Bike Tour Peru

Vacation

2010-05-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

We found Robin and Laurie a little frazzled. After waiting outside Pisac Inn for 3 hours (the hotel told us that they had not yet checked in), we checked our email to find a frantic message from Robin saying that they needed to buy train tickets to Aguas Calientes but couldn't finalize the deal until we gave them our passport numbers. GOOD! we said. The train tickets were expensive and we had heard of a slew of other ways to get to Aguas Calientes.

Unfortunately, the email from Robin had been written from inside the inn. The tickets were already paid for... in cash, and just as expensive as we feared. We spent the evening calling the travel agent to try to give her our passport numbers and then spent the next two days chasing them around ("They'll be delivered tomorrow at 11, no wait, 5, no wait, you weren't at the hotel so we took them to Ollantaytambo, they'll be at a mini-market there waiting for you.") In the end we got the tickets the night before the train ride. So we won't be able to tell you the full proof layout for how to get to Aguas Calientes without paying $125 return tickets on the train. But the advice that we can give is this: go to Pisac or any of the surrounding towns and ask around. Most of the people who live there will offer suggestions. The bill will probably go down to 10 soles (although everything costs more than people say it will).

Despite the stressful introduction, we all had a wonderful evening together. We paid way too much for a hotel in Pisac (and yet, still much less than any hotel in the US would have cost - $80 USD for all four of us), reserved by Courtney's mom, that turned out to be the most comfortable and amazing hotel experience Chris and Courtney had ever had. Tea service with delicious brownies, breakfast with eggs and fresh papaya/orange juice, soft beds with QUALITY linens and down comforters (as opposed to thick heavy wool blankets) and a beautiful courtyard. We showered, washed clothes and ate dinner together. Laurie even footed the bill for the hotel.

Pisac is famous for the Incan Ruins on the hillside above. One can take a taxi there or walk up the mountainside for 5km. Chris and Laurie took the taxi. Courtney and Robin opted for the hike. The scenery was beautiful and the ruins were impressive. High above the river valley, complete with classic Incan terrace work. The site wasn't very populated with tourists so we had a nice quiet time. Chris, Robin and Courtney summited the mountain and we were all very proud. The view was fantastic.

The Incas loved to use terracing on the mountain sides. It looked like this.

The name Pisac originates from the word pisaca or partridge and is laid out to resemble a bird from an aerial view. It was once a great Inca city including a temple and a military zone. The different zones were identified by the levels of stone work - rougher stones used in every day home building and more intricate interlocking stonework for the military and upper-class zones. The Temple was built with perfectly sized and polished interlocking stones. They had a connection to the land that is somewhat zen - utilizing existing rock formations and the shape of the land to create their city. The Incas often incorporated these formations as part of the structure of the buildings they were erecting - as a wall or the foundation etc. In the Temple zone the formations were left natural and seem to have spiritual significance. Another example: there were 3 tunnels in the pathways through the city that were made from natural clefts in the mountainside. The Incas were a tiny people so it was difficult even for Chris to crawl through them.

One of the tunnels that we had to squeeze through in the Pisaq ruins.

Laurie posing with a few amazing rocks: perfectly polished and formed (both Laurie and the rocks).
These stones are not just sitting one on top of the other. They are the original LEGO. They are formed to fit one inside the other. No two rocks are the same. Amazing.

Their burial technique was extremely interesting. Set in the walls of the opposing mountains were thousands of burial caves. The caves were hollowed out by the Incas and important figures were mummified and placed in the caves looking outward toward the city. Burying them this way allowed the dead to watch over the city for eternity. Eternity wasn't that long however. Since there is no evidence of pre-Inca life on this site, it's assumed that the site is only 600 years old. About a century after it was built, the Spaniards came and destroyed the site along with everything else in their path.

Because we are slow, as a general rule, we got to the entrance of the ruins after the sun had set and there was little chance of us finding a taxi to take us home. We walked about half way to Pisac (5km) before finding a couple of "taxi drivers" (In a mini-market hanging out with their friends. Most likely they were just guys with a car who thought, "Hey, we're going to Pisac anyway, we might as well make 15 soles out of the deal." But Courtney talked them down to under 10 soles and away we went.) We bought fruit and pastries and ate dinner in the hotel. We had moved to the hotel around the corner for less than a third of the price of Pisac Inn. It was a really nice place as well and came with a bonus: a fruiting fig tree right in our courtyard! Yum.

The plans for the following day were elaborate and therefore didn't work out quite as we had hoped but we all had a fun time anyway. We had bought a ticket that let us go to any of four sites in the valley. Since we had the option to go to two of the ruins that were on the way to Ollantaytambo, we worked out a place and time to meet in Urubamba, the big city near the ruins. Chris and Courtney biked while Robin and Laurie "took the bus." Evidently the bus never came. They were offered a taxi for S./30 and a nice local lady helped them talk the driver down to S./3 per person. Due to the delay, they were an hour and a half late meeting us. Instead of seeing the ruins we ate lunch in Urubamba - paying Argentina prices for pizza. But, unlike in Argentina, the pizza was delicious.

Then Chris and Courtney continued on to Ollantaytambo by bike and we convened once again. We got a hostel with a scorpion for a roommate at a great price and then went to the ruins that loomed above the city. The mountain sides are a popular place to visit Inca ruins. The Incas had an aversion to the valley below (flooding, perhaps?) and built all of their cities of the sacred valley high up. We arrived a little late but still had enough time to see the whole site, although we were the last people to leave and the guard had to usher us out.

Courtney and our scorpion roommate. Ollantaytambo, Perú.

Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of Emperor Pachacuti, the conqueror of the region. Pachacuti died before the conquistadores arrived but the estate was left to his family clan. Manco Inca, leader of the native resistance against the conquistadores was using Ollantaytambo as a temporary capital. In 1536 he successfully fended off the Spanish invaders who termed the city "the fortress" even though this was not it's original function. The name stuck. It is known as the fortress even by the locals. Rightly nicknamed too. It would be difficult to defeat an army inside those walls. Some of the stones we saw in the ruins were the size of SUVs. Plus, having built their cities in the sides of the mountains, the Incas definitely had the high ground.

Courtney getting cozy with some of the enormous and well formed rocks that made up a wall in the ruins at Ollantaytambo.

The Fortress. Ollantaytambo, Perú.

Early the next morning we got on a train to Aguas Calientes, the town outside of Machu Picchu. The town is surprisingly difficult to navigate and it took us an hour just to find our hostel - once again reserved for us by Courtney's mom. Laurie had come all this way to fulfill the life long dream of seeing Machu Picchu so he bought tickets for 2 days. The rest of us bought tickets for 1 day and decided to see how we felt after seeing it the first time. There was a perk to going a second day. Wayna Picchu, the mountain one sees in the background of every picture of Machu Picchu, is hikeable, but only to 400 people per day. If we went a second day, we could get up at 4 am to hike up to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes, then run from one side of the ruins to the other in order to get in line before the other several hundred people, all doing the same thing, and maybe get to hike up to the top.

Our steed. The train that brought us to Aguas Calientes.
A much nicer experience than the ride back to Ollantaytambo. Leather seats, fancy snacks and chocolates...

Fun on the train.

On this day, however, we arrived at the ruins by bus. They were not very crowded, so Chris, Courtney, and Robin made their way to the entrance to Wayna Picchu to see if they would be let in. At 12:45pm we were numbers 363, 364, and 365 to enter the hike. Que Suerte! From a distance, Wayna Picchu looks like a steeply angled cone. To ascend, one climbs many stairs carved into the rock, sometimes with the aid of modern railings and ropes. At the top are more very small steep stairs that circle the peak and give access to the ruins there.

Hey look! It's us (Robin, Courtney, Chris) at the top of Wayna Picchu!
Altitude: 2634 msnm. UTM: 766050E 8544183N

Chris standing perilously at the top of one of the steep stairwells leading to the summit of Wayna Picchu.

One more excellent example of the use of natural rock formations as a foundation in the building of the Inca cities.

The view is not bad. Machu Picchu is in such good condition because it is very remote, and was undiscovered until 1912. High above the river valley, there are no obnoxious modern constructions to interfere with the zen feeling (aside from the entrance where one finds a cafeteria, gift shop and hotel - rooms starting at $825 per night and going up to $1400 (champagne on arrival, massage and full board) - but these are not visible from the ruins). The clouds that hang over the surrounding mountains create a serene, safe atmosphere. Walking through the mostly pristine ruins, a feeling of inner peace is tempered by a recurring ambition to take the perfect photograph.

Here's one.
Once more, a great example of a pre-existing rock being used as a wall in Machu Picchu.

In the end Machu Picchu was not as amazing as it was built up to be. It is certainly the most impressive of the three ruins that we saw and very well kept. But is it worth the $125 train fair, $15 bus ride and $45 entrance fee? For us this is a stupid question because the money is spent and the ruins were seen. No un-doing that. The best part of Machu Picchu for us were the hikes we did - to Wayna Picchu and to the Inca Bridge - quiet, really beautiful landscape and folliage. The views were amazing. The ruins - well we had seen a lot of ruins at that point. Very impressive, but just ruins all the same. Machu Picchu was a city of rich people on the top of the mountain. This was their resting place - their spa. The people were no more or less exotic than us, just people trying to eat, breed, sleep, build, survive - and obviously doing a good job if they managed to reach the level of spa treatment in their civilization.

As is our M.O. we were the last people to leave the ruins. We decided at the last minute to go see the Inca Bridge. The Incas had built stones up the side of the mountain to create a pathway along a cliff wall. Amazing architecture. We were running back from the hike and emerged from the starting point to find a completely empty Machu Picchu - a breathtaking sight.

The Inca Bridge. The hand built wall goes all the way across the photo. Built up from the cliff wall up to the ridge that the Incas walked on back in the day. Now it's blocked off as "unsafe." Probably not true since most other Inca structures outlasted all of the Spanish buildings through a few different earthquakes.

Did we mention the llamas that are scattered about the grounds of Machu Picchu?

Robin and Courtney in front of an otherwise empty Machu Picchu.
Wayna Picchu is rising up just behind the ruins.

We had planned to hike down to Aguas Calientes instead of taking the bus, but because we were so late, the sun had begun to set so we paid for the bus. Before resting we made a trip to the most expensive mercado in all of South America and prepared dinner in the hotel.

Laurie spent the following day at the ruins in the rain while Courtney, Chris and Robin relaxed - we had summited 3 mountains in 3 days and were very sore (It turns out that biking is very different from hiking). Robin, however, was fine. She walks to and from work every day and has great hiking legs. We took the train back to Ollantaytambo in the evening and stayed at the same hotel - no scorpion this time - and were reunited with our bicycles. And in the morning we wandered the streets of the city. Ollantaytambo is unique because the Spaniards did not destroy it. The modern city is built on the foundations of the Incan ruins. It was beautiful. The streets were narrow straight lines with water canals running along the sides, just like in the ruins above the city.

The street-side canals in Ollantaytambo, Perú. You can see from this picture
how the modern structures are built on top of the stone Incan foundations.

In the afternoon we took a bus to Cusco and had a fun night without water due to the street construction outside. After they lied to us over and over about when the water would be turned back on, we informed them that we were going to pay half price (S./40 - an above average price for Perú but a good price for Cusco) and they did not argue with us. After dark we walked around Cusco to see the many many churches and plazas. The city is most beautiful at night. The buildings are lit up and magical. Plus, at night one can't see the haze that hovers over the city.

Courtney and Robin in the main plaza in Cusco, Perú by night.

The next day we took a tour of the Temple of the Sun or Qorikancha which, after the Spaniards moved in was turned into a Catholic church. We got a tour guide and he gave us an hour tour (for a very small space. It was chalk full of fun facts). The site had been hit by 2 enormous earthquakes since the Spaniards had built their church. The Inca structure had been undamaged while the Spanish Church had been destroyed.

The following 40 hours were a blur. We bussed from Cusco to Lima, then Lima to Trujillo, with only a brief 6 hour layover in Lima which was filled with the task of getting ourselves and all our stuff from one bus station to the next.

Courtney and Laurie on their way to scope out a hotel for our stay in Trujillo.

Trujillo is a large cloudy city on the north coast of Perú. The second largest city in the country. We spent our final 4 days there. In Cusco Provence we spent too much time traveling around so instead of driving up and down the coast we picked a spot on the map and settled in. While our primary goal was to eat lots of Ceviche (spelled Cebiche in Perú) and relax by the beach, there are more, easily accessed ruins near the city.

For our first outing we went to Huanchaco, a beach town nearby. We rolled around in the sand and swam a bit. The water was pretty cold - we were a month into Fall at this point. But the sun was warm and Robin and Courtney walked around looking at crafts and drying off. All together we ate a huge feast of cebiche (fish marinated in lemon juice, served with peppers and onions. Yum), chicharrones (deep fried anything, but in our case, seafood) and Pisco Sours (the national drink consisting of pisco, sour and whipped egg whites). Very touristy, also DELICIOUS.

The Huanchaco Beach.

We made our way back: Courtney and Chris by bike. Robin and Laurie by bus. Robin, Courtney and Chris wandered the streets looking for more cebiche for dinner but learned that it's a lunch food, so we were out of luck. We had a long day ahead so we got some take out and went back to the hotel.

The day we had planned was a trip to the Ruinas de Chan Chan. Chan means Sun. The double Chan Chan is supposed to mean Great Sun or Resplendent Sun or something of that sort. The sun obviously played and important roll in for the Chimú (the people who inhabited Chan Chan). Perhaps it was easier for them to accept Inti (the Inca God, also the sun) as their supreme god once they were conquered (along with the rest of Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador, Northern Argentina and many other parts of South America).

The ruins are actually of an entire city. They make up the largest adobe structure in all of Latin America (the 2nd largest in the world). The Architecture is what makes Chan Chan so interesting. The detail work in the adobe is amazing. The diamond-lattice patterns in the architecture represent fishing nets, giving us an idea of how important fishing and the sea was to the Chimú people of Chan Chan. Designs of fish swimming in one direction show the normal direction of the Humboldt Current. A very short section at one end of the fish lined corridor shows them swimming in the other direction. This represents the short time when the Humboldt Current runs in the other direction: El Niño. Obviously, the recent floods in the Sacred Valley are on a long list of important events caused by El Niño.

Diamond-lattice pattern in Chan Chan

Water also played an important roll for the Chimú. This is evident in their intricate water system. The portion of the ruins that had been restored (the portion we were shown) even had a small reservoir which is all that is left of the aqueduct system that the Chimú had built. When the Incas decided to conquer the Chimú they simply destroyed the aqueducts. Today, due to floods and need for a better water system, the people of Trujillo are considering restoring the highly advanced water system of the Chimú.

So after a fun day exploring the ruins we went on a search for food and found that everything was closed due to a mysterious festival that we never did understand completely. Finally we ran into a couple of guys who told us about a mercado right in the center of town that would still be open. We rushed over to it to pick out some treats for dinner and discovered that it was the fanciest mercado we'd ever seen. All sorts of nice cheese and olives. Chocolate and fancy nuts to choose from. A juice bar that also sold flan. We sat at the juice bar for quite some time, waiting for Chris to return from the wine store and had cup after cup of delicious papaya, apple, orange juice.

Chris had been chatting with the two men who directed us to the mercado and made friends. They wanted some help with their English so he met them in the plaza later. It turned out that they just wanted to hang out, write a sentence or two in English and then drink beer. Oops, they only had a S./ 100 note so Chris bought the beer. One of the guys made sure that Chris would pass on the message that Robin was cute and could be his American girlfriend.

After dinner we wandered around Trujillo at night, enjoying the lights and pretty architecture. Not quite noble but colorful and slightly European, just the same. Beautiful iron balconies, courtyards, trees... The Plaza is a pretty sight at night too. It's backed by a yellow church. Not remarkable compared to many churches of Perú but it complements the rest of the town in its simplistic style. In truth, it was very beautiful.

Courtney in front of Trujillo's main plaza by day. The Church is in the background on the right.

Early in the morning we rose to visit another site: Huacas del Sol y de la Luna: The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. This was also an interesting place. The Moche people were living in the valley before the Chimú and are an early version of the same civilization. The Moche are known for their pottery and their love of human sacrifice. The Tumi, a national symbol and a recent addition to the S./ 1 coin, is actually the traditional sacrificial knife that was used by the Moche people during their religious ceremonies.

Their city was also made of adobe but most of it is still being restored. On either side of the residential area is a pyramid. We were fortunate enough to be able to walk around inside the Huaca de la Luna. It was beautifully built around the contours of the land. There is a huge stone on the top level that is probably something of a support beam throughout all the levels. This stone is the very stone used in sacrificial ceremonies. The pyramid does not come to a point. With each empire a new level is built and the lower level is filled and covered. The outside of the pyramid shows a different colorful mural for each level: 8 in all (Oddly, the lowest level is the smallest. As each empire grows, the levels become wider. The pyramid is upside down on the inside BUT each new empire builds the walls out to create what looks like a normal pyramid from the outside. Hard to explain... but because of this crazy upside down/right side up pyramid nonsense, one can see levels and levels of older murals underneath the outer most layer. Very complex. Very interesting.)

Tumi himself. Do you feel the power?

The murals that decorate the outer walls of the pyramid.

So that was it. On a recommendation from a local we went straight to a cebiche restaurant and ate some delicious food. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the mercado to get a few things and drink some more juice and flan. The ladies who worked there were delighted to see us again. And then we readied ourselves for the bus ride to Lima.

Our delightful last lunch in Trujillo. Cebiche in the bottom right corner.

We had a few hours to kill after we arrived in Lima. We filled our time well. We stayed mostly near the main plaza and never did get to see the super touristy part of town: Miraflores. We did get to see the river and ran some errands (buying big bags to consolidate our panniers). Looked at crafts, drank coffee, had a final cebiche meal (during happy hour). We had gotten a donation from Jeff Walls (a friend from Chris's School, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor) to go out with a bang: a final meal in Peru. We were instructed to drink too much. We didn't. But it was fun all the same. We ate good food and had some more Pisco Sours and talked about our favorite things. We walked around and saw some sights too. Mostly big fancy buildings. Very grand. We watched the changing of the guards on the Plaza too. A lovely marching band performance for the most part.

We can still get excited about Inca Kola even after an all night bus ride.
Also about directing traffic.

This stand was one of many stationed in the streets on our walk into Down Town Lima.
Quinoa - Maca Drinks helped revive us after our long bus ride.

The big city (and its traffic)

The things you learn in Lima: Pooping is more expensive than peeing.

The final days of travel with Laurie and Robin had been wonderful, if not a bit rushed. We all felt the stress of too many hours of buses, hauling bikes around but not riding them, moving place too often (which is not as satisfying on a bus as it is on bikes). But we also saw many many beautiful things and had a great time. So knowing that, we all headed to the airport together. Laurie and Robin's flight was at 11:30pm on May 5th while ours was at 6:25 in the morning. So we piled in a taxi with the bikes strapped to the top. Only after we had been driving for a while did the taxi driver say, "Oh, it's illegal to drive with anything on top of the car in Lima. And they probably won't let me into the airport like this..." but we had no problems. Robin and Laurie got all set to take off and we said goodbye. We could hear their flight being announced over the loud speaker. Good bye Robin and Laurie!

Chris and Courtney spent the entire night in the airport. We had packed some food and ate at the food court then went over to the all night desert restaurant and took turns involuntarily falling asleep. Then we ordered ice cream at 3:30am: Chocolate, Lúcuma, Mocha. At 4:00am we hauled our bikes down to the lower level and got in line to check in.

Two days prior we had called ahead to ask what the bike policy was. Both the internet and the woman at the other end of the phone assured us that we only need to take the peddles off, and turn the handle bars to the side. Wrong. Or at least American Airlines at the Lima Airport would have nothing to do with it. After talking to several different people (time ticking) we finally convinced them that there was no way we were going to get back to Lima, find a box (let alone 2) for our bikes, pack them, get back to the airport and fly out in 1.5 hours. So they let us wrap our bikes in saran wrap, which set us back $40 and then they charged us $135 per bike instead of $100. So that was frustrating.

The fun part was, once we convinced the saran wrap guy that we were pretty much broke, he decided we were his friends and not just some rich white kids. The man we were talking to rallied the troops and got our bikes wrapped for $40 instead of the initial suggestion $60. The machine only lets out a certain amount of wrap per charge of $10 so we were pulling used plastic from the garbage to cover the tough spots then wrapping the bikes twice instead of three times. Then, sweating and grinning he gave Courtney a big hug, having accomplished the job.

TrueStar team to the rescue!

The not so fun part was the huge bag of extra toxic PVC plastic that we ended up with after unwrapping our bikes at home. And while the baggage wrapping industry is expanding, no one seems to be talking about its environmental effects. Adding to the landfill, among the many single use products that we use today. Since we're two people who care a lot about the environment, this really upset us. So we're going to shamelessly promote the reduction of single use products right now. It is the farthest thing from sustainable but the easiest thing to overlook in the household. In addition to maxing out our landfills rapidly, we're also running out of the resources with which to make disposable items (and when that happens, we also won't have those resources for anything else). Here's an article about why we should reduce our usage of these products (there's a wordy bit about the population in China but it has a point). And here's a few helpful websites to get you started.

My Green Side - very basic household list

Reduce.org - a little more in depth: from office to travel to shopping etc.

Back to the point:
We checked the bikes and 2 bags but were told that this time our bikes counted as bags so we weren't able to check our 3rd bag which happened to be our tools, some of which were confiscated later. (Didn't really think it through when we said "Fine! Fine! no problem, we'll take it as carry on!" .. Maybe we could have removed the "harmful items and check them) Then we ran to our gate and made it just in time.

We didn't take the moment to reflect on the fact that we were leaving Perú.

We got on the plane and flew away.

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Entering Peru in our Final Days

2010-04-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

The morning after the last post Chris woke up ill from something he ate the night before. The mystery to these illnesses is that we always eat the same thing, but generally only one of us will fall ill from it. Courtney was fine, but after struggling through our goodbye breakfast, in which Cristian and Dorothy came all the way to Cristian´s house (he sleeps atLuisa´s, his girlfriend and co-cafe owner, 3 km farther south) to join us, Chris went back to bed and we resigned ourself to another day in beautiful La Paz. Courtney went back to the cafe to help out for the evening. There she found Dorothy and spent the evening sharing a bottle of wine with a friend from Holland, Spain, and Germany. The mutual language was English, not Spanish.

The next day was a no go as well. Chris was feeling better but by the time we were feeling good enough to leave town, it was already the afternoon. We tried to go back and help at the cafe but there wasn´t much to do. Cristian closed early and we all went to Luisa´s for ¨Grand Comida¨ (dinner). This turned out to be Courtney and Chris cooking while the rest of the party sat by the warm fireplace with glasses of wine and beer. But the dinner was lovely and a great goodbye.

Our REAL farewell breakfast was at the cafe in the morning. A blast from the past: peanutbutter. Dorothy, also a cyclist, is convinced that all she needs for energy to bike all day long is a peanutbutter breakfast. So she shared with us to prove her point and to help us along with our day. We ate plenty, enjoying the taste that we hadn´t experienced since California. It turns out that she was right. We biked straight through the day and weren´t hungry until dinner. This may also have been the parasites that were filling our stomachs with gas. But we´ll never know. Our search for peanutbutter has yet to be realized in order to make a second test.

The original plan was to get up in time for a 5 am bus, but we had gotten to Cristian´s late the night before and we´re not very good at giving up sleep. Plus, by avoiding it, we got to eat breakfast with Dorothy. This was a good thing anyway because the straight up the canyon ride from the cafe to the bus stop took almost an hour. We thought to take the bus in order to avoid a ride straight up the canyon since Chris´s illness set us back 2 days. But every direction in La Paz is straight up.

The bus took us to Huarina, a town just on the edge of Lago Titicaca, about 60km from La Paz. The ride was beautiful and we were feeling better. The road took us along the coast of the lake (something compareable to the great lakes: complete with islands and at times you can´t see the other side for it´s vastness.) It was a great re-introduction to riding after several days off the bike. The first half was flat, and the scenery amazing. Afterwards we gently climbed up through the mountains weaving along the waterside like HWY 101 on the coast of California.

Lago Titicaca from the road. The snow capped mountains in the background. Lago Titicaca, Bolivia.

We descended back to the water´s edge at Taquina where we took the big wooden car ferry across the straight connecting the two massive portions of Lago Titicaca. That night we took advantage of the hospitality of the Naval Guard. They were very friendly but when we went to bed at 7:30 after it got dark the Guard was just beginning their evening drill which consisted of them playing hide-and-go-seek in the camping ground. ¨Stomp stomp stomp¨ with the big black boots, then ¨whisper whisper whisper¨ behind the trees and in the shadows. To make matters worse, it was Courtney´s turn to get sick. She was up and in the bathroom 3 times in the night getting strange looks from the Marines as she returned to the tent.

The barge that carried us from Taquina to San Pedro, Bolivia.

Things continued to get better, however. We were still able to ride the rest of the way to Copacabana the following day. The ride was just as gorgeous. We climbed up to a pass at 4300m but the roads this far north are much easier to manage. They are well planned. None of the ¨follow the valley until you hit the mountain then throw some switchbacks on there, ascend, descend down the mountain, and do it all again for the next valley mountain combo (of which there are many)¨ that was so present in southern Bolivia. Another interesting part of what made the trip so enjoyable was the evident lack of interest the dogs had in us. They noticed us go by and didn´t try to kill us. How pleasant.

We arrived in Copacabana early enough to get changed and then walk down the beach for the sunset. We enjoyed a beer on the waterfront at one of the many kioscos set up for just such a purpose. We ran into a friend from Tupiza who was on his way to the Isla del Sol. Then we did the touristy thing and got dinner at the Hosteling International Restaurant which was good but not great. Tasted like Argentina. The place we stayed at was incredibly friendly and right on the water front. They´ve painted their cabins beautifully and we got to play with the really tiny puppy that invited itself into our room.

The boats made of reeds, floating in the port of Copacabana. Nearby there are entire islands made of the same reeds. Copacabana, Bolivia.

The time had come to cross the border into Perú. After our experience in Bolivia, this border crossing was incredibly easy. On the way out of Bolivia we chatted for about 2 minutes with the authorities. On the way into Perú we exchanged no words. Stamp and go. The most immediate differences between Bolivia and Perú is the way they call you Gringo (with more gusto, sometimes coming from very small children learning to discriminate early) and the presence of millions of motorcycle and bicycle taxis. Later we would begin to notice that the level of friendliness went up considerably.

The boarder.

We were hoping to make it to Puno in 2 days. Our present pattern was to travel between 20 and 37 miles a day (20 on the unpaved roads 30 to 37 on the paved) Chris said ¨I keep waiting for the day that we go more than 30 miles since we used to go twice that¨ Well the land provided. Instead of struggling through dirt roads or climbing the altiplano (or both at the same time) like we´re used to, the road became flat and the wind wasn´t pushing us backwards with it´s normal force. We biked 40 miles, then 50 then 60.

The first push got us to Juli. The little Rome, they called it. It looked nothing like Rome. On our way we got our first taste of Peruvian Ruins. Stopping for lunch in a small town we were told to go to the Chullpas - tombs of the rich. They were under restoration but it was Saturday so all the workers were just taking off for the rest of the day. We still were able to get a brief explanation from the archeologist in charge. She was friendly and excited that we had stopped to visit. She even insisted on taking pictures with us.

The Chullpas, Chris and our Archeologist friend. North of Yunguyo, Perú.

But we were able to get a batch of antibiotics for the parasites that had been ailing us since our first day in Bolivia. Our first day out, we hoped we could rid our selves of the stomach pains for the last 20 days of the trip. The pharmacist told us that we couldn´t eat any of our normal foods except bread. She suggested we eat anis to restore the natural flora in our stomachs after the antibiotics killed them all. Luckily there was such a thing as anis bread in the town. It was delicious. We prepared a final meal to eat all of our fresh vegetables (only cooked vegetables for 3 days after the antibiotics) and other food we weren´t going to be able to eat and started the new routine in the morning.

We made it all the way to Puno the next day. The ride was beautiful and fairly flat. Max, the local host for all the bicyclists that come through Puno, biked to the edge of town to show us around. Took us to a hostel that gives discounts for cyclists and then met us for ¨dinner¨ which really meant taking us to his work where he sat with us a bit, worked a bit, and we ate pizza and tried the famous Pisco Sour, the national drink of Perú. It got late and we got tired, but we were in bed by 9:30, even after being accosted by a group of Argentine motorcyclists staying in the rooms next door. They were friendly and energetic, sharing mate and showing a ¨cyclists affinity¨ towards us.

In the night Courtney threw up the pisco sour but felt fine in the morning. We cooked vegetables in the hostel´s pressure cooker and scoured the town for peanut butter. They told us to try the pharmacy, so we bought peanuts and left. On the way out we met Mill, a touring bicyclist from Eugene, Oregon, riding a Bike Friday folding bike, trailing it´s rolling case behind him. A brilliant idea, making it easy to put the bike on the bus. He did mention that the frame broke and had to be replaced though.

After a good chat we headed north to Juliaca. The day was short since we were so late leaving Puno but the ride was completely flat and beautiful. Since we skipped riding in the altiplano of Bolivia, we were happy to have an easy ride for our last few days of the tour. Juliaca was discribed as a pit by Mill but it wasn´t too bad. It sports the highest theft rate in the country, being the main train hub of this area (connecting Arequipa to Puno and Cusco). We were lucky to not get robbed and stayed at an alojamiento for about $4 US which could best be described as ¨like a prison without showers.¨ But we slept well and were able to cook dinner on the hostel floor.

We liked Juliaca. The best part was probably the morning traffic. Not only was it traffic, something we hadn´t seen in a very long time, but it was bicycle taxi traffic. A street filled to the brim with bicycle and motorcycle taxis all fighting to get past the occasional delivery truck that was blocking the way. This is a picture directly taken from the ideal San Francisco Market Street Scene described the ¨Golden Wheel Award¨ keynote address in 2009. Acheived with ease here in Perú.

Morning Traffic. This was taken after the taxis had thinned considerably, but it was still impressionante. Juliaca, Perú,

After Juliaca we biked north to Ayaviri, a small and crowded town with a huge market by the plaza. The roads were not great. Flat but full of holes. ¨Hueco¨ they called it. The first half of the day went by smoothly but then the nice pavement moved off to the right and we continued straight north. It was fine. Better than ripio (dirt roads). We still made it about 100km (60miles) for the day. On our way to Ayaviri we stopped for lunch and were joined by a flock of sheep and several cows. Shortly after a woman came over to chat with us and told us all about how she had 7 sons and they were all doctors. How did this sheep herder put 7 sons through medical school? We didn´t find out.

When we left in the morning we passed the first kilometer sign that we´d seen in Perú. It revealed, not only kilometers estimated to the hundreth (usually they´re rounded to the nearest 5km), but also that we could, in fact, bike to Cusco in the time that we had. We had been assuming that we would have to eventually take a bus the last portion of the ride. By biking the distances that we had been we could actually even take a day off at Aguas Calientes, the hotsprings just south of Sicuani.

Only 244.60km to Cusco! Ayaviri, Perú.

Although we had been going rather far every day, we were a little wary of the 4300m pass that we were going to have to go up and over before the day was through. Our reward was going to be 10km of down hill and then a hotspring. Perú gets brownie points for the way they handled the climb. For the first 50km we rose about 100m, after that we went up at a somewhat steep angle (slowing us down but not to 5kph, more like 10 or 15kph. Not making us feel like dying) for 2 hours and then we were at the top. Magical. No walking the bike, no switchbacks, no sudden dirt road thrown into the side of a mountain. We were happy.

The mountain pass. The mountain behind us is full of gold but the Peruvians like it just the way it is. La Raya, Perú.

For our reward, some truckers who had stopped at Aguas Calientes as well, showed us the natural hot pool outside the hotspring resort and we camped right next to it. It was warm and very nice. We got to see the sun set from the water and then woke up at 5 am to climb back in and watch the sun rise. ¨Es la vida¨ we were told by an envious truck driver in the morning who didn´t have time to bathe, just to rinse off. We were joined by another truck driver later in the morning. Apparently this is the place to stop and get refreshed on the circuit from Cusco to Arequipa.

The sunset and the train tracks. The view from the hot pool. Aguas Calientes, Perú.

We decided not to go into the resort and get mudbaths and went, instead, to Sicuani for lunch and then biked a little further to Tinta. On our day off we still managed to go 66km. En route to Tinta, we stopped in San Pedro for another hotspring experience. ¨We´re only camping at hotsprings, from now on!¨ we decided. But San Pedro didn´t have a hotspring. It had ¨medicinal water,¨ which usually does mean a hot sulfury bath. In this case it was a cleansing yard. Water filters up past a volcano, collecting a host of minerals, comes out a fountain, and hundreds of people come on the weekends to drink around 20 glasses and spend the day lying down and using the toilet. It cleans the stomach, intestines, organs, etc. We came late and could only drink 4 glasses; the first 4 glasses of unfiltered water we´d had since Argentina. We think we got some medicinal benefits out of it, without expunging our whole digestive systems.

Some of the 100 bathroom stalls at the Aguas Medicinales. San Pedro, Perú.

As we left we were told to visit Raqchi. It was the ¨Inca Residencial,¨ a standing wall that once held up the largest roof in the Incan Empire. It is surrounded by hundreds of stone huts, separated by small walkways, flanked by fields. It was worth the visit. The gate keeper even gave us a discount. Our second set of Inca ruins. We were a little more impressed with the first, the tombs that we happened to stumble upon a few days earlier, but part of that might have been the rapidly setting sun and our lack of place to sleep that was taking away from the experience.

The Incan Ruins of Raqchi. The remaining wall. Raqchi, Perú.

Luckily Tinta was just around the corner. We rolled into the plaza and got to stay at a hostel. A little too expensive for the lack of services and the Señora´s ability to play dumb so that she didn´t have to answer questions. Still only about $5 US.

The Spanish Church in Tinta, Perú.

With only 2 days left until we were supposed to arrive in Pisac, we had to push to make it to and past Urcos the following day. We were unsure about the distance to Pisac on the unpaved road that cuts Cusco out of the route. We wanted to make it most of the way to the turn off just in case the last day would be difficult and long. Pisac is in the Sacred Valley, which would mean climbing up and over the large mountain range separating Cusco from the Valley. Unpaved usually means unplanned as well, and therefore more difficult (not following the easiest, but maybe the most direct route). We slept in Andahuaylillas after biking close to 100km. In the evening we tried to see what we were told was the only ¨Cistine Chapel¨ in America but it was closed. In the morning we didn´t bother and ate a huge breakfast instead (a celebration for our last day of bike tour).

After being told by every person we asked that the road was flat and then biking up and over a pass first thing in the morning, we were not optimistic. At the top of the pass, however, was an Incan and Huari Aquaduct which was enormous. One can climb to the top, following the classic Incan steps that jut out of the sides of the walls of their structures. While we were viewing the aquaduct, a Peruvian and Australian couple told us that the pass we had just crossed brought us into the Sacred Valley. We made it!

The aquaduct. Valle Sagrado, Perú.

As it turns out, the unpaved road that was going to go up and over the mountains, was paved and all down hill. The scenery was indeed sacred, following the big Urubamba river through a narrow valley until it opened up into fields of deep red amaranth. We stopped just around the corner from Pisac for lunch and then biked into town to meet up with Robin, Courtney´s sister, and Laurie, Courtney´s dad.

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We're consistently asked why we're touring. Nikos has an answer.

2010-04-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

¨Greece was torn by jealousies, hatreds, civil wars. Democracies, aristocracies, and tyrannies exterminated one another.... Then suddenly, every four years, garlanded heralds, the spondophoroi, set out from this sacred valley in summertime and ran to the farthest boundaries of the Greek world. They proclaimed the hieromenia, the ¨sacred month¨ of the games, declared a general truce, and invited friends and enemies alike to come to Olympia in order to compete.... No other people comprehended sport´s hidden and manifest value so perfectly. When life has succeeded by ding of daily effort in conquering the enemies around it - natural forces, wild beasts, hunger, thirst, sickness - sometimes it is lucky enough to have some abundant strength left over. This strength it seeks to squander in sport. Civilization begins at the moment sport begins. As long as life struggles for preservation - to protect itself from its enemies, maintain itself upon the surface of the earth - civilazation cannot be born. It is born the moment that life satisfies its primary needs and begins to enjoy a little leisure.¨

Nikos Kazantzakis ¨Report to Greco¨

Casa de las Ciclistas! La Paz

2010-04-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, after the ride to Potosi destroyed our bodies we took a few days off. First in Potosi - which is a beautiful city, colonial and very old - then at El Ojo de las Incas - a hotspring just 25 km outside of town. The ride there was beautiful and mostly down hill since the city of Potosi is at 4000m and the rest of the altiplano is between 3400m and 3900m. The Ojo is a spring that the Incas of Peru used to travel to in order to bathe for medicinal purposes - natural salts and sulfur in the water are great for one's health. We still weren't feeling 100% but we moved on.

A little rest after our ascent to the Ojo de Las Incas, Bolivia

The Ojo (spring) at sunset.

Typically, we skipped the easiest riding. From the Ojo, we got a ride with some really friendly Portenos (people of Buenos Aires) who had also spent a couple nights there. They had constructed a mobile home (prefabricated but with their own design) and were working their way up north eventually to the United States. We all went to Oruro together. Courtney and Chris got a hostel and they went off to the place that mobil homes go when they are in a city. The car ride did not fair well for Courtney, we aren't accostomed to motor vehicles at this point. So, this combined with the cold we got as we ascended the mountains, kept her in bed for the night, while Chris made her spicy potatoes to clear the sinuses.

The view back as we left Oruro, Bolivia

In the morning we were all excited to bike to La Paz but the boring flat road didn't appeal to us. So we hitched a ride with a truck driver who was going to leave in a few hours. A few hours later, however - right around the time when it is getting much too late to bike - he informed us that he wasn't leaving after all. He would be getting minerals from the nearby mountain and then heading north the next day. Another night of alojamiento for us. Fortunately, outside the city center, the hostels cost half the price - about $5 for us to share a room. The woman who owned the place was very nice and excited to have clients. She has the only alojamiento in the area but it's newly opened.

The next day we failed in getting a ride out of the city and the polution was driving us crazy. So we finally shelled out 40 bs (another $5) for a bus to La Paz. Buses in Bolivia are much easier to navigate when it comes to bikes than in Argentina. No one cares that the bike is big and bulky. Throw it on, they say. We will see what happens in Peru.

So we made it to La Paz! We got of the bus 10km outside the city in the satalite city of El Alto - 300m higher than La Paz - so we could ride into the city and see the stunning view from up high. Paul, one of the two Belgian cyclists that we spent a couple weeks with, had suggested this. he was right to suggest it. The view is stunning.

The city, the altiplano looming above, and the mountains. La Paz, Bolivia

Once more, the city with the mountains above Remember that the city is at 3600m, the mountains tower above at 6 and 7 thousand meters tall The first snow capped mountains we´ve seen since Argentina. Stunning. La Paz, Bolivia

Unfortunately, just as we began to descend the canyon that is La Paz, it began to rain. And then hail. We have one pair of gloves between us and had to stop several times to warm our hands on our necks and stomachs lest they fall off. But we made it down the canyon and and into the hands of Cristian and Luisa of the Casa de las Ciclistas. We stayed last night at Cristian's house and spent today wondering around La Paz - a really fantastic beautiful and old city. One of two capitals of Bolivia. Sucre still holds the judicial power, but La Paz has usurped all the rest. We walked by the great buildings of government today and then moved on to the great markets of illicit goods.

The city at night. The lights of the houses tumbling down the canyon resemble stars in the sky, La Paz, Bolivia

Now we learn the ropes so that we can help out at the cafe. Cristian is sure that we will stay much longer than we intended because ''everyone seems to stay twice the amount of time they think they will'' but we're anxious to get on the bikes tomorrow and head toward Lago Titicaca and the Peru! 12 days and counting of bike tour, then we meet up with Courtney's dad and sister in Cusco for the final 12 days of travel (maybe some riding without all our luggage?)

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The Road Up

2010-04-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

Tarija is at about 1850 meters, Potosí is at 4000m. Along the way we had to climb up over 4500m a couple times. The first time was in the section of rode described as ¨muy fea,¨wherein we were to climb to 4600m in 35KM. We spent the first day mostly pushing our bikes through detours roughly hewn from the mountain, or sometimes made of sand. We asked everyone we saw (very few people) if we were getting close, but no. When we camped for the night, the terrain was leveling off and Chris was feeling optimistic. Turns out the rest of the mountain was shrouded in clouds, so we flagged down that rare pickup and loaded our bikes into the back, where Chris also sat, fearing for the bikes and his own life as the truck sputtered up the awful, steep switchbacks. The view was pretty incredible.

We climbed this road. Far in the distance you can see Tarija and the Lago San Jacinto, Bolivia

A view from the first day. We were happy that we didn´t have to climb this road. There are unfortunately no photos of the crazy switchbacks up to the very top but one might picture something in between these two.

The drivers left us in El Puente and we stood in the shade eating ice cream cones, a bit dazed back in the lower, hot country. After 10 minutes we were invited in to rest with the Familia Tapia, blowing up balloons for the Añera that evening. The first birthday is the biggest in Bolivia, and we were invited. Of course then they were getting out the clown clothes and Chris and Courtney were drawing straws. Chris chickened out and Courtney put on the payazo suit and red nose.

Self explanatory. El Puente, Bolivia

By 8pm, the kids had eaten 3 courses of sweets and were sent home. The adults brought out the coca leaves and lemony singani drink, which is served family style out of a pitcher into one rotating glass. For dinner we had fricase, which is big boiled corn kernels, with potatoes, pork, and oily sauce. And then of course we watched some of the people make faces as they sipped their wine before mixing it with coca-cola or fanta. We went to bed while they had a dance party.

In the morning they were opening the presents and drinking beer, passing one glass around the room. They asked us to stay longer, then they asked us to come back one day, then they said ¨you´re doing what? biking to Potosí?¨ Yes, you only asked 4 times.

We found the paved road about 10KM away and felt good, cycling in a beautiful rolling red canyon. We camped high over the river and saw a beautiful sunset behind the mountain. The next day the road continued, beautifully paved in cement. We arrived in Camargo and stocked up at the giant central market, and ate a big fresh lunch in the lush plaza. Again, we were approached and asked to stay, this time at the Parrochia, where one of the fathers is German and welcomes foreigners to stay. Of course, the people of the city were inviting us, so we had to ask at the church, where the people were not quite as friendly as in the street. It was very strange to sleep in separate dorm rooms.

Our sunset. The road was hard but the views were breathtaking. South of Camargo, Bolivia

It was good to stop in Camargo because the pavement ended on the way out of town, because the road started to climb. For one thing, we were told that in Southern Bolivia they don´t get any of the money, which all goes to La Paz for distribution, getting lost in the corrupt government. The way people describe the Evo Morales government is ¨less corruption.¨

So they don´t have much in the way of paved roads in the south. There are sections of pavement, usually leading into or away from a city, never both. And all the worst sections of road are unpaved, made of sand, gravel, small and large rocks, usually littered with rocks the size of a fist; these are the roads that climb in straight ragged lines up the sides of mountains. One theory we came up with is that they didn´t pave these sections because they intended to bring in the earth movers and actually build a planned, gently sloping route, but never got around to it.

We had set out from Camargo and hitch hiked for the second time, gaining about 30KM and a basket full of peaches on the way to a peach orchard. We lunched and set out again up a steep paved bit of road. Then down, a turn, and we looked up at a big mountain covered in switchbacks. We felt a few rain drops, then heard an enormous thunder crash from the top. High comedy, straight from cartoons, which come evidently straight from Bolivia. At the top of the mountain it started to rain and we found a grouping of 3 houses made of earth. Two were abandoned and we had found our dry campsite.

From that point on, our legs were slightly more used to the terrain and we wanted to make a bit more progress each day. But every time the road got a bit flat, or went downhill, it turned into a washboard, or was strewn with rocks the size of our heads. Then we started to get flat tires. Chris went too fast down one hill, hit a big rock, spilled over and took an arm full of little cuts. At the bottom of the hill Courtney´s tire and tube received a big gash, so we camped.

The next day we climbed up to a big flat section of pampa and saw another beautiful sunset. Only one flat tire that day. In the morning we each had an inexplicable flat, due to moderately paced leaks. Mid morning we stopped to re-inflate and a valve exploded, giving Chris the opportunity to try out a tube whose valve had broken at the base and been fixed with a mixture of shoe goo and jb weld. Amazing fix!

We were now feeling masochistic, stopping only to fix tubes and groaning slowly towards the asphalt we knew to be close. In the evening we achieved the asphalt and got a tire and tube fixed at the Gomeria, camped behind the gas station, and had tea before bed.

Some kids that thought Chris was really cool as he fixed one of the many many flats we got along the way.

Our hearts were full of happiness, but our bodies were so exhausted we could barely keep our breakfast down. We climbed what we guess was 1000m over 35KM on the way into Potosí, before descending 500m into the city. The city is very pretty, with the ¨mountain made of silver¨ looming above.

Steep, cobbled, and colorful city streets. Potosí, Bolivia

The view of the city from the roof of our hostel, Potosí, Bolivia

Our day of rest here, Easter Sunday, and election day, has been beautiful and sunny. We took a walk and some Koreans, living here to build wells for the Bolivian govt, invited us in for coffee. ¨In Bolivia they have very fertile soil,¨ they said, ¨in Korea we don´t have good soil, so we study very hard.¨ They added that they don´t like Evo who they see as a dictator. When asked if they liked Bolivia, they replied ¨yes,¨ that they make a lot of money, and gave a classic hmm and haw to the question ¨what else do you like?¨ When we got back to our hostal, Chris layed in bed for a few hours while Courtney made him spicy soup to ease his sore throat.

During our Easter day walk we sought out the defunct train station, Potosí, Bolivia

What to do from here? Were going a short distance north to have another day of rest at Miraflores, a hot spring area.

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Tarija

2010-03-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

Tarija is a rather lovely department of Bolivia. The climate is nice, ideal for growing all year around: figs, grape vines, basil, fennel. Turn on the radio and an adorable child voice serenades the cows of Tarija.

Our humble lodging at Mauricio´s place. Tarija, Bolivia

We´ve been working with Mauricio, who has been to France and Italy, where he worked as a wwoofer himself and studied food. He´s not much of a cook, but he prepares pesto, escabeche, smokey salt, eggplant salsa, limoncello, and various other artisan products. A quick learner, full of ideas; I hope he doesn´t lose his enthusiasm.

Already we taught him how to make bread, introduced him to hummus, and invented a few recipes like fig salsa for him to try out. First thing he asked us to do was tear up the dirt out front and make an example garden. We planted radish and lettuce. Mauricio knows he won´t get much out of this plot, but he is excited to be an advocate for the home garden and the organic technique.

Our first day Courtney cut pepers for making salsa de aji. Very spicy.

We mentioned that we had written to an organic wine producer in the area; Mauricio was able to arrange a visit. It happened that he was giving a class that began 7 months prior, and was ending on what was the last day of summer here. He had hung up two pig legs in the wine cellar at the organic vineyard, Valle D´Vino, and invited us to come down for the cutting-of-the-ham. We biked through the rolling hills on a hot Saturday to meet him.

Pulling out the moldy legs of the chancho was fun. Every vegetarian has a bacon phase, so I had no hesitation about trying the two hams (ok, I´ve eaten enough meat in the last year that I can´t throw the word vegetarian around. So far in south america though, if you don´t have meat on your plate at any given moment, you´re assumed veggie.) It was tasty. Courtney didn´t try it, her willpower knows no end. Everyone she´s met has taken it upon themselves to try to convert her to carnivore, but she holds strong.

Mauricio shows us all about drying and testing dried meats, Valle de la Concepción, Bolivia

We stayed the night, bunking with a wwoofer from Arkansas on the vineyard. In the morning we woke up and chatted with the landholder, Don Jesus Romero, about the feria del queso. He agreed that we should go, and offered to take us there. First things first though. They brought a cow around and got the sugar, singani (grappa), and a few glasses. A spoonfull of sugar, a dash of singani, place your glass below the udder, stir: that´s ambrosilla, delicious, filling, and a genuine surprise that we´re not likely to forget.

Chris and the Cow! Valle de la Concepción, Bolivia

The feria del queso was fun, but better yet was the chance to be carried along by a landed gentleman who introduced us around and paid our way. He tried to show us the oldest church in Tarija, but they couldn´t find the key, so we had to make do with delicious cheeses. There isn´t much variety, but the cheese is miles beyond the poor excuses, deceptively labeled with recognizeable names that we found in Argentina, most of which turned out to be somewhere between colby and cream cheese, carrying varying amounts of salt. The festival promised to turn into a good revelry, as the Tarijeños drink plenty of wine and chicha, and they had a load of saddled horses and cows on hand, but we took off early so we could bike back to the city of Tarija in daylight.

The oldest church in Tarija Provence, just outside the Feria de Queso, Juntas de Rosario, Bolivia

We took a bottle of organic cabernet for the road, as we have been abstaining (save a few drops of singani to cleanse the raw milk, and the touch of many wines to our lips for taste) as an experiment in purification. This and a bottle of quinoa beer that we´re still searching for could destroy us if we´re at 4,000 meters when we open them after 6 weeks without. Riding a bike through wine country is always rewarding. I especially like coasting at speed, watching vine rows perpendicular to the road pass by.

The ride back into Tarija through the Valle de la Concepción, Bolivia

While we haven´t actually had a ton of work, we´ve kept busy meeting people for dinner and tea, thanks to our amiable host. And as the elections are coming up, which are obligatory, politics keep coming up. I was at first excited to be learning something new, but it seems the same old story: government poorly managing funds; foreign or nationalized corporations taking all the natural resources and earnings; inequality and resentment between the indeginous ¨campesinos,¨and the whit(er) skinned folk. Well, we´ve been getting plenty of practice speaking spanish.

They say the internet is faster in La Paz, maybe we´ll be able to upload some more photos there. In the meantime, we´re getting nearer the Bolivian border at flickr.com/photos/jellofallacy

Bolivia!

2010-03-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

So we crossed the boarder into Bolivia! We´ve been having stomach problems ever since! It´s been great. Actually it has been a mix of great and not so great. We arrived 10 days before we were supposed to be in Tarija due to a last minute change of plans so we figured we would use that time wisely and catch the train to Uyuni to see the famous Solar de Uyuni - the largest salt flat and the flattest place on earth. We are certainly wiser because of it, but it can´t really be called using our time wisely.

We first caught the train to Tupiza, which was beautiful in all directions. We hiked one day together just in the hills that break the town in half and Courtney took off for a hike through the canyons north of Tupiza the last day. We spent the time there in a Hostel which cost an amazing 7 dollars US for two for a bed and shower. Bolivia truely is cheaper than Argentina. By a lot! People were friendly enough but pushy when it comes to buying and selling. The gringo price is very real.

We only stayed for 2 nights because of our dream to see the salt flat and our limited time. The salt flat was TRUELY UNFORTUNATELY under water on all the edges making it very difficult to bike so we decided to leave our bikes in Tupiza and take the expensive but breathtaking (so everyone informed us) tour of the area. This includes lakes that change color with the wind, deserts at 5000 m above sea level, rocks that look like trees, flamingos and volcanos. The whole tour is 3 days in jeep. The landscape truely is breathtaking. There were too many highlights to catalogue. We colaborated with Paul and Coline and all shared a jeep through Juliet Tours. We felt pretty good about the whole thing the night before we left but things rapidly became clear.

The driver and his wife (the cook for the tour) hated us. Hated us. From the moment we met they were apethetic at best and on the final day they sat in the tour office and told us we were the worst kind of tourists because we didn´t buy tons of things we don´t need. They refused any offer to talk and specifically refused to learn our names by saying it was too hard even before the words were out of our mouths. They told us we were greedy for trying to get a good price on the tour. This was the information they had before getting in the car with us that made them decide that we were awful. The tour office promised many things that they didn´t mandate the tour guides to follow through on (and probably didn´t pay them enough to follow through on) such as water and a night in a hotel made of salt. So we spent 3 days with hate spilling out of the backs of the heads of our guides. Rather uncomfortable. They refused any offer to talk and specifically refused to learn our names by saying it was too hard even before the words were out of our mouths.

So we did learn something: the beautiful, not to be missed landscape that is more than challenging - life risking? - by bike, was also not worth the tour. Parts of the tour were breathtaking, but it was still a tour - 10 min here for pictures, back in the car, 10 min there fore pictures. We were too slow for the driver´s comfort, but they were too fast for ours. We had heaps of fun with Paul and Coline and took some great pictures, just like a good tourist should. But all in all, the bike tour would have shown us beautiful things in those 3 days that would have meant more to us in the end. Coline kept wondering aloud whether this spot or that was bikeable, and we worried for the safety of our bikes back in Tupiza and Courtney´s back began to ache due to the many hours of sitting in a car.

We also learned quite a bit about the mining projects beginning in the area. There is a whole town that has been relocated due to a Japanese interest in cutting down a mountain the people used to live in due to the silver inside. The school, hospital and some other services are free thanks to the money the silver brings in. The mines are employed by the Bolivians and run by the Japanese. There is also an interest in the Lithium in the salt flat. Enough Lithium for 10 generations, our guide says. But in 10 generations, there´s no salt flat, right? They are in negotiations to build a plant on the northern edge of the flat as we speak. A French electric car manufacturer is especially interested.

Bolivia is traditionally rich rich rich with minerals and natural resources, such as gas, but as a country, is poor. Other countries have the means to mine the resources and Bolivia is left with nothing to show for it.

Well after the tour was over we busted ass to get out of Uyuni the same night and spent the next day biking around Tupiza and camping in the beautiful, stunning, canyon filled, countryside. Our few hours after the tour and before the train we made a lovely goodbye dinner with Paul and Coline who we had been biking and traveling with for 2 weeks or so. We also saw a little more of the tourist trap that is Uyuni. The town would not exist if it weren´t for the salt flat. People have become bitter and money grubbing because of it. The tourist is there to take advantage of the Bolivian and visa versa. It´s an ugly scene all around.

So we spent another couple days in the area around Tupiza and then biked back to the city and took a bus to Tarija. Here we´re working with Mauricio on his small organic plot within the city limits and his artisan projects and getting to know the town. Hopefully we´ll get a chance to work with the other organic projects going on in the area. A winery, cabañas etc. Pictures to come.

Mas Norte

2010-03-06T19:01:00.000-08:00

We continued to travel north from Salta on Route 9. The road here was much less trafficked than the road north from Tucuman and much more beautiful. We wound our way up a few hundred meters the first day and camped at a lake for the evening. Courtney washed clothes and we both bathed in the shallow water before bed. The bottom of the lake was covered in grass and the water was warm. The temperature was quite a surprise considering we were ascending the Andes and had already reached about 1500m - we were thinking the lake would be cold glacier melt, like most mountain lakes in the US. There are no glaciers this far north, the lake was most likely engorged with rainwater, explaining the grassy bottom. Day 2 we cruzed down down down to Jujuy through beautiful mountain switchbacks, stopping around every third bend for another perfect photo opportunity.

After crossing the dams south of El Carmen we decided to look for a place to camp but despite the complete lack of traffic for 2 days of travel, cars came out of nowhere and we were suddenly in the suburbs of Jujuy. Land was fenced off, the cars were loud and a place to camp was no where to be found. We decided to bike into town and camp at the gas station but getting there was not easy. 3 highways converge right at the south end of Jujuy making our entrance rather tricky.

We made it to the YPF and camped. In the morning we ran errands and eventually biked out of town. The man at the hardware store where we bought feul said "Van por el norte? mucho subiendo y bajando" "going north? lots of up and down" We also met a pair of Belgians - Paul and Coline who are traveling in tandem in the same direction as us. We only made it 35 km for the day before reaching our 1000 mile mark for the trip (US portion included)!!! We were very excited, stopped, took a picture, biked one more mile and decided we were done for the day. Some days are better than others for distance. A normal day we´ll make at least 50 km.

From our campsite just outside of Jujuy at 1500m we climbed for 3 days up to the top of the pass and into the Altiplano just past Tres Cruces with an altitude of 3700m. As it turns out there´s a lot more subiendo than bajando. Almost no bajando actually. We had been climbing since Tucuman (300m altitude) but much more gradually.

After lunch on the first day we were just starting to see the first signs of rain, and the wind was rushing us northward (better than trying to turn us around). We turned a corner, however, and were suddenly in the desert. The sky cleared, the hills turned into cliffs and the vegitation was suddenly prickily. Again, we stopped at every curve to take pictures.

We got to make some fun touristy stops along the way. In Pumamarca we saw the cerro de siete colores which is a mountain side rich with layers of rock from different epochs dating back to when the Andes were in the ocean. This mountain scene was worth the 3 km we biked out of our way, but also not uncommon along the route. Everywhere we looked the mountains revealed beautiful juxtaposition of color and form. On our way out of town we ran into the Belgian couple just heading in to camp for the night.

We camped outside of Posta de Hornillos - under a tree that seemed comfortable until we realized it too was covered in 2 inch pricks - so we could see the museum there first thing in the morning. The posta was one of many stops along a route from the silver and mineral mines in Bolivia and Peru on the way to Buenos Aires. Jujuy is one of the main hubs but the colonists had to try three times to create a station there. The indigenous groups resisted and destroyed the first 2. The museum showed a map of every battle fought between the indigenous people and the colonists. Between 1814 and 1824 (for the most part) the resistence was great but eventually, as we now can see, the colonists won out. The museum also showed a collection of archeological pots, tools, and even a mummy.

After Posta de Hornillos we wound our way up to Tilcara where we stopped to gather food supplies. The Municipal Market there is absolutely amazing. Beautiful vegetables and Courtney was even able to find a pair of socks for 2.5 pesos AR. Most of the larger towns along the route had mercados municipales. There is really no better way to shop. After lunch we made our way to Humahuaca where we stayed for the night. There we met up with the Begians once again. We camped together and have been crossing paths or riding together ever since.

North of Humahuaca we worked hard to accomplish our goal of Tres Cruces for the night. There is less oxygen after about 3000m so our last day was our hardest. We would also climb the 700m in one day as opposed to the 500m the previous two. We were also going farther than we had been. The road was steep and the wind was against us for the most part but the views were the most rewarding. We were still 20 km outside of Tres Cruces at 6:30pm. We had just decided we weren´t going to make it unless something spectacular happened when the wind died down and the road leveled out. We picked up speed and made the last 20 km in 1.5 hours. Paul and Coline were there waiting for us and making bets about when we would arrive.

From Tres Cruces we flew the next 80km to Pumahuasi. The Altiplano is just what it says it is. High and flat. We stopped in Abra Pampa for lunch - again there was a mercado municipal which treated us well. In the plaza we met up with Paul and Coline who noticed a US and Austrailian pair of cyclists coming from the north. They were helpful and friendly. We exchanged information about the southern routes for information about Bolivia. Only a few meters down the road we were landed upon by a group of touring cyclists from Columbia - traveling as 17 cyclists, all together - who told us that despite the fact that Uyuni is underwater, we had to go. So here we are in Tupiza, on our way.

La Quiaca is the Argentine border town. Together with Paul, Coline, we all road early in the morning to cross over to Bolivia. We split up because, being Belgian, they didn´t need to find a bank to pay the visa fee. We then proceeded to spend 3 hours in line crossing the boarder. If you make it here, you should know that they only accept US dollars, despite the fact that we are nowhere near the US. We had to change money 3 times and work through the beaurocracy. Then we rushed to the train station in Villazon - the Bolivian boarder town - and worked our way through another few lines to buy tickets, get our bikes unloaded and then pay for the luggage. We have been told by many many people that this particular section of road is the worst in all of Bolivia so the general concensus among bicyclists is to take the very affordable train ($3 US per person).

Here we are in Tupiza, a third of the way to Uyuni, a pit stop. We´re planning on hiking a bit and hoping that magically the salt flats will dry up and we will be able to bike them. As of now, however they´re under a meter of water. fingers crossed.

El Norte

2010-03-03T16:40:00.000-08:00

Leaving Tucuman we encountered cheap empanadas and heavy rains. 30 miles north things cleared up and we stayed with Sargentos Gomez y Lopez in the Comiseria de la policia in Vipos.

Sargento Gomez shared his thoughts on the world. He´d been in the army in the Islas Malvinas when he was young. Thanks to his sane life, drinking little and keeping his head up, he still looked young. He said that most people he sees are like animals, just eating and drinking bad wine. After so many dictatorships they look down on the police, and there is no army to speak of under the current government, so the British are in control of the Malvinas, or Falkland Islands as they call them, pursuing the mineral and oil reserves.

Well, he made a big salad for us and offered bread, soda, and beef fried in oil. Ahh, the sane life.

From there we found ourselves pedaling up a slow incline towards Salta. At Rosario de la Frontera, we met Juan, truck driver of 16 years. He carried us nearly 200KM into Salta, sharing stories of cargo he´s hauled (dynamite, sulfuric acid, and now soda and beer), travelers he´s picked up (teachers, crying boys, women who spontaneously undress, men who throw around all his CDs and have to be fought away), and the story of his brother who tried to take a job of his and will never speak to him again.

Arriving in Salta by truck, one sees billboards declaring that the city no longer tolerates ilegal vending. Travelling downtown by bicycle one sees ubiquitous vendors, on every street, selling every thing. As the police walk by in pairs, the vendors turn to look the other direction and the police pretend not to notice.

Standing in the peatonal (pedestrian street) trying on sunglasses from an ilegal vendor, the tiles of the street wobble a bit. We thought so anyway, until people began streaming out of a store nearby, as the alarm had been tripped, and the earth was moving. That´s what they call it, se move la tierra. We didn´t see any damage, and it was a few days before we heard about Chile and the hundreds of people who´ve died.

Cycling north from Salta, we found the most beautiful surroundings, including a narrow highway, well-paved but practically unused. Within days we bikes through lush semi-tropical forests, beautiful valleys, until we turned a corner north of Volcon, and found ourselves in the desert.

photos to come.

Uruguay to Tucuman

2010-02-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

Our campsite at sunset. Outside Dolores, Uruguay

We rode half way to Mercedes and camped in a beautiful spot off the side of the road with the setting sun and tall grasses. We were eaten alive by ants but the mosquitos weren´t too bad.

It turned out that the warm up was a good idea. During Critical Mass in Buenos Aires, in our last few days there, we met a French couple living in BA for their daughter who wanted to learn Spanish. She had already learned French, English, and Chinese so Spanish was the next logical choice. They invited us over to a home made lasagna dinner and fantastically suggested that we ride to the next bridge in Fray Bentos instead of taking the ferry to Uruguay. We changed the idea but took it to heart. After 4 months of almost no bike riding, being dropped off at the foot of the Andes seemed a little daunting. So we did take the ferry but we biked north to the bridge in order to cross back. The bus from Rosario is over $100 US cheaper than the one from BA, and we didn´t have to pay for the ferry back.

Uruguay was beautiful, mostly flat with easy rolling hills. Farmland. Even so we were riding directly into the brutal, relentless wind and having small muscles to start, we averaged about 8 mph. Fortunately the people there are the friendliest people we´ve ever met. Always time for a chat, a tour, directions, offering help.

In Dolores, Roberto gave us a tour and invited us into his home for lunch - explained that he was poor for having 5 sons, but let us use 2 of his 3 computers with speedy internet and offered up his play station on one of his 2 TVs. We had run into him coming into town. He was waiting to pay his internet bill. We compaired prices of internet in the US and Uruguay. Still a little cheaper there.

In Mercedes Orlando helped us happily when we told him we lost our stove back at our campsite. He drove Chris back 15 km to look for it while Courtney waited with the bikes. When they returned he gleefully shouted out the window ¨NO ENCONTRAMOS!! NO ENCONTRAMOS!!¨ we didn´t find it. But he called Chris ¨Che¨ lovingly and we all got besos. Three 10 year old boys joined us in the plaza, played Courtney´s Ukulele until they broke a string, and sang us songs. They watched Chris make a new stove and all lined up for besos from Courtney and strong Norte Americano handshakes from Chris.

We were told that the Estancias of Uruguay were free to stay at and they give you food. So the night after we siesta´d in Mercedes, we went looking for an Estancia. We turned off the route onto a dirt road and biked for 6 miles into the hills and back out deciding that if there was an estancia down there, who knows how far it could be. We camped under the roof of a slightly abandoned house - well kept but empty. Good thing too, because the rain was incredible that night. The lightning was like a strobe light.

Our estancia. Outside Mercedes, Uruguay

Unfortunately Fray Bentos´s bridge has been closed in protest of the paper plant by the Argentinians for about 4 years. We talked with many Uruguayans about the conflict. There were troubles with tourism (people now having to drive 100 km north just to get home), troubles with cost of goods (it´s harder to transport goods over the boarder to Uruguay, raising the price), troubles with jobs (the commuters trying to get from Uruguay to there posts in Argentina lost their jobs. There are fewer positions available in Uruguay, something that after 4 years many people have not recovered from), not to mention the fact that the general relationship between Argentina and Uruguay has suffered. Argentina, as we now learned, has bitter relationships with Chile AND Uruguay.

The paper plant outside of Fray Bentos, Uruguay

Despite the closure, many Uruguayans suggested that we give the bridge a try. We are not Uruguayan and the closure is symbolic, so we may not have any trouble. It was worth the shot since the next bridge north was Paysandu: 100km farther north, into the wind.

We didn´t even get the chance to talk/bribe our way through the boarder. The Uruguayans stopped us first. No bikes on the bridge. But the bus to Paysandu was only $70 Uy and that´s about $3 US so we took our chances. To get the bikes on (despite the obvious amount of room) we had to argue, sweet talk, and eventually cry to get them on. The police and both drivers were ushured over. Driver no 1 said no, finally driver no 2 said, if they fit, why not? Yes, why not? So having fit bikes into much tighter spots, we were victorious and made it to Paysandu. We were not looking forward to our bus trip from Rosario to Tucuman. Turns out there´s an easier way.

The main avenue in Paysandu on Saturday Night, Argentina

As far as we were concerned, Paysandu was like Tokyo. The second largest city in Uruguay, (100,000 ppl) and lit up amazingly on Saturday Night. A vast difference when compaired with the other pueblos. We were showed the bootleg clothes and black market and directed to the free camping on the beach. ¨but it´s all underwater, so good luck¨ It was underwater. Several feet of water. But we camped up higher with the parrillas with no trouble.

In the morning we crossed the bridge without any problems at all and made it to Colon where we stocked up on supplies and headed south (winds at our backs). Argentina is building a second lane to make Route 14 a divided hwy but it´s not done yet. We had the pleasure of a whole 2 lane hwy to ourselves. Que fortuna. We made it to Caseros for the night when Courtney realized that she had left her wallet behind - we had just been to the bank so this was a huge blow. Thinking we were going to have to bike (possibly 25 miles) back to look for it, Courtney went to see if anyone could do anything to help. More than just anything, the employee of the gas station called the police and had them come to pick Courtney up. The police, for no reason at all, helped us. Courtney was driven to the last two rest spots (the second one was indeed 25 miles away) just to look for it, and THERE IT WAS! waiting for our return on the side of the new hwy. The color of dirt at this point so no one had spotted it. What luck. The police teased Courtney that her esposo wasn´t going to leave her now that she found it.

We left Caseros in high spirits but were lazy all day. We made it about 30 miles down the road, having stopped a few times (the wind had returned now that we were heading west) and eventually came to the realization that we needed to get to Tucuman to start the tour. Some how realizing this made it happen. After about 30 min of hitch hiking we were picked up by a family going to Rosario (a 3.5 hour drive away) who threw our bikes in the back of the truck and off we went. We were intertained by Juan, the youngest, and his stories about Wall-e and Lela´s (the older sister) love of Betty Boop. We made note of the fact that, if we had riden this distance, we would have been able to cross the bridge over the Parana river - there are paths on every bridge the whole 60 km between Victoria and Rosario. We also saw that those 60 km are completely flooded with water. El Niño has taken it´s toll here as well.

Our new friends who drove us all the way from Basavilbaso to Rosario, Argentina

We thought we would spend a day in Rosario but it was overwhelmingly cityish and so we just caught the 11pm bus out. The easier way to get the bikes on, bribe them. This made the cost of the bus no less cheaper than the ferry back to BA would have been, but no regrets.

Now we´re in Tucuman getting ready for ¨tour propper.¨ Today we head up the mountain dispite the pouring rain and thunderstorm the weather forcast has promised.

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Warm-up in Uruguay

2010-02-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

We started the tour!

First day we rode our bikes and put them on the train to Tigre, suburb of BA. From there we took a 3 hour ferry to Carmelo, Uruguay. As it was getting dark soon, we took a quick tour of the city to see where we might camp for the night. About one block from the ferry and we were making our first friend, Poppy. Our new dog wouldn´t get his name until we woke up the next morning to find that he was still outside our tent, watching our bikes for us.

The night we arrived was the end of Carnival, so we went downtown to watch the parade of pretty ladies, boys in white masks dressed in drag, and Mozambique (sister city?) drummers, also in a bit of drag. Poppy was with us the whole time, barking whenever we started to get on the bikes. Anytime a car would pass us, he would bark at to make sure we were safe.

Poppy, tounge out.

Day 2, February 17th, we left Carmelo going northwest towards Nueva Palmira. As we left the city, surely Poppy would leave us behind. No, Poppy wouldn´t leave us until we left route 21 to enter Nueva Palmira, about 18 KM away. That dog was hard to deter and harder to wear out. It was a shame we couldn´t keep him, but 50+ KM per day is a lot to ask of a dog.

Roberto and Chris on the Rio San Salvador

Today we´re taking our siesta in Dolores. We made fast friends with Roberto, who gave us a quick tour on his bike. He told us about the cereal grain industry here, showed us the old Molino San Salvador (still running) along the beautiful and tranquil rio San Salvador, and the statue of Artigas, the Uruguayan liberator.

The Molina (mill) San Salvador

A cool shower was next, Roberto knew exactly what we needed. Over a nice lunch, our host told us about the Argentine picketers who have kept the international bridge from Fray Bentos to Argentina closed for years, in protest over a paper mill on the Uruguayan side. The battle seems lost as the paper mill has been running awhile now, and thanks to the protests and new technology is a relatively small issue as it pertains to contamination of the river. The soy crops, he says, are a huge polluter.

But now, on towards Mercedes.

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The Why of it.

2010-02-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

Chris and Courtney are trying to make it to Lima, Peru by May 1st. A series of crazy events including a broken arm have thus far kept us from fulfilling our dream bike tour in South America. We waited it out here in Argentina and have seen many beautiful things, BUT inflation is high, work is hard to find, and wages are low so in order to make it north to Peru we're asking for help.

While we are in South America our goals are to learn Spanish, Culture, History and Agriculture. Currently we are studying Spanish in and out of the classroom. We are reading and conversing about the history of Argentina and it's neighboring countries. We have traveled to the far reaches of Argentina - gaining a broad perspective of the language and land. We have already passed many hours conversing with locals and learning about their stance on life and politics. When we set out on this adventure, we were hoping to make it more than just a vacation and we have succeeded thus far.

We want to travel to Northern Argentina, through Bolivia, Chile and Peru. From here we hope to learn about the many differences and similarities in Culture, History, and even Language these countries have to offer. Along the way we're hoping to volunteer on small farms.

In order to Achieve this goal we will need a few thousand dollars for visas, day-to-day expenses, shipping our bikes home, Spanish Lessons, and entrance fees to Cultural Events and National Parks, etc.

This is a tall order, but anything helps and the rest is up to luck and hard work. So this is technically a blog about our bike trip to Peru. And will be once we start our tour. But for now we will entertain you with stories about our time away from home thus far.

So you know just what you are contributing towards, we've constructed a tiered budget to show a continuum of comfort and completion of the trip.

Making a minimalist trip that takes us through Bolivia to Peru, and home:

$200 - taking our bikes home on the plane
$270 - reciprocal entrance fee to Bolivia for U.S. citizens
$300 - bus and train rides through un-bikeable areas (the never-ending urbanity of Buenos Aires and deserts of Bolivia)
$510 - food budget of $30/week for 17 weeks
$300 - travel insurance

The minimalist trip costs us $1580. Doing the trip as we intend to, the budget goes up:

$510 - fresh foods and the occasional bed and shower, to keep us moving while we're biking the Bolivian altiplano at 13,000 feet; again, this is over 17 weeks.
$150 - Spanish Classes
$400 - non-bicycle-activity fees such as entrance to parks for hiking the Peruvian Andes, tour of Uyuni Salt Flat, and seeing Macchu Picchu.
$500 - preparation for the inevitable: inflation, broken equipment, unexpected costs.

Our total expected costs are $2540, and the cushion money puts our goal at just over $3000.

Please donate any amount to make our trip a reality. Short-term, interest-free loans are also welcome.

To learn more about us you can jump to the first post: Bike Tour Peru

Thank you so much for checking this out!

Chapter 9: Back to BA

2010-02-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

So we made it back to our friend's house in Buenos Aires just one day before Christmas Eve and were able to get some money to buy a duck for Christmas dinner which we shared with Mike and Eliza, our friends here.

Courtney and Mike in front of Chrismas Dinner, Buenos Aires, AR

Shortly after we arrived, Andrew and Vicky showed up to go traveling with Mike and Eliza. After New Years Celebrations and Chris's Birthday Brunch all four of them headed off to the North and left us alone in the apartment for 6 weeks to walk the dogs and care for the apartment.

Chris in front of his birthday cupcakes, courtesy of Eliza. Buenos Aires, AR

Left to Right, Mike, Eliza, Andrew and Vickey leaving for their own adventure, Buenos Aires, AR

What is life like in BA? Do we get to call ourselves ex-pats or tourists? Well, life is surprisingly domestic. To keep within our food budget, we visit El Galpon - sort of like a farmer's market - twice a week for groceries. We've also discovered a similar cooperative just blocks from the house where we got a better idea of the organization of these healthy food markets. Rather than being organized around a central theme like organic or local, these markets support small farm movements in several fertile areas, thereby embodying the various ethics held by tomato farmers in Mendoza, Mate growers in Misiones, and of course local guertas - small plots producing the closest thing to organic available.

The bounty of El Galpón all for about $10 US, Buenos Aires, AR

Our day to day is spent rather calmly. We did the research and math about how long it takes to find a job, what the pay is, and how much we already have filling our days. After a few weeks of trying, we decided to call off the job search. Chris tends to stay below deck, stretching his fingers and retraining his hands to hold the violin with more precision while Courtney sunbathes on the terrace, attempting the unthinkable - she is reading, and finishing, Gravity's Rainbow.

Our Corner street art at Ravignani and Cabrera, Buenos Aires, AR

One good reason for our domestic lifestyle is our primary function here in Buenos Aires: to care for the dogs that Mike and Eliza had to leave behind. They have a dog walker but, like everyone else in Buenos Aires, he left for vacation. So our days are fairly organized around feeding, walking and exercising the pups - who have a lot of energy but need to stay in kennels every time you leave the house (lest they poop and pee and hyperventilate until you return. Strangely they seem to do just fine in the kennels in comparison). Needless to say, a long stay away from the house is hard for them.

Our charges: Inga and Emmy Lou. Plaza Mafalda, Buenos Aires, AR

When we leave the house, we study the Castellano language in the context of political questions surrounding guerillas, transportation, raw food, and worker cooperatives (having accidentally found a Spanish Teacher who loves all the same things we do). At night we attend free tango classes and various performances that the city government puts on in the plazas around the city.

Tango Aéreo in Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires, AR

We've also toured the city a little and now that Courtney is back on a bike, it's even easier to get around to see new things (naturally it has been raining ever since). We've thoroughly explored Palermo (the enormous neighborhood we live in) although there's probably many more secrets out there to see. Palermo spans across the northern part of the city along the river with the exception of Barrio Norte to the south and Belgrano to the north (neither of which are nearly the length of Palermo). It includes Palermo Soho, Palermo Viejo and Palermo Hollywood (we live in Hollywood). It's chalk full of cafes, plazas and parks. In fact a good third of the barrio is the Bosques de Palermo a park along the riverfront. We don't have money for cafes but it's quite nice to walk the dogs past all the people sitting outside them on the sidewalk under the shade of the trees drinking coffee, tea, wine, enjoying themselves. There's also Cementerio La Chacarita which is much lest touristy but equally as stunning as La Recoleta.

Family and geese under the Puente Blanco in El Rosedal - the Rose Gardens of the Bosques del Palermo. Buenos Aires, BA

We've been down south to San Telmo to see the flee market and the colonial architecture, and north to Barrio Norte to see the Cementerio La Recoleta where Eva Perón (Evita) was buried but we were turned away because of our bikes so we went to Floralis Genérica instead. We've been in the Microcentro to find camping equipment, see the masses, and view the famous Plaza de Mayo (the historical local for many a riot and revolution) and far North to Belgrano to see Barrio Chino (China Town) where they sell all the Asian and North American delicacies that are hard to come by in Buenos Aires (not without a decently sized price tag, however). Tomorrow with our Spanish teacher we're going to La Boca to talk to one of many worker-owned collectives in Buenos Aires and hopefully see some Tango.

Floralis Genérica at Plaza Naciones Unidas. Buenos Aires, AR

Chapter 8: Mendoza

2010-02-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

Wine cellar at Familia Di Tommaso, Maipú, AR

We all got on a local bus to Mendoza City where they were preparing for their yearly holiday fiesta. There was drumming and a parade to the Plaza Independencia, live music and dancing. Instead of hassling the crowds in the plaza, the police were rescuing stray children which was adorable. Quite a welcome. We walked around the city watching the festivities, enjoying the warm night air - something non-existent in Patagonia - and made a summery green pepper, tomato, and squash soup for dinner.

Mendoza police officer rescuing a little boy, Mendoza, AR

We split up our time between the city of Mendoza and the surrounding vineyards. In Mendoza, in addition to the fiesta the night we arrived, we also spent a day walking around to all the satellite plazas that represent the different European backgrounds of the city and of course one for the hero of Argentina General San Martín. San Martín was born in Argentina but schooled in Europe where he also served in the military. When he learned that his home country was going through a revolution he quickly returned to help with the fight. His efforts proved to create miraculous results: training a military force and then charging over the pass between Mendoza and Chile (which even cars today don't attempt - the pass has been closed for years and a tunnel was built in its place) to defeat the colonial forces thus liberating Chile. He later helped with the forces in other countries, trying to help them break free of colonial rule but found his efforts were not quite as helpful and retreated back to Europe where spent the rest of his life. Mendoza also has an enormous park named for San Martín in which we spent a day wandering around.

The enormous monument to General San Martín perched at the top of Cerro Gloria. Mendoza, AR

Mendoza was also the place where, for the first time, everyone seemed to think that if we camped we would die. We got our wallet stolen and everything we did was just a little too touristy and organized - even though we didn't actually do any tours. Mendoza is the famous wine region of AR. They've been making wine here for about 500 years so it's pretty good. Unfortunately some things went wrong and we only got to taste at 2 places - Ironically one of these things was Chris having to bike for an hour to get to the bank to withdrawal the money that was going to be stolen that night.

However, the perk of going wine tasting is more about the beautiful landscape than the drink. We biked, Courtney mostly one handed, around through back roads with vineyards on all sides and pretty trees. It was hot and pleasant. Any time we tried to do something outside the normal wine route everyone was supposed to be on, someone would come up and tell us that we didn't want to or couldn't or shouldn't. So we did anyway and that was fine. Wine in the grocery store is really cheap also, so since we would have had to pay 25 pesos - 10 pesos more than most fairly good bottles - each just to taste 3 wines it turned out better to have spent most of our time biking around.

Chris trying the complementary wine at the Museo del Vino. Maipú, AR

We did end up at a (highly over priced) campsite where we met a group of French exchange students on vacation from school and a German couple. They invited us to eat their "Montón de Carne" with them and we all spoke Spanish since it was the only common language we had together. We spent two nights chatting it up until 4 in the morning over the parrilla - Argentine BBQ (only to get up at 7 am for touristy activities - We found out later that they were all 20, which explains why they had so much energy). In addition to new friends, our campsite had a pool! We were able to wake up to a good swim every morning.

The morning after the wallet was stolen, however, the police picked us up to file a report and let us use their phone to call anyone who might be able to help us out. As it turned out Juan's truck was still in disrepair and he had already headed home by bus to Buenos Aires so as not to miss Christmas festivities. The police dropped us off on the highway and after a few hours we met Abrio and Julio. They were driving a tanker truck full of concentrated Quilmes beer - the Argentine beer of choice - that was ice cold (the day, however was sweltering hot) and Julio let us try some beer with the lunch that he fed us. He felt sorry for us and was completely distressed that Courtney had never eaten carne before, so he bought us dinner (hoping that Courtney would eat steak). He took it upon himself to teach us Spanish and, the following afternoon, dropped us off at a bus stop with $50 AR for a bus into Retiro - the Main station in Buenos Aires - and a 6 litre water bag full of cerveza.

Our ride. The YPF outside of Mendoza, AR

Chapter 7: Northern Patagonia

2010-02-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Us (United States) and our new friends Rachel (Malaysia), Antonio (Mexico) and Marcus (Switzerland). How very multicultural. Península Valdéz, AR

After 4 days in El Chalten we headed back toward El Calafate for a 2 am bus to Rio Gallegos where we met Matis who took us all the way to Comodoro Rivadavia. Some gap in communication lead him to leave without us in the morning but we got a ride with Hector an YPF - Yacimientos Petroleros Fiscales, once a state-owned petroleum company, now privatized due to the structural adjustments the country went through during Carlos Menem's presidency in the '90s - employee hauling a tanker of gasoline to Trelew. He was amazingly friendly and taught us all about SOLIDARIDAD. Trelew is just south of our destination of Puerto Madryn and Puerto Piramides where we were to sit on the beach with some new friends, Antonio and Rachel, and warm up after 3 weeks of cold cold southern Argentina and then go whale watching. The whales swam right under our tiny boat.

Courtney with the whale, Puerto Pirámides AR

We also met a Marcus there who had already rented a car so he took us around the peninsula. The peninsula is an animal reserve so there's plenty to see. Guanacos, Ostriches, Foxes, Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, and especially Penguins!!! Otherwise in order to tour the island we would have been set back about $360 AR pesos or $100 US so it was nice to meet a friend.

Penguin parent and chick, Península Valdéz, AR

Actually we've had a lot of luck with that sort of thing. Any time we decide that spending money is stupid - which is often - someone comes along to say, oh, well I'm already going there/doing that/spending that money, so come with me! Or they say, oh well, you can do this other thing that tourists don't really know about and is free, so try that... Great news! we say.

Another important part about the area around Trelew is that it is the rare Welsh district of Argentina. At certain points in Argentinian History, the Colonialists were regularly harassed by the Indigenous populations. Having taken away their livelihood, the Colonialists had left the Indigenous to round up the wild cattle (introduced to the area by Mendoza, the first leader to attempt to create a European settlement where Buenos Aires now sits. The cattle and horses were left behind when the settlement was declared a failure and the inhabitants fled to Paraguay. Over the next several decades, with no natural predators, the cattle and horses multiplied and spread across the Pampa.) and sell it to the settlements on the other side of the Andes Mountains, European and Indigenous. These men were known as Gauchos. The Argentinean version of a cowboy. Today there is still a strong Gaucho presence in the plains of Argentina, although the outlaw aspect of it has dissipated. Gauchos are an important part of the mystique and identity of the country.

Unfortunately, the Cattle began to dissipate as well and the many a Gaucho was left to raid villages for his livelihood. At this point, General Julio Roca lead an army into the South to annihilate over 1300 Indigenous leaving Patagonia open to settlement. Roca was made a hero and the next president of the country. During his presidency Roca used the newly opened land as a system of patronage in order to consolidate his power. He later used this power to defeat indigenous groups in the Northern parts of the country. Roca also highly encouraged European immigration in order to fill the open space. Between 1880, the beginning of Roca's presidency, and WWI, 6 million Europeans immigrated to Argentina from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Ireland, and Wales.

The Welsh mark can be found in Trelew and the surrounding towns. We found ourselves in Gaiman, after Marcus dropped us off on the way to the airport where he would fly to Ushuaia and his grand adventure to Antarctica. Gaiman is proud of their Welsh roots and is speckled with Casas de Té where you can fill up on 15 different types of traditional Welsh cakes and as much tea as you can drink. It was quite the experience. It was also raining outside. Pouring. And as we left the tea house (after 2 hours of attempting to finish all the different cakes) we managed to find a nice tree to sit under while we contemplated our next move. We were attempting to make our way clear across to the east side of the country to El Bolsón. Finally deciding that the rain was not going to let up we began to walk to the edge of town and were flagged down by a nice man named Domingo with a wood factory who offered us a place to pitch our tent in the one miraculously dry spot in all of Gaiman. Domingo is named such because his feet are too big and don't fit into any work shoes. He wears relaxed Sunday shoes all year round. In the morning he told us all about how Gaiman is full of Welsh and how important that is (he being Welsh descended himself). We thanked him greatly for his hospitality and headed toward the road.

Chris, sipping properly in front of our elaborate Welsh Tea Service, Gaiman, AR

In Trelew we might have been able to find a ride in a Semi-Truck but in Gaiman there was no truck-stop so we waited with our thumbs out, got a ride to the next town and were told we probably wouldn't make it more than half way that day. He was right, in that every car we saw driving in our direction turned off into town. But miraculously two adorable Chilean tourists stopped for us and took us all 700 km to Esquel, only 100 Km south of where we wanted to be. We had lunch in the Plaza and walked to the edge of town where we camped and got up early to get another ride the rest of the way.

Our Chilean tourist heroes posing for a picture, Ruta Nacional 25, AR

El Bolsón is something like an Argentinian Bellingham or Santa Cruz. They are famous for their artisan beer and their hippies. At our campsite we met some friendly people and learned some good Argentinian Slang. We also got on a bus to Lago Puelo where the campsite had become a river and walked around for a day. It's especially gorgeous there. In the town they have a artisan craft fair 3 times a week where one can buy jams, chocolate, cheese, jewelery, cutting boards and furniture.

The artisan craft fair, El Bolsón, AR

The lake at dusk, Lago Puelo, AR

On our way out of town we visited the brewery and were able to taste a few. Unlike microbreweries in the US, the El Bolsón Cervecería is famous for their fruity beers - such as raspberry, cherry, even honey flavored beer. We camped outside of the YPF and got up at 6 am to talk to the truck drivers on their way out of town. Jorge, the first person we asked, gave us a ride all the way to Neuquin, not without delays but we had fun all the same, where we spent another night. In the morning we had some trouble figuring out where the best place to be to head toward Mendoza was but eventually landed ourselves on the right highway and got a ride from Juan who took us all the way to San Martín. Juan was another gem of the highway. He was so friendly and we even shared dinner together - cooking on his fancy propane stove he keeps under the truck (there's a pull down cabinet door that works as great counter space). He wanted to learn some English words and he taught us plenty of Spanish. It started pouring rain so we finished our dinner in the empty refrigerator cargo hold where he let us sleep for the night. His truck was having technical problems but he told us that once it was fixed he would take us back with him to Buenos Aires.

Occupying ourselves while we wait for a job to be done on way to Neuquén, Ruta Nacional 237, AR

Chapter 6: Ushuaia y Parque National de Los Glaciares

2010-02-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

We quickly traveled from the northernmost city, Iguazú, to the southernmost, Ushuaia - the city at the end of the world, as they love to exploit. As it turns out, Ushuaia actually IS amazing and gorgeous. Mountains surround the city on all sides. They're white with snow so the vista from any given point is perfect. We spent a few days in the Tierra del Fuego National Park. At this point, we got our first taste of "everything costs more than you think it will," a symptom of Argentina's particularly fast and repetitive inflation. The bus driver says that the campsite costs $12 AR but when you get there it costs $18 AR. The Book says $5 AR. We didn't even account for the bus ticket or Park Fee which turned out to be a total of $110 AR each. But none-the-less, the park was amazing.

The omnipresent, and quite friendly Chimango in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.

We camped close to Cerro Guanaco and hiked to the top the next day. It was steep and quite a climb but not unattainable. And, if you do reach the top, you're rewarded with beautiful views. We took 6 hours and were well worn out by the time we got back. We decided to take the next day a little easy and just do a 6km coastal hike. Seemed nice, and was, but it was our first time hiking with backpacks on in quite a while. So once again, we were all tuckered out by the time we reached the edge of the park and rather than walk the next 12 km into town we met a nice couple who drove us the rest of the way. Ushuaia as a city is beautiful and so the next day we really DID take it easy and just walked into town from our campsite and toured the prison. The prison was not technically a penal colony but often was treated and viewed by outsiders as such. It was something of a South American Siberia. We also walked downtown to eat some chocolate - something that Patagonia is evidently famous for.

A hardened criminal, right where he belongs.

There's plenty of evidence all over Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego of the indiginous population: the Yámana. History is widely available in the prison and town. In the National Park you can view the archeological sites of their Middens (trash piles outside the front door of their dwellings - the Yámana consistently shifted the opening of their homes away from the wind so the pile becomes more of a moat over the years.). They were canoe going people who were all but whiped out by the colonial populations. They were viewed as a particularly savage race. Their language was their culture and the only thing they really built were canoes. They were likely not very cooperative in helping the colonists. Some Yamaná were taken, to be "civilized," back to Europe but the venture was a failure and they were dropped back off on the shores of Tierra del Fuego. Jimmy Button, one of the Indigenous that traveled to Europe is known to be responsible for killing several missionaries himself. The last living Yámana, and only speaker of its language, is said to be over 80 years old.

The next day we headed for a 2 day hike over a mountain pass, el Paso de la Oveja. The first day we spent walking through a beautiful valley. We began to ascend the mountain only during the last few hours of the day. Our guidebook described a serene mountain lake whose shores would make an ideal campsite. It also said we could follow the guanaco tracks over the pass. It turns out there's still a lot of snow in November. We camped in the snow with no lake in sight, and did a fire dance to get warm, which actually made the stove work. Before reaching the top of the pass on the second day we spent 4 hours in snow at times up to our waist. For a while it seemed that we would not make it. We certainly couldn't see the guanaco tracks. The snow was pristine and beautiful. When we finally did reach the pass we were rewarded with a small yellow stake - the first trail marker since the afternoon before. As we traversed beyond the pass, we walked high above the canyon and had some fun sliding down the steep sides of the mountain on our butts with our rain pants on.

Stepping outside of our comfort zone. Paso de la Oveja, Ushuaia, AR.

We got back to Ushuaia after 10 hours of hiking and somehow still managed to walk into town to buy dinner supplies and make a delicious seafood soup. Courtney fell asleep with her head on the table and we weren't able to make part two of dinner so we ate the ravioli for breakfast and realized it was Thanksgiving. We Cheers'd and then set out to leave Tierra Del Fuego and head for El Calafate.

The journey was long and cold. Ushuaia is quite balmy compared to the rest of the Island of Tierra del Fuego and at one point we were riding in the back of a pickup for 90 km with several large logs of wood and a couple of bags of raw fish as our company. Although they were going EXACTLY where we needed to go, we were MUCH too cold and got out at the Chilean boarder where we met two other truck drivers who took us a good distance - Rio Gallegos - where we caught the bus to El Calafate.

We've been hitchhiking around because buses are too expensive. Our Spanish is so much better now thanks to the days and days we've spent with truck drivers trying to communicate. This country is enormous and no matter where we went there was 1000 km to pass through first and it would take us at least 2 days of hitching to get there. But Argentinians, so far, are really nice and love to teach Spanish so that's lucky. Some are polite, while others are downright friendly, buying us sweets, sharing meals with us, helping us when we were down and out.

Everyone who comes to El Calafate is there to see an enormous glacier, Perito Moreno. So we went and watched it slowly advance upon us. It was beautiful. A must see. They know this and rob you blind - the bus there picks you up 1/2 hour late and leaves 1/2 hour early and costs $1 AR per Km - $80 AR in total. Then you pay the park entrance fee of $60 AR. The best is when you learn that residents pay $6 AR or less. Sigh. But then, it's only fair. The Argentinian National Parks are the only or one of the few National Park systems in the world that are self funded. So we're proud to participate in that.

Perito Moreno, calving. El Calafate, AR

Perito Moreno is inside of Los Glaciares National Park. Half of the park is made up of the largest continental ice extension after Antarctica. This ice field creates 47 big glaciers, 13 of which flow to the Atlantic. There are also more than 200 smaller glaciers in the park, unconnected to the Ice Caps. The glaciers are remarkably low down making it possible to approach them on foot. Perito Moreno is roughly the size of Buenos Aires. It is so popular because of it's easy visibility, provided there's not a blizzard going on, it's location on the lake which makes a quite stunning vista and the fact that it is one of the very few advancing and stable glaciers in the world. In the afternoon when it warmed up a bit we saw it calving - shedding 5 story towers of impacted snow into the lake below; it is advancing by 3 meters per day. We were able to ride in a boat right up to it (very dangerous supposedly, and now that we've seen the calving, we can see why) to fish out an enormous chunk of ice that rich people can put in their $30 ounce of bourbon. But it's the bourbon that cost money, not the ice so we got a few chunks for our water bottle. Mmmm Fresh!

Later that day we also went to a bird reserve on Laguna Nimez for free that no one knows about and that they have evidently neglected to put in the guide books for the past 6 years. Good thing our guide book is an antique. The reserve was home to many species. The prize birds were the pink Chilean flamingos, with wings the color of sunset. It was beautiful. Beautiful.

We got on a bus to El Chalten to do some more hiking. El Chalten is in the northern part of Los Glaciares National Park and the trekking capital of Argentina. The expected route was short - 3 days - and full of beautiful views of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre Mountains; a few stunning lakes, glaciers and valleys as well. We passed the downtime chatting with friendly Germans Tourists who had followed us all the way from our campsite in El Calafate to each of our destinations in El Chalten. At one point we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up 1 km south of where we wanted to be. Fortunately the trail we met up with took us to the right place so the worst that happened was an extra 45 min of walking through gorgeous valleys. Plus, the trail we turned on to took us away from all the other tourists - El Chalten is packed with everyone in the country who wants to take a walk - for several hours and was not without it's vistas.

The "wrong" trail. El Chaltén.

Chapter 5: BA y Iguazú

2010-02-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

Chris's college buddy Mike picked us up at the airport. He and Eliza have been living in Buenos Aires for 3 years and have found a beautiful apartment and group of Argentine and ex-patriot friends. They showed us around their neighborhood, Palermo and took us to visit Tigre - like coney island or coney beach, with river boats, hundreds of parrilla restaurants, and a ferris wheel.

We went to the Iguazú waterfalls, known in Argentina as Las Cataratas, and actually stayed in a hostel. We thought we would call it our romantic getaway because we were spending a little more than we would usually. Turns out Iguazú is actually the most romantic place ever. The first day there we fell head over heals in love and the waterfalls were magical, beautiful and perfect. The next day we watched other couples falling under the same spell. We saw kisses aplenty. All around us boys and girls were running off to make out and again, everything was marvelous. It had just rained incredibly hard when we arrived. In fact, most of the tourists were on their way out of the park as we headed in, so as to avoid the torrential storm going on. But they missed out because the falls (250 in all) were even more powerful and amazing thanks to the added rain water.

We hitchhiked to San Ignacio to learn about the history of the area. Misiones, the province in which Iguazú is located, is a rare part of Argentina that juts into Brazil and Paraguay. Here the land is green, lush and tropical, much unlike the rest of the country, the majority of which is an enormous plain filled with Guanaco and shrubbery. Strangely, the tropics here make their mark on the rest of the country. For instance, tropical birds can be found all the way in Ushuaia.

In San Ignacio there are Jesuit ruins. The Jesuits colonized this area of South America, and did so rather successfully. There were obviously problems with the colonial rule, but the Guarani were possibly the best off. They were an effective, co-operative style, farming community and were taught Spanish, Latin and Guaraní in school and the Jesuits often intermarried with the Natives. Unlike much of indigenous groups the rest of the country the Guaraní were treated as more than slaves and survived as a group much longer. They also proved to be a highly successful army. But, alas, other colonizers became jealous of the easy workforce the Jesuits had under their thumb and the Jesuits were expelled from Argentina, by order of the Spanish Crown. The Guaraní were entrusted to the Franciscans and sold as slaves. A few Guaraní live today and the language is spoken by many intellectuals.

Chapter 4: New York, New England, Philadelphia

2010-02-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Sharron's kitchen aka Wedding Catering Central, Brooklyn, NY

Nif and Damian's wedding was promising to be tons of fun. Many people had made the trip from San Francisco to attend. We helped make food and zines for the celebration and visited with a few friends. Chris went off to the bachelor's party and Courtney to the bachelorette's. As it would happen, instead of attending the wedding, Courtney would flip over her bicycle that very afternoon and break her arm in three places. She laid on the side of the Manhattan Bridge waiting for Chris to come find her and for the ambulance to arrive. Bicyclists gave her the thumbs up and David Byrne stopped to ask if she was OK. Instead of the wedding, Courtney got surgery and spent 3 days in Bellevue Hospital. Each day Chris did physical therapy on his Achilles by walking 3 miles to and from the hospital to bring Courtney fresh juice. Along the way Chris visited old friends from school and camp, Alix and Maggie.

Courtney is thrilled. Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan, NY.

After the hospital, Caitlin and then Christi let us stay at their tiny Lower Eastside apartments despite the obvious lack of room. After a few days of recovery we hopped on a MegaBus for only $1 each to Boston where we stayed with Alex and Dace, and then Bonnie. Alex was an old friend of Courtney's from school who we hadn't seen in two years. Bonnie had just moved to Boston to start Grad School. We got to see Alex's settled in life and Bonnie's new Boston career all in one visit. We went to the Institute of Contemporary Art (www.icaboston.org/) and the Cambridge Brewing Company. Bonnie showed us her College grounds and Dace took us to his art studio Open House.

A view from the Williamsburg Bridge.

In between Boston and Philadelphia (where we would fly out of to get to Buenos Aires) we stayed in New York again, this time at Sharron's apartment in Brooklyn, and got to spend some time with the new Bride and Groom.

Courtney is still thrilled. Summerville, MA.

We arrived in Philadelphia as apple season hit the Mitten, our co-op house host - the neighborhood had overtaken their yard and fresh cider was in abundance. We attended the Peoplehood parade, took long walks through the "wasteland" and were present for the Mitten's dinner theater: Food themed after the musician of the evening - Patrick Elkins featuring Legs on Percussion (http://www.myspace.com/patrickelkins). Everyone we stayed with after the broken arm incident was overly helpful and kind. We were offered beds to sleep in and Courtney's lethargy was excused. Thanks.

Peoplehood Parade, West Philiadelphia, PA.

And so, off we flew to Argentina.

Chapter 3: Bike Tour, Take 2

2010-02-02T10:50:00.001-08:00

Cluster of VW Bugs in the Appalachian Mountains

In Wooster, OH, at Aunt Jacqui and Uncle Rick's place, Rick suggested that Chris slide his cleats all the way back along his bike shoes to reduce the movement in his ankle. This was marvelous advice. We were able to ride all the way from Wooster to Harrisburg, PA with no further problems. Even after Courtney's Achilles began to go the same way, the cleat trick worked to avoid injury.

We passed the first day on the Sippo Valley Trail - A Rails-to-Trails path (http://www.railstotrails.org/). We camped on the side of the trail just outside of Canton. This time around we reduced our mileage to about 30 or 40 miles a day instead of shooting for 60 and 70. We saw more and spent more time at lunch and in towns or trails along the way. We were much more relaxed and injuries ceased.

Mornings are cold in Ohio and Pennsylvania in September. We stopped for a warm up coffee in Canton and then headed down the road toward Homeworth, OH. This was not intended as our destination but we stopped to ask for a refill of water and Steve, busy taking care of a hornet nest in his back yard, was happy to oblige. We were only a mile down the road when his friend caught up with us in a fancy red Ford Fiesta to tell us that Steve wanted to invite us to camp in his yard and feed us dinner "It's after 5 now, you won't be getting much farther tonight."

We ate salad and chatted with Steve. Sat on his deck and watched the sunset. In the morning we set off down Georgetown Rd - a quiet road with short steep bursts of hill, made a wrong turn and ended up on a numbered highway, which on Sunday, was quiet and calm with slow rolling hills. This road carried us straight into Lisbon, OH and the Johnny Appleseed Festival. Home made delicacies, free apples and live fiddle music, for Chris's extreme enjoyment.

We picnic'd amongst the festivities and chatted with some people to get new directions. They gave us all the wrong numbers but we got the basic idea and set off toward East Liverpool, OH. We ended up riding along HWY 30 which, at first is rather small but turns suddenly into a 4 lane divided highway. 30, otherwise known as Lincoln HWY, was once THE cross country road to New York. The history this road could share is unimaginable. This was not our first time encountering it but, these days, we had made a point to not stay on it too long. Many cars passing at fast speeds isn't good for bike riding. It was still Sunday, however, and most everyone was at home or elsewhere so we enjoyed a pleasant 15 miles of easy highway grades and wide shoulders before ending up in E Liverpool. This was to be our last night in Ohio, and it was quite a send off.

We parked ourselves along the waterfront where many people were enjoying the last sun rays of their Sunday evening. When we asked someone if they knew of a place to camp for free, the troops were rallied in. Everyone was asked and everyone had a suggestion. Advice wasn't the only thing they had to offer. We were told stories about the town and it's generosity (such as the story of the two elderly ladies who sold their houses and moved into a boat that they were sailing down the Ohio River toward Louisiana. They had some engine trouble and ran aground right in E Liverpool. They ended up having to stay there for several weeks. People made them food, helped with engine technicalities, and organized to get their retirement checks sent to the office in town. These adventurous ladies were on their way and in good spirits.). Eventually someone called the town guard over to ask if we could camp right there along the river. Sure, no problem, I'll get the security to check on you once an hour to make sure you're OK.

Our beautiful Campsite on the Ohio River in E Liverpool

We made it the next day to Pittsburgh where we stayed with Cara and Cleveland, friends from San Francisco. They showed us around. Two big things were happening in Pittsburgh when we arrived. 1. We had gotten there just before the G-20 conference so there was an air of political tension which would break down into chaos. The sidewalks were caged up, military police were everywhere and many streets were shut down. 2. The Steelers were playing against Chicago. And they lost. For 60 miles outside of Pittsburgh all anyone seemed to want to talk about was the Steelers. 'Where you going in Pittsburgh? The Stadium?' 'Oh, you're coming from Chicago? That's where the Steelers are.' 'Don't tell anyone you've ever even heard of Chicago...'

We left Pittsburgh after a few days. We biked out just as the official rallies were beginning and headed North East on quiet roads. On our way, we passed the Bell Township where we were transported to a perfect Pennsylvania fall day. Crossing a bridge over a picturesque lake and cruising into falling golden leaves. We reached Slickville, PA where we spent the night outside of a Fire station. We were woken twice in the middle of the night by a brutal end-of-the-world alarm, or what we imagine the atomic bomb drills must have sounded like.

But this time the world didn't end and in the morning we hopped on a Rails-to-Trails path to Ebensburg, a city at 2000 ft which you hardly notice with the easy rail grade that the path provides. We passed two days away from cars on a few forested trails. These were gorgeous. Pennsylvania is lucky to have them: The West-Penn Trail, The West Mooreland Trail and Finally the Ghost Town Trail - a path that took us through the, now non-existent, Ghost towns of the old coal mines in Pennsylvania. We got to see the ruins of a few Coal Ovens and learned a bit about the history of the area. The Hoodlebug trail, however, was not a trail at all, and if you ever find yourself looking for it, we advise you to find another route.

As we rode into Ebensburg it began to pour down rain. We have full rain gear so we were prepared but attempted to wait out the rain none-the-less. As we were riding through town we discovered that Ebensburg was having their annual Potato Festival. Potato everything was available to view and purchase. We were stopped by a local couple and asked what on earth we were doing with these bikes all loaded up. We chatted for a minute and the man got his friends who were working outside a diner to watch our bikes for us while we stepped inside for a cup of coffee. As we were saying goodbye, he gave us $5 for our first cup. Even the diner was celebrating and had a special potato menu so we enjoyed french fries and potato pierogis with our coffee.

Courtney taking a break from the rain outside of Roaring Springs, PA

As we left town the rain only got harder and we chose to wait under a few over passes for the storm to stop. Little did we know it would take days. But, while waiting, we hailed down Marty who took us 27 miles to Roaring Springs, PA. We talked about the new windmills and the loss of trees and hunting land due to them. We talked about work, lack of work and "green jobs." Marty had just lost his job as a truck driver and was out for a Sunday Drive to no where in particular. We made it to Roaring Springs long before we would usually stop for the day and had only biked 15 miles that morning and afternoon. So we braved the rain once more and headed up Henrietta Mountain Rd. A road that everyone seemed to enjoy telling us was a tough one.

We were just about to ascend the steepest part when the roads confused us and we stopped an adorable high school couple on their way to Home Coming - both looking dapper, the girl with perfect blond curls. Which way to HWY 26? About 3 miles, right? Great! Thanks!!

Two thirds of the way up Henrietta Mountain Rd we were stopped by an older relaxed looking man in blue jeans and a beard who insisted on offering us a place to stay for the night. As it turned out, the young boy in the car had called his dad and informed him that two Mennonites - this area of PA is highly populated with Mennonites - were biking up the hill (in this pouring rain) and could use a hand, if not a change of clothes. So he, Collin, had driven down his equally steep driveway and sat in his car waiting for us to reach him. Deborah and Collin let us wash our clothes, fed us soup, pizza, canned peaches and many other home made delicacies. They even opened a bottle of wine to share. We slept in a bed with a poster of Vashon Island, WA above our head. Andrew, the son, came home in the morning and we were able to thank him for the phone call.

Going up Henrietta Mountain Rd is hard. Going down, is scary. But we made it and thus began our travels through the mountains of Pennsylvania. Up and down. Through the trees and towns. Names like Burnt Cabins, Broad Top, Newville, Newburg; so many burgs. In Newville we camped outside of a church and in the morning one of the daycare counselors kindly asked if we had any interest in talking to the kids about the bike tour. We got to answer questions. Show them our bikes and rain gear. Listen to them tell us about how their dad does the same thing or how long their longest bike ride was. Little girls talked to Courtney about how they liked to bike too. Boys asked us what kind of bike computer we had. We showed off a little by stretching and they imitated us and then we rode away and everyone waved goodbye.

In the valley after a three mile descent from Broad Top, PA.

We arrived in Harrisburg a few days before we were supposed to be in New York for our friend's wedding. We had decided to take a bus from there so we could help out with wedding preparations. But after many days of riding through mountains, the valley just outside of Harrisburg was a breeze so we arrived in Harrisburg early and were able to explore the city a little before heading out again. Harrisburg is quite beautiful in an old broken down colonial sort of way. Even downtown is pretty - separated by a river and connected by a dozen unique bridges. They even have their own microbrewery. The Great Wall Chinatown bus took us all the way for only $25.

Quite evening waiting for the bus on the Harrisburg riverfront.

Chapter 2: Recovery

2010-02-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

Chris was bed ridden for a week with a strained Achilles tendon and it was 2 more weeks before we could get back on our bikes. We visited Chris's family outside of Cleveland, OH, catching up with Grandpa Gene and Judy, who in relaxed fashion ("no parties this year") cooked food and tracked down Janik descendants from near and... about an hour away: Jill, Jacqui, Andy, Joe, Jesse, Lauren, Dominic, Aiden, and of course the dutiful spouses. And knowing that Chris would miss Mannie's wedding, we met up with him for dinner and excellent local beer at the Fat Head Brewing Company on our way back to Michigan.

The Wheatland traditional music festival represents Chris's annual homecoming.

Aside from attending the actual festival with Ben, Liz, Geno and Tish, we saw Erin (Chris's sister) and Brian, and made a couple trips to Bell's Brewery - where one drinks the finest microbrews and inevitably runs into old friends. Finally we were ready enough and house-crazy enough to get back on the road.

Chapter 1: Bike Tour, Take 1

2010-02-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

We set out from San Francisco by train, leaving a mess behind us as we scrambled to pack everything up at the very last second. Our roommate, Hannah, woke up at dawn to drop us off at the train station. We said our goodbyes and chugged across 2/3rds of the country to Chicago.

When we got arrived, after 2 days of travel, Amtrak had lost our bikes and a box of luggage. We spent a day without a care in the world - except perhaps that we wouldn't see our bikes again and maybe the whole trip would be canceled. BUT! then the bikes and the luggage showed up only 25 hours later and we were back on track... well, a day late.

We spent the next few days putting our bikes back together, mounting our racks, (which, contrary to every other rack ever, are very complicated and call for tools such as a hack saw...) and finishing our panniers - we were attempting to sew them ourselves on home sewing machines. We were offered a few different sewing machines in Chicago, but after exhausting all our options and with our bags only 80% completed, we finally met a woman who helped us to finish the job. Exchanging money for services. Imagine. Ben (Chris's brother) and Liz and their housemates were kind enough let us take over their house for a few days, trying to get organized.

While we were in Chicago we saw our friends from our respective past lives, Muriel from high school in Seattle, Dana from college in New York, Christina from the bike world of San Francisco, Becky, Mike, Sarah, Vinh, Jeff and Ben from university in Michigan. A whole country of people packed into the city. We had a music jam in the practice space, attended an outdoor concert, enjoyed many meals with Ben and Liz, went out dancing, and overall had a great time.

Once we had achieved some kind of cohesion with our things we set off. We had only stopped working a week before leaving San Francisco and this experience taught us that more time is necessary to prepare for such a long trip. On our first day riding we made it 40 miles outside of Chicago, to a town called Lake Bluff. To get there we rode along the coast of Lake Michigan through the hours and hours of suburbs. It was actually quite beautiful, though slow with much competition of traffic. Next we biked straight west to Rock Cut State Park, just outside of Rockford, IL. We stayed in the park an extra day then headed north to Madison. Chris started noticing that his ankle hurt about 20 miles outside of town and by 10 miles out we had to stop and wrap it. But we reached the city and rushed to the Willy st co-op where Courtney had remembered she could get some Kombucha from the last time she was there. We bought some produce and asked if there was some place we could camp around town. A nice girl named Addie, said that we could sleep on her couch. She walked us to her place and set us up and then went back to work. We showered and went to bed (we get up at around 5:30 with the sun, so we're passed out by 9:30).

We planned to be back on the road and heading toward Minneapolis and the 2009 Bike!Bike! At the rate we were going, we would be 2.5 days late (for a 4 day conference) and Chris could barely walk the next day due to his ankle. So we ended up staying three nights in Madison instead of one. Realizing that we were rushed to make it to Minneapolis, we recalled one of the reasons we had chosen to travel by bike in the first place: It's important to take time and allow for serendipity. We changed directions and planned to ride up and over lake Michigan through northern WI and the Upper Peninsula.

Addie continued to be nice. She, Caleb and April, two of her housemates, had just gotten back from some long tours and were happy to help. So our 3 days there were lovely, hanging out with our magnificent new friends, getting to know the community there and seeing the city. We took bike rides, played bocce ball and made a taco bar. When we finally left, however, we were only 20 miles outside of town when Chris was pretty sure we wouldn't make it to our destination for the day: Beaver Damn; much less up and around Lake Michigan. We stayed in the yard of some nice Wisconsinites who we encountered sitting in their garage watching the storm come in. They chatted with us for a few hours and seemed to make a celebration of our presence. They showed us their can crusher wall attachment (insert can, pull lever, flattened can falls out bottom into properly placed waste bin. VOILA!). And fed us cheese and crackers like proper Midwestern hosts would.

In the morning we proceeded to bike - very very slowly - toward Milwaukee so we could take a ferry across to Muskegon, MI. Chris is a total trouper, although he probably should have said, "I'm not biking another stroke!" and we should have probably hitchhiked the rest of the way, but we made it to a bar in North Lake, WI, a super suburb of Milwaukee. Tim, a patron, let us camp in his back yard. Another man named Chris actually bought the whole bar a round - an act we've never actually encountered before - trying to impress the barista. "Do you want another beer or a shot!?!" the barista demanded, as she pulled out two shot-glasses. "we have a choice?" said Courtney. As it turns out, everyone got the shot. "A smoothie" otherwise known as Jack Daniels.

Tim woke up surprisingly early and convinced us to let him drive us into Sussex. In light of Chris's injury, we had decided to take a nice city bus with front racks for our bikes. The only morning bus left at 7 am and by 8 we were dropped in Milwaukee, a mile away from the ferry. At 12:30 we boarded and were warned of 5 to 7 foot waves and possible sea sickness. "eh, we'll be FINE" we thought. But no, not really. We both got sick and lost most of our breakfast. Tish, Chris's Dad's friend who lives in Grand Rapids, MI, was so nice and picked us up from the ferry with her sedan and her bike rack and drove us to her house. This is a 40 mile ride, so the advantage was wonderful. Geno (Chris's dad) had just left for California to hang out with Chris's sister and her lovely children, and had left his car with Tish. So we drove Geno's Car back to Kalamazoo, but not before making good conversation and being fed a wonderful vegetable bake and some fresh picked blueberries.

Bike Tour Peru

2010-01-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

In case you happened upon this page and want to know more about us:

Courtney and Chris make their home base in San Francisco, California. We co-created the event space the Caretakers where we host classes, events, and rehearsals. When in San Francisco, Courtney and her co-chef's run a small monthly restaurant at the Caretakers.

Before setting off on this adventure, Courtney was a volunteer mechanic and accountant for 3 years at the Bike Kitchen in San Francisco (http://www.bikekitchen.org/).

Chris likes to play the fiddle and ride bikes. He is currently hauling his fiddle all over the Americas strapped to the back of his bicycle.

Chris and Courtney were core organizers of the 2008 Bike!Bike! in San Francisco: a Conference of Community Bicycle Projects across the nation and abroad (http://www.bikebike.org/). Chris organized fundraising events, designed the website, and administered registration; Courtney was in charge of all meals, fundraising and donations. The conference was a huge success.

Leading up to this bike tour, we have toured from Seattle to Portland, San Francisco to Point Reyes and Chicago to New York (http://blog.timesunion.com/bike/category/bloggers/andrew-lynn/). Each of these tours have taken very different forms and taught us a lot about bike touring and the areas in between destinations.