoa. We recieved very vague directions from the owner of the hostal we stayed in on how to navigate the maze of trails outside the village, down the canyon wall, across the river, up the opposite wall, across the foothills, up a dry river bed, and finally climb to the summit of the crater lip for a view of the saline, baby-blue lake. Continuingly, on our march we were greeted by others on the trail with various burdens of wood, farm tools, and children. Babies are tied to the backs of their mothers with the traditional handmade wool blanket. Many of the women were also wearing the handsome, traditional, felt hat (I have a feeling this hat is a sign of marraige, but as of yet have not been able to get a straight answer to this question). One of these women in particular seriously impressed us because she hustled down a section of of trail on the canyon wall that made John and I´s eyes bulge when we had to cross it...with a baby strapped to her back...in black dress shoes...without blinking an eye. Many children yelled at us from their hillside homes..."Hola!"..."Hola!"..."A donde van?!"..."A la laguna! Esta en este direccion?!"..."Si, por alla!"..."Ok, gracias!"..."Ciao!"..."Ciao!" The hike was breathtaking, but unfortunately, by the time we reached the crater, 10 km away, the afternoon clouds had rolled in and our view was blocked. What can you do but laugh? 10km more and we were back at Mama Hilda´s hostel, and Mama had fried banana chips and cold cervesas waiting for us.

We grew very fond of Mama and Papa, the owners of the hostel. They cooked excellent meals, were quick to smile and joke in spanish, and for this reason we were very dissapointed with what happened next. We were constantly on the search for information on the protests and road blockages (hard to come by in a town of 80 people). We were told by one man that the buses would run the next morning and so, we planned on leaving. Mama then told us they would not run for 3 more days and that the blockages were back up. The next morning, Papa brought in a young man who told us the same and that we should stay put. John and I decided to trek down the road to another hostel for some more info. Once there, we were informed that the buses were inded running and that people had left that morning for Latacunga on the Pan American highway (buses left at 4 AM). We returned to the hostal and just outside was a truck with three men in it. They told us they were headed to Sigchos where we could (Yes) get a bus to Latacunga and keep on south (always south). Papa was still trying to tell us otherwise while the men shook their heads and motioned for us to get in the truck. I could barely look him in the eye for fear I would put to use some of my more colorful spanish vocabulary. John and I quickly packed our stuff and jumped in the bed of the truck, soon off down the delapidated mud road.

The truck was actually the milk pickup and delivery vehicle. Local farmers who owned a cow or two (or goat) would send their children out to meet the truck with a pail full of leche. A man in the back would write down the amount and pour the contents into a 200 gallon container which we rode next to. The mood of the child seemed to depend on the amount of milk in the pail (pitcher, jug, old bleach container...). At one point John was put to work handing down milk containers. The closer to Sigchos we got, the more people jumped on for a ride. By the end there were 3 men in the front, us and 11 other people in the back (including one baby strapped to his mother), two guys hanging off the bumper, and 200 gallons of milk (mas o menos). Up and over the Andean mountains, we finally arrived in Sigchos to await a bus, two hours later. Two more buses and we arrived in Baños. While most certainly more touristy, some English conversation and American music are actually quite nice. The streets are cobbled and taffy slinging candymakers are everywhere. These guys swing the sweet stuff like a lasso.

We plan on rock climbing tomorrow morning, riding some rented beater bikes in the afternoon down the mountain to the village of Poyos in the jungle, return to climb to an old refuge on the volcanoe the next day, and then move on to Riobamba. From there we will attempt to hire a guide to summit Chimborazo (tallest in Ecuador 6300m). I meet my brother, Pete, in a few weeks in Lima for more nonsense. Almost happy B-day to my pop.

Salud...

2006-03-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

Fin del camino...

2006-03-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

Mmmmm, sandy gears...

No caption necessary

2006-03-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

Dudes and sloth

Hey thanks...

2006-03-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

Quito, Equador

Greetings from South America! Much has happpened since my last update. Sadly we have lost two more members of the group, the J'squad has been cut in half. Jeremie took off from the epic islands of Bocas del Torro in northern Panama, and Jake from Panama city. Hermanos, fue excellente para viajar con Uds. Buenas suerte en el Fort y en Illadelph. Dice ¨¿Que paso?¨ a todos nuestras amigos. Vamos a hablar pronto. In light of the diminished group and some fund issues, we have decided to step out of the saddles. John and I will continue to travel in South America for a couple months, but without the bikes. Believe me, it was a hard decision for us to make, but make it we did, and I am looking forward to travelling sin bici for a couple months by backpack, bus, thumb, mule, whatever. I just spoke to my father and he says we have raised approximatley $13,000 for Rebuilding Together in Philadelphia, great news. Thank you all for your continued support of these great organizations. Thank you also for helping us ride from San Diego to Panama city. We could not have done it without the countless emails of encouragement. I´m going to continue to update this blog until I return home, so please continue to read and look at pics of our travels. Much thanks to our sponsors, especially PJ Cunnane and Fuji bicycles. The bicycles took every beating we could dish out with (probably) way too much weight strapped to them. Boxing my baby up and shipping her stateside was harder than I thought it would be. Anyways, here´s some tales of the last month...

Cahuita, Costa Rica provided us with a much more mellow look at Tican life. I watched two Capuchin monkies battle 30 feet up in a tree and eventually toss each other to the ground, just to scamper away (apparently) unscathed. Jeremie and I met Herardo (see Jeremie´s pics), a local man living off the bounty of the land. One day at dusk, I was walking up the deserted beach of Cahuita with a British friend and stopped to watch Herardo teaching Jeremie to fish in the ocean at the river´s mouth. The tackle was fishing line wrapped around a stick, a small piece of rebar for a weight, and freshwater shrimp (caught in the river) as bait. As the sun set over the Carribean and the cool night breezes began tugging at the palm fronds draped over the surf, Herardo pulled fish after fish out of the ocean. Giggling like a little kid at each fresh catch, he splashed his way to shore show me and say, ¨¡Este noche, vamos a tener un grande cena!¨ That night Herardo roasted the fish over an open fire with rice and an assortment of vegetables, and after the man´s own version of Grace, we feasted.

A short ride from Cahuita brought us to Puerto Viejo, home of the Salsa Bravo wave (big, reef, scary...). We stayed at Rockin J´s, a palace of a hostel. There we met folks from all over including Captain Zero (ask me someday). Leaving a few days later, we rode south to Manzinillo. Thinking the dashed line on the map was a 4x4 road that would take us to the Panamanian border, we were a bit mistaken. The ¨road¨was actually a quagmire of a trail, passable only on foot, with a guide, through thigh deep mud. 10 km of this? No gracias. With no other choice we backtracked to PV and took the highway to the border, crossing just minutes before it closed. We rationalized our mistake with our good fortune of seeing a sloth cross the road in front of us. Now, ¨cross¨ is a relative term. Ooze is probably more appropriate. It´s amazing these things don´t get eaten by something, they must taste really bad. I took about 2 minutes of video footage on my digital camera, and I think Mr. Sloth made it about 4 feet during that time. Comic relief for overheated cyclists. The bridge across the frontier appeared to be an old railroad bridge with planks laid across it. Watching our step, we entered our last Central American country. As it was getting dark we pushed the pedal a little harder in order to get to Chinginola and bed down before the morning boat ride to the archipelegio of Bocas del Torro.

The docks turned out to be 10km out of town in the midst of vast fields of banana trees. The Lonely Planet guide had no directions for the docks, but a friendly woman on the street drew me a treasure map on a napkin. Izqueda al Banco, derecha a la estacion de policia, segundo izquerda (un camino sin pavmiento), and so on... We passed multiple banana processing plants and began to wonder when we came across an old rusty playground with two docks extending out into a saltmarsh. When the boat arrived, getting the bikes on was a bit of a process (as always), but we were soon off. The experienced boat driver bombed the vessel down narrow water corridors in the midst of dense jungle, past the raised houses and handmade, dug-out canoes of the local people, and finally through the open ocean chop to bring us safely to Isla Colon and the town of Bocas del Torro. Bocas has become a fairly popular stop on the ¨gringo trail¨, but still retains the feeling of an Afro-Carribean island town. We set up camp at a hostel named Mondo Taitu (run by a few American dudes), and settled down to celebrate Jake surviving to be a quarter centuary old. Funny enough, we ran into Ross, a guy we previosly met while crossing the Sea of Cortez in a boat from Baja to mainland Mexico. Ross had been travelling by motorcycle and we caught him! Boy, was he suprised. He since has left for Panama city to sail a 30 ft boat to Hawaii with some guy he´s never met, good luck hombre! Jeremie left a day or two after we arrived, and after landing in Los Angeles, rode a motorcycle back to Colorado and our beloved Rocky Mountains.

We ended up getting ¨stuck¨ in Bocas for Carnival, essentially 5 days of madness. Carnival is an annual celebration of life found in many countries of the world. Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the followers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their tradition of celebrating carnival. Carnival in Bocas meant a 5 day party in the street, dance competitions, talent shows, fire hoses soaking the crowd, mystery meat on a stick, masked men with whips chasing people all over, and dancing, dancing, dancing... By night we engaged in the spirit of carnival, and by day we explored the various islands by boat, kyak, snorkel, foot, and (you guessed it) bicycle. Let me tell you, if you´re into the whole tropical paradise sort-of-thing...GO TO BOCAS! White beaches, jungle, epic reef snorkeling (saw my first live squid), surfing, poison dart frogs, and you can´t fall over without landing in a hammock. While snorkeling off Hospital Point, we were invited by the owner of the old hospital grounds on a brief tour. The hospital was built in the early 1800´s and was the first part of the islands to have electricity. Originally a segregated hospital, it remained in service until a more modern facility was built in Bocas. The man we were speaking with bought the 16 acre paradise in the 1970´s for $900! He and his brother have since been offered as much as $15,000,000 from developers. They have continuingly declined such offers due to their legitimate fear of condo´s, condo´s, condo´s rearing their ugly heads. As the property is a historical site and very important to the heritage of Panama, they have decided to sell to the Smithsonian Institute for the whopping sum of $1! Kudos to you guys.

Eventually we dragged ourselves away from paradise and back in the saddles. Now three J´s instead of four, we had a butt-kicking first day back from Almirante to David on the Pacific side. Hilly and swelteringly hot, the ride was none-the-less breathtaking, with jungle covered mountains as the backdrop. After we reached the Pacific side, the jungle thinned and was replaced with dry savanas and relatively flat riding. We chugged cool coconut milk on the side of the road, ate a sickening amount of watermellon, and made our way to Panama city, the end of the road in Central America. Panama city would be a physical and mental juncture for us. Jake was forced to head home due to funds, and John and I resolved ourselves to bike-free travel. We explored the city for a few days (I celebrated my own passing of the 25 year mark), before saying farewell to our amigo and our steel stallions, and boarding a plane for Quito, Equador. So far the people have been amazingly friendly, and thankfully speak very clear spanish. The city is much more cosmopolotin than I would have thought and we have been spoiled with good food and music (finally!). We plan on putting in another week of spanish school here before running off to the Andean highlands to engage in God knows what kind of mountain adventures. I bid you all a happy March (the temperature actually feels like it here), take care, write me.

Justin

2006-02-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Cahuita, Costa Rica,
Well, it has been quite a while. First off I’d like to say hello to the 5th grade class of St. Lukes in Glenside (my alma mater) and Caeli Duke’s class at Wissahikon. Thanks for following along guys! Jeremie and I just biked to this quiet Carribean town, 2 days from San Jose. This is the most diverse place I think we have been in since we left the states. Cahuita is inhabited by many african and asian Ticos (Costa Ricans) as well as people from European and native descent. The reggae music and laid back atmosphere are a nice change from Costa Rica’s other, more touristy beach towns. The beach here is breathtaking, and crawling with white-faced capuchin monkies. The past month has been fairly inactive in cycling respects. We’ve had a bunch of family and friends come to visit, and had a bit of vacation from the saddles (no complaint here). I’ll try to catch up...

After leaving Granada, we had an excelent ride on dirt roads to the town of Rivas, on Lake Nicaragua. We just barely caught the last ferry to the island, Isla de Ometepe. Ometepe was formed by two volcanoes that rose out of the lake and were joined in the middle by succesive lava flows. Inhabited by howler monkies, parrots, lizards, magpies, and some gnarly spiders, Ometepe is ecologically, very healthy. There are about 30,000 people on the island, spread out amongst the various villages. Many of the people are banana and coffee farmers, as the volanic soil is rich in nutrients. We hired a guide, Horacio, to march us around the island and teach us the natural history. Very worth the money, Horacio pointed out animals we never would have seen, took us to lookouts in the middle of dense jungle, and taught us the medicinal uses of several plants (including one for bug repellant). We decided not to summit the volcano as it was covered in clouds (no view), but saw an epic sunset over the lake. Since it was Horacio’s birthday, we took him out for a few beers that night. I played a game of pool with him and a friend and still didn’t understand Nicaraguan rules by the end of it, oh well. The next day we took a late ferry back to the mainland and hightailed it to the Costa Rican border. We ended up having to negotiate the crossing after dark, which was a bit strange to say the least. We befriended one of the money exchangers, who happened to be an off duty cop. For 5 dollars each he lead us past the hour long line outside the entrance stamp office, past the machine gun toting gaurds, and up to the window. I felt bad at jumping in front off people, but hanging out at a central american border on my bike is not my favorite situation. After that fiasco, Jermie and I had to wander up and down the highway looking for a hospidaje (esentially a hotel without a sign). The ride the next day began in jungle and ended in dry grasslands. The change in ecosystems in Costa Rica are abrupt and numerous. After 4 days of headwinds we finally got one behind us and made it to Tamarindo, our first beach since Mexico! All roads other than the Pan-American highway in Costa Rica are completely trashed, potholes the size of bathtubs, and alternating pavement / gravel (sometimes going to dirt). The bike was vibrating so bad, my hands went numb. It is the first time on this trip I was wishing for a front shock. We camped out in front of some guy’s house (with his permission) and relished in the fact that we had a few weeks off the bike.

The next day my family arrived. Mom, Dad, sister Jaime, and her boyfriend Dennis. Jaime and Dennis have since gotten engaged, congrats guys! We settled into our slightly more plush accomadations and hit the beach. Dennis showed off his proffesional surfing skills (you know, hanging ten, walking the lenth of the board, handstands) and we all tried to keep up. After lots of sun we retired to the hammocks. Jeremie took off the next day to ride solo down the Penninsula and to San Jose to meet his girlfriend and some other friends of ours. After some more surfing and a bit of snorkleing, we jumped in the car and drove to Monteverde, a town way up in the mountainous cloud forest. The road leading up to Monteverde was quite steep, dirt, and of course it was raining. Dennis rallied the car up the pass and we arrived just after dark. The next day we set off for a zipline tour of the canopy. Still raining, we suited up in orange raingear, harnesses, helmets, and leather gloves. Nothing like sliding down steel cables in the rain. The longer the cable, the faster you went, and a few of us (Jaime) had to be told to slow down. In the end, there was a tarzan-esq ropeswing that we all did. After a warm drink, we checked out the nearby hummingbird garden, I was impressed. The miniture birds showed no fear of us and would zip around quit fast to the different feeders. They would fly so close you could feel the breeze on your face. We joked about catching a hummingbird in the eye. We were sad to leave the mountains so soon, but there were planes to be caught. It was great to see my family and hear what was going on at home. Thanks for all your support, love you guys. I met up with Jeremie in Alajuela (near the San Jose airport) at Hostel Trotamundo. If you are flying into San Jose, this is the place to make the jump to surrounding areas of interest. William speaks perfect english (lived in Colorado) and the hostel has all the ammenities you’d want from a traveler’s hostel. Here’s an email that Jeremie sent regarding the next few weeks:

Happy February! Yep, I'm running out of greetings.In the last couple of weeks since my last e-mail we have managed to wander around a lot of Costa Rica. Three good friends from Colorado came down to meet up with us. We all joined forces in Alajuela, an extension of San Jose near the airport, rented a car, and took off the next morning bound for the Arenal area. We resigned to a more 'normal' method of travel-essentially a vacation from biking. Near the small town of La Fortuna we stayed in some jungle treehouses and saw many beautiful birds feeding on bananas in the morning. I haven't had a chance to look up and indentify the birds yet but one is a Bobo-a fairly large brightly colored (see pics) bird. The large protected property of the tree houses is home to many amazing creatures-at any given time one could hear howler monkies in the distance and spy on sloths, toucans, what seemed like hundreds of different species of butterflies, hummingbirds, frogs, and a plethera of the weirdest insects. We filled three days with wandering around seeing some of the natural sights. We hiked around the base of Volcan Arenal, the closest you can get to the volcano, where we found a good vantage point to view the active volcano from the top of a fresh (in geological time) lava flow which formed in 1993. Explosions were heard coming from the nearly constant veil of gaseous clouds that pour from the top and we watched large rocks tumble down the scree filled slopes with loud crashes. It was an amazingly humbling experience to watch the effortless power of the earth as it re-created more of itself. The rocks firing out of the hidden crater are the youngest rocks one will ever see-making the transition from liquid lava to solid minerals in mid-air. La Fortuna offers a ton of activities for vacationers and travellers but it is all a little too touristy and expensive for my tastes (although a wonderful experience). We hiked to La Fortuna waterfall and swam in the cold Talapia infested waters. To top off our stay in the area we took advantage of the abundant geothermal activity and soaked at Baldi Hot Springs-sixteen pools of paradise.We headed back towards the Nicoya peninsula and surfed at Playa Buena Vista, just north of Samara (where I saw a Panther while biking by myself early in the morning). We then began our southward travel along the central coast to Jaco, Manuel Antonio, and eventually Dominical. Jaco is a very 'gringofied' town full of ex-patriots and folks who claim they 'live' here. We made Jaco home base for a few days while we surfed just south at Playa Hermosa-well known in the surfing world. Next stop was Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is quickly becoming a resort destination as a result of vigorous advertising efforts-for obvious reasons. These were some of the most beautiful beaches I have seen in Costa Rica, or anywhere for that matter. Good things were heard about the National Park here so we parted with seven bucks apiece to be one of the eight-hundred visitors permitted into the park each day. In short, well worth the money. White-faced Capuchin monkies were everywhere scurrying in between peoples feet alongside Kotomundis digging around in the leaf litter for tasty insects. Sloths creeped along overhead in contrast to the abundant population of fast moving Iguanas. The Costa Rican powers at be seem to be doing an acceptable job of maintaining a balance between preserving the virginity of the natural wonders and boosting their economy with tourism but as one can't help but notice, issues like waste disposal (both municipal waste and black water management) need to be addressed and monitored if near pristine areas are meant to be kept unspoiled. I worry about the future of one of a kind areas like these in Costa Rica. Dominical was our last destination on our two week run around. Dominical is a simple little village with the majority of it's economy based on surfers. Dominical is known to have very consistent 12-20 foot waves during the winter months. Although that would be great fun to watch, we were more than happy surfing on mellower head high waves and did so for a couple days. On our second day of surfing we were blessed by a cloudy sky and tropical rains during the second half of the day. It is something else to be sitting on a surfboard out past the break and appreciating the emerald green forested mountains in the near distance. It is equally rewarding dropping in on a head high, turqoise blue wave of perfection. Today we are in Alajuela getting everything ready to bike out of here tomorrow while the rain is pounding down. Instead of dealing with the narrow, crowded Interamericana highway, we will head north-east to the carribean coast and cross the border near the Panamanian archipelago of Boca del Torro. Hope this e-mail finds everyone with smiles and full bellies. Asta luego-jeremie

It was great to see some familiar faces and I hope you guys know how much it meant to us that you came down here. We hope all in Colorado and the East coast is well. (That means I wish Colorado lots of snow, and the east coast none...) We should be joining back up with Jake and John shortly, and raging on to Panama. We have a TON of new pictures so be sure to check them out. Tailwinds...
Justin

2006-01-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

Sunset over Lake Nicaragua

Monkies! (specifically of the Howler variation)

2006-01-12T08:25:00.001-08:00

Descent to Panajachel, Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

End of the road, damage from mudslides

2006-01-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

2006-01-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Candlelit cave tour

Tree jumping in Semuc Champey

2006-01-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

Granada, Nicaragua

Well we have made it to our 5th country. After celebrating Christmas in Xela, Jeremie and I rented a beat up 4x4 and took of into the backwoods of Guatemala. Raging down dilapidated roads skirting cliff faces, and dodging the occasional rock fall (this road was apparently slammed by the mudslides a few months ago) we inched our way towards Coban in Central Guatemala. Stopping at a small tienda for snacks, I met a man who was working in Philadelphia, and was back visiting his family! The road went up and over several mountain ranges and through the colorful Mayan villages in the valleys. We eventually were spit back out onto the highway and in a short while descended down another gnarly dirt road to the town of Lanquin. In the dark, with empty stomachs we found our way to a hostel we had heard about. This was truly the middle of no where, a lonely dirt road stretching into the jungle. We were greeted at the gates by a soft spoken young man and led by flashlight down a slippery stone path to the river below. Beside the river was a giant cabana lit by candlelight. Inside, 15 or so travelers were about to feast on the buffet of a lifetime. Chicken, hummus, spinach salad, fresh veggies, pesto pasta, eggplant, chile rellenos, and one of the largest tubs of garlic mashed potatoes I have ever seen were laid out on the bar. If we had cycled that day, I would have cried at the beautiful sight. Nonetheless, we joined the group with a jug of Chilean wine and spoke little until we had our fill.

In the morning we could realize the true beauty of this place. A handful of enclosed palapas were scattered about a hillside in the midst of dense jungle. The compound was dissected by a brilliantly blue river that snaked its way out of the highlands. Most of the staff were travelers more or less like us that just couldn’t leave. We met some folks from Israel that were of the same frame of mine and set off early for the paradise valley of Semuc Champey. The crystal clear pools are created by the Cahabon River plunging into a cave and forcing groundwater up through the limestone substrate. The river foams and froths its way out of the highlands before being swallowed by the earth, only to explode back into the sunlight underneath the cascades of the bottom pools, truly a magical sight. We met a few local guys who were climbing a tree over one of the pools and leaping off for a 40 ft drop. Not to be outdone, Jeremie and I monkeyed our way up and dropped to yells of “Loco Americanos!”. And yet, the adventure could not end there. At a restaurant down the road we met a young man who led us down another dirt road by foot to a small house. He began whistling into the jungle, and after waiting a few minutes a small, well built Mayan man came running barefoot out of the brush. This man, Roberto, led us up a path, handed us some lit candles and directed us to walk into the mouth of a cave. We wouldn’t emerge for 3 hours. This cave was discovered 2 years ago, and as of yet, the end of it has not been found. This was no ordinary cave tour. Most of the time we walked through thigh deep water and more than once had to hold our candle over our head and swim through tight passageways while bats and stalactites hung overhead. One especially long swim brought us to a waterfall that we had to scale. For this tour, instead of a time frame, we had a time flame. When the candle was half gone, our guide (and a funny feeling in my stomach) told us to turn back. I cannot imagine navigating the caverns in the dark. (check Jeremie’s pics for cave shots!)

After the long drive back to Xela, we had planned to leave the next day. Due to some laundry issues (any excuse would do) we decided to climb a valcanoe instead. We walked through 2 mini ecosystems of Jeffrey pine and white pine before arriving at the summit. Clouds blocked any view, but some cheese and crackers raised our spirits (Food heals all).

Finally, Jeremie and I got on the road and had a beautiful ride to Lago Atitlan. The Guatemalan hills would not give up, and had to be biked over. We had a wonderful descent to the lake, quite steep. Pulling over for a scenic view I managed to skid out on some gravel. Spinning around 180° (due to too much weight in my rear panniers) I was tossed off my bike and managed to land on my feet (to the amusement of Jeremie and some nearby Mayan children). While touristy, the town of Panajachel was quite beautiful, and I was sad to not have more time to spend at the lake. Lago Atitlan is protected by two sleeping giants, volcanoes that rest, but not forever.

Time to move! I must get to Costa Rica to relax on the beach with my family, the first responsibility I have had in 3 months is a sweet one. Now in Nicaragua, the flat roads are welcome, but not the heat. The nightmare of riding through Managua, the capitol city, was compounded by diesel smoke, heavy traffic, and a headwind. The rest of today’s ride was cake, and now I write you from a very posh hostel in Granada (an old pirate hangout) on Lake Nicaragua. This lake is home to the only freshwater sharks in the world. Also, to an island volcano that I think Jeremie and I plan to tackle in a few days time. Happy New Year to you all, have fun shoveling snow, haha…

Justin

2005-12-27T13:18:00.000-08:00

Entering Guatemala

More pics on the links to the right!

2005-12-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

Pelenque ruins

Ranch in Chiapas

2005-12-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

Just a few notes in addition to Jeremie's entry...

After leaving Tehuantepec, the crew split for a few days...Jeremie and Jake jumped a bus to San Cristobal due to some stomach ailments while John and I stuck to the bikes for the rest of the way. After leaving the small town of Netepec on the flat Isthmus, we immediately began to climb our way back from sea level. In a three day ride we gained 2500 meters (about 8000 ft), the majority being the final climb from Tepec to San Cristobal. We entered Chiapas (our last state in Mexico!) just after Netepec and were quite happy for the cooler temperatures and lush mountainsides. Not a flat road in site, we made good time before stopping at the house of a farmer to ask of a good camping spot. The señor of the house invited us to sleep on his front porch and we struggled through a few hours of conversation with him before his wife brought us coffee and sweet bread made from the harvest of the farm. He mainly grows sorghum beans and coffee. His descriptions of the mountains of eastern Chiapas made us look to the road ahead with anticipation. We were not let down. Chiapas is a place I will certainly return to by bicycle or not. The following night John and I had to jump a fence and sleep on a ranchers property in the bushes. With no one around to ask and night approaching, our options were limited. All was well except for some fire ants that declared John enemy number one (or meal number one). They filled his panniers and heartily went after his legs. It would have been comical had they not been enormous fire ants. I escaped with just a few nibbles, I guess I am not palatable to the ant. The climb to San Cristobal the next day was by far our most difficult so far on this trip. 60km of uphill, I never left my granny gear all day. One section John and I dubbed "hell klick" as it was the steepest paved terrain I have ever biked. I felt that I would fall over backwards had I stopped pedalling. "Hell klick" passed right through a Mayan village (the first we have encountered) and we were gawked at by its inhabitants and giggled at by the children. Humorously enough, an ambulance that passed us on the road stopped at the top of this section to watch us pass. I could almost see the paramedics betting on which one of us would fall over first. It grew gradually colder as we reached the top of the pass, quite refreshing. We also entered the alpine vegetation zone and the sweet smell of pine. (I couldn’t tell for sure but they looked like Jeffrey pine) Mayan men, women, and children carrying limbs of these trees (for firewood) on homemade backpacks which they strap to their foreheads would become a regular site throughout Chiapas and Guatemala. We entered San Cristobal early in the afternoon and tracked down the other guys for lodging and our usual hour long calorie replenishment (food, food, food...)

Jeremie explained Palenque below, but to add, we drove through the town of Ocosingo on the way to Pelenque. This was the site of the 1997 Zapatista rebellion. While the people there were as friendly as ever the signs announcing Zapatista territory and murals depicting masked gunmen with hostages were slightly unsettling.

Days later on the descent from San Cristobal toward the border, we encountered our first view of Guatemala. Steep mountains drew a visible line of the border, and our road was visible that would carry us into the highlands of Central America. Adiós México, gracias por todo, voy a regresar antes de un grande tiempo. A challenging climb led to Quezeltenango (or Xela). Along this road we heard many speak in the Mayan tongue and sucked quite a few diesel fumes. The most tangible moment for me was during a particularly steep section I had the ability to watch an older Mayan woman spreading coffee beans to dry with her bare feet. After a few minutes of watching she realized I was inching up the hill beside her and turned to wish me a buenas dias. Xela is below the tallest volcano in Central America at 4220 meters (Tajumulco). I have to concur with Jeremie on the fireworks display. I have certainly never seen or heard anything quite like it. Midnight on Christmas will forever remind me of the low skyline of Xela being illuminated by thousands of low flying, shrieking bolts of cardboard. We are thinking of making a side trip to Semmuc Champey before continuing south mas rapido to meet my family in Costa Rica. I’m hoping to see the howler monkeys that eluded my sight in Pelenque. Happy holidays and congrats to all the graduates.

Justin

2005-12-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Guatemala

Happy Holidays to all-I hope ya'll are sharing some quality time with family and friends and manage to avoid those horrible egg nog hangovers.As travelling should and usually tends to be agreat learning experience, we have explored some of the two Mexicos. Northern, Southern, and one could almost drop Baja California into a third catagory. As personal preference has it, my future travels will be to Southern Mexico-especially Chiapas. We spent four days in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas where we wandered around through the markets: local sweets, artisans, and produce/meat/breads, hoofed it up many a step to a hilltop church where people were practicing the Brazilian dance/martial art known as capoeira, and shot the breeze with folks from all over the world. We met a guy from Switzerland (hi Gilbert) who travelled for awhile and in San Cristobal decided he was going to have a bike and trailer built and ride south, hopefully to Argentina. I commend his patience and immense effort it took him to deal with a local:welder, bike shop, and seamstress (custom dry bag for his trailer). He took an interesting route with his gear-the trailer (known as a BOB (beast of burden) trailer in the states) was quite big with a shock absorber , he chose a mountain bike with very wide tires (2.20) which will limit his speed severely (plus the chain smoking, no offense Gilbert), and he had an enormous tent that weighed about 15 lbs. and a guitar. I am sure everything will work out great for him, just slowly-I wish him many tail-winds. We felt compelled to see some natural wonders and cultural heritage of the region so we pitched in and rented a 2001 VW super beetle ($19 a day)-the old style which was made to OEM specs until 2002, in Mexico only. Our jungle chariot was a blue beauty with the infamously awful 1600cc air-cooled dune buggy motor and a four-speed stick. We decended into an extremely fertile river valley where one can find the Mayan ruins and current town of Pelenque. On the way we stopped to have a peek at the waterfall of Agua Azul. It is a tourist trap for good reason though-the water gains it's tropical bluish-green color from the limestone that it has cut it's way through and flows into and over the shallow pools that have been eroded out. Hiking a couple kilometers upstream through the jungle took us to some more secluded spots that were nice for swimming. We rallied on to the town of Pelenque where we crashed at our usual dive of a hotel (but cheap). First thing the next morning, we downed a cup or two of Nescafe (it is preferred here for reasons beyond my comprehension) and headed to the ruins. It was dumping rain and I wouldn't have had it any other way. The ruins are found in an extremely lush rainforest setting with an amazingly beautifulj ungle creek running through the middle of the 15 square kilometer site. We donned our raincoats (thanks Patagonia) and started tromping through puddles and running up and down the temple steps. The very low-lying cloud cover and rain contributed to the mystical feeling of the place and made the bright green tropical foliage glisten. We found that our chaco sandals gripped the wet limestone of the creek bed very well and we went sloshing around in the creek and climbing up the waterfalls-quite fun. We looked and listened intently for the howler monkies (I'm kind of partial to monkies) sometimes spotted and/or heard in the area. We found no sign of them but did see a spider which almost made me scream like a little girl (I'm not partial to arachnids). I'm not sure what kind of spider it was but it was missing three legs from vicious battles and was easily as big as my hand and very, very evil. After we spent a few hours exploring the marvels of Peleque, we started heading back up the mountain and stopped at another waterfall called Misol-Ha falls. This was the waterfall featured in the Schwartzenegger movie Predator. Another gringo trap but had a neat walkway that went behind the falls where the mist soaked the unafraid. Justin and I went wandering through the jungle trying to find a way to the top of the falls but gave up after trudging up a slippery, muddy hillside...but, we DID hear some monkies and saw the web of a funnel web spider. We had a sluggish ride with the pedal-to-the-metal back up the mountain to San Cristobal and got packed to leave the next morning. It took us two days of riding to get to the Guatemala border, finally! There is a four kilometer neutral zone between the Mexico-Guatemala border so we stopped to get an exit stamp at the Mexican border for our passports and rode to the crazy mountain-side town at the Guatemalan border. Here we were horded by the street hustling money exchangers who offer the ignorant a 6.5% exchange rate when the ATM will give one the best rate going, about 7.5%. It was later in the day and areas near the border are quite sketchy so we rode a few more kilometers into the next town and found a cheap hotel. A previous guest had carved '100% El Salvador' into the concrete wall, we didn't understand the meaning behind it but found it quite funny anyway. Four daysof continous uphill riding ensued which just happened to leave us with this funny sore feeling in our legs. Riding 90 kilometers a day of varied terrain is one thing but a full day of uphill really sucks the juice out of you-we stopped more often than usual to stuff our faces with cookies, peanuts, and an occasional soda for extra sugar. We arrived in a town called something like Quetzaltenenango-but most refer to it as Xela(pronounced Shayla) on Christmas Eve. After finding a hostel with room for us we spotted an Aussie we met in San Cristobal who led us to the nearest pizza joint straight away. I downed a pizza and a half and some of the worst beer I have ever had. We decided to make up for the crappy beer by tracking down a liquor store and picking up a bottle of whiskey, merry christmas to us! I had noticed that there were a lot of street vendors selling fireworks but wasn't sure why...until midnight rolled around. I thought I have seen some pretty sweet fireworks displays in my day but what happened in this town at 12 was amazing. Promptly at 12, everyone in town must have had a lighter in each hand because the sky and nearby mountains were alite with the glow of a million fireworks. For an hour it hardly let up and huge plumes of sulphur laden smoke burned the eyes, blocked all views, and surely scorched a nice hole in the ozone above us. This will be the closest I ever get to a war zone (I hope). One can walk down the street and buy all sorts of fireworks that are very illegal in the US. Firecrackers that look like half sticks of dynamite. Someone at the hostel lit one on a concrete table and a chunk is now missing. I can't imagine how many children lost fingers, eyes, and various other appendages last night.The entire country of Peru recently declared a state of emergency, a situation which may cause problems for us. A group called the Shining Path defends the non-existent rights of coca growers (Peru is the second largest producer of cocaine) but claims to provide no defense to drug trafficers...hmmm. Apparently there have been attacks against government officials and a number of police have been murdered just north of Lima in the jungle-right where we are headed. Our plans may change.One more day here and Justin and I hightail it to Costa Rica where Justin's parents come to visit on Jan. 11th. Well, on the bright side it is Christmas and in the true spirit I will search out a meal that will hurt me. Happy Holidays to all-salud!-jeremieNew pics at: http://photobucket.com/albums/b89/zeeko0

Archive of Jeremie's old emails: http://adventurebabble.blogspot.com/

2005-12-13T14:24:00.000-08:00

Down, down, down, leaving the Oaxacan Valley.

Check out the links on the right for more pics!

2005-12-13T14:16:00.000-08:00

Cathedal in Oaxaca´s zocolo

2005-12-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Tehuantepec, Mexico...

Ok, its been a while since we’ve written anything, so I’ll try to catch up on the last few weeks. After a brief stay in Puerto Escondido (surfing, sun, 30 peso breakfast plates) Jeremie and I jumped on a van to Oaxaca. A Mexican friend of mine told me this was the worst road in Mexico prior to my trip. He wasn’t kidding. The road was steep, curvy, had big sections missing (the word pothole doesn’t quite cover it), and mucho traffic. We arrived in Oaxaca and tracked down the hostel where our comrads were staying - Luz de Luna. I highly recommend this place to any peso challenged travellers. We obtained a tent space on the roof, access to a full kitchen, climbing wall, and all the other amenities you would expect from a hostel. The young folks who ran the hostel were all related (brothers, cousins) and were all excellent climbers. Our kind of place. Jeremie and I enrolled in a language school for a week called “Amigos del Sol”. Over the next week and a half we engaged in a mixture of Spanish language training, visiting ruins and waterfalls in the area, and exploring the town’s watering holes with the eclectic crowd of the hostel. I figured I could dance ok, but man, salsa takes some determination.

The highlights of the town’s sites were the ruins of Monte Alban, the cathedral in the town Zocolo (plaza), and the giant Mercado (market). Monte Alban was quite impressive. A place of trade and worship for the Zapotec people, Monte Alban was built high on a mountainside overlooking Oaxaca. It is believed that these peoples were displaced by the Aztec before the presence of Europeans. The zocolo is where everyone goes to hang out. Flanked on one side by the cathedral, the zocolo was filled with red poinsettas and various statues and gazebos. For us the zocolo was a good place to attempt to flex our language muscles. The Mercado, now this was the place to get everything. From cheap, hand-stitched leather bags to scorpion belt buckles, chile flavoured grasshoppers to giant tortillas, the Mercado had everything you needed. My favourite part was the licuado stands (sort of a fruit milkshake). We quickly established a routine of cooking in the hostel with people from various parts of the world, and ended up with some amazing meals. Stephan, a friend from Italy, whipped up some delectable lasagna. The food in Oaxaca was far superior to what we had previously encountered in Mexico. Highlights: Quesillo – a type of cheese similar to Mozzarella (eaten on everything), Chocolate – wow, Oaxaca has their own recipe for the coco bean and I was not afraid to sample enough to fully capture the distinction, finally Mole – the secret sauce of Oaxaca, there are seven kinds (red, black, yellow, green, and 3 more). I preferred the black with chicken (I think there was a bit of chocolate in it). Overall, our stay in Oaxaca was just what we needed. We fattened our brains and bellies, and moved on. The only downside to the whole affair was some damage done to Jake’s tent from a dog in the hostel. Jake found him sleeping in his tent after ripping a hole in the side and eating his toiletries. I was amazed at Jake’s self control in not launching a dog-missile off the roof. Sadly, we have lost one member of the group. Caleb has left to pursue another adventure in South America. He jumped a plane to Ecuador a few days ago to climb mountains. Buen viaje, amigo! Thanks our friends in Oaxaca. Judy for her hospitality and humor (Team America!), Joe for the hammock, and the guys at Luz de Luna for the climbing sessions.

We left Oaxaca four days ago and made our way back toward the coast. In the Oaxaca valley we stopped at “El Tule”, supposedly the oldest tree in the world (a cypress). We touched the branches for good luck on pushed on toward the pass that would lead us out of the valley. Spread across the Oaxacan Valley are agave fields, giving birth to the country’s tequila and mescal. Every town we went through has their own mescal. We carefully avoided these as they would most likely put an end to a riding day. The first night we camped off the side of the road on a large rock. Pushing the horse droppings aside, there was just enough room for the four of us. The views on this section have been spectacular, mountain vistas with spots of agave and brush. We followed one river then the next. We dropped 5000 feet in 3 days, but had plenty of uphills to keep the legs awake. Two nights ago we stayed in an abandoned house next to the town’s park. We were directed there by a young man working in his mom´s tienda (small store). He (like many other people we have met) had been living in the US for a few years, before returning to the peaceful town of his birth. We bedded down for the night only to be awoken at 4 AM by a live polka band down the street. The band was accompanied by Mexican fireworks which closely resemble artillery fire. Needless to say we were quite confused and thought the town might be playing a trick on the four cyclists in their midst. At least the band wasn’t on the basketball court in front of us. In the morning we learned it was the day of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the area. Why the festivities began at 4 AM on a Monday is beyond me. Our third day of riding was relatively easy (only a slight headwind) and we were treated to a mid day swim in a lake just shy of Tehuantepec. Just as we left the lake area the wind turned to our back and we were shot like wheeled, gringo bullets out of the mountains and onto the flats of the Isthmus of Mexico. The terrain reminded me very much of the way the Rocky Mountains end onto the Great Plains in Colorado. We are taking a premature day off in Tehuantepec so a member of the group can kick a stomach bug, and then it’s of to San Cristobel. Jungle! Monkeys! Mayan ruins! I’m a tad excited… We hope to be in Guatemala for Christmas. Happy holidays to everyone, or should I say Feliz Navidad…

Justin

2005-11-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

A legless cowboy, and a reminder to appreciate our good health and fortune...Tecoman, Mexico.

2005-11-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

A fellow cyclist with some important cargo

2005-11-19T07:56:00.001-08:00

Here we are, riding down the line. As always, I hope these random thoughts reach everyone happy and well. Barra de Navidad is a great town-if you ever catch yourself wandering around Mexico, specifically the western coast, stop here, stay at the Hotel Jalisco (say hi to Mario for me), find the restaurant that has the .80 fish tacos and .70 beers (drink one for me) and swing by Felix's restaurant and try the cheap licuados (mix plantano(banana) and fresa(strawberry), and then go to the internet cafe and send me an e-mail to thank me. Well rested and chocked full of extra calories we head out of Barra and towards Manzanillo. Manzanillo is a bigger town that dominates a good 20 or so kilometers of coastline. As we entered the north part of town we gawked at the beatiful beach, turning to each other to reaffirm that we would stop to swim in an hour-which would be the hottest part of the day. Shortly thereafter the road veered directly inlandand uphill where we laughed and turned around to go swimming. We were already drenched in sweat so instead of the usual-slip out of bike shorts on side of road-maneuver, we jumped right in-except Justin who wrapped a 30 foot blue tarp around him and changed.To our relief, water was still refreshing and even better, there were waves big enough for body surfing. We gleefully played in the waves like little kids and boy did time fly-we looked at our clock and it was half past four (but we didn't realize we had crosseda time zone). We looked into camping right there on the beach but were informed the police weren't as excited about the idea as we were, but the owner of a nearby restaurant said that there was an empty house down the beach with plam trees in front that would suffice for hammocks. We cooked up our gourmet slop in mass quantities right on a beachside bench and scoped out the house-a nice flat front yard with two coconut palms and big metal bars on each side of the front gate, perfect for three hammocks. I noticed some coconuts littering the yard and mentioned that one of those to the head would be no bueno-Justin informed us that more people die each year from coconuts to the dome than from wolf attacks and lightning strikes combined!? Imagine all the more useful informationone could store in their minds... After a splendid night of sleep in a hammock, Allen and I pretended we were the apes from 2001:A space oddysey and tried to husk a coconut. I quickly realized that everyone carries machetes around not to chop each other up in barroom brawls but for useful activities like eating. Seeing as we had little food (small Mexican tiendas have little in the way of nourishment) we wandered upon a cyclists oasis, a humongous grocery store-one that rivaled american stores in size, quality, and selection. I was quite impressed as I perused the ailes until I reached the bakery... the angels sang and halos hovered over the sweetbread.The three of us sat on a bench in front and consumed huge amounts of sugar and carbs (no adkins diet here).Some locals who walked by showed mixed signs of surprise, hilarity, and sheer terror. We all had three fullbags of groceries in front of us and I'm sure it appeared as if we were going to devour it all. All fueled up we mounted our steel stallions and cruised to Tecoman. We rode by the beginnings of a circus and everyone seemed to be out and about. We stopped at a tienda to refill our dromedaries (we drink an average of 6-8 liters per day excluding sodas) and had a quick conversation with an apparently legless clown. He seemed in high spirits and commented how strong our legs were-we all felt kind of sorry for him but I got the feeling he didn't share the same feelings. We shared some palabras (words) and cookies and bid him farewell. There appeared to be many festivities in the area as we rode through the next town and contemplated stopping at a big rodeo to divulge in the festivities. It seemed pretty rowdy and we didn't quite fit in with our Shimano cycling sandals and high thread count Patagonia capilenes so we continued on to reach a beach to camp on. We wandered down some random road towards the beach late in the day, hoping the best. We found black sand beaches and numerous palapas just begging for some gringos with hammocks. We paid the slum-lord his 80 pesos to use the palapa posts and quality banos (bathrooms) and showers. The toilet-seat-less toilets required manual flushing using the small bucket located in the large bucket of water. This was also the method one would employ to shower-the ocean worked well enough for me. We rode out of Boca de Apiza and it's banana plantations and on south again-I have a compass mounted on my handlebars and I'm not sure why. We ventured into the next state south, Michoacan, a state filled with short, stout mountains, breath-taking beaches, and great inquisitive people. We had talked the previous day of a high mileage day in order to flex our large quads and calves-but we ate our words at the top of the first hill. They were not extremely long but quite steep. The second hill was longer and had a section at the top where standing up and forcing all your body weight and muscle into each pedal-stroke was mandatory. As midday approached we had covered a little over 50 kilometers and were in dire need of a dip in the drink. We pulled over shortly after we went through a river valley and peered down a rough dirt road leading in the general direction of the beach. A guy sweeping some dirt in the road said the beach was 1 kilometer down the road...what the hell, let's test these bikes out. A kilometer goes by and there is a split in the road. Right went uphill and in the wrong direction while left was a road wide mud hole and the road above lent on that it went to the beach. We almost turned back and poked fun at just rallying through the puddle at high speed but assumed it to be at least 3 meters deep (ok, maybe three inches). We skirted it and continued another couple of kilometers until, to our surprise, we reached a nice little town near the water. A well kept town square, strips of pavement in the dirt as a road, and a school yard of children proved that people dwelled here permanently. We hit the beach and quickly realized we had blindly stumbled upon paradise-La Ticla. We laughed about our dumb-luck and started stringing up our hammocks, each deciding to ourselves that there would be no more cycling today. We watched some vagabond surfer gringos ride perfect waves in perfect waters in front of perfect backdrops. A local lady came by shortly and sold us delicious 5 peso tamales each tied intricately with corn husk bows-needless to say she came back many times. We talked with many travellers from the US, South Africa, France, Canada, and ones who would never claim an origin. We got word that some old bloke from Vancouver was renting surfboards for cheap. We awoke at dawn in our hammocks and as I was whipping up a fresh batch of swamp water mate (thanks Hofer) our man walked up and informed us that he had boards for us...perfect! He gave us the buddy price, fresh leashes, wax, and sent us on our way. Justin and I headed out to a nice left and proceeded to get a combination of some great rides and absolutely worked when we were too far inside on the big sets. The biggest sets were nearly overhead and this was not the friendliest break for amateurs but we love having fun the hard way. We rode in after an hour long session and looked forward to finding a point break down the coast that would be easier to paddle out to. We were at a beach break which means you have to paddle out through the waves to get out past the break, which can be quite the chore. We chilled out in our hammocks for awhile and some guys rolled up in a pick-up full of bananas; 'dias pesos por seis kilos' (one dollar for six kilos-1 kilo=2.2 lbs.), we handed him a 10 peso coin and he handed us 16 bananas. The tamale lady rolled up a few minutes later and we started some mental math to see how long we could live here with the money we have-quite a while. We headed out for another surf session in a different spot. The waves and current were a bit stronger here and we got thoroughly hammered. It is quite the experience to get pounded by big waves, especially when you see it coming; you curl up in a little ball and you get shot to the bottom where you attempt to plant your feet firmly, push up, and reel in your board before the next wave gets you. We all got some good poundings and laughed later when I bent over and water started pouring out of my nose. The next morning we returned the boards and got the normal questions about our trip; they wished us well, gave us an armload of grapefruit, and sent us on our way. Over the next couple of days we had a mix of biking and hitching in an attempt to catch up with our hombres. The coastline in Michoacan is quite mentionable; even from the back of a truck we had amazing views of waves crashing at the bottom of tall bluffs in between sections of road where nothing was visible through the impenetrable green tunnel of jungle. We have now found our way to Zihatanejo, a friendly city in northern Guerro where we have set up camp at a really neat hostel. We just got word that our crew was here yesterday but departed for Oaxaca so they can start their spanish lessons and order a new wheel for Jake (his is somewhat 'defective' and continues to break spokes). Sorry about the lengthy stories but I can't bring myself to omit necessary (I think) details. You can find the latest pics at: http://photobucket.com/albums/c212/justinsev1/
Til next time, live a good one.
-jeremie

2005-11-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

Zihuatanejo,
Whew, so much has happened since our last update. We just arrived in Zihuatanejo, just a few short kilometers from Acalpulco. For some referance, Zihuatanejo is the town Tim Robbins escapes to in the end of Shawshank Redemption. Ok, we left Mazatlan with a little help from our thumbs, because the road had been described as the corridor of death. Entertaining as always, the ride was bumpy and slightly nerveracking. We camped in the town of Sayulito, a gringo getaway with alarmingly high prices for tacos. We passed quickly through Puerto Vallarta, as we were iching to make some big miles. We were about to climb a big hill. Very big. Luckily there was an appropriately placed waterfall to cool us down. We had undoubtably reached the jungle. Huge tree canopies, rivers, and spiders the size of your head. We stayed the night outside a restaurant named Chico´s paradise. We were befriended by a young man who is paid by the restaurant to do backflips off the rocks into the river. Not a bad job. He introduced us to John, a man from Reno, NV, who made this tiny jungle village his home. John was staying in the basement of a man who processes sausage in the house. The house was built into the side of a cliff, so John´s basement dwelling was almost entirely taken up by a huge boulder. It was one of the most unusual residences I have ever seen, and I´m kicking myself for not getting a picture. Just before leaving John´s, he lectured us on not having bug repellant in the jungle, not speaking fluent spanish, and cooking our ¨camp food¨ when we could have enjoyed roasted rattlesnake with him. He smiled a chipped tooth grin and said, ¨Welcome to the jungle, man!¨ Ignoring the Guns n Roses guitar riffs in my head, we left to stay on the river´s beach that night (and battled bugs during dinner). A few days later we stayed in Barra de Navidad, an old fishing village turned tourist. We stayed in an incredible hotel, Hotel Jalisco. The hotel is run by a man named Mario who offers free coffee, alligator tours, snorkel tours, and spanish instruction for guests. Jackpot. Mario has 6 kids and doubles as a carpenter, electrician, and plumber. He bikes to work with a toolbox strapped to his back. Needless to say, we liked Mario. We spent a day in Barra enjoying the beach and learning some spanish. We ate at a restaurant owned by Mario´s friend, Felix. Felix had lived in Texas for a while, and spoke english fairly well.

I´ll let Jeremie finish telling you about the rest of our week, I just put up links to his pictures and mine on the right. Please check them out! John, Caleb, and Jake are still ahead of us, I believe Jake is having some serious problems with his wheel so we may be delayed a bit.

Justin

2005-11-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

The locals love the slack line.....

2005-11-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

A shot of some new friends in Campo Acosta.

2005-11-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

Ola amigos! We are officially in the jungle-alligators, 6 foot iguanas, and arachnids the size of your hand are abundant. Our oufit has been halved since Mazatlan for ease of hitch-hiking through the ´corridor of death´-Mex 200 from Mazatlan to Tepic. Justin, Allan (our new friend from Canada), and myself have been having an incredible journey filled with weirdness and hilartity, hardly dull moment.
We have slept in hammocks under palapas on the beach, ran around gringo infested surfing villages, ran into people from Colorado (that we know), watched kids do back-flips for pesos in a mountain-side river, met crazy people from Reno who live in dirt floor basements built around boulders and process italian sausage, pedaled up steep mountains, and are now staying at a cheap hotel which offers snorkeling, alligator tours, laundry, and spanish lessons-all for free.
To refrain from redundancy check out the following link for some pics, these are all mine (Jeremie) and Justin is in the process of setting his account up- http://photobucket.com/albums/b89/zeeko0/
I have a list-serve of people I send a nice, detailed, personal account of our travels to-if you would like to be added to my list, shoot me an e-mail at zeeko0@yahoo.com . Til next time-pura vida!
-jeremie

2005-11-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Mazatlan, Mexico

We made it to the mainland! After a 16 hour ferry ride we find ourselves in Matzatlan, a town of around 300 thousand people. We were not exactly sad to leave the Baja desert behind. After leaving Mulege (where we stayed in the backyard of the chief of police) we had a scenic ride to the town of Laredo. The ride took a little longer than we anticipated because of the irresistable beaches on the way. It is simply not possible to stay on the bike in the heat with the water calling. Laredo was a cool little town, muchos gringos. We ended up staying the backyard of a a man named Juan Ramos. Juan (or John as he told us to call him) is an artist and apparantly made a name for himself desiging surfboard art. Rad guy, went way out of his way to make us feel at home. Here, we met with our friend Allan again (a Canadian cycle tourist) and became a team of 6. The next day would be the most challenging yet on the trip. We had a brutal 12 kilometer climb and came out onto a plateau with a headwind, god I hate pedaling hard downhill. Caleb had some derailler issues so we waited for him in a minimart and made conversation with the owner. It became apparent the the ride to La Paz from the next town would be flat desert, 130 miles of it. Let me tell you, I have seen enough flat desert to last me a lifetime. We decided to hitchhike to La Paz from Ciudad de Constitution the next morning to get to La Paz a day early. We left the minimart and made our way the final 30 kilometers to the outside of town and found an appropriate spot to camp (90 mile day all in all). We then realized we lost Jeremie, Dios mio. He apparently made a wrong turn in the last town and wound up heading north instead. These things will happen. The next morning we tracked him down in Ciudad de Constitution, kicking back with a cup of coffee in a cafe. We split in pairs of two and stuck out our thumbs. Jeremie, Jake, and I were picked up by three gents in a ford pickup, this vehicle was no spring chicken. About 100 kilometers into the desert she gave up, and we were high and dry (very dry). Thank god for Jeremie´s car doctor skills or we might still be there. He guessed a clogged fuel filter, turned out to be a clogged fuel line. I bet those guys were glad the gringos had some skills (or one of them at least). La Paz was very touristy, but nice. Has some beautiful old churches. We jumped on a ferry the next afternoon (to the amusement of the other passengers) and emerged this morning a few blocks from where I sit right now. Now I must go run around the city, my stomach is rumbling and I know there´s a taco stand around here. Adios.

-Justin

2005-11-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Sunset on the boat ride to the mainland

The whole crew...

2005-11-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Life`s hard...
Bahia de Conception
(Bay of...)

Sunrise in the desert, time to get up and ride.
Quirky hotel in La Paz, BCS
Jeremie and our new amigo, Allan

2005-11-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Two really sweet dudes in the back of a pickup....hitch-hiking through a rough section of desert.....

2005-11-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Some pretty rad kids in San Ignacio.......and some goofy looking dude in the background. S

2005-10-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Ola faithful bloggers! We just arrived on the eastern side of Baja after pedaling through the god-forsaken central Baja desert-moy caliente!!! The highlight was a little town called San Ignacio which centered around a beautiful date palm oasis sustained by a lake creating spring. We proceeded to camp on the water for dirt cheap, swim in the hospitable waters, and eat fresh dates in the shade of palms-things could be worse. We arrived on the coast of the Sea of Cortez yesterday in a little town called Santa Rosalia; a quaint little town with narrow streets, brightly painted buildings, and a french bakery?! Today we rode through scorching heat, up hill, with a headwind to get to the town of Mulege where we dined on our daily enormous ration of tacos de pescado (fish tacos) and camp on the beach (not yet located, but is around here somewhere). We have our sights set on reaching Ciudad de Constitucion for the huge, multi-day celebration of day of the dead, an easy 87 kilometers south of our current location. Pictures coming soon, stay tuned....
-Jeremie

2005-10-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Teaching Snake and our new friend Alberto how to slack line.......and a typical camp shot.

2005-10-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

dinner....

2005-10-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

At Gigi´s house.

2005-10-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

The mighty Pacific

2005-10-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

The drive into Mexico, thanks Marty and Trevor!

2005-10-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Well, the five of us finally met up and are on our way to Tierra del Fuego, slowly. After some Tourist card issues at the border, Jeremie and I joined Claeb, John, and Jake in San Quintin. About 200 miles south of the border. They had stories of rough hill climbs and some dirt road adventures off the highway. Apparently while a bit lost near sundown they had a chance encounter with Gigi Hancock, the wife of Herbie Hancock. What she was doing out in the middle of nowhere in Baja Mexico is beyond me. None the less, she took them to her house on the beach and fed them for 2 days while they waited for Jeremie and I. Pretty unbelievable.

After assembleing the bikes and munching fish tacos for strenth, we set out for the long road south. The first days ride was easy, with the beach in view most of the time. We ended up camping on a rock beach off the road. We picked mussels off a rock to add some sea flavor to our meal, and witnessed an amazing sunset. The next day we didnñt make it far, only about 15 miles to the town of El Rosario. There, an American woman named Kim, who owns a map store in town, recommended we not leave town until tomorrow so we could make the 75 mile ride to Catavina in one day. Apparently there was no safe place to camp in between the towns. We stayed in her friends backyard for the night. The next day would be incredibly challenging as we crossed the highest point on the Baja penninsula. Brutal grades, hill after hill after hill. I´m sure the difficulty was compounded by our soft legs. Not bad for day 3. Unfortunaltey, we didn´t make it to Catavina. We ended up camping in a wash about 200 meters off the side of the road. No problemas. The ride the next day was spectacular. After a short climb, we were treated to a 15 mile downhill through the boulder fields of Catavina. A climber´s paradise. The boulders were flanked by giant seguaro cacti and the endemic bujum trees. Dr Seuss must have visited this area for inspiration. The bujum only exists in Baja, and looks like an upside down green carrot with tassels on the top. We camped in Catavina for the night and enjoyed some cervesas with the caretaker of the campsite. I believe my spanish speaking ability doubled during the conversation, thanks Alberto. The next night, while camping behind an abandonded gas station, we ran into Charlie, a 50 something year old cyclist on permanent vacation. Charlie hails from Hawaii, and has made the trip solo from Alaska on his recumbant. He also plans on heading for Tierra del Fugo, so for the time being we are rolling 6 strong. Yesterday was our longest day so far at 85 miles, and today we are kicking back in Guerro Negro (Black Warrior) to heal the old hamstrings. What can I say, the ride is hot, the food is great, the people give the thumbs up, and the mental radio has been pretty good so far (although alot of creedance). Don´t know if I can figure out the picture thing yet, but I´ll give it a whirl. Hope all is well back in the states!

-Justin

2005-10-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

We are sooooo sweet,
Ok, I'm going to try to keep this whole email somewhat short and sweet. On
October 4th we flew into San Diego.......being the impressive planners that
we are; jake, caleb, and i had no idea of what to do, where to stay, etc....
Caleb pulled through with a place to crash at a friend of a friends back
yard. After our normal "let's celebrate" activities we decided the next
morning was not the best time to leave.....so on Thursday we took off on our
bikes towards Tecate from San Diego.
Navigating out of the city was a bit confusing, but we made it about 40
miles and talked our way into a private campground out in the desert, i
guess the security guard felt bad about us biking through the desert and
hooked it up for free on the condition that we went to the very back of the
place and tried not to attract attention to ourselves. The next morning we
began our journey to Tecate, where we crossed the border and got our
stamps/tourist visas without incident.
My first experience in Mexico was then getting locked into the bathroom in
some random taco hut in an alley in Tecate.....having to pound on the door
and shout to Caleb that I was stuck and having some cook unlock the door and
laugh whole-heartedly at the gringo stuck in the water closet was indeed a
good way to remind myself not to take things too seriously. So far mexico
has been nothing but pleasant. Our first day while riding out of Tecate we
got waved down by a random farmer who insisted we camp on his
property.....who are we to say no? It's been quite amazing how easy it is to
communicate with everyone, with a few words and hand gestures one can get
almost anything across. We paid our new friend with coffee from our camping
stoves and an extra knife caleb had to get rid of..........needless to say i
was pretty stoked that our first night in mexico was a) free and b) spent
with such a gratuitous host who despite us not knowing his language went out
of his way to be kind. In fact, everyone in every little tiny town we've
been in thus far has been nothing but nice and positive.....we constantly
have people yelling "good luck" to us....I guess they know what we're up to.
Yesterday we rode from outside Tecate to about 20 miles outside Ensenada
via Route 3. The riding has been....well, a sharp kick in pants, shall we
say. Very hilly, very hot, little shoulders, and questionable (although not
nearly bad) road conditions. It's amazing how much gear we're all riding
with.....I've never toured with some much shit in my life. My gear adds up
to almost a 100 pounds without food and water, which takes a toll on my legs
more than i could ever express. I'm constantly thinking of things to ditch,
but being able to be self-sufficient requires carrying mucho stuff. I'm sure
in a few weeks my legs will reach the gnarly stage, but we'll see.
Which brings me to today. Last night we camped at a little place along side
of the road for 20 pesos a piece, not bad for a swimming pool and a
bathroom. Caleb woke up with a treat in his shoes.....a nice little black
widow decided to set up shop there and had to be removed......which reminded
me to make sure i check my bike shorts before putting them on. The ride into
Ensenada was pretty easy, we had numerous bikers waving and yelling
"welcome." We were planning to leave today, but decided that drinking well
deserved cervasas and tequilla was a more pressing issue and that we need to
kill time till jeremie and justin can catch up anyway. this town seems
somewhat crazy and the pacific ocean is within view......cheap food and good
times will keep me anywhere.
So, that being said, I think the little cafe across the street with the
daytime brew deal is looking pretty good. I'll be in touch.
John Ellis