Cartigena, Columbia — to half way thru Columbia! (10,200 miles now)

 FRUIT FOR SALE! FORT IN CARTAGENA                                                            COLORFUL BUILDINGS IN CARTAGENA

    VIEW FROM TOWN AT TOP OF MOUNTAIN                 BOTERO -ARTIST FROM COLUMBIA                                                                         

After swimming and snorkeling in the warm waters near the San Blas Islands, we embarked on a 36 hour non-stop sailboat ride across the open waters of the Caribbean toward Columbia. We had a great boat and captain and we highly recommend them over the other charter boats. We hear horror stories from other travelers of having to sail the boat themselves after their drunk captain passed out!! But Ralph says the boat trip saved him lots of $ because he’ll never have to buy a sailboat - it’s just not as romantic as it sounds – no room to get out and run around!Cartagena, Columbia, a modern port city with a look similar to cities in the US, high rise buildings and all, but also with a quaint and beautiful old town section. Dating back to the days of pirates and Spanish gold, Cartagena was the principle port in South America the Spanish used to store plundered Inca gold before shipping it back to Spain, so the old town was very well fortified. It had 2 forts at the mouth of the port and an under water wall with only a narrow opening. Pirate ships weren’t aware of this hidden wall and would usually be destroyed by running into it and subsequently being bombarded by canons that were permanently aimed at the wall. The town was surrounded by a 50 foot thick stone wall and a huge fortified castle at the edge of it. The Spanish were serious about their gold! All these relics remain except for the underwater wall, making it a great sightseeing city.

We spent 4 days in Cartagena before catching a bus (yes, a bus – can you believe it!?) to Medellin i the highlands of Central Columbia. We decided on the bus after reports from friends of biking in 112 degree temperatures through humid lowlands for a week – YAHOO!! By the looks of the countryside it was a good choice!
When we arrived in Medellin at 2:30 AM, the bus driver asked us where we were staying. When we told him we didn’t know, he motioned for us to ride our bikes ahead of him He escorted us with the bus slowly driving behind us to a nearby hotel and helped us get a room and proceeded to carry our bags and bikes inside. That was just a preview of th high country Columbian hospitality we were in store for! Medellin used to be the “cocaine capital” of the world, but today is safe, clean, modern city full of warm, friendly, helpful people. It is a beautiful modern city in a high mountain valley. Most of the buildings are built of red brick, which contrasts beautifully with the verdant green mountains rising steeply on all sides!

MULE ON ROAD  

 

Late the next morning we headed southeast out of town up the Valle Las Palmas, a steep climbing mountain road that clings to the mountainside with numerous vistas of beautiful Medellin below. After rolling through high country mountain valleys full of the most picturesque fincas (farms) and haciendas (country estates) we’ve ever seen, we dropped into the red tile roofed town of La Ceja just minutes before a late afternoon monsoon-like rainstorm!

The next day we hit the hills (let me change that to mountains, why would we take the easy way! ) taking a dirt road up a steep mountainside, then plunging into a deep canyon that rivaled Copper Canyon in Mexico in size, then back up the other side to Montebello, a picturesque village perched just below a mountain summit!! When we first spotted it from across the deep canyon, we thought, “What an incredible and unique spot to build a town — right on the top of the mountain, so unlike the U.S. mountain towns that are typically tucked in a valley”. As we were soon to find out, this is the typical Columbian highland setting; deep, deep, deep (did we mention deep!) valleys with towns perched o the mountain tops surrounding them. The slopes are completely covered with sugarcane, coffee, banana, papaya and mango fields along with pastures. dirt roads snake down the steep sub-ridges and are peppered with brightly painted, red tile roofed farm houses. It would be hard to even dream up a picture this stunningly beautiful!

TOWN AT TOP OF MOUNTAIN           FRUITSTAND                            

Montebello was full of wonderful, warm, helpful people that pointed us in the right direction the next morning, since our pathetic maps weren’t helping much. So we started what would be a typical day’s ride in Columbia. We’d start the day early (to beat the inevitable afternoon rainstorm) fueled by great pastries and put-Starbucks-to-shame wicked good local grown coffee. We’d leave town and immediately rocket down a narrow winding paved road, switchbacking to the river 2000′ to 4000′ below, then slowly climb back out to a pretty village perched on a ridge line on the opposite side of the valley. We would do at least two of these climbs per day, knocking off 4000′ to 8000′ vertical per day! Now that’s a vacation!

VIEW FROM OUR BIKES EVERY DAY!                                                            SOUTH AMERICAN EGGPLANT!

Our route was off the beaten bike tour path, was slow and lots of work,but it took us through the most unique and some of the most spectacularly picturesque country of our trip to date. We traveled through Santa Barbara, La Pintail (in a valley – how unusual!), and on to Arma where we were abducted and robbed – abducted by thirty friendly, curious villagers that robbed us of our time – two hours in the afternoon and another two hours in the evening – at the town plaza, asking us all sorts of questions ranging from “How do you find Columbian people - friendly?” to “How often do you have to change your drive train?” to “What kind of music do you like – Rolling Stones or Guns ‘n Roses?” We talked in our broken Spanish until our throats were hoarse. One town elder had to continually tell the crowd to step back so as not to suffocate us. The little schoolgirls surrounded Pat and all wanted to know what their names sounded like in English.

From Arma we biked on thru several mountain towns and valleys toward Salamina.. 10 kilometers before town we came across a friendly man resting beside the road with a backpack full of quart-size pop bottles re-filled with fresh leche (milk) from his farm where he had just gotten done milking his cows by hand out on the hillside. He asked us about our trip and where we were going and asked if we wanted to stay at his finca nearby. We said we really wanted to get to Salimina for the night, so he said “then you will stay a my house there!” He caught a ride into town and when we rolled into town a few minut6es later,, he was waiting at the edge of town He walked us to his house, where we met his wife, son, daughter and brand new baby granddaughter. We got a town tour – full of beautiful colonial buildings and fresh trout at a great restaurant. What warm, wonderful and generous people!

COLUMBIAN CHICKEN BUS!                                       RALPH BIKING ACROSS BRIDGE

The next day we rode in one rainstorm after another into the mountaintop city of Harmonizes, where we spent a couple days sightseeing and catching up on internet. Ralph managed to find time for another one of those Latin American weight loss programs = a nasty flu bug! We toured the city Cathedral, the largest all-concrete cathedral in Latin America, which looks like something out or Batman’s Gotham city. The tour took us up some 500 plus step (narrow spiral staircase included) to the st4eeple for a bird’s-eye view of the city below. YOWZA!!!!

We also rode a jeep up to and hiked the flanks of a 1700′ active volcano in the Nevada de Ruez National Park. ( it’s the highest altitude either of us have ever been and they kept stopping to help us acclimatize slowly but we still ended up getting a headache and feeling very sick!)

Our host, Gonzales and his lovely wife invited us into their home. We got a tour of a nearby picturesque village, Allentown, and a valley above it where the unique wax palms grow. They are ch only high-altitude cloud forest palms, grow up to 230′ tall, towering far above the surrounding trees, looking very mystical and almost Dr. Seuss-like.

HI — FROM 1700 FEET                                      ONE OF 3 OF THE 1700′ VOLCANOES

We stored our bikes with Gonzales while we fly back to the U.S. for Ralph’s dad’ memorial, who passed away recently. We’ll be back biking in a couple weeks, so the next update may be a month out. We’re looking forward to a good sole’ American hamburger and fries after the past 7 months of eating mostly RICE AND BEANS!!

We would also like you to know that we have found Columbia to be full of very, very friendly and helpful people, (unlike what the US media leads you to believe). We actually vote it as the friendliest place we have been since our trip began 1 year ago in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska more than 10,200 miles ago and in close competition to Costa Rica in beauty!

Bikin On’,                                                                                    WAX  PALMS (THIS ONE IS ABOUT 230′ HIGH)

Hope you are too!Ralph & Pat

 

Los Chilles, Costa Rica to a sailboat somewhere in the Caribbean!!

 

 

Map of our route thru Costa Rica Volcan ArenalEntering Costa Rica

Above- walking the beach near Quepos

After the all night boat ride across Lake Nicaragua, and then a river boat ride, we landed in another world at Los Chillies, Costa Rica.  We instantly noticed that the level of cleanliness had risen enormously!  And the houses aren’t surrounded by concrete walls with razor wire, but instead have mowed grass and shrubs!  Somewhat reminiscent of the good old USA.  And everything is lush and green – bazillions of shades of green!  Restaurants are as clean as in the Us and the waitresses are even friendly like they want to try to earn a tip.  We don’t appear quite as much like a freak show as in other Latin American countries, because some locals actually ride bikes for fun and exercise, and even dress in real biking clothes.  We ever-so-slightly blend in, ever so slightly mind you. 

Time for a Coconut break!                                    Ralph and Moon (day 2 of his bootcamp)

 

Once in Costa Rica we rode several days through rolling green hills of pastures, sugar cane and pineapple fields.  We climbed steadily, but gradually to La Fortuna  at the base of Volcan Arenal, one of the 10 most active volcanoes in the world!  We did a nature hike through the forest, spotting tucans and howler monkeys, then at sunset we watched red hot rocks vaulting out of the volcano’s crater, then bouncing down the steep flanks where they would shatter into a million glowing pieces that would continue a spark filled tumble to the base – too cool!!!  Ralph has a degree in Geology – this was geology in action!  We also took a rest day in La Fortuna and soaked in an amazing hot springs with many pools, all of which were at different temperatures.  We particularly took advantage of several waterfalls dumping into the pools, which we used as our personal nature masseuses, massaging our sore muscles – heaven! 

 

Pacific coast - first overlook - yahoo!                                       Pacific coast sunset!

We spent the next day riding around the very long and beautiful Lake Arenal, through pristine rain forests.  Along the way we spotted howler monkeys, tucans and wild turkeys.  We sampled the fare of a few restaurants along the way too.  We had awesome brats at a German place and the world’s best macadamia nut brownies (Ralph was skeptical – until he tried one!) at Toad Hall.  We talked to the owner, Dave, an ex-Boulderite, and got great info on the area.  We spent the next

Below - stop and smell the flowers

                                                                                Above - be careful where you park your bike!!               

two days climbing a wicked steep dirt road into the cloud forests to Mante Verde, then plunging to the Pacific coast.  We stayed in Quepos two days.  The town wasn’t much, but the nearby national park had pristine, nearly deserted brown sand beaches straight out of the postcards.  We left Quepos and bounced down a bumpy but thankfully flat dirt road to yet another killer beach at yet another coastal national park.  Nestled in the jungle just 50 yards from the beach was a great little cabina attached to a friendly lady’s home who also happened to be a great cook.  She brought us the best mango we ever tasted straight from her tree – 8” in length kinda like a smallish succulent football!

We also met a friendly couple staying at the cabinas who were scoping out the area surf for a camp they will run this summer.  The beach here was dark brown sand and super flat.  We could walk out 100 yards and still only be waist deep. 

 

After 2 more days of riding, one of which was on a rough dirt road with a  couple of the steepest hills we’ve encountered so far on the trip, we ended up in Drake  Bay, named after the pirate, who claimed it to be the most beautiful spot he had come upon..  It was pretty hard to argue that statement!  We were swimming in the unbelievably warm water of the bay when a flock of 20 brilliant red, yellow and blue scarlet macaws flew over and landed in trees along the shore.  They are impressively BIG ( 2 ½ ‘ long, 3′ wing span), colorful birds.  It was like watching a movie – in technicolor of course! 

 

We biked the rest of the Osa peninsula on a very flat road to Puerto Jemenes, then caught a water taxi to Gulfito on the mainland.  From there we climbed back up, up, up about 4000′ into the mountains, clouds and rain (wow, can it pour here!) to the quaint little mountain town of San Vito.  Here they have a large European influence so the area has GREAT BAKERIES with FRESH FRUIT CUSTARD TARTS AND GREAT COFFEE BY 5 AM (unheard of in the rest of Central America)!!!!  It was on an early morning trip to the bakery that Pat noticed our biking friend Damian’s photo on the front page of the San Jose newspaper with an article about the Argentinian’s bike trip from Alaska to the tip of South America! What a small world!!

 

Costa Rica was truly a tropical paradise, full of amazingly colorful birds,monkeys and plants of every shade of green.  Riding down the road it smells sweetly of hibiscus and a multitude of other colorful flowers growing wild along the ditches.  Most Costa Ricans were more than happy to help us in figuring things out, and were very patient with our Spanglish (a little bit of Spanish, a little bit of English) even kindly and politely correcting our clumsy Spanish.  Costa Rica is definitely on our list of return trips!

 

From San Vito, we biked on gravel back roads, left gorgeous Costa Rica and entered Panama at a non-busy border crossing in Rio Serena.   The road from the Costa Rican/Panamanian border to Volcan, the first destination across the border, was like a black roller coaster, climbing and dropping in 1000′ intervals through brilliantly green rolling hills/mountains covered with alternating coffee fields shaded by huge ponderosa pines and big pastures full of dairy cattle  We got caught in a rain storm at the top of the last big climb before town.  It’s been raining every afternoon since mid-Costa Rica – it certainly gets old.  We try our best to be at our destination before it, but today the immigration and money exchange took longer than we expected.  By the way, Panamanian currency is the US dollar, which we gotta tell you is a pleasant switch from the Costa Rican colon.  500 colones equals 1 US dollar.  It just didn’t feel right paying $1000 for 2 beers!  We waited for the rain to stop while huddled under some large trees, but the rain started coming through the trees long before it decided to let up, so we rode the last long descent (5 miles) into town in the pouring rain.  This was yet another one of those adventures we’d rather be sitting at home telling about than actually doing.

 

Volcan had beautiful surroundings, including an extinct volcano as a backdrop.  It also had a great Greek restaurant – a pleasant change of pace from the typical Central American fare of rice and beans, fried bananas and a meat for every meal – EVERY meal.  After several days of catching up on internet (time to order more gear and bike parts for South America), we rode out of the beautiful, but wet mountains to the flatlands and the dreaded Pan Am Highway.  As a note: the Pan Am Highway designers did an excellent job of plowing it through the most monotonous stretches of Central America, Panama being no exception.  We try to avoid it as much as possible.  Unfortunately no through roads follow the Panamanian highlands, which we feel are prettier than even Costa Rica and Guatemala, so we were banished to the boring black gash.  The one exception was around the tiny town of Tole, where it climbed quite steeply through the jungle.  Also at Tole we were invited to stay with a local family for a night.  We exchanged information about our two very different countries and got a first hand look at daily life in Panama – much simpler than the US.

 

We put in big days along the Pan Am, starting at 6:00 am in order to finish before the afternoon rains.  Our destinations along the way were David, Tole, Santiago, Penenome and La Churrera, before crossing the Panama Canal  on a bridge (in the back of a passing truck that a policeman flagged down and ordered to give us a ride across, no questions asked – bikes aren’t allowed to ride across it) and heading north toward the Caribbean coast.  We passed through a beautiful jungle area of a national park after the bridge on a quiet narrow 2 lane road.  Along the way we met another biker, Ezra from Texas, who is also biking to the end of the earth and who today was heading to Puerto Linda to catch a sailboat to Columbia – the same reason we were headed there.  There are no roads in the Darian Gap region, the southernmost area of Panama (mainly to keep Columbia’s drug problems in Columbia – it slows the flow enough that the Panamanians are in no hurry to build a road), so to get to Columbia you have to either fly or take a sailboat.  We opted for the sailboat since it seemed more in line with our mode of travel and had a romantic/pirate-type feel to it.  We are currently on a sailboat, the Melody captained by the competent Mark and his lovely wife and first mate Paola, and accompanied by a great group of backpackers.  So far we sailed one day to get to  the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama.  Here we will spend two days snorkeling, swimming, wandering the tiny mostly uninhabited islands, staring into the clear Caribbean waters, and taking a vacation from our vacation at “the swimming pool”, a crystal clear bay.  From here we will across the open waters of the Caribbean to Cartagena, Columbia.

 

Well folks, this marks halftime in our fabulous journey.  Get up, walk around a bit, fluff the pillow as they say, get a bite to eat in the kitchen, and hurry back for the second half!  Meanwhile we’ll just hang out on the boat, have a couple celebratory shots of tequila for knocking off a quarter of the planet!!!!  It is hard to believe that we have been riding for almost 12 months and have pedaled just 50 miles shy of 10,000 miles!!!  On a typical stretch of road we make 250 pedal revolutions per mile.  Therefore we can safely say that we have moved our legs through the very familiar rotation over 2,500,000 times!!!  Just think how many calories that burns, and more importantly, how many ice cream bars you can consume with no unwanted “side effects”!  Having shared those thoughts, we are certain that Pat’s girlfriends will be lining up to join us!

 

Seriously though, we have seen absolutely spectacular country, viewed towering jagged peaks, huge glaciers,  countless wildlife, pristine beaches, lonesome deserts, gorgeous lakes and all sorts of colorful and not-so-colorful cultures.  We have witnessed pristine settings and appallingly filthy conditions.  We have seen the huge vacation homes of the very wealthy and the tiny mud huts of the very poor.  We have seen a world you will never see on TV.  Almost everyone we’ve met along the way has been open, friendly and helpful, and we’ve discovered that the world is a whole lot friendlier than the US news stations depict it.  We just hope the second half of our journey will be as great as the first.

 

Stay tuned!!

 

Biking on, Pat and Ralph

We finally have been able to post photos, so here are some more for you to enjoy!!!

Below - boat ride into Costa Rica - bikes up front

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                             Typical hotel with pool - $18 per night!!!

 

 

 

Above - riverside home of locals                          Above - Ralph and Moon biking the rolling hills

 

 

 

Above - Hibiscus                                 La Fortuna, Costa Rica            More flowers!!!!            

 

Ralph eating breakfast at La Fortuna - outdoor kitchen

Tegucigalpa, Nicaragua to Costa Rica border

Tegucigalpa, Nicaragua to Costa Rica border 4-28-08 thru 5-6-08

 

 

We had to do a big climb to get out of Tegucigalpa through air you could cut with a knife.  The pollution was so bad that when we looked back at the city  from near the top of the climb, all we could see was a gray/brown haze with faint silhouettes of the larger buildings. Lovely!  Our poor pink lungs!  We dropped into hot scrub-land where tomatoes and melons are grown on fincas (plantations), then through some hot badlands-type country to Danali, where we stayed at a great hotel near several bike shops full of workers and bikers who swarmed around our bikes wanting to know all about the components and about our trip.  There is a big downhill bike following here too.

 

We climbed through low mountains full of shade grown coffee fields (tucked under palm trees) up to the border, breezed through customs, then dropped down through more coffee fields to the hot dry scrub lands below.  We spent the next several days getting up way early, riding by 5:15 AM, biking through hot, dry, low rolling hills and flatlands making big miles by noon or 2 pm when we’d quit for the day.  One afternoon, after riding through rice fields (yes, rice fields in arid scrub land!) we came upon a small hotel/restaurant with a swimming pool.  Let me tell  you – a pool sure  sounds great after 75 miles of hot scrub land!  The pool was brand new and the water crystal clear and cold!  Fantastic!!!! All this for $11, cold beers for $1, dinners for $2, which they prepared for us and had ready before we even were done showering!!  HEAVEN!!!!

 

From here we rode another 75 mile day into  the town of Granada on Lake Nicaragua.  Granada is a very pretty colonial town with lots of brightly painted buildings (purple, oranges, yellows, vibrant greens)! We stayed at the hostel Oasis and met many travelers from all over the U.S.  We left Granada on a chicken bus to avoid a bad part of the road.  The driver took off rocketing down the road with Ralph on the roof still tying down the bikes, then climbing down the ladder and into the back door of the bus, also, you guessed it, while rocketing down the road!  Yikes!!!! 

 

From here we headed to the island of Ometepec by ferry which has two large volcanoes on it ( l active - just smoking!)  The ferry did not have a life vest in site and was packed to standing room only with baskets of bananas, bikes, bags, furniture, coolers and whatever anybody had to bring across.  The local men would load the ferry by 2men lifting heavy baskets high above their heads, then loading it onto another man’s head.  He would support everything with his head.  The load was so heavy he would be staggering across the 1 foot wide ramp to the boat, sweat pouring off him.  It was a process that continued for an hour.   Each time a ferry arrives  they do it all over again, day in and day out like it is no big deal!  (I bet if you gave them a 2 wheeled dolly they would not know what to do with it and would just chuck it overboard!)

 

After a long hot 1 hour ferry ride we arrived at the island of Ometepec, where we met another cyclist, Moon, from South Korea!  He has been riding for a year and is traveling all over the world for the next 5 years on his bicycle.  He started in New York last year and rode all around the US and determined the people of the US are very, very friendly and helpful!  He takes lots of  pictures and has published a book in Korea about traveling the US.  He will join us for the next few days of our trip since we are traveling to the same places.  We spent one night on the island.  The next day Ralph climbed the volcano, then we biked to the other side of the island to catch our next ferry, (all night – 14 hour ride!).  Again, there was the process of loading and unloading the ferry with more piles of bananas, palm leaves, and all the belongings of the passengers!  We quickly blew up our air mattresses and saved a spot to sack out on deck.  (It was easy falling asleep to a rocking boat and some dramamine!)

Many people planned ahead and brought hammocks to tie across the decks to sleep in.  That would have been handy for the water that eventually ran across the deck including onto our sleeping pads!  (so much for a dry night!)

 

In the morning we landed on the south side of Lake Nicaragua, where we boarded yet another boat with our bikes and enjoyed a 1 hour river ride past Howler Monkeys (they sounded just like lions roaring) swinging from the trees, crocodiles, birds, turtles and lush green trees and vines hanging over the riverbanks.  We arrived at Los Chilies, Costa Rica and had to go through customs again with no problems whatsoever. 

 

We are officially in Costa Rica now!! What a change! The first thing we noticed is that somebody got out the scrub bucket and trash can around here!!!  Costa Rica is heaven, it is the cleanest place since the U.S.!!  The people are friendlier, and the waitresses even smile!

 

Bikin’ On —–Ralph & Pat

Copan Ruins to Tegucigalpa 4-18-08 - 4-25-08

We took a day off from the bikes in Copan Ruins, a tourist town just inside the Honduran border.   The ruins at Copan were impressive – 15 to 20 large stalae (sandstone columns carved into figures of past kings, 3′ x 3′ x 12′ tall – very beautiful), several large temples, a ball court and a large stairway with hieroglyphic inscriptions depicting the lives of kings of the city.  We had complete cloud cover, perfect to combat the jungle heat.  While in Copan we also toured a bird sanctuary with very large, colorful parrots and macaws, and rounded off the day with a tour of a butterfly sanctuary that had brilliantly colored butterflies of all sizes (up to 5” wingspans!). 

 

The locals were obviously fried on tourists, so were very unfriendly toward us.  We found ourselves getting nickel-and-dimed by shopkeepers who would shortchange us or add a “tax”.  It was annoying, but only amounted to a few cents up to a dollar each time.  It seems odd to us that a shopkeeper would risk losing repeat business or get a bad reputation over a few cents.  We saw an Australian tourist argue for 15 minutes for an overcharge of 50 cents for internet time.  We decided it would be more productive to cut our losses and work an extra 5 minutes when we get back home to make up the difference.  So far, Honduras is a strange place!

 

We gladly left Copan bright and early after a killer cup of coffee.  Honduras has GREAT coffee – it is shade-grown all over the valley here.  We rolled along a high mountain river valley where pastures (lots of cattle in this country) and cornfields checker-boarded the steep green hillsides above – absolutely gorgeous!  The local people appear poorer than in Guatemala, with most living in 10′x15′ adobe huts with dirt floors, no doors or windows, and dirt yards full of chickens and pigs.  They are also very reserved – typically staring with dropped jaws at us aliens pedaling by.  We have to initiate any conversation, and most times the people will not respond, or will possibly give a weak “buenos dias” and continue their slack-jawed stare.    We are in country rarely traveled by bikers.

 

We ended the day with a relentless climb into the clouds and the cool mountain town of Santa Rosa, where we got a room in an immaculate B&B for $27 US.  We met Linda in the plaza, a traveler that had biked China and Southeast Asia for 6 months on a previous trip.  Inspiring information, maybe our next trip!?! 

 

The next day’s riding was short with a very long drop, followed by a short gradual climb to Gracias, where we found another wonderfully clean hotel overlooking the town.  We ran into Jan and Jay from Colorado whom we had met in Copan briefly, and Max, whom we had met in Santa Rosa.  We had a great dinner and lots of talk with our newfound friends about all sorts of wonderful places we had all seen.

 

We kicked back a day in Gracias, paying a visit to the local hot springs, making Ralph realize how much he misses his daily soak in the hot tub back home! 

 

The next day we had another bright and early start (lots of them these days – riding at 6 am to beat the heat).  9:00 found us in San Jose, best described as an undesirable south-facing piece of the Honduran anatomy, where we waited 1 hour for a meal, only to get served really bad deep-fried tacos!  We had asked for an egg breakfast, and even though she was standing in front of a 3′ tall stack of eggs, the waitress told us we couldn’t have eggs!  After we got our meal, that by the way tasted as if they had found a way to get rid of at least one stray dog, she served eggs to a local lady sitting at the table next to us!  Typical Honduran hospitality so far – wish they’d take lessons from the Guatemalans!  After San Jose, the road turned to hard-packed dirt.  It was under construction with most of it ready for paving.  It was pleasant riding  with little traffic.  We steadily and gradually climbed the remainder of the day through rolling hills, then mountains of ponderosas that reminded us of the Black Hills.  The road cuts were of bright gold, yellow, orange and red dirt, which looked gorgeous against the dark green hills.  When we finally reached La Esperanza, we ran into Jan and Jay.  We took their advice and got a room in the hotel they and Max were staying at.  We had more great conversation with them over dinner.

 

The following morning while climbing out of town, we got dished up some more Honduran hospitality – a rock thrown from a passing truck full of farm workers.  This marks the first time anyone has thrown anything at us while driving by.  The rock hit Ralph in the leg.  He promptly gave them the mile-high salute and motioned them to come back.  They of course were way too cowardly for that and continued on their way. 

 

We topped out the climb into the clouds and super green forest, and did a screaming 15 mile descent through beautiful forested mountains and eventually ended up in  the toxic heat of a parched lowland river valley.  After lots of conflicting directions from a host of locals, we wandered several dirt roads in search of the back way to La Paz, our supposed destination for the day.  After 25 miles of a route that would have looked like etch-a-sketch scribbles on a GPS, we gave up, went back to the highway and took the longer, but more obvious route.  We climbed in the then mid-day heat to Siguatepeque, where we found a very large, beautiful hotel.  After taking forever to show us several rooms, the clerk informed us that the hotel was full.  Thanks a lot!  So we ended up at a hotel where they were surprised we wanted a room for the whole night (a “no-tell” hotel - lots of them in Latin America – complete with garages to hide your car in for the hour you are there!).  Needless to say, we slept on our sleeping bags again and had nightmares about rolling off them!

 

We had a gradual climb the next morning followed by a long drop into yet another toxic, hot valley.  We stayed the night in Camayagua, where we first tried to get a room at another really nice hotel.  They were also mysteriously booked!  I guess we are the wrong type of clients.  We ate at a great BBQ restaurant, and across the street was a mall straight out of the US, complete with Dominoes and Wendy’s.  Now in the states we are definitely not fast food chain folks, but I must admit a baked potato and a GREEN Caesar salad sure tasted great – and we got our meal right away, from someone that was smiling, and didn’t have to ask for the bill!  The restrooms were spotless too, complete with toilet seats!  And, get this – the next morning on the way out of town, we stopped there to really test them.  We got there at exactly 6:30 (the opening time posted on the door), went in (THEY WERE OPEN WHEN THEIR SIGN SAID THEY WOULD BE!!!), and ordered a cup of coffee (you NEVER get coffee before 8:30 or 9:00 in Latin America – NEVER!!!).  They actually had coffee brewed – great tasting Honduran coffee!  Maybe fast food restaurants aren’t a bad thing in Latin America – maybe.

 

We rode through more parched plains, climbed into pretty forested mountains, then plunged into smog-choked Tegucigalpa, which is a very undesirable-looking city surrounded by mountains you can’t actually see.  We kept trying to find a hotel as we rode the busy highway skirting the city, but saw, and quickly passed up 2 seedy-looking “no-tell” hotels.  It was close to sunset and everyone we asked had no clue where we could find a hotel, until finally a friendly man named Daniel (he was pulling a block-long wheelie on his downhill bike when we spotted him!) offered to ride with us to one he knew of.  The blood red sun was just setting as we started following him for what ended up being several miles down into the city.  After taking us to the hotel, which turned out to be very nice, he chatted with us for a few minutes about our trip and about the local downhill biking scene.  There are apparently a number downhill courses that locals have made in the hills around the city.  Before he left, we nearly shook his hand off with gratitude! 

 

We kicked back and rested 2 days in a city we initially tried to avoid and never envisioned  ourselves being in.  I always wondered and somewhat doubted if places with wild names like Timbuktu, Lake Titicaca and, yes, Tegucigalpa actually exist.  The city is pretty good to stay in – the people were very open and friendly – the exact opposite of what we expected.  Finally some warm folks in Honduras!

 

A note about riding in Central America:  The riding has been much more pleasant than we expected.  The roads are in far better shape than Mexico, all with 4′ wide shoulders.  The traffic is lighter, the cars and trucks are smaller and quieter, the drivers much more courteous.  We typically still ride almost 60 miles a day, but the riding is far more strenuous than the Alaska and Canada riding we started the trip with.  On a typical day we get up at 5 AM, have bread, peanut butter and fruit in our room and start riding by 6 AM to beat the heat.  We will usually climb steadily for the first 10 to 20 miles into pleasantly warm forested mountains (we can’t call it COOL!), then dropping for 10 or 20 miles into toxic hot, parched river valleys and only to climb back up again!  Challenging riding, but the high country makes it all worthwhile.  The temperature is similar to riding in Colorado on a hot summer day, with low valleys being toxic hot and mountainous areas being pleasantly warm.  We end the day by finding a hotel, finding a restaurant, finding a grocery store for the next days breakfast and snacks, washing out our bike clothes in the sink, and finally collapsing into bed looking forward to a 5 AM alarm to do it all over again! Crazy – We don’t think so - maybe just “LOCO”, as they say down here!

 

 

Antiqua, Guatemala to Copan Ruins, Honduras 4/11/08-4/17/08

After several days in Antiqua, we caught a bus to Santa Cruz del Quiche, then rode back north to Sacapulas to continue where we left off a week earlier on our easterly journey.

After getting a 6 AM start (to beat the heat) we climbed up through mountains covered with pines and checkerboard cornfields, then plunged 2000′ to Cunen for a fabulous Guatemalan breakfast: two meals of coffee, roll with fried bananas and sour cream, beans, corn tortillas, eggs, salsa and toast for $6 U.S. including tip!

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After breakfast we coasted downhill for a 1000′ drop, followed by a not-so-steep 2000′ climb, then finally descended into Uspantan, of course we made our daily stop to visit the man pushing his ice cream cart along the road. We had homemade coconut ice cream in homemade cones for 14 cents apiece! We were able to find a really nice hotel room for 100 Quetsals ($14 US). The rooms here almost always have an electric shower head, that heats the water from a 110V heating element and work quite well as long as you keep the water flow low enough to sufficiently heat the water, making it almost on position OFF! Consequently, showers can be very frustrating and if you are lucky enough to forget about all the exposed electric wires above your head and reach too high, you get an electrical shock, so it is never a relaxing time at the end of a long hot day!

We woke up the next morning to intermittent rainstorms and decided to forge ahead anyway, since we were eager to see more of the beautiful countryside, besides, it was not chilly rain! Everything kept getting much greener and the country more remote as we traveled east into some of the highest mountains in Guatemala! We had a long, pleasant descent right away. Ralph likes to conserve his brake pads and get a thrilling, fast ride out of it, riding no-handed at 30mph with his arms outstretched to make him feel like he is flying! You really need to try it sometime, (Pat says “NOT”)! And for a real thrill, lean forward until your chest almost touches the handlebars – now that’s flying!!!! That morning, with the rain-soaked roads he had both hands on the wheel. A curva peligrosa (dangerous curve) came up fast, Ralph was going a little bit too fas, and was braking when his tire slid out on the wet asphalt and did a power slide hitting the concrete curb and flipped landing in the sand/gravel bank of the road cut. Thankfully, he had just a few small scratches and a slightly jammed shoulder, and no damage to the bike. Thanks Mom, we knew you were praying for us that day because it could have been a lot worse!

We descended the road to the river below, then after a short climb the pavement ended and (you guessed it!) the road became dirt/mud!! Needless to say the rest of the day consisted of a few long waits for construction crews who were redoing the steep road, pushing bikes up half-built switchbacks thru 3 – 6 inches of mud, and stopping to clean the bikes so we could push them again! In the middle of all this mess we saw a man on a motorcycle swerving and sliding toward us down the muddy road and it turned out to be David, our friend we had met in Steamboat and who is also riding to the tip of South America! Another chance encounter out in the middle of nowhere!!! We continued on to the town of Santa Cruz de Verapuz making it right at sunset and flopped into bed after washing all the mud off of us and the bikes!

Leaving there we pedaled thru beautiful forests of pine trees alongside palm trees and lush green fields of corn and coffee on vertical hillsides! The end of the day brought us down into the hot, dry flatlands at El Rancho Junction with only one hotel to choose from – which was not the most pleasant place to be! We paid the $7 U.S. for a room, locked the bikes in the room, very quickly took a cold shower with our eyes mostly closed and hung out at the restaurant next door the rest of the evening where it was clean, cool and comfortable! The restaurant was so spotlessly clean you could have eaten off the floors and the hotel so dirty you would not want to admit you slept there! It has been by far the most disgusting place we have yet to stay on our trip! We layed on top our sleeping bags and were very careful not to roll around and not turn on the lights (need I say more?)!!

The next 2 days took us thru river bottom agricultural land, followed by gradual climbing back up into the pine forests until we reached the Honduran border, then rode the 6 miles into Copan Ruines, a touristy town just across the border.

Oh Guatemala we will miss your colorful, friendly people with ladies dressed in long skirts, hand-embroidered aprons, colorful blouses, a child slung from a colorful wrap across your shoulder, while 1 – 3 children walk alongside you and a load of the days goods to sell stacked high on your head and perfectly balanced in a wicker basket! We will miss your lush green mountains waterfalls, clean highways (always with a shoulder to ride on), courteous drivers (for the most part), children in school yards running to the fence to greet us, mud hut houses with pigs tied up to trees while teenagers talk on their cell phones on the front porch! And men in long striped colorful trousers, a colorful skirt over that, long-sleeve shirt and a straw wide-brimmed hat! Ladies sitting in their dirt-only front yard weaving very, very colorful pieces of cloth and their baskets of colorful yarn beside them! Men with oxen and plow, colorful chicken buses with goods for market stacked high above with one man climbing up and down the outside the bus as it speeds down the highway spewing black smoke back at us! Oh Guatemala, we will certainly miss you and thank you for giving us reason to return for another visit someday!

Bikin’ On, Ralph and Pat

Guatemalan border to Antiqua, Guatemala 3/3/08 to 4/10/08

After a 12 hour bus ride, we spent a week on the beautiful Yucatan coast with our daughters and more of Pat’s family than she ever dreamed of (We surprised her for her annual 21ST celebration of her 29th birthday – she thought only our daughters were coming, but we ended up with 9 of her family members, most of which she hadn’t seen in over a year!!!!) It was a great time!

Then, after two bus rides (a 15 hour followed by a 3 hour bus ride) we were back where we left off (when Pat was a whole year younger) at the Guatemalan border. After an uncomfortably hot night in Ciudad Cuatuhemoc, we breezed through Mexican and Guatemalan immigration and found ourselves in the insanely busy border town, La Mesilla, complete with three-wheeled motorcycle taxis, heckling shop owners, and the incredibly colorful and famous chicken buses. The chicken buses typically have huge polished chrome grills and bumpers, flame decals on all windows (including the front window), and Technicolor paint jobs – I mean Technicolor!! They always have a huge roof rack stacked two or three feet high with huge baskets of produce, bushel sacks of freshly harvested coffee, cages of live turkeys and chickens (although they usually ride inside – pretty valuable!), and, of course a bike or three. We’ve actually seen the driver’s assistant climb up onto the roof and re-secure the load while the bus is rocketing down the always winding, hairpin-infested road. Oh, and have we mentioned the HORN? How could have we forgotten? They will always give a good honk that means, “Coming through, in a hurry, Oh and nice to see you!” As they pass you at Mach Schnell!!! they spew a warm , choking .“Welcome to Guatemala!!!” cloud of thick black diesel smoke. Gracias amigo!!!

We rode from the border to Huehuetenango (Way Way Tanango) the first day along a beautiful new road, with light traffic, an easy gradual uphill climb, winding along a clear running stream with small waterfalls coming off the steep rock faces next to the road. We went through numerous small villages where the locals were very friendly. The children would run alongside us. 2 Guatemalan boys even biked a couple miles with us until we decided we all needed a break. We took them to the local store and told them to pick out whatever they wanted to drink. Their eyes and smiles got so big - they couldn’t believe we were buying! (A moment like this makes even the toughest day seem like small potatoes, It’s easy to complain and feel like you have it rough until you realize you are in a country where 40% of the population lives in poverty, and 44% of the people are age 15 or younger! Tough statistics to be a part of as a kid, we’re sure!)

Also after the border, the terrain was markedly different – much greener and much more vertical! And! AND!!! MUCH CLEANER than Mexico!!! A pleasant shock indeed! The Guatemalans seem somewhat discreet about trash dumping. They seem to prefer to dump it in out-of-sight ravines instead of wherever the vehicle stops rolling!. It is at least more pleasant to the casual observer than Mexico’s refuse. The people seem to keep their property and vehicles, including mufflers, in much tidier shape, making for a much more peaceful country. We didn’t hear a single firework until our second night in the country! Yes, we agree, truly amazing. We must mention at the risk of being repulsive, the dead animal count along the road has markedly diminished – 1 per day as opposed to 1 per 5 kilometers in Mexico. Now we know you are itching to join us!

The steep-sided, once forest-covered mountainsides are a patchwork of small, steeply pitched corn fields with some forested ares remaining. Along the road we passed numerous coffee warehouses. Toyota pickups (the almost-exclusive pickup make in the region – we’ve never seen so many Toyotas at one time!) piled high, bring the gunny sacks of coffee from the Pacific slope to the warehouses to await shipment to Europe. Coffee beans were spread out on plastic tarps along the roadside to dry in the sun.

After a comfortable night in Wayway, we climbed up a gorgeous stretch of brand new deserted highway into ponderosa forests mixed with rolling farm land, consisting of small cornfields cultivated mostly by hand with hoes, or occasionally by ox-drawn plow. We rolled along the high country for a number of miles, past numerous small villages, then did a long screaming downhill with lots of switchbacks. Ralph had fun passing cars with his runaway locomotive, better known as a 100 lb bike. We ended up in a hot river valley with the occasional palm tree and rows of cactus for fences. We had fun explaining our trip to a local family walking down the road. They thought we were nuts to bike in Alaska. “Isn’t it really cold in Alaska?” they asked. When we told them about warm Alaska summers and 24 hour per day sunlight, they wrote us off as total nut cases!

We spent the night in a brand new hotel situated above a restaurant along the river at Sacapulas. There was a rickety and very noisy highway bridge several blocks upstream. It had a metal deck, but the sections of metal weren’t fully attached, so we were able to contemplate the stupidity of the attachment system every single time a vehicle clattered over it. And we can tell you – there were a lot of vehicles that night!

The next day we headed south steeply and relentlessly uphill through forests and farm country to Chichicastenango (no, we aren’t making these names up – get out a map and see!), a bustling little mountain town with one of the most colorful graveyards we’ve seen (yes, you could say”to die for!”) and one of the best markets in all of Central America. It was certainly the most colorful and interesting one of our journey so far. We stayed a block from the plaza and early in the morning we got up and wandered the plaza – the core of the market – as it was getting rolling. People were carrying unbelievably heavy loads of produce, woven and leather goods, and fresh flowers up steep hills in baskets balanced on their heads and bundles on their backs with straps around their foreheads. We saw one 5′ tall man carry a 2′x2′x3′ crate of bananas on his back with a forehead strap up a 15% rock-cobblestone street. Try that at home! The cathedral steps were filled with huge bundles of flowers of every color imaginable. What a sight! When we returned to the street our hotel was on we could barely recognize it – it was filled with vendor booths! We could barely get through the throng! After leaving the hotel with our fully loaded bikes it was even more of a challenge. We eventually pushed our way through the madness. Being an alien being towering at least a foot above everyone else, dressed like a spandex circus clown, and wielding the strangest looking bike anyone has ever seen sometimes has it’s crowd-parting advantages.

We headed south out of town, immediately rocketing down a steep, switchback-cluttered ravine. Yes, once again Ralph had a great time passing cars, trucks and chicken buses until ,of course, the uphill. It was small-chain-ring-stand-up-and-pump steep. STEEP! And to add salt to the wound, the multitude of combis (small VW-type vans used as people buses) passing us would belch out enough black diesel smoke while chugging up the hills to totally obliterate them from view. What about our lungs? We ended up having a few such hills before bombing down a huge hill with incredible views of gorgeous Lake Atitlan below and to our right. We came to rest in the lakeside tourist trap, Panajacal, and got a third floor room with a kickin’ view of the 3 volcanoes across the lake.

We spent an extra day at the lake, visiting the small village of Santa Catarina, where local ladies weave and sell colorful fabrics, garments, purses, table runners, etc along the streets. The young girls of the village go to school for 1⁄2 the day and sell woven stuff on the streets the other 1/2. A half dozen of them took time out from work to climb up on Pat’s bike (3 at a time) and ask us a multitude of questions. It was a wonderful sight to see them in their traditional colorful long skirts and blouses crawling around on the bike, fully forgetting their tourist sales pitches for a while and just being the kids they are.

The day we planned to leave, Ralph woke up with a bad case of Guatemalan weight loss program. No, you don’t want to eat when you feel like this or even ride your bike! So we decided to catch a combi to Antigua. Please note – this is not cheating, for we plan to bus back to the noisy bridge at Sacapulas to continue east. Ralph has strict trip rules – Pat thinks he’s slightly crazy. We got a room at the Black Cat Hostel, where we met some folks from southwest Colorado on a break after an epic snow year (news that’s really hard for Ralph to handle!) We wandered the beautiful colonial city, complete with a multitude of ruined cathedrals (victims of many earthquakes over the centuries), ate at several good restaurants. and climbed one of the three volcanoes near town to the flowing lava field near it’s summit - spectacular! The town is unfortunately quite the tourist trap, with hoards of young backpackers whose main interest seems to be bar-hopping. Prices are quite high and lots of folks are out to separate you from your money, as it is in most tourist traps, but the town is still great to see. And the three volcanoes make for an incredible backdrop.

We ran into Tector, a Japanese friend we met in Creel, Mexico. He is taking a break from his Alaska-to-Argentina bike trip to study Spanish for 6 weeks in Antigua. It was great to see him again and catch up on his adventure.

We also ran into our Swiss friends, Katherine and Philip once again. They had just gotten into town and poor Philip was very sick with some sort of bug. We helped them get a room and get the bike and gear in the room which is always a chore even if you feel good. We plan to bus to Sacapulas tomorrow morning to continue our trip east through the mountains. We hope we can bid another farewell to them in good health.

Bike on, Pat and Ralph

Mexico/Guatemala Border

Oaxaca to Guatemalan border – 9,000 miles later!!!!!

Yes folks – you read it right! We have just completed the first ½ of our journey – we’ve knocked off an entire CONTINENT!!!! It doesn’t really hit us until we look at the map. That’s when Ralph says “Right On! Sweet ride!!!” and Pat says “What have I gotten myself into?”

We look back on the trip thus far (nearly 9,000 miles to date) and marvel at the incredible diversity a ¼ chunk of our planet has to offer (yes, we’ve ridden ¼ of the way around the globe – kinda). It has been the trip of extremes!

 

We started in sparsely inhabited Alaska, where there was very little population and pollution, where people thought we were crazy for filtering our water (just drink it straight from the creek like we do – we’ve never gotten sick”), and the big threat was getting eaten alive by a polar bear, to the mid-point of our journey in heavily populated Mexico, where most towns have a brown cloud over them and roadsides are littered with plastic bottles, dead animals and dirty pampers, where you would be crazy to even filter water out of the very septic-smelling streams and the big threat was black-masked Zapatista bandits robbing you just because you are an American. (We took the bus to the ruins at Palenque for this reason – the main area of Zapatista activity.)

 

This point in the journey also concludes our love-hate relationship with Mexico – the land of open and friendly people, most of whom will feed you and give you a place to stay, expecting no payment in return, to Sayulita, Cuernavaca and Mexico City bike enthusiasts that offered tons of information, help, bike stuff and encouragement, to people who take great pride and value in family and church, who would never think of taking anything from you, who don’t even know where Copper Canyon is let alone Alaska, who meticulously sweep the dirt from the street in front of their houses and stores, to people that have lived in Carbondale – YES Carbondale – for five years and know some of the same people we do, to the jail-cell like bars on all house and hotel room windows, to mountains of rotting, stinking trash along the roadside piled underneath and around signs that say “NO TRASH DUMPING HERE”, (the Mexican governments social-consciousness- to-littering campaign hasn’t really caught on yet!), to people who will charge you double, triple, quadruple just because you are a gringo, to hawkers, panhandlers and beggars who stick to you like flies and expect you to give them money or buy whatever they are trying to sell, just because you are a white tourist and must be loaded, to tour guides that sell you a trip to hot springs that are actually cold, to loud music (I mean LOUD!!) and fireworks at any time of day or night where usually the only quiet place is in the back of your mind. I’m sure every culture has these aspects and contrasts, but nowhere else have we seen it so dramatically.

 

Enough of that. After several days in Oaxaca filled with all different types of music and performances in the plazas, good food and an unplanned reunion with our Swiss friends Kathrin and Philip whom we met in Haines, Alaska and are riding a tandem to the tip of South America, we rode east toward the windy Istmo de Tehuatepec, the narrowest part of Mexico. We stopped at Mitla to see some ruins with amazing geometric rock mosaics as cornices, had some big uphills and incredibly long downhills thru mostly farmland, but also several pases where we were in Colorado-like Ponderosa forests. We crossed the Isthmus early in the morning to avoid the notorious winds, stopped to take a scenic boat ride thru Sumidero Canyon with crocodiles swimming near the boat (the sheer vertical walls were really impressive = the canyon is more than 5000′ deep), and climbed nearly 6000′ in a 25 mile stretch to lofty and cool San Cristobal, where colorfully dressed indigenous people from neighboring villages sold beautiful woven goods in the plazas, then south to the Guatamalan border including a big, long downhill! The whole way we kept leapfrogging with Katherin and Philip. From the border we bussed back north to Ocosingo and the amazing but little visited ruins of Tonina and on to hot, humid Palenque to see the incredible ruins there (visited by thousands of people daily). Here we had another unplanned reunion, this time with Damien from Argentina whom we had met in Lake Luise, Canada last summer and who is also riding to the tip of South America! We met his friend, Japhy, from Nepal, who is biking with him. From Palenque we took a 12 hour night bus ride to Cancun, where we met our daughters and will celebrate Pat’s 21^st annual 29^th birthday! We’ll then bus back to the border where we stopped biking and pedal south into Central America. After nearly 4 months and 3,000 miles in Mexico, we are looking forward to seeing new countries and what lies ahead!

 

Bikin’ On, Ralph & Pat

New Pictures!!

Here are a few pictures from our last 2 weeks of riding!  We are getting our own computer soon, so should be able to give you more pictures then!  Enjoy!!!

RIDING AROUND A SMOKIN’ VOLCANO / Taxco to Oaxaca 2/27 thru 3/7/08

Today marks nine months since we left our home in Carbondale, Colorado and stepped out into an adventure of biking 2 continents and 20,000 miles!  It was a very scary, but at the same time, exciting thing to do - pack up all our belongings, rent out our house and fly to the northernmost point in Alaska, not knowing if we would encounter snow, mud, wind, polar bears, or what would be in store for us!  We now know that the world is a very scary place when you are sitting at home and watching the news on TV, but when you are actually out there it is really an exciting adventure that always has a lesson to teach you, mostly about yourself and what you can live without.  We only have each other and our bikes and each day do not know where we will sleep, eat, or what we will see!  It is so amazing to think back and be able to remember every day of this trip (270 now) and wait in anticipation for the challenges the next day will bring!!!  It has truly been an adventure that we are now about 7500 miles in to!

Here is where we have been recently.

Taxco, the city of UUUUUUPPP and DOOOOOOWNNN, the city built by that guy with absolutely no fear of heights or brake failure!!!  The town has removed the word *flat* from its vocabulary.  Taxco is an old silver mining town, now known for its fine silver jewelry, and most certainly not known for level ground.  Most of the city streets, all rock cobblestone and 8 to 20 feet wide, are at least a 20 degree pitch, yes 20 degrees (boy Josh, would CDOT love that!) and choked with white VW bug taxis screaming up and down them.  All buildings, yes all, are white stucco colonial style.  It looks like someone smeared whipped cream onto the mountainside.  After a day in Taxco eating, sightseeing and silver mining, we caught the bus back to Cuernavaca, stayed a night, got Ralph’s wheel from the bike shop and headed out of town.  On the way out, we were stopped by a local who was an avid biker.  He told us about bike trips he had done in the US, Europe and an upcoming one in Cuba.  We rode a mile further, stopped at a bike shop where we ran into 2 of his friends Jorge and Juan Jose, whom the first man had phoned after talking with us and told them all about our trip!  It was great talking with them and seeing very enthusiastic bikers _ the world needs more!

We headed thru farmland to Tepoztlan, a cool little town surrounded by big brown cliffs of the surrounding mountains.  They had a market in the plaza with some very good food.  We had lunch and headed thru the valleys to Tlayacapan, where the townspeople where getting ready for yet another celebration (most towns have celebrations each night now getting ready for the Easter celebration).  They had made flower murals on the streets out of dyed sawdust.  They were very colorful and were very beautifully done.  We felt bad riding thru them!  The festival that night was very big, including carnival rides, a huge food court (great tacos!) a live 10 piece brass band (reeeeeally loud, like everything they do in Mexico!) and four 30 foot tall towers built out of sticks and rope that were completely strung with fireworks.  We left the celebration early (we wanted to keep our hearing intact!), but still were able to be lifted out of bed by the sound of the fireworks towers exploding somewhere in the depths of the night! 

The next day was a climbing day.  We rode on backroads that gradually, then intensely climbed the south flank of “Popo”, the 18,000 foot steaming volcano!  We found a campsite perched on a knoll (we were only about 40 miles away from 20 million people in Mexico City, but still in the wilderness).  Popo and it’s twin Isli were framed in perfect, close view by the ponderosas of the forest we were in!  The next day we climbed the Paseo de Cortez, the pass that Cortez came over to conquer the Mexico City area so long ago, up to a very windy and chilly 12,000 feet.  The volcanoes were impressively towering at about 18,000 feet on either side of us.  Popo is actively steaming, so it is off limits to travel (damn! there is a paved road winding up its flank above us!)  Popo is a perfectly shaped volcanic cone, while Isli supposedly resembles (with the help of some local mezcal maybe) a sleeping woman.  Whatever they looked like, it was far too cold to hang out and observe, so we dropped down the steep east side to stay in a cabin at a resort on the volcanoes flank.

From there we headed toward Oaxaca thru what we call travelling country, country that isn’t very interesting, so the ride is all about making miles, not about seeing sights.  We had a full day of steady gradual downhill (you gotta love it, but you know in the back of your mind you will pay for it later!).   We stayed a  night in Izucar de Matanoros  then the next 3 days were like being on an asphalt roller coaster, self propelled of course!  We seeemed to climb way more than we dropped as we rolled thru desert scrub country that had the biggest candelabra cactus we have ever seen.   They were 30 feet tall 30 feet in diameter and had 2 1/2 foot thick trunks at the base.   They were all in bloom with beautiful white flowers, like large daisies on top, and lots of bird holes in them.  We then rode thru country somewhat like Utah, then thru more scrubby semi desert, then an area of steep hills with red dirt cliffs, then finally into Oaxaca City. 

Upon arriving in Oaxaca we decided to go get a bite to eat and walked into a restaurant and to our pleasant SURPRISE, we ran into the 2 Tandem bikers, Kathryn and Phillip from Switzerland we had met in Alaska and camped with near the beginning of our trip!!!  It is still a small world out here!   So we spent a long time talking and comparing our journeys!  It is so fun to meet up with people on similar journeys!  We plan to ride the next leg of the trip with them!

Remember, even if it’s uphill with a 100 lb bike, past roadkill in the toxic Mexican heat, a day biking still beats a day of working!!!

Bike on!  Ralph & Pat

Patzcuaro to Taxco, Mexico 2-11-08 thru 2-28-08

We left Patzcuaro and rolled on to Morelia (mostly downhill!) a city with a beautiful central core full of 3 story colonial buildings.  It had a somewhat European feel.  We found a fabulous restaurant-bakery near the cathedral and central plaza, which we visited a few times, mainly because they had brewed coffee with free refills (most places charge $1 per cup and $1 for refills - of instant NESCAFE´coffee!!)  and were open by 8:00 AM (another shock, almost unheard of by Mexican standards).  We wandered the city for several days, taking in the beautiful architecture and eating at restaurants that served international cuisine (have we mentioned that we´re sick of beans and tortillas?)  We also took in an art exhibit of French impressionist artists!! 

From Morelia we rode the Mil Cumbres road ( means 1000 hills!) to the east.   What an incredible road –narrow lightly travelled, winding thru Ponderosa forests, ever upward until we topped out at Mil Cumbres Pass.  What an incredible view!!!  After camping the night, we dropped down into the valley farmland and lo and behold, ran into Oscar, our Columbian friend whom we met at Lake Louise, Canada in mid-August!  He is bicycling his way to Columbia.  It was quite magical and pretty much unbelievable to cross paths with him after 6 months (and we hadn´t even been keeping in touch! )

After talking with Oscar at the side of the road, catching up on his trip and he ours, we pedaled to Angangueo, the home of the Monarch Mariposa (butterflies!) sanctuaries, where zillions of monarchs migrate each year.  They were so thick on the trees that at first glance we thought the trees were dead and brown from beetle kill - but the brown was all butterflies with their wings closed waiting for the sun to warm them up!  So we tiptoed thru the forest and flowers with Mariposa´s fluttering all around us, (what a site!).  They will start their migration North to the Great Lakes Region by the end of March!

The next day we once again headed east on beautiful, quiet back-roads winding first thru Ponderosa and fir forests, then dropping into farmland where people raised corn, cattle, trout (yes - trout farms abound in Mexico!)  There are tons of small farms of 2 to 10 acres - people plowing with horses and hand-harvesting corn.  They then pile the corn on their flat concrete house roofs to dry.  The area also had many small creeks running thru it, with more women doing laundry at their banks than we have ever seen!  It was very colorful!!  At the end of the day we were able to stay at a brand new hotel - big, super clean rooms for only $19 (a nice switch from the ghetto-type hotel we had to stay in Angangueo for $30.)

We pedalled to the ruins at Calixtaluaca the next day, then on to Tuluca, where we stopped to ask a Policeman directions.   He asked where we were from, and it turns out he lived in Carbondale, Colorado for 5 years and we were neighbors with his best friend (SMALL WORLD, ISN´T IT ¿¡?¿). 

  The highlight of Toluca was the botanical gardens - an enclosed area about the size of a football field with fantastically brilliantly colored stained glass artwork all around the perimeter in a continuous flowing mural 15 feet tall!  Another mural 25´X 75 ´encloses both entrances and a 20´X 300´mural along the ceiling!  It is by far the most beautiful stained glass work we have ever seen!

From Toluca we climbed up our first Volcano, up to 14,000´(yes - 14,000 - a new record for us) to the Nevado de Toluca Volcano.  What a spectacular panorama!  It was there we met a couple, Julie and John, who have been travelling in their van all over Mexico and mountain biking the trails in each area!  They appear to be about as crazy as us, so hopefully our paths will cross again (and run parallel for a while).  We also met a group of mountain bikers from Mexico City that do bike trips every weekend.  They were a wealth of info and inspiration!   

After camping there a couple of nights (pretty chilly - water bottles froze - but luckily we didn´t!)  we skirted the volcano (60 miles to get to the other side!) thru beautiful forests on quiet, winding roads.  We eventually ended up at Malinalco, a nice, quiet little town beneath towering cliffs - one of which has the ruins of an Aztec temple carved out of it´s side!  We met a couple of young ladies there who had biked from Vancouver and now are working with two other ladies on an organic farm nearby.  We also met a couple that are living in Malinalco while he completes a book he is writing about his travels.  He has travelled extensively in Asia, India, the Mideast and Europe!  That´s one of the great things about this trip - there is always somebody that you run into that you can envy! 

From there we rode another very windy, steeply climbing road into Cuernavaca, a city of about 2 million people (not our favorite place!)  The road to Cuernavaca was amazingly vacant of vehicles and upon arriving, we stopped at a very busy corner to find our directions and ended up helping a blind man around the corner and away from all the traffic!  We found a great bike shop  and left Ralph´s front wheel to be repaired, so we took the opportunity to hop on a bus and go to Taxco (home of silver jewelry) SHOPPING ! 

We plan to leave Taxco today and get to Cuernavaca, then head east and north to see some steaming volcanoes!

Hope this finds you all inspired to keep on riding your bikes whenever you can!  Until next time, we keep on a bikin´!  Ralph & Pat