Journal

Costa Rica

thefuegoproject — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:33:00 GMT

La Cruz to Rio Sereno 12/10/09 to 3/11/09 - 952 km (total km’s 17700)

Costa Rica, Pura Vida

One of the joys of bike touring is not always so much about the riding, but it’s about getting to out of the way places and experiencing nature. We had really wanted to see nesting sea turtles at some stage in Central America, and from the map it seemed like a beach called ‘Playa Ostional’ might be a chance. However when we asked about riding there along the coastal dirt road from Playa Tamarindo, everyone (the nay-sayers) told us “it’s not possible at this time of year, there’s too many river crossings and no bridges...no, no es posible, es un camino muy malo”. Well that’s just like saying “go ahead and try it” to us, after all what’s the worst that could happen?...we could always turn back!

Well the coastal road on the Nicoya Peninsula turned out to be one of the more memorable days riding in Costa Rica, almost no traffic, past deserted beaches and only two river crossings, the first we could ride through and the second was only ankle deep (well our socks did get wet!), but nothing like we were made to believe.

Nobody had however mentioned the hills. The short steep pinch climbs out of the creeks that characterised the coast was the hardest thing about this section of riding. But otherwise an awesome ride. This is really what bike touring is about...it is about the riding, riding dirt roads to nearly inaccessible beaches to hopefully see turtles laying eggs. And with that we rode out of the forest and alongside the wild Pacific Ocean and Playa Ostional.

Playa Ostional is a long black sand beach, littered with driftwood, the remains of turtle eggs, stray dogs, hundreds of black vultures (‘Zopilotes’), and the raging pacific coast surf. What a dramatic place the olive ridley turtles have chosen to return to year after year to lay their eggs. This beach is the most important olive ridley nesting spot in Costa Rica and one of only a few in central america and the world where this species of turtle comes ashore simultaneously in their thousands to lay their eggs at the same time. These events are known as ‘arribadas’ (or arrivals) and occur once or twice a month between August and November.

The ‘Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Ostional’ (the beach at Ostional) is under the protection of the Costa Rican government, but here they are in conflict with a local community organisation ADIO over conservation of the turtles. Both say that the other is only after the ‘money’and doesn’t care about conservation, and both say that you should only go with one of their guides, the local ADIO guides, or the accredited government guides. We were not sure which side of the story to believe, but chose to go with an accredited guide. Unfortunately the apathetic girl from ‘Cabinas Ostional’ forgot to organise our ‘accredited’ guide so at 10pm, with no lights on and no sign of a guide we decided not to waste the night and make our way down to the beach on our own.

It was dark and eery and the beach seemed heavily guarded with patrolling spotlights every 100 metres or so, “maybe we shouldn’t be out here” I thought, but Anna, not to be put-off that easily, approached the first spot-light. It turned out to be the president of ADIO (the local community group), who initially was bothered by us being on the beach without a guide. But he must have warmed to our case, because he then said “i’ll take you down the beach and show you a nesting turtle if you like”. Barefoot, we followed him across the river, and along the beach until his torch crossed a turtle track, where he turned at right angles and took us up to a dark lump beneath some trees at the back of the beach. We could then turn on our low torchlight from behind the turtle. There she was, mama turtle perched over the top of her perfectly excavated hole, and with a big sigh and some hard work, one then two slippery looking table-tennis size eggs dropped into the hole. Every contraction produced another one or two eggs onto the growing pile. Steam rose from the nest, she sighed regularly and just like that she was done.

Then with the dexterity of a sand sculpturer she dragged sand back into the hole and then proceeded to whack, pack and compact the sand on top of the new nest in a way that would impress most pavers. She threw her body down side to side with amazing force....’thud, thud, thud’. I think this was the part that impressed me most as I had never really thought about how they repack the sand and disguise their nest. Then she began the long walk back to the ocean, exhausted.

We were lucky enough to head out very early on the last morning and find a late mum on the beach just digging her hole as the sun was rising. We were privileged to sit with her and watch the whole painstaking process for an hour and twenty minutes while we fended off the marauding vultures and turtle nest digging dogs from her and the new nest. So while we didn’t see an arribada, i think we witnessed one of the most amazing experiences of nature.

But as always seems to be the case here in Central America, there is no such thing as conservation for the benefit purely of conservation or letting natural processes occur without our interference. In this case, the local community organisation ADIO undertakes ‘sustainable’ egg harvesting of thousands of eggs each ‘arribada’. The eggs are sold for good money to restaurants in San Jose and other places so that the upper class can enjoy this delicacy and in the meantime the community makes a load of money pillaging the turtles nests. We find it disgusting and disturbing and after witnessing the struggle, the effort and the sacrifice that the turtles make to lay their eggs disheartening we are extremely angry with what is going on here. Why?Conservation....this project has nothing to do with conservation, it is all about making money off nature. If this place where this natural phenomenon occurs would be anywhere else in the developed world it would be a world heritage site with serious protection. It’s crazy! (Ali’s rant continues...)

People still fail to see, that even with all the good we are trying to do, we (humans) are still by far the biggest predators and threat to the survival of these ancient but vulnerable and endangered creatures. We hope that maybe one day the turtles will abandon this beach and this pillaging community in favour of another place where they can continue their lives without interference. (end of Ali’s rant!)

Back together with Nobu and Hiro (whom we had met again past the border with Costa Rica but had ridden a different route for a few days) we made our way from the pacific ocean of Playa Samara across the hills of the Nicoya Peninsula, over crocodile infested waters and up into the hills towards Volcan Arenal. Riding next to a lake always seems like a good idea, it never breaks any contour lines on the map and so should pretty well be flat. Wrong again! It ends up to be a really tough day of riding in the rain up from Canas to Tilaran and then the steep roller coaster alongside the lake began. Short, steep 100m or 200m climbs followed by equally steep downhills. We spotted many toucans feeding in the forest and howler monkeys screaming from the tree-tops towards us but it was a tough day in the saddle. Our aim to reach La Fortuna in one day was crushed as we limped up the hill into Nuevo Arenal. It was still 45 km to La Fortuna, we would have to spend the night there. The next mornings ride was spectacular riding through lush green jungle and then the clouds cleared from Volcan Arenal to reveal the smoking crater, which we hadn’t been able to see the day before. Quiet roads, lush green rainforest, toucans, monkeys and a huge perfect shaped volcano at the end of the road...some more perfect riding in Costa Rica.

Sadly in La Fortuna we had to say goodbye to Nobu and Hiro for the final time on this trip, as they will be riding to Panama after some time in San Jose before returning home to Japan. This was the fourth time we had met them, firstly in Fairbanks Alaska 14 months ago, then Baja California, then Guadalajara Mexico and now again in Costa Rica. A connection of cycling, and a connection of cultures, we enjoyed our time together. (Sorry to say goodbye, Nobu and Hiro you guys will be missed on the journey south...ありがと amigos!).

So a little sad in our hearts we began a tough 70km of climbing up onto the Central Valle, only to fall short once again, beaten by the hills and the fading daylight we sought a place to camp at a ‘Soda’ (a small roadside restaurant). ‘Yes, you can camp here under the shelter, we close in 30 minutes and noone will be here, but we’ll show you the lights and there is a toilet you can use too, make yourselves at home’. We were so lucky, we were cold (for the first time in ages) and exhausted and within 20 minutes we were fed with one of our best vegetarian plates in Central America and had a dry place to stay with toilets and running water....that’s the way how our luck changes in an instant and what makes each day it’s own story. Muchas gracias a Heiner y Sonia de la ‘Soda de las Orchidaes’!

After our brief journey into the highlands towards San Jose we realised that the Volcanoes wouldn’t be worth visiting as they are always in the clouds during the rainy season, the hills are brutally steep and that we also didn’t want to take the ‘Cerro de muerto’ (Hill of Death) road towards San Isidro de El General. So we returned back down to the coast to Playa Tarcoles and along the relatively easier route of the pacific coast of Costa Rica. The highlight of these days of riding were witnessing a flock of twenty Scarlet Macaws feeding and flying in the trees above the raging surf. A rare and amazing spectacle.

San Isidro de El General and Dominical

From the coast at Dominical it was then a sweaty 1200 m climb up and over the mountains to San Isidro....

Anna proving once again that bikes really are better than trucks...this one broke down on a sharp, steep corner near the 1200m summit.

PuraSol....Arine y Pierre

We had long been looking forward to visiting Arine and Pierre in San Isidro. Arine is an old-housemate of Anna's during Utrecht uni years. She is helping her partner Pierre to set up a renewable energy company Purasol, providing integrated micro-energy solutions to landowners. A very brave and exciting undertaking for them, even more so because they are also expecting a little one... We were lucky to catch Pierre on his birthday and together with their friends Olivier and Anne Sophie, we headed back to Dominical for a beach time weekend and the Costa Rican version of Halloween in the local disco. Great to see you again Arine and meeting Pierre!

We took the Inter Americana out of San Isidro expecting a busy truck-filled highway, but instead found a quiet beautiful highway through pineapple plantations next to cloud covered 3000m mountain ranges and then a stunning gorge ride next to the Rio el General. Our plan was then to cross the border into Panama at a quiet border crossing in the mountains which meant another day of climbing on back roads through ‘rural’ Costa Rica.

Seemed like a great plan...stay tuned for Panama.

Nicaragua

thefuegoproject — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:24:00 GMT

No story as yet, but some photos in the gallery http://journals.worldnomads.com/thefuegoproject/gallery/19475.aspx

with a more detailed description than usual to give an idea of our time in Nicaragua.

Enjoy!

Honduras and Diving Utila

thefuegoproject — Thu, 1 Oct 2009 21:44:00 GMT

For months we’ve been looking forward to diving on Utila. Utila is one of the Bay Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, off the northern coast of Honduras. Also for months we have had our doubts about cycling in Honduras, because of political instability after president Zelaya had been removed from the country by the army in june. And because of not so positive stories from fellow travelers.

Next follows a story about our time off and in the saddle in Honduras. Under water photos courtesy of Bogdan Stadniciuc.

Entering Honduras

Like at every border crossing in Central America, at the Guatemala-Honduras border money changers walk up to us with a big pile of notes in their hands, to help us get rid of dollars and Quetzales and get Lempiras in return. It’s a really handy thing since we can only get money out in big towns, usually a day or two cycling from the border.

Whilst changing money I suddenly see Ali’s and the moneychanger’s face turn grim. Ali says “oh my God”. I look over my shoulder. A big dog has just been hit by a truck and is being dragged by its front wheels. I see how he then gets thrown upwards, yelps, and then the rear wheels crush him. Everyone around us continues their daily routine. We have to ride past him. I feel sick. A sign next to him says ‘welcome to Honduras’.

The North West of Honduras is gorgeous; we ride along the foothills of big mountains, green and misty. Once in a while we hear the call of a toucan ‘krakkrakkrak’.

We stay in some towns that don’t get a lot of foreign tourism. In Choloma the people in the street stare at us. We are ‘different’, it feels really weird. They look away when we look back at them, or they keep on staring, and often don’t reply to our ‘buenas tardes’.

We shop in the Dispensa Familiar, a supermarket chain in Central America, always busy and with loud music. I sing along to Bon Jovi’s ‘Bed of Roses’ but suddenly don’t recognise the text. It’s in Spanish!? ‘Cama de Rosas’. We had been told by Tim that a lot of American artists record their most famous song in Spanish and sell it to the Latin American market, with the rest of their album in English. Apparently they make millions this way. We have also heard Bryan Adams ‘Everything I do’ (todo lo que hago), some Beach Boys and Elton John!

Riding past San Pedro Sula, Honduras second city and biggest agricultural hub, is an adrenalin rush. Lots of traffic, seedy guys on the side of the road calling me ‘mi amor’ and sometimes making obscene gestures. We ride past fields and fields of pineapple, banana plantations and factories producing fruit into pulp and juice.

The next day whilst we are having a short break on the side of the road, an old man walks up to us, introduces himself and then asks for money. He says “if you give me half of what you have, we can both continue our life happily”.

We are being asked for money daily since entering Central America, by children, old people, men and women. By many people we are seen as a bag of money. That doesn’t feel pleasant. But these people are really really poor. It’s hard to find some sort of balance where we don’t feel bad about not giving money, not get irritated, and respect people regardless.

For us Honduras feels strange. The landscape is beautiful, but it seems a lot of people are discontent and wary of us. Would part of this feeling be caused by our own preconceived idea of Honduras, or is it really there?

Utila

Arriving at the jetty in Utila we get inundated by men trying to lure us into their dive centre. “dive with us, with us it’s cheaper, better, longer, deeper, funner etc”. We walk into Captain Morgan’s office, a dive school recommended by our friends Steve and Nicole (cheers guys). We are welcomed enthusiastically by David Kreysa, a young German instructor. Captain Morgan’s dive school is on a Caye (small island) off Utila, away from the busy streets of Utila and closer to good diving on the north side of the island.

The contrast to the mainland couldn’t be greater. Jewel Caye is connected to Pigeon Caye by a small bridge, and has about 500 inhabitants, mostly descendants of British/ Dutch pirates, Garifuna and Creole people. There are only paths, no cars. The atmosphere is relaxed, the pace of life slow.

In fact there isn’t much to do, except for eating ‘Baleadas’, sunbathing, studying dive books, swimming, snorkeling and in the mornings: diving!

David’s instruction is good and a lot of fun, and in our class is also Mike, a great guy from Seattle. The underwater world is magnificent: small forests of sea fans swaying from one side to the other, hundreds of small colourful fishes and vertical rockwalls. I find it’s actually really relaxing, diving, once you get the hang of it. You hear your breath going in, and then bubbles coming out, and you just hang as if you’re flying, weightless.

Ali, Mike and Anna ready for the first dive

Mike and a school of atlantic spade fish

Part of the course is a wreck dive to the ‘Haliburton’ which involves going deep to 30 metres. It’s bizarre how suddenly the wreck looms from the blue depths. So much life has formed on the rusty railing, everything has been overgrown with coral, sponge or algae.

On our other dives we find the most amazing moments are when we see animals close-up . One time I see a hawksbill turtle right underneath me. I sign to the other divers, and together we observe how the turtle rips a sponge off the reef and devours it entirely. We watch him for maybe 10 minutes hovering metres away from him. Just before we leave he swims up from the reef and past Ali’s face. They share a moment of ‘contact’, and Ali looks back at me double ‘ok’ signs and a huge grin on his face.

Hawksbill turtle

On another dive we observe two spotted eagle rays slowly ‘flying’ past, what graceful ancient creatures.

We also do a night dive. There’s a lightning storm and we can see flashes while underwater. We sit at the bottom, turn off our lights, see the bioluminescence (small light emitting creatures disturbed by our waving hands) and then stare into the black nothing.

After a week on the caye we find it difficult to say goodbye to our newly made friends and the relaxing pace of life. We talk with David and David, the instructors, about doing a dive master course, potentially another month or two of underwater adventures.

Bogdan, David, Mike, Solidea, Ali, Anna, David, Madeleine, back on the Miss Kary after a morning of diving

Mike, Pedro, David, Anna, Ali and Bogdan

Maybe part of my wish to stay is that it feels really good to have a base and feel ‘at home’ with a relaxed and fun crowd of people, whereas due to the nature of cycle touring, we are always ‘on the go’. It’s a good thing that Ali sometimes gently ‘pushes’ me to stick close to our goal and not to venture to far off the track. I don’t think I could ever do this trip without him.....

Zelaya returns....

Back on the mainland we catch a bus back to El Progreso, in order to not cycle the same stretch a second time, but start anew towards the capital. Little do we know.... That same afternoon ousted president Zelaya has secretly re-entered Honduras. The government calls for a curfew. We are thus stuck in our hotel, one of those good old ‘love-hotels’, where one can rent a room by the hour. Our room has a long mirror along the side of the bed. Apparently curfew doesn’t completely go for some businesses, and during the next day we see couples enter and go. A friendly hotel cleaner gets food in for us prepared by his cousin.

We are first told the curfew is going to last at least three consecutive days. It’s hard to understand the news on television, fast speaking Hondurenan newsreaders and mostly disgraceful images of some boys who got killed breaking the curfew in San Pedro. The minister of tourism of Honduras advises against traveling through the country.

Just as we have made a little ‘plan to stay sane inside our cell’ and do some website and photo sorting hours, the curfew gets lifted from 10 am till 4 pm. We make a quick decision, pack up our things and get a bus to Tegucigalpa. From there another bus leaves for Choluteca, close to the Nicaraguan border. On the way we get checked by the army a number of times, everybody has to disembark the bus and show passports. The men get searched. A friendly army officer says: “So you are on vacation in Honduras?”, Ali wants to say “Yeah, we heard it would be nice this time of year and with the curfew and everything...and we got very cheap flights here!” but refrains. The same army officer then says, “it’s no problem to cycle outside curfew hours”. But we don’t feel like getting stuck somewhere again, and riding between 10 and 4 is the hottest time of the day.

Tegucigalpa from behind bus windows seems calm, the walls along the streets are covered in pro- and contra Zelaya graffiti. We arrive in Choluteca hours after curfew. It’s pouring with rain, the streets are flooding and deserted. We wheel into a hotel and feel relieved we have made it ‘to the other side’.

The next morning we ride our last day in Honduras. The south has a much friendlier feel. People are going about their daily chores, the kids yell ‘Gringo, gringo’ when we pass and the traffic is light.

Honduras has given us a wonderful time in the Caribbean north. And also a reminder that riding every single kilometer between Prudhoe Bay and Ushuaia is not our primary goal, but enjoying the ride is.

We are now in Nicaragua, a land dotted with volcanoes, off which we are eager to climb some. See you next time!

Love

Anna and Alister

Flores to Punta Gorda

thefuegoproject — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:04:00 GMT

Flores to Punta Gorda 26/8/09 - 6/9/09 545 km

What kind of sound does a howler monkey make?... It’s 4am and we awoke to the sound of howler monkeys singing in chorus through the canopy of the jungle at the ruins of Tikal. It was a call and response kind of affair with loud wheezy moaning. It brought the dark jungle to life. Later in the day standing atop templo IV at the ruins of Tikal the symphony began again. We asked each other, how would you describe the sound a howler monkey makes? It is so distinctive, you can’t mistake the howling in the canopy for anything else. For the benefit of you the reader the only way I can truly think to describe it for you is a lion with asthma wheezing in the treetops or maybe Chewbacca from Star Wars. Or maybe we shouldn’t try to compare it with anything, they sound just like howler monkeys! But they are a unique soundtrack to our time in the jungle.

Tikal was amazing. Steep-sided stone temples rise out of the steaming jungle. We saw many toucans with their out-of-proportion rainbow coloured beaks in a feeding frenzy. We would see a flash of black and bright colours as they flew one by one from tree to tree in search of fruit and nuts, before delicately using that large curved beak to carefully extract the seeds. Other strange animals roamed the jungle floor like the coati and the agouti a large member of the rodent family.

We thought the most impressive thing about Tikal was the combination of these amazingly constructed temples, steep-sided, with elaborate headcombs that would poke out above the green of the jungle canopy, and the diversity of wildlife that exists there. From atop templo IV, as far as the eye could see in all directions was unbroken tropical forest and jungle. So after seeing some of the environmental destruction in northern Guatemala, it was nice to know there are places where the jungle is unbroken, and the creatures can exist without our interference!

steep steep stairs

While camping at Tikal we were also eaten alive by flies and mosquitoes. Anna was bitten on her hand by a kind of ‘deer fly’. Within minutes her hand had swollen up so much that there was no definition in her knuckles and she felt a little faint. It took days for it to return to normal.

We love the jungle, the birds, the monkeys, the trees and the sounds, but the little ‘nasties’ (flies, mosquitoes and random other creatures) literally ate us alive! The rule in the jungle is if you stay still long enough, something will try to taste your blood. So after two nights camped out we hit the road again bound for Belize.

Crossing into Belize from Guatemala the contrasts were amazing. After the usual border crossing formalities (or informalities), 20Q each for the privilege to leave, we entered a different realm....the friendly people, ‘hey man’ ‘jah man’ ‘war is da final destination man?...’, weatherboard homes on stilts painted blues and turquoises, orange orchards, the lack of people everywhere, the preserved natural areas, marked walking trails etc...

People would call out “how ya doin?” or wave from their verandahs while rocking on a chair or swinging a hammock. It seemed even the bicycles are more laid back in Belize, cool ‘cruisers’, with low seats, rounded handlebars and classic white walled 1960’s style tyres, usually ridden barefoot or for a little more foot protection flipflops!

The roads in Belize were fairly average, a bit crumbly, no line markings and no shoulder, but the low volume of traffic meant that it was really nice riding along the Hummingbird highway and then the Southern highway to Placencia and Punta Gorda. It was also relatively flat (with the exception of the Hummingbird Hwy) so for the first time in a while we could cover more ambitious daily distances.

Another detour back up into the mountains on 8km of dirt road took us to the Cockscomb basin Jaguar preserve, the only official Jaguar preserve in the world. Although sightings are obviously not guaranteed we stood a small chance to see one on the access road, or at least their prints in the mud. We basically had the place to ourselves end enjoyed a river tube trip and some hikes in the rainforest. While walking the Tiger Fern Trail to two beautiful waterfalls we realised it was the first time in Central America that we could walk trails in pristine forest, without fear of being robbed, and without a guide - just a good network of trails and the forest! That’s a feeling of freedom that’s been missing since the United States.

In laid back Placencia we found the Caribbean town that we had all been looking forward to. In fact the town itself was at the end of a long narrow peninsula, almost like a caye that you can ride your bike into the white sandy beach at the edge of the Caribbean. We stayed at Omar’s Guesthouse, a barebones backpacker favourite and it just so happened he owned the best restaurant in town (by our unbiased opinion), ‘Omars Creole Grub’ and we ate creole style Snapper with rice and beans and fish burritos...it was amazingly good! In Anna’s perennial search for ‘coco fresco’ or fresh coconut juice (“why are there so many coconut trees in Belize, yet no one sells fresh coconut juice like in Mexico?”) she met ‘da Coconut Man’, a Garifuna man with a six-pack of abs to put us all to shame, who can slice up a fresh green coconut in seconds, as well as give lessons on ‘walking the slack rope’. We spent two evenings sipping coconut juice, and taking the first steps to balancing on the slack rope. The photos will help explain things.

anna and da coconut man

Martin walking the slack rope

We also couldn’t be in southern Belize and not get out to the Cayes so we headed out to Ranguana Caye for a full day snorkeling trip. It was a coconut palm fringed island oasis in the turquoise blue of the Caribbean sea. Frigate birds, boobies, and brown pelicans nest out here and patrol the waters for fish. We saw a nurse shark, blue tangs and a whole range of tropical underwater life. I was taken most by the bright purple veined sea fans that wave into the current creating a magical underwater forest. Storms and dark clouds threatened in all directions and we enjoyed some ‘castaway on a deserted beach’ time. A little piece of paradise.

Anna on Ranguana Caye

Unfortunately we went our separate ways with Martin and Susy who were heading back towards Guatemala after Belize. Thanks guys for the past month of adventures together!

Martin and Susy under a Ceiba tree in Tikal

So for the last day in Belize it was back to the two of us, rolling foothills of the Maya Mountains in the south of Belize, past orange orchards, banana plantations and small villages reminiscent of Guatemala and into the southern port of Punta Gorda.

We paid our US$18 departure fee and made our way down to the dock to load our bikes on the medium sized ‘lancha’. In the process something dropped from one of Anna’s bags...her favourite orange bungy cord sank into the blue. It was apparently not that deep, so within a few seconds she jumped in the water and recovered it. The boat was about to leave when someone yelled out that we still had to get our passports stamped. We thought the lady had already done that when we paid our fee...we quickly ran for the stamps and then back to the boat.......in Belize they were laid back, but not that laid back!

A short hop through Guatemala, then into Honduras and the Bay Islands, ready for the next adventure.

Que les vaya bien

Alister and Anna

PS. I have started doing some summaries of the countries we travel through, for other cyclists information, for fellow backpackers, or just to give an idea on what things cost and how it is to travel in these places. The universal currency is accommodation, a beer, a coke and a meal...I will try to stick to this!

Guatemala Summary

The local currency is Quetzales (Q) named after their national bird the Quetzal, a shy bird of the mountains, green with a long green/red tail which features on every note and coin. Hotel 50 - 120 Quetzales ($6.50 - $15US), 1 litre Gallo beer 20 Q ($2.50 US), 3 litres of Coke 14 Q ($1.75 US), typical meal at a local comedor (informal restaurant serving basic meals) 15 - 40 Q ($2 - $5 US). In tourist areas, price of meals swelled up to 60 - 70 Q.

The roads were generally of very good standard, with a wide paved shoulder the only problem being the annoying little ridge that moved in and out with every road, meaning regular bumps in the ride. Many roads were obviously newly built in the past 8 years and virtually empty of traffic... Far better roads with dramatically less traffic than in Mexico, made for relaxing enjoyable riding. The exception to this was the gaps of unpaved roads that they are still to get to, or some of the ‘B’ roads like the one to Lanquin and Semuc Champey. They were steep and full of chunks of limestone, made for challenging riding, but traffic was slow. As for the famous brightly painted and diesel spewing ‘Chicken Buses’, loaded to the top with people, cargo and the ayudante (helper) doing high speed acrobatics on top. They were loud and dirty....but you could hear them coming, and apart from copping a mouthful of diesel fumes every time they blasted past, they usually gave a loud short blast on their horns and then gave us plenty of room on the road.

Belize Summary

Everyone carries on about how expensive Belize is compared to the rest of Central America, so much so that we wondered if we even wanted to go there at all! The local currency is Belizean dollars $ BZ, which I think already makes it sound expensive especially when $1 US = $2 BZ. Well we went, we saw, and we spent and yes, it is a little more expensive than what we were used to paying in Guatemala, but not so bad and we really enjoyed the place.

Hotel $23 - $36 BZ ($12 - $18 US), 1 Belikin beer 280 ml $2.75 BZ ($1.40 US), a meal at a restaurant $10 - $18 BZ ($5 - $9 US) for example: Fish Burrito $10 BZ, Red Snapper rice and beans $18 BZ...but aside from the great seafood at ‘Omar’s Creole Grub’ we mostly cooked ‘beans and rice’ ourselves to save on cash.

Xela to Flores

thefuegoproject — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:51:00 GMT

9/8/09 - 20/8/09 Xela to Flores 445 km

Well we did it, we finally left Xela after a few previous attempts to do so. It had been one of those places where no matter what you try to do, you may never leave. What started as a few weeks of Spanish language school, followed by our trek to Lago de Atitlan, turned into a relapse of Anna’s health problems from the previous month with more tests and visits to the specialist. In the meantime our English cycling friends, Martin and Susy caught up to us in Xela. Then on the 8th of July we received the sudden news from the Netherlands of the death of Anna’s father...our world was turned upside down in an instant. Within 48 hours we found ourselves on a plane via Panama and back in the Netherlands.

“The funeral was a beautiful goodbye for my dad, and most importantly time shared with my family before and in the weeks after. It was good to see that while my dad’s life ended, many friends are building up young families, and new lives start; to see Eva and Pieter’s one week old Sarah was a highlight of the time home”. - Anna

By the time we arrived back in Guatemala it all seemed like a dream. Strangely familiar to be back among the green highlands of Guatemala and reunited with our bikes and gear, safely stored in Xela with Furio and Eloisa, and proudly protected by our newest friend ‘Manchas’ their boxer.

So with a few wobbly pedal strokes on seemingly overloaded bikes, we ungracefully ride out of Xela in the early morning en-route to el Quiche, a highland town on the dirt road route to meet up with Martin and Susy again who had waited (or just bummed around too long at Lago de Atitlan and Antigua) for us to return.

The highlands of Guatemala are like nothing else we have ever ridden in our lives. A seemingly endless horizon of folded green mountains, symmetrical in their bumps, capped with clumps of dark green pine forest, and covered with a patchwork of square plots of Milpa (Corn or Maiz fields), beans and other vegetables and small adobe cottages. Smiling and laughing kids greet us from between the Milpa, ‘gringo...gringo’. The women in their traditional dress of brightly coloured huipiles carrying children slung to their backs or goods balanced on their heads greet us with gold-plated smiles and ‘beeuuunos diiiiaaaas’, a long drawn out version of good morning.

But as you can imagine, such a dramatic landscape inevitably means dramatic riding. Huge canyons have been cut into valleys around Quiche, meaning drops and gains of a couple of hundred metres in only a few kilometres of riding. Our toughest day riding was 40 kilometres and 2,000 vertical metres of climbing between Sacapulas and Uspantan.

From Uspantan it was 30 kilometre of flowing downhill on paved road past small landslides, through misty clouds and under lush green pine-studded slopes to the river at 500m, dropping over 1100 metres in elevation. From there it was over a rickety bridge and then back up again another 1000 metres over 30 kilometres...only now the sun was out, we were at low elevation in the heat and the road degraded into ‘ripio’, an unpaved rocky rubble. We had thought the grades were going to be gentler than the days before, but they seemed just as bad on the loose stuff. Trucks laboured up and down the steep switching road carting heavy loads of quarried rock...even they were struggling in parts.

As we rounded a bend and spotted the final ascent for a tough day, our hearts dropped as we were greeted with ‘no hay paso’ (there is no passing) and we came face to face with a huge landslide. No, not just a landslide, but a whole mountainside that seems to have just collapsed and crashed to the valley below taking everything in its path. We had heard of this particular landslide from people but we were completely unprepared for the enormity of it. Metres from where we stood at the edge of a huge crevasse the land plunged away into yellow, cream and red rock rubble. At the other side a road continued, oblivious to the 2 kilometre abyss where the rest of the road (and mountain) had once been.

The landslide happened on the 4th of january 2009, when over 10.000 tons of rock tumbled down a mountainside. It took about 40 coffee workers and a 2 km section of road on its way down. The road had been closed three weeks prior to the slide, due to a minor slide. But the coffee workers were dropped by a truck at the closure and made to walk to the other side where another truck would pick them up. That’s when the whole thing came crashing down.

From where we stand we can see that a new road has been cut into the valley below beneath the flow of the rubble. Our hearts sink again. The last kilometres are not going to come easily. We would have to go all the way down then back up a steep muddy road. With grinding bottom gear climbing and pushing we make our way back to the main road. What should have been two kilometres of gradual climbing ended up as an hour and a half struggle against the mind, exhaustion and the hill.

There have not been too many points on our trip where we felt like we were riding for our survival, but this was one. Amazingly as we lay exhausted at the top, a ‘Coke’ truck arrives up the same hill. I have this dream some days that we are riding in the desert, desperately thirsty and then out of the blue a ‘Coke’ truck arrives to offer us free drinks because we are cycling out there in the desert! Well it isn’t the desert, and we do have to pay for these ones, but at only 2.50Q per bottle (25 EURO cents, 40 cents AUS), we can’t complain!

The next day as we roll the last downhills, past coffee plantations into Coban we can’t help but feel that the mountains of the highlands are behind us, and feel a twinge of sadness for leaving it’s beauty behind...In Coban there is an amazing market that sprawls out onto the streets. In a clash of changing culture, Mayan women in bare feet and traditional dress sell their wares of fruit and vegetables from the pavement in front the new ‘Pollo Campero’ (a kind of KFC fast food establishment in Guatemala).

We also visit a working coffee ‘finca’ (plantation), to learn a little more about the plants that produce the ‘black gold’ that we know as coffee, cafe or koffie. In fact not only do they grow a huge amount of coffee here, but they are also one of the worlds largest suppliers of cardamon.

As soon as we arrive at Las Grutas de Lanquin the lure of the icy blue river and the campsite at its edge is too much to resist to break out the tent for the first time in months. Martin and I visit the caves which are somewhat of a disappointment. Many features have been vandalised or broken off, and there is a slippery death-defying trail along a series of light bulbs and power lines past insignificant features such as ‘el mono’ (the monkey). However as the sun goes down, the cave becomes filled with thousands of little insectivorous bats leaving the entrance of the cave on mass for a night time feeding frenzy in the forests. As we’re sitting at the entrance the noise of their ‘echolocation’ is deafening, and thousands of these creatures ‘flap’ mere centimetres past our faces on their way out over the Rio de Lanquin. At our riverside camp Anna and Susy are not missing out on the show either as the bats put on an aerobatic display over the blue waters, flooding by the thousands down the river.

It is only 11 kilometres to Semuc Champey, but it is brutally steep, rocky and unrideable in many sections. It still takes us 3 hours to complete, with much pushing of bikes and grinding then resting....”this place had better be worth it!” we mutter from sweat covered mouths. At his point we also agree that we will not ride this horror road back out to the highway again in a few days time...sometimes pick-up trucks have their purpose!

Semuc Champey in local Maya language means ‘the underground river’ and it is a series of limestone terraced pools of turquoise blue waters set in the lush jungle setting that was formed when the mountain above crashed on top of the river forming a natural limestone bridge over the raging river. Beneath the tranquil pools, the Rio Cahabon still rages ferociously. The butterfly life here is amazing, giant white butterflies the size of birds drift in pairs through the forest, along with a bright blue and black version, never stopping to land on a leaf. We swim, and then dive from the limestone bridges from one pool to the other in this piece of paradise.

We join a subterranean tour of the Las Marias Cuevas: wading and swimming through an underground network of caves in an icy cold river, climbing ladders and traversing waterfalls all barefoot and by candlelight. The injury list includes cut feet, swollen ankles, chilled bodies and a few extinguished candles. It’s a little more adventure than we had been promised, especially the waterfall.... No need for helmets, booties, lights, or guides that tell you what is going on - just pure adventure. “Hmmm...I wonder whether our insurance will cover this?”. We end the tour with a relaxing float in a tyre tube down the Rio Cahobon through mini rapids, under rainforest canopy and past limestone boulders back to camp.

Once off the mountains and down to the hot and sticky lowlands everything feels different. The jungle that was once there is almost all but cleared for cattle country. The occasional large tree stands testament to what mighty forest once stood here, pumping water, recycling nutrients and providing homes for thousands of creatures while limestone outcrops remain untouched draped with vines and lush forest. We occasionally hear the roar and scream of howler monkeys in the distance, restricted now to small patches of forest. We can’t help but wonder what untold damage has been done here, and will continue to be done in the search for more farming land, to grow more cattle...

The kids here continue to yell out “gringo, gringo” to us like in the rest of Guatemala (gringo can be a derogatory word for an American, but here usually means tourist or white person), but here it’s followed by “dame un quetzal...un quetzal” (“give me one coin...one coin”) and it’s said in an unfriendly way. The smiling, waving, shouting, friendly kids of the highlands have been replaced with begging untrusting eyes. The women and girls wash themselves and the laundry in the ponds and streams near the road and stare as we pass. The men carry machetes, work the fields and drink a lot of beer at the local ‘cantinas’ (bar). For some reason the people of the lowlands seem a little less savoury in character, eyes watching us all the time, never the same happy greetings of the highlands. We do however manage to ride 121 kilometres (the first 100km + day in Guatemala) through the ‘slashed’ and ‘burned’ jungle in the heat to get to Sayaxche.

In the morning at Sayaxche I wake up to the dreaded feeling in my stomach and rush to the toilet. A little culinary gift from the comedor (restaurant) we ate at the night before. I am in no state to try to ride, but also don’t feel like hanging around this unwelcoming town, so try to push through it. We have to wait for the unusual car ferry (powered by 2 palapa covered outboard motors, each with its own driver) while it miraculously zig-zags across the Rio Pasion to pick us up. It is getting hot and I am deteriorating quickly in the sun. Anna organises a lift with a young guy David in a pick-up truck and loads our gear and bikes on while we cross the river. At the other side as I am about to jump in the car, the smell of deep fried chicken from a ‘Pollo Frito’ roadside vendor is too much to bare and with a few short steps, I unload my breakfast just three metres away from them, which I’m sure would have helped their morning business. With a quick wipe of my chin, I am feeling much better and make the hour long trip to Flores without further incident. It’s amazing how I am still able to maintain a half fluent conversation in espanol with David, while feeling like I do. Muchas gracias David.

We have now been in Flores for a number of days both recovering from our stomach problems...oh the joys of travelling in central america! But looking forward to riding to the Mayan kingdom of Tikal in the next few days and onwards to Belize and the Caribean.

Que les vaya bien!

Alister and Anna

Ps. Thanks for the support, love and best wishes of all our family and friends over the past month.

Lago de Atitlan, Volcan Pacaya and Antigua

thefuegoproject — Tue, 7 Jul 2009 01:45:00 GMT

Xela to Lago de Atitlan, our overland trekking adventure. Rina and Lior our fearless guides from Quetzaltrekkers, led us over the mountains, past a highland town called 'Alaska', through cloud forests, past highland villages, past treacherous landslides, over swollen rivers and finally got us to Lago de Atitlan after 2 days of hiking in terrential rain. Quetzaltrekkers ( www.quetzaltrekkers.com ) is a grass roots non-profit trekking agency in Xela with volunteer guides that raises money and supports the Escuala de la Calle, a school for street children.

Rina 'carried' the trekking party through the highland storm, Lior was happy to be at the lago, 'increible!'

Despite the weather we saw some amazing things on the trek. One thing rain and cloud does is make you focus on the people we encounter and the things close to the trail. Something that will stick in my memory forever is a small girl in a traditional dress carrying a large bundle of wood on her back supported by a strap across her forehead, climbing up a slippery mountain pass in the pouring rain. She looks down as she passes. I initially thought she was a young woman, but then I see she is a young girl, only waist height, with no rain jacket, no hiking boots, freezing in the rain. Her father follows by soon pushing her sister along, both also carrying huge loads of firewood that they rely on for warmth and cooking. It's amazing but also confronting at the same time...we should never complain of hardships in our lives compared to what these young beautiful children endure from such an early age.

Wake up and smell the coffee....

We are well and truly in coffee country now. We hike down the final kilometres of the trek through coffee plantations on the lush green slopes of Lago de Atitlan down to the lakeside village of San Juan Laguna. Thanks to Rina, Lior, Wilson and the whole Quetzaltrekkers crew for an adventurous highland trek.

We stay in the quiet poblado of San Marcos on the northern shore of the lake, one of the more tranquil villages where there is somewhat of a 'new age' tourist community thriving where you can practice yoga, go on retreat for a cycle of the moon, have a reiki session or just hang out on the cliffs above the lake worshipping the volcanoes. We get in the vibe and opt for a whole lot of 'nothing' with some swimming and cliff diving, some 'volcano worshipping', Anna working on her 'tejido' (weaving), enjoying a mayan sauna and watching the rain fall heavily in the lush forest surroundings.

Local art San Juan Laguna depicting backstrap weaver

Morning swim on the lake, traditional wooden boat and Volcan Fuego letting off some steam in the distance

Being so close to Antigua and after hearing Dirk (our German motorcycle friend) rave on about hiking Volcan Pacaya we are inspired to make the extra detour by shuttle bus to Antigua.... After all, what's another 3 days in the scheme of things? We are now well and truly on the 'gringo backpacker route' as we catch a shuttle bus, this is how the other half travel...

Volcan Pacaya is one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala, and after seeing Volcan Santiaguito (from atop Volcan Santa Maria) and Volcan Fuego erupting...this was the final in the 'Volcan trilogy of Guatemala'...the real 'fuego project'. At the end of the road we are greeted by dozens of little entrepreneurs "Mister, need stick...need stick???" and "mucha lluvia aqui...need poncho?", hilarious considering i am standing there in my rain jacket with a stick i have already rented for 3 Quetzales!

We join the 'gringo train' of 40 to 50 other intrepid volcano trekkers up the volcanic slopes in the misty rain. The corn fields and cloud forest gives way to low scrub, which in turn gives way to black volcanic scree slopes, which in the mist resembles a desolate moonscape of jagged black boulders. Then the clouds part to reveal the steaming cone at the top of the Volcan Pacaya and the first glimpses of the lava fields, as well as the long chain of fellow trekkers on a pilgrimage to the lava.

The clouds part to reveal the smoking cone of Volcan Pacaya

The final few hundred metres are up a steep gully of loose scree to where the lava can be seen a short distance up the hill. A short distance from this path and the rocks heat up dramatically. A large group of people huddle around glowing rocks toasting marshmallows and hotdogs.... We don't really see the point, people being more focussed on how to toast a marshmallow than appreciating the awesome force of nature of the lava field above us!

This is what we are here for...the lava!

It is not bubbling streams of lava but more like glowing rocks being pushed from the mountain and occasionally breaking loose rolling down hill. A Large chunk of glowing rock breaks off and rolls down the steep slope towards unsuspecting stray dogs, and a few less than inteligent gringos... A close call on the mountain and Anna is thankful she is not called into medical duties. The cruel irony is that the dogs are only there because of the tourists, otherwise it's no place for a dog!

That's more excitement than I had bargained for and I quickly retreat with Anna to a safer distance down the hill. Just at that point the high cloud that had been blocking any views on the way up disappears and reveals the peaks of Volcan Agua and Volcan Fuego rising high above a sea of cloud in the orange light of the setting sun...truly spectacular, a sight that will remain with us for a long long time.

Volcan Agua high above the sea of clouds as the sun sets

Antigua, you can't deny it's charm, a colonial masterpiece founded in 1543 by the spanish, it sits under the watchful eyes of three volcanoes and was the centre of power in all of Central America in the 17th and 18th centuries with a lot of wealth invested. At its peak no less than 38 churches graced this city. But it's location next to the active volcanoes also meant it had a tendency to be shaken to the ground on a regular basis by a series of earthquakes. This can be seen in the thick columns of stone in the churches and the ruined remains at many of the old churches and monasteries. After being destroyed in the earthquake of 1773, the capital was finally moved to nearby Guatemala City.

Antigua with Volcan Agua looming in the backdrop

The crumbling ruins of ancient churches and monasteries at every corner, the cobblestone streets and colourful streetscapes make it an interesting place to wander for a day, some interesting textile markets and the museum 'Casa de Tejido' a standout. but it seems to lack the dirtiness, noise and real Guatemalan culture of a place like Xela. Like where are the stray wandering dogs ripping bags of rubbish apart in the street and where is the drunk guy sleeping slumped over the footpath? But it is beautiful, colourful, clean and alive and an opportunity to see traditional Mayan ways of life alongside the hordes of American tourists and language students.

Streetscene in Antigua, a Mayan woman balances a heavy load of vegetables

Little drummer boy with some help from the pied piper under the watchful eyes of a Saint, La Merced Antigua

After having a taste for the backpacker life we are ready to get back on the bikes and off the beaten tourist path. It was nice for a change but things happen so quickly: take bus, find hostel, book tour, take tour, return from tour, eat, sleep, take another bus...it's hard to appreciate everything at that pace. It's also tiring but not in an enjoyable way like biking is. People often say to us "I don't know how you do it, riding your bikes that far, don't you get tired?", but I wouldn't swap the bike traveller for the backpacker any time soon.

We promise there will be bikes in the next post...some more downtime in Xela with our English and Welsh cycling friends Martin and Susy before heading north through the highlands of Guatemala.

Hasta pronto

Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas

thefuegoproject — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:39:00 GMT

13/5/09 - 22/5/09 Oaxaca to San Cristobal 468 km

Oaxaca is a great city to enjoy some downtime, relaxing with our cycling friends Martin and Susy, checking out Monte Alban, wandering the markets and artesanias, the leafy ‘zocalo’ and working our way through some of the famous Oaxaquenan cuisine.

We eat ‘comida corridas’ (a set menu lunch/dinner with soup, mains, agua and dessert for 35 - 60 pesos) daily, and also at the small ‘comedors’ in the local ‘mercado’ where the mexican ‘abuelas’ (grandmas) try to fill us up with local goodness. The days after we stop riding the appetite doesn’t seem to diminish, but instead seems to increase. All four of us have healthy ‘cyclist appetites’ and we usually manage to clean up all that it presented before us! Oaxaca is famous for its cuisine of ‘moles’ (dark spicy sauce sometimes with chile and chocolate), ‘tlayudas’ (Oaxacan pizza) and let’s not forget the local drop of ‘Mezcal’, which Martin helps us discover.

Firstly I have to correct some friends who have called Mezcal ‘cactus juice’. It is actually made from the fermented ‘pina’ (trunk) of an agave plant in much the same way as Tequila is, but from a different variety of agave called Maguey agave. The process seems similar but perhaps a little more rustic and there is less ‘control’ over the production of Mezcal. Also not all bottles have ‘the worm’, usually only the ‘gusano’. As with Tequila there are many varieties, from the raw home-brew ‘moonshine’ to the classier and smoother ‘Anejo’ or ‘Reposado’. Over the next few days of riding out of Oaxaca we pass many ‘fabric de mezcal’ places all along the roadsides and in villages ranging from large commercial operations with fancy cellar doors to mostly backyard jobs with the fire pit, rolling stone and distiller all under the one shelter.

Homebrew Mezcal in the making...roasting Maguey agave pinas on the fire

Riding out from Oaxaca it’s warm and dry and relatively easy riding with some rolling terrain. We see the ruins of Yagul set up on a rocky outcrop and i think it is a good idea to take the short detour up the hill and combine it with a lunch stop too. It is a steep, short pinch up to Yagul ruins, not surprising as it was used as a fortress with commanding views of the wide valley below. While not as large and impressive as Monte Alban, the setting on a cactus studded hill, the view from the fortress and the ball court make it a worthy detour.

“Anyone for handball?” Apparently the ball court or ‘Juego Pelota’ at Yagul is the second largest behind the one at ‘Chichen Itza’ in the Yucatan. The game they played is thought to be something similar to volleyball or raquetball with a hard rubber ball, although as you would expect for a game played in various regions of mesoamerica and over a long period of time, there seem to be many variations. Occasionally they even ended in human sacrifice which seems like a harsh way to end a game if you ask me. At Yagul it is impressive in the fact that you can walk through the ball-court, seeing the sloped walls up close and getting a feeling for what it might have been like to play in such an arena (not quite the MCG though!)....After seeing Yagul, I’m not sure if Anna shares my keen interest in these ancient playing fields!

Later on in the same afternoon we decide to push on to Hierve el Agua, past Mitla. There are two options to get there: the longer one on a gradual climbing road, and the shorter but maybe steeper option. We see a ‘carretera blanca’ winding its way up a number of steep switchbacks up the face of the mountain. ‘Do you think that is our road?....mmm i think so...are you still keen?.....Yeah lets give it a go until the first switchback’.

At the first switchback after some grinding climbing on the dirt road, a huge thunderclap bursts overhead from the threatening looking clouds. Rain and a big storm are on their way, as ‘hands of god’ reach down through the darkened sky. A wall of rain is descending off the mountain so we decide to swallow our pride and descend the hard won metres back down to Mitla.

Hierve el Agua seems like it is past its prime (like many Mexican tourist attractions), with rows of empty ‘comedor’ food stalls, run down facilities and only a handful of people and a stray dog or two to keep us company. It is a spectacular place though, with hazy mountain views, limestone waterfall outcrops and a series of blue green pools that seem to drop of the face of the mountainside. The pools are formed from mineral springs dribbling out of the top of a mountain, forming limestone terraces and eventually pools, that seem like a scene from Yellowstone NP, only the water is cool.

The next day we leave Mitla under grey and overcast skies. It’s kind of strange, aside from the afternoon thunderstorms we have been caught up with over the past few days, we haven’t ridden in these conditions since Baja, “is it going to rain in the morning?”. The aroma (or stench, depending on if you like it) of fermenting agave pinas is thick in the air as we pass through ‘home-brew’ Mezcal territory.

After a short morning climb into the clouds we are treated to a downhill of epic proportions, descending down the side of a steep valley, winding roads cut into hillsides, past agave plantations, it is blissful brake-free descending in the cool and misty mountain air. But as always on the trip, how quickly things can change. The next minute the road deviates away from a seemingly perfectly good river course, climbing 10km or so along a narrow winding mountain road in the baking midday sun. All of a sudden we are sweating suncream into our eyes surrounded by tall cactus and dry scrub, we are back into the desert.

The real bonus comes late in the day as our tired legs push on to our destination of El Camaron, we descend through the narrowing river valley, a huge gorge stretches out beneath us with lush green vegetation hanging to its walls while the road clings to the cliff face. It is one of the more spectacular days riding in all of Mexico, from one extreme to another, to another.

Down to the coastal lowlands, the heat and the winds. That would be right, for the first time in mainland Mexico we are riding on the flat, we have horrendous winds to contend with. Sometimes from the front, but mostly from the side, blasting us around the shoulder of the road. By 12:30pm we have had enough and call it a day in an unpleasant part of Juchitan, busy, dirty, windy and some dodgy characters.

The next morning we are on the bikes early to beat the wind (and to see our record for the earliest beers consumed in Mexico, 6:45am the night porter at the hotel finishes off his 1.2L bottle of ‘Corona’, and then 7:00am a man riding his bike to work in the fields finishes off a can of ‘Modelo Especial’)....we shouldn’t have bothered leaving so early, it is up already! We ride 15km straight into the famous northerly that blows down over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec past vast areas of newly constructed wind farms. “Yep, they sure found a good place for those windmills” we think to ourselves. The next town is an even more ominous sign ‘La Venta’, which means ‘the vent’, named I’m sure because of the vent of air that it blasting us from the side right now! Things improve from there and on the relatively low undulating lands with a good shoulder to ride we manage 100 plus kilometres for the first time in months. We are deep in mango country and we feast again on fresh mangoes.

Then it’s back into the mountains to cross the Sierra Madre de Chiapas. The 28km climbing into the state of Chiapas (our final state in Mexico) is good, the winds are not. Gale force on exposed corners and in the road cuttings, we are forced to swallow our pride again and walk and push our bikes for small sections to not end up at the bottom of the valley. (We have only had to walk our bikes on several occasions on the trip - once for a hill in Utah, and then for wind in Utah and now here!).

We enjoy a well deserved second breakfast of scrambled eggs ‘a la mexicana’ style to celebrate the end of the climb. We thought this would be the toughest part of the day but it would soon become apparent that there would be no easy kilometres today. Soon after we are back on the bikes Anna is unwell and has no energy even for the slightest hill. Something has been brewing with her health for the past few weeks and now it is setting in. She decides she wants to ride on, so we do, into an incredibly strong headwind and through a seemingly endless undulating valley with increasing local traffic. We make the 76km to Cintalapa, but no further than a quiet swimming pool, come mango orchard, come campground on the outskirts of town. Anna is completely spent of energy. We set up the tent for the first time in weeks among huge mango trees, and next to an inviting swimming pool.

The next day we barely move except to eat. It seems like Anna will need more rest or to see a doctor, so we start to look at our options from here, only 160km from our next destination of San Cristobal de las Casas.

In the morning at the Centro de Salud the cause of Anna’s condition becomes apparent. The test is positive for Salmonella (although this test result is dubious as no test exists that could tell if it was Salmonella so quickly, except miraculously so in Mexico!) which has caused an infection in her kidneys. The pieces of the story start to add up...eating dodgy food in Guadalajara, myself being sick in Morelia probably with Salmonella, both of us having off days on the bike since then and Anna’s back pains of the past week. She is prescribed antibiotics and a week or two of rest. At this moment the decision of what to do is taken out of our hands.

Within minutes we are packed and loaded onto a bus bound for Tuxtla Gutierrez. From there it was negotiating to get our bikes and gear strapped onto the top of a mini-bus bound for San Cristobal de las Casas...which we manage to do. The kilometres fly by from the window of the bus, the awesome views of Canyon de Sumidero, the valley 1000m below and the change in the landscape into boulder strewn hills and pine forests...but it all happens so quickly for us, we can barely take it in. Perhaps conditioned to the pace of travel on the bike. We miss out on the climb from 800m to 2100m, I look out of the window thinking ‘it would have been nice to ride this section...’, Anna doesn’t miss it a bit.

So we arrive in the beautiful colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas, narrow cobblestone streets, coloured street fronts, red tiled roofs, bright Cathedral and cloud covered forested mountains all around. You could say there are worse places in the world to have to rest up for a week or so. The change in the people is quite dramatic from other parts of Mexico, this is the home of the Maya. We hear different languages being spoken on the street and the women and young girls wear their traditional dress while selling bracelets, woven items and handmade dolls.

Anna is on the mend, and will more than likely take a bus to Xela in Guatemala where we are going to study spanish for three weeks, and therefore have a good five weeks recovery. I am considering the prospect of heading out solo on the bike for a week to Xela. Not an easy decision to make when we have ridden every kilometre of the trip together until now.

People often ask us “what has been the hardest part of the trip, the traffic, the mountains, the winds or the people?”. To be honest, the hardest part is maintaining our health. It’s something we take for granted a lot of the time on the bike when things are feeling good, but it is the single biggest thing that can influence our trip.

Muchos saludos y que les vaya bien

Alister and Anna

Guadalajara to Oaxaca

thefuegoproject — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:24:00 GMT

13/4/09 - 7/5/09 Guadalajara to Oaxaca 1204 km

The days in Guadalajara with Nobu, Hiro and Ken fly past. They are captivated by the city with its climbing wall, cinema and skate boarding and decide to stay longer, while we get back in the saddle, wanting to get moving further east and southward after our journey home and only 600km under the belt since returning to Mexico. So sadly we part ways again, uncertain of when we might meet them again on the trail.

The month that follows is demanding, due to heat, endless hills and busy roads. The Spanish conquestador Cortes described this part of Mexico by crumpling a piece of paper to highlight the mountainous nature of the land and we are also entering the hottest time of the year as the wet season gradually builds up.

Upon leaving the busy roads and pollution of Guadalajara we have the choice again between the ‘libre’ and ‘la cuota’ heading towards Morelia. With the feeling to get some kilometres behind us into mainland Mexico we choose the cuota. To help you understand our dilemma let us describe a little about the roads in Mexico.

The ‘Cuota’, or toll road, is usually a 4 lane highway with wide shoulder and goes in a straight line through everything. Hilltops have been blasted away to keep the flow for fast moving traffic constant. The shoulder is the big advantage, but views and gradient are monotonous and boring. On top of that, the cuota is illegal for cyclists, although the police often advise us to ride there.

There is the Libre, a two lane highway usually without shoulder. The advantage is that the road follows the natural contours of the land. The landscape therefore becomes more interesting and the climbing mentally less of a challenge. Also, this road passes many villages and one can get in touch with local people, stock up on food and water, and find a place to stay for the night. The disadvantage is the narrowness of the road and speeding traffic.

Then there are the many ´B roads´. These are the roads through ´the real Mexico´ travelling past rural villages, children playing in the street and farmers working the fields. On our map we can´t see if these roads are paved or not, they are sometimes extremely steep and they are often inaccurate, sometimes becoming rough dirt tracks. Taking them is a bit of a gamble. Throughout Mexico we end up riding bits on all three types of roads.

The last day to Morelia is hard. Instead of the cuota we choose for a pretty but hilly country ‘B road’. After a few days of looking tired, Ali suddenly feels unwell, struggling to find the energy for even the smallest of hills. He insists on riding on, not hitching a ride in a pick-up. We do make it to Morelia and quickly book a hotel. Ali appears to have the same stomach flu as Nobu had in Guadalajara six days earlier and the night is awful with plenty of visits to toilet and the bucket next to the bed.

The days after we rest. Ali quickly recovers and we walk through the beautiful world heritage ‘centro historico’ of Morelia. Via the enormous cathedral we wander along an old acuaduct to the Sanctuario de Virgen de Guadalupe, the inside of this church is decorated completely in pink and gold and paintings depicting the conversion to catholicism of the indigenous people of the region. In Morelia we eat our stomachs round with a local specialty ´Gaspachos´: a litre cup of freshly diced fruit, mangos, papaya, melon, pineapple, mixed with orange juice and topped with cheese, lime, salt and chili powder. Your lips end up burning but still it tastes sweet. The abundance of freshly prepared tropical fruits in Mexico means healthy eating, and is no doubt the key to a quick recovery for Ali.

From Morelia we ride east in the direction of Mexico City riding high over two 9000 feet plus passes, but peaceful mountain roads. We want to skirt around Mexico City along its southern borders to Toluca and then Cuernavaca, to then take a bus into the centre from a base outside. The roads surrounding the cities become busier and busier...

Just west of Toluca we are plucked off the cuota by the highway control saying it was too dangerous for us to ride there and from which we were then ´dumped´ on the libre. They were right, because it was only a two lane highway with a small shoulder that most people were using to pull over and allow others to overtake, very different to what the other cuotas had been like. Still, it was the first time we had any problems in Mexico with the cuota.

The next morning, when we try to leave Toluca, it is so busy and chaotic that I don´t want to ride on. We are sitting at a petrol station watching the traffic race by and manage to get a lift from a friendly Mexican couple 100 km down the road to Cacahuamilpa. We are thankful for their help and enjoy a good Spanish lesson as a bonus while in the car. The woman is wearing a blue mouth mask. We had seen people wearing these masks in Toluca but thought it had to do with the pollution and dust in the air. The lady shows us the newspaper, and for the first time we read about the ´swine flu´. Later that week we are made part of the fear and panic that surround the outbreak of this possible pandemic. Some of the people wear masks, schools and museums etc are shut, and we see rows of people waiting outside hospitals. We receive a lot of emails from concerned family and friends. Thank you!

It is difficult to make a decision on what to do. The information and advice from the World Health Organisation, ministries of foreign affairs and our insurance companies are vague and contradicting. No ´negative travel advice´ but a ´warning to cancel all non essential travel to Mexico´. We decide the best thing for us is to continue travelling, but to be careful with contact with others, and seek medical care if we do get sick.

The fact is that this virus might roam around for months to come, in all parts of the world, and that for example ´fleeing Mexico´ isn´t the solution. The virus doesn´t respect international borders.

One little downer of the influenza outbreak is that we can´t visit Mexico City, for all the museums and sights we had wanted to visit are now closed for the swine flu. Oh well, it takes that decision out of our hands.

A special surprise are the caves of Cacahuamilpa. The caves are situated in a National Park and we camp near the entrance of the cave around a swimming pool with some more of the more adventurous Mexicans we have met here. It’s a stunning valley with steep valley walls and two subterranean rivers flowing through the mountains carving out the caves and tunnels. Outside at our camp it´s hot and humid, inside the caves cool and humid. We walk two kilometers into the cave with a guided tour. The ´ceiling´ is between 40 and 80 meters high in places, and the cave is about that wide. Along the sides are awesome and bizarre stalagmite and stalactite formations. They are being lit in turn as we walk past. It is the most impressive natural cathedral you can imagine, we are blown away by the sheer size and amazing formations. The guide is mainly busy pointing out how the formations resemble recognisable figures, especially Jesuses, Marias and devils. We can’t share his view and instead appreciate the amazing forces of nature, water and time that have created these caves and their features.

The first time in the tent for a long time...next to the swimming pool at the Grutas

When we exit the caves two hours later it takes a little to adjust to the light and the humid heat. The sky is dark grey and thunder rolls in. We race against the clock to cover the inner tent with the outer, just in time for a fresh thunderstorm. After the rain the heat returns. At night dozens of bats skirt over us and we sleep to the sound of cicadas ´singing’. In the early morning we see the bats return to the big black hole in the rocks.

On our map we had seen a road between the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, the second and third highest peaks respectively in Mexico (with Popocatepetl still a very active volcano, occasionally threatening the 20 plus million people that live within her range). After some encouragement reading the website of the Hobobikers, who rode here two years ago, we decide to try this route. A beautiful day, ascending from the smog and dust of the valley of Mexico City, through pine forest and clean air to finally reach the ‘Paso de Cortes’ at 3600 meters. In 1519 Hernan Cortes was here with 600 soldiers, 15 horses, 15 cannons and hundreds of native people on their way to Tenochtitlan, the old Mexico City, which they conquered from the Aztecs. Now it is calm and cool, and we enjoy the view of both volcanoes. This is the highest pass we have ridden over in the whole trip, over 2000 feet higher than Boulder Mountain in Utah, so we have a small celebration in the thinning air. The descent turns out to be more of a challenge, 18km with a loaded bike down a sandy, rocky road nearly sliding out and with legs down at times we stay upright (still a lot better than riding up the sandy track we think...).

The last six days from Cholula to Oaxaca are blissful. The traffic reduces drastically so we can enjoy the quiet mountain roads, the scenery changes to dry mountain slopes with cactus and small fan palms, some colourful red rock formations and we enjoy good company of Martin and Susy, two English cyclists on their way from Vancouver to Panama. We are the first cyclists they have met on mainland Mexico, so with the four of us ride strongly through the endless hills enjoying the winding roads and scenic mountain views along the ‘forgotten highway’, mex 190 passing adobe mud farmhouses, terraced farms and goat herders.

Beautiful desert riding up mountains, along ridges, through red coloured rocky landscapes and past hundreds of cactus

...all with the great company of Martin and Susy

The first signs of the wet season has brought these cactus into bright flower

Before we know it we are rolling into the beautiful colonial city of Oaxaca.

For three days we have been in the city of Oaxaca. A beautiful city famed for its colonial architecture, great food, craftwork, and the nearby Monte Alban. Monte Alban is one of the oldest archeological cities of Meso America, and was built by and added to by the Zapotecs and other pre Columbian people between 500 BC and 750 AC before being abondoned, possible due to drought and a changing climate (sound familiar?). They are the first large ruins we have visited and we are impressed by the size of the ‘gran plaza’, the pyramids, ball courts, rock carvings, tombs and astronomical observatory all set on a flattened hilltop 400 metres above the valle centrale below. Still so much is unknown about the people and the purpose of such a place, amazing to imagine what it would have been like in its prime.

Anna almost gets lost on the many stone steps leading to the various temples at Monte Alban, hot and sweaty work.

The Gran Plaza of Monte Alban in the background...it's yellow and dry this time of year

Mexico is obviously poor compared to the USA, but besides poor road construction, a lot of littering along the roads, and begging old ladies in cities, it hasn't been that obvious until now. Oaxaca is the first city where we see many young children beg, sometimes only 3 years old, walking alone through the streets. That is heartbreaking and frustrating. We hope to donate some more time and help in future months by doing some volunteer work.

Next week we are riding from the highlands to the coast, and then back up to San Cristobal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas. The border of Guatemala is in sight!

We hope all is well for you all, and really appreciate your reactions on our site and personal emails.

Love

Anna and Alister

Mazatlan to Guadalajara... lagoons, volcanoes, agave and tequila

thefuegoproject — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:36:00 GMT

30/3/09 - 7/4/09 Mazatlan to Guadalajara 534 km

After nearly two months off the bike, we saddled up and rode out of warm and sticky Mazatlan where we had enjoyed a tranquil time with our amiga Chamely and her puppy ‘Blitz’. Mazatlan itself was a stark contrast to the place it had been during carnaval a month earlier. The bikes felt good, and surprisingly we weren't too rusty either, spinning the wheels over to let our legs get into condition again. For the first few days at least it would be relatively flat along the coastal plain.

After an overnight stop in Escuinapa de Hidalgo, a bike crazy town with more bike repair shops you could poke a spoke at, good tacos and a cheap hotel we rode on to Teacapan and the ‘end of the road’. We rode past fields and fields of chiles and huge truckloads of workers busily picking and laying out the chiles to dry. We had heard from two other friends we had cycled with, Wayne and Thomas, that it would be possible to get a boat across the river to where the road begins again. We had also heard stories of an ‘unridable sandy road’ or having to ride 10 km along the beach (as Thomas and his brother had). After our local ‘can do’ guy, ‘sure i have a boat, i’ll take you across there in the morning, no worries’ failed to show we began our negotiations with a couple of local fisherman who agreed to take us across the river into Nayarit for a decent fee. The frigate birds scavenged on the small fish thrown away after the catch from the boat we were about to take, swooping like prehistoric birds. So with a hint of fish in the air, we took our bags off, laid our bikes down side by side and enjoyed the 15 minute cruise up the glassy river as dolphins rolled past, herons and egrets fished among the mangroves and cormorants perched to dry their wings.

On the other end of the trip in Nayarit we were welcomed at a restaurant. Within a few minutes they presented us with three plates of fresh local fried shrimp, fish and ‘papas fritas’ or hot chips. ‘es un regalo para ustedes!’.... a gift they said to welcome us to Nayarit. We couldn’t say no despite our feelings about sustainable fishing, and the fact that they wouldn’t join us but kept working hard around us while we ate. It’s the kind of generosity we got to experience a lot more in this part of Mexico.

The road turned out to be fine to the coast to Playa Novillero, then freshly sealed until just before a small ‘poblado’, Palma where the road turned to churned rock and then narrowed into a sandy track. At this point we became aware that our map was wrong and that the continuous line of our road was going to be interrupted by a large Rio (river). ‘So that’s what the old guy was telling us and drawing for us in the sand!’ we exclaimed. We were told that it was possible to take ‘una lancha’ (a small fishing boat) across the other side. ‘Only’ 4 kilometres they said, but we had to push our bikes in parts in the sand. The mosquitoes honed in on us slow moving targets in the humid tropical forest, and a dodgy guy in a pick-up truck tried to convince us for $50 US he’d take us across the river, and that would be the only way. This guys forcefulness in following us made us feel a little vulnerable on this lonely sandy track.

Just at the point we considered backtracking, we arrived at a fish camp with restaurants, small boats, hundreds of frigate birds and a few friendly faces. We soon had a small boat organised to take us over the wind chopped river to a road that we hoped existed. This boat was small and our bikes hung over the edges getting a salty spray from the ocean while we sat on fish bloodied seats, and crabs and fish lay at our feet. This was proving to be more of an adventure than we had bargained for. On the other side we asked where the road was. The two fisherman pointed towards the jungle of palms, ‘la carretera’....which translated means highway. It didn’t look like your average highway, but following the sandy two wheeled track through the palms, and more pushing of bikes we eventually found our way into the next village. Amazing that it was all possible.

We arrived into the next village tired and weary from an adventurous day. Anna asked in the local store if we could camp out the back somewhere as there were definitely no hotels. A lady in the store said that she lived across the road and we could set up our tent under a palapa in the backyard. It was perfect, three hammocks, the tent on the cement floor, chickens, pigs, mule and horses roaming the yard. Soon the whole family was there wanting to talk to us and ask us questions; daughters, sons, grandchildren, family friends, the whole lot. We feel their warmth and they have patience with our spanish, talking slowly, listening carefully.

The father of the house Aniseto came home after another hard day at work. He is a true cowboy ‘un vaquero’, weather beaten he arrives on his horse. He doesn’t say much, but i understand ‘su casa’ which means ‘my house is your house’ and he shakes our hands and sits there to listen to our stories. We are humbled by this experience, they have so little, yet are willing to share what they do have with strangers on bicycles. They also seem so relatively happy with their simple existence, working hard on the land to make enough money to put food on the table for their family and bring up their children. We think about them a lot the next day riding out of town.

Mexcaltitan is an island town set in the middle of a coastal lagoon and mangroves. We arrive by another small boat to this tranquil town where there are no cars, only bikes, carts, wheelbarrows and people walking the streets. Amazing the sounds of a place without the ambient noise of cars and trucks: children playing at school, the church bells and the sound of people going about their lives the way they have for hundreds of years. Shrimp tamales are the speciality here (a corn dough filled with shrimp, wrapped in corn husks and steamed) and the people sell them from their doors and from wheelbarrows.

On the other side of the lagoon we meet Luis, a local Mexican farmer also on his bike who wants us to ride with him the 20 kilometres to his house. We say we might slow him down, but he says ‘esta bien’. We ride together for over an hour talking in our limited spanish, he understands us and we understand him. There is also the common bond of the bicycle, his is a 20 year old fixed gear. Luis rides his bike every day of the year 20 kilometres to the boat dock for Mexcaltitan with 60 kilograms of fresh mango and papaya on a box on the back, sells his fruit, then returns the same way home. Again, a simple man, a simple life, 40 km on the bike everyday.

‘Les gusta ver mi casa?’ he asks. We join him along the cobblestone streets to his home to meet his family, and they share drinks with us and offer us food. Unfortunately we must keep riding for the day but are touched by the generosity of those that have so little, and give us so much.

In Santiago Ixcuintla, we finally make the decision that has been hanging over our heads for the past two months. We will head up into the hills and the central highlands towards Guadalajara instead of taking the pacific coast route. With that decided it’s time to climb the 900 metres to Tepic, firstly out of the tropical coastal lowlands of mango farms, where we sweat like mad, then onto the 15D toll road which climbs almost unrelentingly for another 30 kilometres. We definitely haven’t got our climbing legs back yet, but slowly we haul in the distance to reach the beautifully set city of Tepic, among cloud capped mountains. The plaza has a relaxed ambience with it’s white painted manicured trees, fountain, and rows of park benches . Huichol Indians sell their wares and jewelry at small street markets, shoe shiners work hard and women weave decorative palm leave crosses in front of the cathedral for Palm Sunday and the beginning of ‘Semana Santa’.

From Tepic we continue on the 15D toll road, safer (with a shoulder) and quieter than the free road (but not technically legal). Someone had a bright idea to lay thick red gravel on the shoulder of the road which made cycling extremely difficult, slowing our progress uphill and forcing us to brake hard on the long downhills to avoid skidding off the road. We wonder for what purpose it serves?... Our braking fingers are strained and we have to stop several times on the big hills. The toll road or ‘la cuota’ is designed for trucks and fast moving traffic and therefor through this mountainous and volcanic landscape the uphills are long and sustained sometimes 40 minutes to an hour of climbing, followed by ‘white knuckled’ steep descents in the red gravel.

This trend continues for the three days to Tepic, punctuated only by the toll booths which we have to get off and walk our bikes through and the oasis they provide of cool drinks in the heat. We pass several large volcanic mountains and cross their lava flows of black fractured igneous rock. It’s dry and it’s hot, a change from the tropical heat of the coast. At the base of the volcanoes, on rocky hillsides and the valley floor grow rows and rows of blue agave, a prickly succulent plant and the main ingredient for Tequila...

The turnoff for the town of Tequila takes us down 5 steep kilometres, great for the end of a hot day, not so great to think about the next morning retracing our steps. We take a tour of the Jose Cuervo Distillery in the centro of town to get an insight into the production of the national drink of Mexico. The blue agave is harvested at six years, all of the leaves are removed in the field and the ‘pina’ (literally ‘pineapple’) is dug out of the ground. It’s then oven roasted and shredded into ‘mosto’ (the juice) which is then fermented in large holding tanks for eighteen hours. It is then a sweet wine with a specific gravity reading of between 6 and 12 degrees. It then undergoes a distillation process, at least two or three times to extract the alcohol and create the final product. Some is bottled straight away as ‘Tequila blanca’, while most is barreled in oak barrels for a few weeks to six years depending on the type of product it is destined to become. Many of the good tequilas, 100% agave product, are sipping tequila, not the slammers we are used to. We sample six varieties, from the second distillation 55% alcohol, to the Tequila Anejo, ‘aged tequila’.

Interesting is the cultural importance of the mescal wine, first used by the indians of the region, and the beliefs that go along with it. Surprisingly we are still able to walk and aside from the large number of touristy shops, we find Tequila to have a really genuine mexican feel to it, beautiful plaza and cathedral, and great street food and tacos. What is great here is to see Mexicans on holiday and travelling in their own country....after all it is the home of Tequila!

Guadalajara is a huge city, five or six million people, the second largest in Mexico, and we had apprehensions about riding here at all. After receiving our first military checkpoint inspection (every other time they just waved us through), the roads became more congested, busy two lanes highway with trucks and pollution. We usually get a shot of adenalin riding in city traffic and this was no exception. Underpasses stop us, as do busy exit and entry lanes, sometimes stuck in an island of fast moving traffic, but we are soon into the more tranquil city streets passing parks, gardens and cathedrals on our way to meet up with our Japanese friends Nobu, Hiro and their friend Ken. It wasn’t as bad as had been expected except the ongoing construction and streetworks in the vicinity of the hotel. This morning we are in the city newspaper ‘el Occidental’, after being snapped on the highway out of Guadalajara by a journalist who wanted to hear our story. Once again, things always seem to get lost in translation and the headline is that i will ‘pop the question’ to Anna in Guadalajara.

Maybe one day our spanish will be such that we will be completely understood. For now it’s a couple of days of rest before heading south.

Que les vaya bien!

Adios

Alister and Anna

Baja California Sur...gray whales, sea of cortez and the endless desert

thefuegoproject — Sun, 8 Feb 2009 05:31:00 GMT

21/1/09 - 4/2/09 Guerrero Negro to La Paz 840 km

Sometimes things happen exactly at the right moment. For us this was meeting Vincent and Michel, two Swiss cyclists, who also started their expedition in Alaska in May, and were on their way to Argentina. Michel has CF, a serious illness that is affecting his lungs. During their trip he has been admitted to hospitals several times. Now, in Guerrero Negro, his lung capacity has deteriorated so much, that they have to end their journey and dream.

Vincent and Michel are bronzed, strong looking young men, each with a sparkle in their eyes. But almost palpable are their feelings of frustration. They want to go on, but they can’t. In the week before this encounter both Ali and I had a little emotional dip. The change from the ‘easy comfortable USA’ to Mexico, where we don’t speak nor understand the language, and where roads are often narrow and busy. We complained: ‘little this here, little that there’. But upon meeting these boys in one instant these feelings disappear. They re-ignite our fire, the Fuego project is back on track. We have to pinch ourselves, “we’re doing it, living our dream”, two years of freedom, of seeing the world. Our riding mojo is back. We wish that there will be some way that Michel and Vincent will still be able to continue and fulfill their dream.

Vincent and Michel whom we met at the 'Hotel Ballenas', who also started their journey on the Dalton highway in Alaska

Guerrero Negro is famous for the gray whales, which migrate from Alaska to the nearby lagoon ‘Laguna Ojo de Liebre’ every year to give birth and mate. After a sandy 27 km of riding then pushing then riding again, we set up camp on a small sand dune, right next to the lagoon.

Ali wakes up to the sound of whales breathing, and wakes me to get up and have a look. It is still early in the morning and we gaze over the lagoon. The water is like glass, and it is completely quiet.

“Pfffffssshhhhht”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, was that a whale?.”

“Pfffffssshhhhht”

“I think so, but I can’t see them”.

“But they sound really close.”

And then finally we see a tiny hump, far away in the distance. The sound travels for miles, and it sounds like they are very close, but they are still in the distance. Later that morning, on board a ‘panga’, a little motor boat, we see maybe fifty whales, mothers and calves. Some swim underneath the boat, we can see their eyes and the barnacles that grow on their skin and we can smell the air they breathe. Others cruise by effortlessly with their calves in tow and some breach, ‘spy hop’ and lob their tails in the air. It is a truly magical experience shared together on the calm waters of this world heritage sanctuary.

Just cruising...

A tail lob...

Back on the bikes we climb over the mountain range that separates the Pacific from the Sea of Cortez. This sea is sheltered, and therefore calmer and warmer. We meet Gary, an American in his sixties, who has spent his winters at one of the beaches for years. He used to be a fanatical road cyclist, and rode the Baja six times. Now he enjoys offering touring cyclist a little piece of paradise close to his camper. Hence he invites us and Finn, an English cyclist to spend some time at Playa El Coyote. Gary is also known as the ‘Raven man’, and has built a little museum and laboratory on the beach. He shows us his broad collection of shells and fossils.

Gary 'Raven Man' of Raven Research West

Our happiness is complete when he takes us for a trip in three kayaks. It is Finn’s 20th birthday, no better way to celebrate. Above the water pelicans fly in groups and dive in bizarre formations to catch fish. Frigate birds and boobies soar through the sky. We paddle along some pretty beaches, and Gary enthusiastically points out everything that flies or swims.

Finn assesses 'life at 20' on a birthday paddle around the islands at Bahia Concepcion

Brown Pelican synchronised fishing display off the beachfront camp

Hilleberg on the beach, Playa El Coyote

Again in the saddle, up over the huge mountain range of the Sierra Giganta, crossing back over to the flatter coastal plains of the Pacific. We would like to see the whales once more, and this is possible at another lagoon at Puerto Lopez Mateos.

“Wouldn’t we be disappointed, after Laguna Ojo de Liebre?”

“We will have to view them as two separate experiences”.

And a different experience it is. Our visit to Puerto Lopez Mateos coincides with the ‘Festival Ballenas Gris’, and about 3000 Mexicans have gathered for a weekend of celebration. On the beach they’ve set up roller coasters, little shop stands and food stands, as well as continuous loud music. We still manage to camp, just behind all the fanfare, beside a few horse trailers. We watch a horse show, caballeros throw lassos and girls ride in beautiful traditional Mexican clothing.

In stead of whales breathing, this night we listen to the beat of the music until the early hours. The next morning, we wake to the sound of the horses breathing next to our tent. The water is busy with boats buzzing around heading out to the whales. It seems like a bit of a circus which we decide not to be a part of. Well, too bad, no more whales, but a truly Mexican fiesta instead.

On the final stretch we meet Nobu and Hiro, two Japanese cyclists we previously saw in Fairbanks in June, as well as Max, an Austrian cyclist. With the five of us, we ride through the endless desert to La Paz. It’s great to share stories about our trips, about other cyclists we have all met, but in different places , and a collective sense of connection is there.

Nobu and Hiro from Japan

and Max leading the attack on the hills to La Paz..

Now we are staying in a ‘Pension California’ with a few other cyclists in La Paz. For us the brakes are on for a while. At the end of this month we will fly to Australia. Until that time we’ll be working on our Spanish, next monday our first class starts.

All in all Baja California was a gripping experience. The cycling was challenging: desert landscape with sometimes little variation, up and down through riverbed after riverbed, busy roads, little water, scorching afternoon sun. We found that the beauty was mostly there when we got away from the road. Again, the encounters with amazing people, Michel, Vincent, Finn, Gary, Nobu, Hiro and Max, are what made it special for us.

If you are interested in reading more about Michel and Vincent’s adventures (and have no problems with French), here’s the link to their website: www.muco-velo.ch

Love Anna and Alister

Baja California Norte

thefuegoproject — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:39:00 GMT

10/1/09 - 19/1/09 San Diego to Guerrero Negro 724km

It is a fine and sunny day in San Diego, the chickens are scratching in the yard, ‘the Casita’ (our home for the past week) is cleaned and bikes are loaded into the back of Merle’s pick-up truck. After much nervous anticipation..... it is time, let’s go to Mexico! Merle drives us the 15 miles to the huge wall that separates the United States from Mexico and the border crossing of San Ysidro and Tijuana. He helps us negotiate our loaded bikes through the pedestrian turnstiles, only just enough room to edge around. They ‘clunk’ ‘clunk’ as people fling them fast on their way through, and we feel like cattle being herded through gates. We look back through the bars, to say our final goodbyes to Merle and the United States. We both feel a lump in our throats, Merle has been a generous father figure to us both over the past month working on tools and bikes in his workshop, giving us space to spread out and to get things organised in San Diego. It’s the warmth, trust and welcoming of people like him that have made this journey truly inspiring.

Another turnstile to squeeze through and we are in Tijuana, ‘Mehico’ without even showing our passports and travel cards. The smell of meat cooking from a street vendor, piano accordian music from a car, ‘farmacia’s’ selling cheap viagra, our senses are filled with different smells, sounds and language. But it’s also fairly quiet, like a city waking up with a hangover from a heavy night on tequila and cervezas, Tijuana is sleepy and slow at 9:00am. All the bars are closed, shop owners are just opening up their stores (and their eyes), people are washing down the pavement, men yell at us ‘hello, fish taco sir...’ and pharmacists wait for their first customers. Everybody looks at us as we walk our bikes through a pedestrian mall to get our bearings, we are definitely an attraction. It’s strange to be here, we have heard nothing but warnings from americans about how dangerous it is in Tijuana with the drug cartels feuding, and murders, and we should avoid it at all costs. We are sure it can be dangerous at certain times, especially hanging around at night, but we actually feel safe. However, once we are on the Mex 1 highway to Rosarito, well that’s a different story!

Within two days we’re in the comfort of Diane and Juan’s place in Ensenada. Our first taste of Mexican hospitality staying with some like-minded people and we are in need of a rest anyway. It’s hot, really hot in the concrete lined streets, with the Santa Ana winds blowing, and this is winter. We have dust in our throats as we ride out of the busy roads south of Ensenada and into the hills.

After El Rosario we decide that it’s safe to wild camp in the desert. The sun is setting, we are high on a ridge, so with no other options we pull just off the side of the road down a hill, but out of sight of the Transpeninsular highway and the trucks blasting up and down the hills. At 6:30pm we are inside our tent. At 7:00pm we hear a truck moving slowly then a loud ‘bang’, followed by ‘thud, thud thud’. We are both wide awake, “someone just came off the road!”, “what should we do?”. Then comes the sound of a door opening. As we are trying to stealth camp (not all that well mind you), we figure that the next car or truck will stop to help, and what are two cyclists with little Spanish going to be able to do. Soon there are several large semi-trailers lined up, lights flashing right next to our campsite. Within an hour there are maybe 15 or so trucks lined up, drivers chatting away in Spanish, and the road is blocked.

The moon has just risen so our tent is now illuminated like a light bulb in the open desert. Our hearts race for an hour or so with paranoid thoughts, “can they see us?”, “what might they do?”. We have heard so many negative stories about Mexico, wild camping and people being robbed, it’s hard not to be a little concerned. The next thing i remember is waking up again, the trucks are gone, so are the lights, and the night is still again, except for the wailing of the coyotes in the distance. We sleep a little easier. In the morning we ride back a few hundred metres; there lies a truck trailer on it’s side in the ditch off the narrow winding road. A lesson on not riding at night, and staying clear of the trucks.

The road has finally become quieter but it is extremely narrow with no shoulder in most places, which after the white line plunges off into a gravelly abyss of a foot or more, doesn’t look appealing to us and our two wheels. There are sometimes guard rails on the windy sections of the Mex. 1, but they are usually crushed or bent or ominously just missing from previous accidents. Occasionally beyond the white line there are drains with no grill cover that drop over a metre into the ground, that we call ‘bike traps’, or bridges over dry river beds (‘arroyos’) with no warning and no rail, just a long drop.

All along the Mex 1 we see the remains of wrecked trucks and damaged guard rails every few kilometres. Little memorials litter the roadside with crosses, wooden structures with plastic figures of Jesus inside, flowers and names and dates of loved ones who have lost their lives on this road. Like the one to Hector in the shape of a semi trailer cab, or the one with two cans of ‘Tecate’ beer next to his cross (can’t help but think that the ‘Tecate’s may have contributed to the accident...). There are perhaps hundreds that we see in all shapes and forms, such a waste of life, yet the roads are still in the same bad condition, truck drivers still have a can of ‘Tecate’ with their breakfast, people still speed and overtake on blind corners, and trucks still roll over exploding their load of smashed timber, glass, and bucket seats on the roadside.

We realise the 80km speed limit is only a suggestion, and if the road is clear most drivers will give us the room, but otherwise they can really blast us. So with one eye on the mirror to see what’s coming from behind and the other on the cars and trucks approaching, as well as on the thin strip of road which varies from smooth to potholed and sandy, it doesn’t leave too much time to be enjoying the surroundings. We employ the tactic of getting out of a bad situation before it happens. I yell out “car back”, or “truck back” or “three cars overtaking a bus and truck!” (which is really bad news) then we both signal and bail off the road into the loose gravel shoulder. It breaks our rythym, but always happy to be alive. This happens time and time again while riding the Mex. 1, but there is no other option of a road that is practical to ride. At times south of Ensenada, we even ride on a dirt track that parallels the highway just to give ourselves a break.

Catavina is a blessing and a desert wonderland, a high plateau of granite boulder fields, giant cardon cacti, and surreal cirios, a species endemic to this part of the world, with twisting and tapering white wooden trunks and a long tip sometimes bending right over to form an arch. After a tough 90km of riding uphill and into a strong headwind over open desert plain, we roll effortlessly downhill through this awesome landscape, dwarfed by 20 metre high cactus, and granite marbles most of which are painted in mexican ‘graffiti’ of people professing their love for one another. We stay for a day near Catavina at Rancho San Ynes to relax in the shade of a mesquite tree, and explore on foot the cacti and cirio forests in the surrounding boulder fields. An earlier botanist Joseph Wood Krutch had described the cirios as ‘almost hallucinatory - rather like some surrealist dream’.

From Catavina it is heads down, few services and some straight roads and we cover 240km in two days riding to Guerrero Negro in Baja California Sur. We wild camp in the desert again, this time away from the road at the base of three giant cacti. It’s a ‘dangerous’ activity camping in cactus country, and I manage to bend over and catch a cholla spine in my rear, which Anna needs to remove with surgical precision. We also remove spines from shoes, the footprint of the tent (to prevent punctures in our air mattresses) and bike tyres and the prickly chollas make the ritual night time ‘call of nature’ a little more challenging.

Some of the not-so-happy impressions of Baja California have been the number of stray dogs roaming the roads. Some just watch us pass with disinterest, while others want to have a go at us running at our bikes, so with a shot of adrenalin in the blood, Anna prepares the pepper spray and we both yell in our deepest tones to ‘stop...geett baaack!’ which usually does the trick. Although always a constant worry of ours on the trip, and it will continue to be the further we go. There are also numerous dead dogs on the side of the road. It is one thing to see dead deer like in the states but to see dogs and puppies with familiar faces and markings that no one cared for, rotting away ungracefully by the side of the road is a hard thing to swallow and ride past.

The other thing is rubbish. Beautiful desert landscape with plastic bags wrapped around cactus, broken glass, plastic bottles, nappies the whole lot strewn all over the place. The closer to a town, the more rubbish on the roadsides. We joke about ‘baja recycling’, but the sad truth is, where does our rubbish that we produce here go?

We are now in Guerrero Negro, bikes inside our cheap hotel ‘las ballenas’ room and coming to terms with the fact we are heading back to Australia in early March. Anna has finally been granted permanent residency in Australia, which is one of the reasons for the trip home. It is also eight months on the road and we have been experiencing a little ‘dip’ emotionally that many travelers and bike tourers experience when the initial excitement of starting a trip turns into a journey, then it turns into your ‘life on the road’... (thanks Dick, for the long chat today). So both of these situations coinciding together have posed other questions: do we carry on from here after March? are we still going to ride the length of two continents? and how long should we be away from home for?... Questions still unanswered. For now we are going to ride on but slow down and enjoy Baja California Sur with the sheltered lagunas and gray whale sanctuaries of the pacific coast to the beaches of the Sea of Cortez.

Hasta luego

Ali and Anna

Christmas and New Years with Caroline: San Francisco, Yosemite, Monterey

thefuegoproject — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:44:00 GMT

During Christmas holidays we flew to San Francisco for a two week holiday with Caroline, alias Coenie, Anna’s best friend from the Netherlands.

Our week started off with a sightseeing tour of the city on the Hyde and Powell tram, an exhilarating ride up and down steep hills. We were hanging on the side of the tram, and had to hold on tight. All ended well with a warm clam chowder at the wharf.

Via Muir Woods, a national forest with Coastal Redwoods, we drove up to Yosemite NP. Lucky we had rented a 4WD, for it snowed and the roads up in the Sierra Nevada were covered with a slippery white blanket.

In the park we spent a few days hiking through the snow covered pines, vertical black granite walls dooming through low cloud. Fresh footprints of a bear covered the trail and Ali almost bumped into her when she tried climbing down a tree.

The contrast couldn’t have been bigger when we arrived at Monterey Bay just north of the Big Sur coast, where we spent another few days along the sunny coast. We paddled in kayaks down Elkhorn Slough, a marine wildlife reserve, with thousands of waterbirds, where sea otters munch on fresh cockles and seals chill out on the sandbars.

Back to San Francisco for New Years eve. We caught up with Richard, whom we had cycled with before in Alaska, and who was now travelling with Edwer, his fiancee.

It all seemed too quick when Coenie flew off on the 1st of january. Maybe next time with a third bike?

Las Vegas to San Diego...the Mojave desert, Joshua Tree, the Salton sea and the Anza Borrego desert

thefuegoproject — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:10:00 GMT

Our entry into Las Vegas is great. Google maps instructs us the shortest route to our host, of which four miles are on 'the Strip', the epicenter of casino's. Along the way we see marriages in small wedding chapels and a red leather booted Elvis gives me highfive and says in a deep toned voice 'he baby'. We're on an adrenalin high navigating our loaded bikes on the busy six lane road.

Our host Kevin lives a way away from all the hustle and bustle and his welcome is a little haven for us. We are both exhausted from the weeks passed, and Kevin has us recover and rest. We share interesting conversations and he takes us out to a casino to enjoy another Vegas entity: the buffet. Really good food, it's hard to decide where to start and stop.

One night we spend walking along the neon red, blue and yellow lit up casino's of the Strip, we even win 50 dollars with roulette!

After Las Vegas a new kind of riding starts, through the desert. For the first time we have to plan our water supply, and a few times Ali hauls up 10 liters of water, often because we have no idea where the next tap will be. It ends up not being too bad.

The desert is phenomenal. We had thought deserts are somewhat monotonous, stretched sandy plains with few hills, the opposite is true. The terrain is varried, sometimes quite densely overgrown with brush, Joshua Trees, cactus etc. We ride non stop stretches of 20 miles uphill, not steep but decent grades, to then coast down for 25 miles, our fingers numb and bodies stiff from the cold.

In the Mojave desert and Joshua Tree NP we see Joshua Trees, a beautiful tree of the Yucca family, and also cactus gardens with thousands of prickly cholla's. Sometimes suddenly there are little oases, with a few palmtrees, underneath them small streams of water oozing out from the rocks. We usually camp out 'wild', a little way off the road, in the desert sand and enjoy the quiet starry nights.

From the Mojave desert we descend to the Salton Sea, a large lake below sea level. Millions of birds have their wintering grounds here, and we see pelicans and hummingbirds. Again we tread in the footsteps of Chris McCandless, the young man who hitched to Alaska to live in the wild in the early 90's. He lived in the Anza Borrego desert close to this lake for a while, and it brings up a deep feeling of respect for him that he was able to endure and enjoy these harsh deserted places.

The Anza Borrego desert is beautiful. Extremely dry. Now that it's winter the temperature is very enjoyable, but one can just imagine what it would be like in summer, mirages of hot air shimmering over the arid ground.

And then in a flash the desert changes into an oak forest. We climb our last pass, and suddenly find ourselves in a world of cars, houses and shops. After almost four months inland, we can see the Pacific ocean in the distance.

In San Diego we stay with Merle and Linda in a cabana (little shed) in their garden. Once again we are welcomed with unconditional hospitality, it touches us that people take us under their wing like this. It also allows us time to spend some love on our equipment: new tyres, new chains, extra tent pegs and farewell to the Bob trailer, Ali is going to change to panniers.

Tomorrow we are flying to San Francisco to celebrate Christmas and New Years with Caroline, leaving the saddle for a welcome two week break.

At the start of january a new chapter in our trip begins: Mexico.

Lots of love and a merry Christmas to all of you.

Anna and Alister

Bryce Canyon to Las Vegas...hoodoos, Zion and the North Rim

thefuegoproject — Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:41:00 GMT

As we pushed on into the wind for the last 15 miles uphill to Bryce Canyon, Anna spots another cyclist riding up behind us. 'Could it be Wayne?', we spot the beard, the cap and the dark bags, 'it is!'. He had been pushing hard to catch us on the hill, so Anna spun around to meet him. We had first met Wayne just out of Jackson WY in Grand Teton NP from where he had headed to the mountain passes of Colorado. Two days earlier Adrian (our Swiss friend) had told us of a cyclist coming over Boulder mountain like we had, but a day later, in snow flurries, with a big beard and we knew then it could well be Wayne, and it was. He had previously been cycling with his Swiss girlfriend who unfortunately had to return home to work after Jackson, so he had been cycling alone and was keen to join us to Bryce.

Bryce Canyon is situated above 8,000 feet high up on a plateau, snow covered some of the ground around the campground under the Ponderosa pines and the temperature dropped well below freezing at night. The main features at Bryce are sandstone hoodoos, delicate pink, orange and red pillars of rock, windows, fins and slot canyons that fill a natural amphitheatre. With names like 'Thor's Hammer',' the Hunter',' the Queens Garden' and 'Fairyland Point' you can appreciate the imagery this place creates. We hiked through slot canyons and under balanced hoodoos and carved walls along the Najavo trail and Queens Garden trail, looking up in awe at the gravity defying features carved by water and ice into the sandstone. The exposed tops of the cliffs are also home to Bristlecone pines, thought to be the oldest living trees on earth, gnarled and slightly scraggly looking, a few twisted branches, needles close to the branches, yet majestic trees eeking out an existence on these windswept hills of eroding rock. At night the moon was full so we took a short walk out from behind our camp and experienced a haunting view of the hoodoos, lit up by the moonlight.

We spent our nights at Bryce inside at Rubys Inn in front of the fire because it was bitterly cold once the sun went down. Over maps and photos and with the news that the road to the North Rim was still open, we decided with Wayne that we would ride to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon together.

We had to negotiate a tunnel through Zion NP that bicycles are prohibited from riding through. After an hour wait and some discussions with the park staff about the need for a better way to get cyclists through the tunnel (they actually encourage hitching through and provide no other alternative, even after you have paid your entrance fee!), we finally get a ride through with a pick-up truck. In Zion we spent a day riding up the scenic Zion Canyon drive past large rock walls such as the 'Court of the Patriarchs', 'the Weeping Wall', and 'the Temple of Sinawava'. We walked up the riverside walk into the narrows of the Virgin River, steep canyon walls carved out over thousands of years by the icy cold Virgin River. We then hiked up the busy paved 'Angels Landing' trail, to a steep rocky ridge and with the help of some chains, to an overlook they call 'Angels Landing' which offered spectacular views down to the valley below. Back down the road we camped at the Watchmen campground and watched stars blaze a trail across the clear night sky.

To get out of Zion we either had to ride back up the hill and through the tunnel again or take a dirt road up onto Gooseberry Mesa. We decided on the dirt road alternative which we found out the locals call 'cry baby hill'. We are constantly being told how steep hills are, or how we won't be able to ride there and they always end up being quite alright and rideable. So we usually respond 'we've had worse' and take their advice with a large pinch of salt. This time however, 'Cry baby hill' turned out to be quite the hill. The loose rutted gravel road pinched straight up and we were all very quickly out of gears. As soon as my front wheel lost traction I was off the bike. It was impossible to get back on the bike on the steep hill and loose surface so the only option was to stay off and push my bike and trailer up the hill. This is the first hill in over 5,000 miles that we have had to walk up so it was no small thing. With all my strength I pushed, then stopped every 15 metres or so. I looked up the hill and Anna had walked small sections but still managed to ride most parts of the hill. Behind me Wayne was cursing, leaned at an angle into his loaded bike, he hauled it uphill step by step, both of us sweated in the warm midday sun. After several sections of riding and then walking it flattened out after a mile or so of 20 per cent graded hill. The views back over Zion were spectacular from the top of the Mesa. A bit of a taste for what some of the hills and roads might be like in Central and South America.

After the peace and quiet of the gravel road over Gooseberry Mesa we then rejoined the trucks, traffic and small shoulder of the highway 59 into Arizona to camp at the Kanab Indian Reservation at Pipe Springs National Monument. A funny little campground, almost closed for the season and no one wanted to take our $5 for the night, 'no you don't pay here, pay over there', which then followed by 'no, you pay at the Mobil gas station', who told us, 'no you have to go back to the RV park and pay the camp host (who was still sleeping at this hour of the morning)'. We wanted to pay since it was so little, but noone wanted our money, so we cycled on after a free night of showers, a rarity on our trip.

It took us three days of riding from Zion to reach the North Rim of the Grand Canyon including a fairly tough day of climbing up to Jacob Lake at nearly 8,000 feet again. We pitched our tents in the closed and newly refurbished Jacob Lake National Forest campground. The best campgrounds for us are those that are closed - they are free, there's noone else there which means you can choose whichever site you like, you don't have to answer any questions, there's no noisy RV's or generators to disturb the peace and quiet, and in this case there was water and toilets available over at the nearby lodge.

From Jacob Lake we rode further up the Kaibab Plateau to 8,800 feet. Once again we were riding among Aspen and Ponderosa pines with layers of snow blanketing the shaded sections of forest. Usually the north rim road closes by mid-October with snow, so we were extremely lucky to still be able to ride into the Grand Canyon this way. At the north rim campground it was back to basic winter facilities and there were only several other campers there. Unfortunately the RV closest to us fired up their generator before dark, making us wish we had camped a little further away. It's one of the joys of camping in the USA and Canada, listening to the hum of generators and engines in park campgrounds, keeping the otherwise oblivious occupants warm inside with lights on while drowning out the sounds of birds, squirrels and the silence of the forest mmm...how's the serenity? By 8:15pm we have had enough and Anna approaches them to turn it off out of respect to the whole place. I offered back-up with a heavy torch. The guy was all fired up and said he can have it run until 10pm in line with the rules. I quickly pointed out that he should read the rules properly which he stormed off to do. In five minutes the generator was turned off and he apologised across the darkness of the campsite to us. Peace and quiet returned to the North Rim.

We planned to hike down into the Grand Canyon so we obtained permits from the backcountry office to spend two nights at Cottonwood campground which would also enable us to hike into the Colorado river. So we transformed all of our equipment into overnight hiking mode, loaded up our packs, stashed our bikes away in the woods and took off down the North Kaibab Trail. It was steep from the beginning, used as a mule trail in summer, rocky and dusty it drops quickly through 4,000 feet of elevation passing through several distinctive rock layers that make up the Grand Canyon. The trail hugged sheer cliff walls, crossed bridges and passed roaring springs and waterfalls on the way down to Bright Angel Canyon. Unlike the South Rim, the North Rim is actually a long way back from the Colorado river rarely seen from the viewpoints and as such the hike in is longer and more gradual along the North Kaibab than the South Kaibab trail. From Cottonwood campground we hiked a further 7 miles through the inner canyon to the Colorado and the heart of the Grand Canyon. It was awesome to be there, seeing the green waters of the Colorado rushing by beneath us, rafters floated by into the rapids, turkey vultures soared overheads on the thermals and high above us the red cliffs and walls of the south rim and rock temples. It's an experience to get up close to places by hiking, rather than seeing things from the bike, so we really valued the opportunity to be able to hike down into the largest canyon in the world and to spend two nights camping below the rim. Back at the North Rim we camped overlooking 'the transept', and watched the sun set over the vast canyon, the colours changed from orange to purple to blue.

We said our farewells to Wayne back at Jacob Lake, he would head around to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon then south to Phoenix, whilst we were headed west back towards Las Vegas via Zion NP again.

This time through Zion we spent longer in the eastern end of the park and did some exploring and short walks up into slot canyons, across striped checkerboard rock walls, up slickrock slopes, and across layered pink and red sandstone dunes, while most people in cars rushed on past missing the beauty of the place. Once again on the park roads, people drove extremely fast, overtaking us on blind corners through cut out sections of road, 'what's the rush?' we think. We are amazed at how people drive here, i mean it's a National Park to protect the wildlife and plants of the region and people are tearing around at great speeds. Most just want to be able to drive everywhere to the sights so they can see it all in as little time as possible and the parks have been created that way. There was even a sign at the visitor centre with ideas to how to do 'Zion in less than three hours', which sums up the mentality of many people we see on the roads. But we enjoyed the place to ourselves on our second run through, a sandstone desert canyon paradise!

This time at the tunnel, we waited less than five minutes for a pick-up to give us a ride through. We sat in the back of the pick-up with our bikes and gear piled in and watched the light disappear as we entered the tunnel, windows of the peaks of Zion flashed by and we glowed red in the brake lights in the dark. We were extremely grateful for the ride, before we launched into the downhill through an array of switchbacks and sweeping corners, heads arched to the sky taking in the mountain top views, down into the Zion Canyon and to the Watchmen campground.

We stayed with a friendly family (whom we met on the North Rim) in St George on eve of thanksgiving, but with an tempting invite to stay for the feast and to meet the whole extended family, we felt the urge to keep moving to Las Vegas. We still had to climb one last pass in Utah at 4,400 feet over 'Utah Hill' to avoid a dangerous section of the I-17 intersate through the Virgin River Gorge, so in steady rain we climbed up to the summit. There, it felt like the earth rotated in our favour and tipped us into a 45 minute, 15 mile downhill descent into the desert and Arizona. Our hands were frozen in the rain, as we pedalled to stay warm. A funny way to leave Utah and to enter the Mojave Desert we thought, under grey skies, and pouring rain. Large Joshua Tree forests covered the silhouetted hillsides some burnt and some green and the desert soil smelt so good. Another flat tyre for Anna, her fourth in four days made it a rush against time to get to Mesquite before dark but we made it. Soaked and cold in Nevada, large flashing casino signs dominated the evening sky, horrible people chain smoking in bad clothes locked themselves to their pokie machines, and we slept inside in a motel.

We are now in Las Vegas staying with Kevin O'Leary our host from the 'Warm Showers' network. It is an amazing placec to see first hand, the first glimpse of the skyline from the hills on the interstate, the extreme poverty in the northern edges of the city, riding down the Strip fully loaded past wedding chapels, Elvis, casinos, and the endless buffets and excess of food and money. So much to see and enjoy as well as some much needed rest, will fill you in on the details and photos next time around.

From the desert...enjoy

Alister and Anna

The Fuego Project

Moab to Escalante.... Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and the Grand Staircase

thefuegoproject — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:41:00 GMT

It wouldn't be a stay in Moab without hitting the world famous trails and slickrock. We were lucky enough to have some local mtb guides in Nancy and Rachel who took us on an epic ride from the slickrock trail, up the hill nine miles to the Porcupine Rim trail. It was some of the most technical climbing we have ever done, stepping up rock ledges on technical double track but rewarded with awesome views of the red rock pillars of Castle Valley. The descent off the rim was brutal, ranging from rock gardens of red stone angled towards us, sand, fast flowing singletrack, rock drops and 'hike-a-bike' sections more akin to tough hiking trails than mountain biking. Needless to say Nancy and Rachel rode these, while we hiked them. The trail finished by hugging the hillside over technical rocky singletrack overhanging the Colorado River far below us, no room for error, and required a good head for heights.

The crew at the 'guide house' in Moab was extremely kind to us, having us camp out in the backyard for nearly a week, sharing a Halloween party, coffee, good food and some quality 'couch time' movie sessions. It felt like a real break at a comfortable share house, could have been with some friends at home.

After weeks of following their path, in Moab we finally caught up with the Vogels, a family from Idaho with two ten year old boys who are also riding from Alaska to Argentina. We joined John, Nancy, Daryl and Davey for a day trip into Arches NP just out of Moab to explore some of the red rock formations, petrified sand dunes, balancing rocks and of course rock arches. We made it as far into the park as 'the Windows', a series of arches; Turret Arch, Double Arch and the North and South Windows with the La Sal mountains as a backdrop as well as stopping at Park Avenue, Courthouse Towers and the Garden of Eden. It was also a day to share stories, ideas and plans with the Vogels, hearing how they travel with the two boys and some of the challenges they have faced. They are 'home' schooling the boys from the bike which means a pannier full of books, and stops at historical and natural significant places on their journey. It was great to finally meet the family after hearing so many people tell us stories about them.

Leaving Moab we made it as far as Newspaper Rock in an afternoons riding on the busy 191 highway. It has been our least favourite section of road and we had several close calls with vehicles overtaking other vehicles coming towards us, once even forcing us off the road. In the United States, everyone seems to be in a real hurry, with no patience on the road, for slowing down to pass us, or overtaking on blind corners. Not to make anyone at home worry, it just means that we have to be really alert to things happening in front of us and get out of there quickly if we need to. We ended up riding into the dark (with our Niteflux lights on of course!) as the days were getting shorter and we underestimated the hills. After dodging cows in the open range and an hour in the dark we arrived at Newspaper Rock recreation site marked for camping on our maps. In the dark we couldn't find any sign of a campground and ended up wild pitching off the road. In the morning we discovered that camping is not allowed along the river any longer due to a flash flood in 2004. Lucky we didn't know that the night before! But we had felt completely safe there and so sign of storms or rain.

It was still 22 miles into the Needles area of Canyonlands NP from Newspaper Rock so decided to try and hitch into the park to do a day hike. We were extremely lucky and met a group of Germans on a work team-building trip who were happy to give us a ride into the park and to the trailhead of the Chesler Park hike. We walked through red sandstone canyons, through cracks in rock slabs, past cactus, yuccas, gnarled Juniper trees and in between red and pink coloured sandstone hoodoos which are called 'the needles'. We walked a section of trail known as the 'Joint trail', a large crack in the rock just wide enough to walk through and with 20 to 30 feet walls surrounding us. It is an amazing desert landscape with these huge pillars of layered rock all around us and we had one of our best hikes of the trip so far.

Several days later we had ridden from Natural Bridges National Monument deep into canyon country, past large red cliffs of rock, buttes and towers dominated the landscape and we rejoined the Colorado river where it flows into the dammed Lake Powell. This is one of the most vast and desolate landscapes we have ever seen, no trees, just red rock as far as the eye can see and some dark storm clouds were brewing above.

Camped at Dirty Devil river in Glen Canyon on an exposed sandstone ledge, a storm buffeted our tent with strong waves of wind and rain meaning a rather sleepless night. By morning it seemed the storm had passed as we climbed a 10 per cent grade hill cut into the red canyon wall we thought that would be the hardest part of the day. We climbed through the wind tunnel of the north grand wash canyon, winds gusting through the side canyons rustled the golden leaves of the Cottonwoods. As soon as we climbed out of the canyon the winds just got stronger in our faces. With views of the snow dusted Henry mountains in the distance, orange-red sandstone formations in the foreground and strong headwinds, Anna shed a tear. What started out as a great day in amazing scenery quickly turned into a painful and testing day both physically and mentally. As we climbed our average speed into the wind ranged from 3 – 4 miles per hour with the mile posts moving by every 15 to 20 minutes, 24, 23, 22.... The winds got worse, slowing our speed to below 3 mph, and blowing sand off the desert dunes into our eyes and teeth. Strong gusts blasted our bikes sideways, and we ended up on the side of the road. 'This is hopeless' I thought and started walking my bike along the edge of the ride for half a mile, unable to ride on. I turned around and Anna was walking her bike as well.

At milepost 16 I did the maths, 'its 3pm now so thats at least three more hours if we keep pedalling and no more breaks...mmm'. I was determined, or too stubborn to not concede to the elements. At milepost 15 I stopped and Anna caught up. I could see she was broken by the relentless 20 – 30 mph winds. She was close to tears and expressed the feelings I was experiencing but not wanting to show. She said ' the next pick-up, I am going to try and hitch a ride!'. This time I didn't object at all, I was broken too, I just didn't want to admit it. Just like that a white pick-up truck appeared on the horizon and then stopped for us. George agreed to give us a lift the last fifteen miles to Hanksville. 'Sick of riding into the wind today?' he asked. 'Yep' we both reply, ' this is the first lift we have accepted in over 5,000 miles, if that tells you how bad the wind was'. We loaded our bikes into the back, and before we knew it we were in Hanksville, a dodgy motel out of the wind, even worse deep fried food, but very happy that the day was over and no regrets about accepting a ride. It's all part of the journey to recognise our own limits and to know the time to give into ego and respect what the elements throw at us.

After the winds of the previous day we were extremely happy with a pleasant day of riding up the Fremont River valley towards Capitol Reef NP. Out of Hanksville, grey sandy buttes (flat topped hills) gave way to the waterpocket fold of Capitol Reef with large sandstone domes, red and white cliffs, ancient Fremont petroglyphs in the valley walls (carvings of bighorn sheep and mythical human figures) and historical orchards, schoolhouses and buildings from the early Mormon pioneers. We met up with Adrian, a Swiss man we had met hiking previously at the Needles in Canyonlands NP. He is extremely enthusiastic about all of the parks in Utah and takes us to viewpoints, joins us on a hike and drives us to the Capitol Gorge scenic drive and gorge hike.

Leaving Capitol Reef we had a big climb ahead of us over Boulder mountain pass at 9,600 feet our highest pass of the trip so far. It took us the best part of a day to climb the 4,000 feet over 35 miles up into Ponderosa Pines, Quaking Aspens and meadows and creeks of the mountain forests in Dixie National Forest to the summit. It was such a contrast up there in the higher elevations of Utah among tall trees after coming from the lower elevation desert country where the trees are short and stunted and cactus and grasses rule the drier country. In Utah they don't believe in gentle grades, our hardest hills have all been here. So after all that climbing, it was then a 45 minute steep downhill to Boulder for 15 miles, large sweeping corners, wild turkeys off the road, back into the Juniper and Pinyon Pines. We were freezing by the time we reached the bottom. We ended up camping in an apple orchard out the back of a small motel thanks to the friendly owner, with mule deer feeding on the fallen apples through the night.'The best camping in Boulder is right here in the orchard' he claimed. We agreed. Once again grateful for the generosity so many people have shown us.

From Boulder we entered the vast Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a series of creek carved canyons and rock layers from different geological timeframes exposed as cliffs that roll down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The 'Hog's back', is a narrow winding road following a ridgeline with drops either side down into canyons carved into sandstone. It was an amazing descent deep into the Escalante river valley with the cliffs of the Grand Staircase on the horizon. After some more switchback climbs back out of the valley we made it to Escalante by lunchtime with an ominous looking storm coming towards us from the mountains. With the storm outlook for the next two days we decided to put the feet up for some rest in Escalante in some cabins at Escalante Outfitters. Dennis and Dena our hosts fed us good coffee and great eggs. Once again we are on the very edge of the shoulder season, campgrounds are closed, cafes are closed, and in fact the cabins will be closed in a few days for the winter. Just scraped in!

Today the sun is shining and wind barely blowing...a perfect day for cycling really and we can't help but feel like we are missing a window of opportunity to get to Bryce Canyon, but we also need rest, laundry, and bike maintenance. So we enjoy the sun, get greasy hands, eat plenty and prepare for the climb to Bryce.

Enjoy

Alister and Anna

The Fuego Project

Wyoming to Utah: the Flaming gorge, Fruita singletrack and Moab

thefuegoproject — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:39:00 GMT

After the snowstorm passed, we left Jackson WY on a sunny but cold afternoon. We pushed untill after sunset, and found ourselves on a high plateau, the Green River Basin, the sagebrush covered in a thick blanket of snow.

The temperature overnight dropped to 15 F (-10 C), too cold to stay outside and cook dinner. Ali scraped snow of the table to boil for a quick soup. Luckily our sleeping gear really showed it's value, and we were warm inside. The next morning we lingered inside untill the first rays of sun hit the tent, warming our bodies and souls. Outside a quiet world of white, with footprints of coyote and Pronghorn antelope that had roamed nearby at night.

Just off this plateau starts the Green River. The Green River flows through the Flaming gorge in southern Wyoming, and streams into the Colorado River in Utah, and we followed the general route of this waterway.
The Flaming Gorge has some side roads, and we cycled up the Sheep Creek Canyon, an amazing geologist mecca. Millions of years ago the crust of the earth was moved upwards to form a mountain range called the Uinta's. The sides of this range sort of cracked and the layers of earth that were once horizontal are now vertical. In the canyon you can see these different layers side by side. High pilars of sandstone, footprints of dinosaurs, fossillized sanddunes, petrified trees, remains of worlds ancient from our time, but also from one another, here visible close together.

At the bottom of the gorge the elk and deer hunting season has begun. Hunters have parked their SUV's and trailers right next to the road, and we see them walk trough the bushes, guns at their side, bright orange caps and jackets over their camouflage gear, so they won't accidentally shoot oneanother. It makes us feel sick to see the bloody heads and antlers dangling over the back of their cars. The thought that they will be stuffed and hung on the wall of someones house or a restaurant, like empty shells of a once beautiful animal, makes us angry, and we detest this useless destruction. The presense of hunters makes the roads feel far less safe than we are used to.
One night two of these hunters are driving their ATV's on trails close to our tent. I am scared they might hit us, but it turns out they are more scared of us.... We hear the them talking: "I don't know man, but that sure looks like a UFO to me!"and they take off. Since we have our torches on, the tent looks greenishly illuminated from outside!

It's an interesting time to be in the USA, the elections now only two weeks away. We are in republican country, and see McCain/ Palin boards in gardens, on cars, even at campgrounds.

We hit the western side of Colorado, and ride over Douglas Pass, one of the hardest of the trip so far, 40 miles uphill, the last 3 miles take an hour. Then down to Fruita, MTB sister city of Melrose, SA.
In Fruita we are welcomed by the friendly staff of Over the Edge Sports, and rent two mountainbikes for a day on singletrack. The day puts a grin on our face from one ear to the other; fast flowing trails in the desert foothills, redrock in the backdrop, cactus lining narrow ridges. It's almost too hard to describe this day with words, the pictures will tell more.

From Fruita it is a short two days to Moab. The landscape changes from open desert to a deep canyon, the Colorado river at our side. Eroded rock has created pilars and formations to the eye almost beyond the logic of gravity.

Moab is the (debated) worlds MTB capital, and we are staying with some friends for a few days to try the famous Slickrock trail, and check out some National Parks nearby.

Missoula to Jackson...Big Hole, pronghorn, Yellowstone and the Tetons

thefuegoproject — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:57:00 GMT

With fresh inspiration for the journey ahead we followed the Trans-America trail south along the Bitteroot valley before crossing over a range to the east at Lost Trail Pass and into the Big Hole Valley. This was the same route the Adventure Cycling Association took across the states in the summer of 76' in their inaugural Trans-American bike journey.

Chief Joseph Pass - one of three large crossings of the continental divide in this stretch of the journey

On the ten mile downhill from Chief Joseph Pass my Bob trailer wheel started squeaking before eventually it gave a loud 'crunch' and i ground to an abrupt halt. I saw my trailer wheel spin past me at 25mph...'quick Anna, catch it..!' which she did. The bearings were smashed on one side of the wheel. After some unsuccessful roadside bearing repairs I limped off with a very wobbly trailer wheel...'only ten miles to Wisdom' i thought.

Just fifty metres down the road we spotted a yearling moose calf in the willow thickets. We wondered where mum might be (cow moose are extremely dangerous protecting their young), when Anna discovered mum dead in the ditch, an obvious roadkill and a large bear scat next to it on the road. Not the best place to have spent an hour trying to repair the wheel bearings! We pondered the fate of the yearling moose without mum for the winter ahead.

We stopped off at the Big Hole Battlefield National Monument, the site of a battle between the US army and the non-treaty Nez Perce Indians in 1877. A tragic story of the displacement of native people in north america, the brutal loss of indian women and children and then the strength of these people to fight back and hold the army at siege.

As we came down off the range into the Big Hole Valley the landscape changed dramatically. It was dry and golden in the afternoon sun with sagebrush plains, big skies, pronghorn antelope roaming freely and fields of black cattle. The pronghorn is the only one of 14 species of its family (antelopes) that evolved in North America to have survived the arrival of humans on the northern american landscape. They can exceed 55mph (85km/ph)and migrate huge distances from their summer ranges here in Montana. The pronghorn like bison once numbered in the tens of millions, but by the turn of the 19th century they were less than 20,000. We saw many herds of pronghorn on the open prairies with one male having a harem of forty females to keep him busy.

Our first sighting of pronghorn antelope on the prairies of Montana

In Wisdom (a town named after one of the three rivers Wisdom, Philosophy and Philanthropy, which were named by Lewis and Clark on their Corps of Discovery expedition for Thomas Jefferson's three virtues) we woke up once again to a frozen tent, bikes and water and soon discovered that this valley holds the record for the coldest recorded temperature in North America (excluding Alaska) of -60 f. Wisdom, population 103 surpisingly didn't have a bike shop, so we managed to hitch in a 1956 Chevy 'Bel Air' 70 miles to Butte to try to get the bearings fixed. Eventually we got a ride another 25 miles to Anaconda with Nathan from the bike shop where Pete at Sven's Cycles generously sold me his wheel for $10 (far cheaper than the wheel would cost), but that is all he wanted for it!

Anna Hitching to 'Wisdom'

So with some luck, some great generosity, and friendly bike mechanics, we hitched back to Wisdom with a friendly group of locals on their way to a wedding, with a new Bob wheel and only $10 lighter in the pocket. Thanks to everyone who picked us up, helped us, and shared a part of their day with us(you know who you are), we wouldn't have got back on the road without you.

Arriving in Yellowstone NP was another milestone for us. Yellowstone was the first proclaimed National Park in the United States and home to geysers, hot springs, other amazing geothermal features and wild herds of bison. We based ourselves at Madison campground for several nights (as most of the other campgrounds have already closed for winter) and explored the Norris geyser basin and the Fire-hole valley geyser basins including 'Old Faithful' geyser. The most impressive was the Porcelain basin at Norris with steam vents blasting steam and sulphur into the air, bubbling hot springs and colourful algae and bacterial communities colouring the runoff from green to yellow to rusty red.

Images of some of the thermal features at Yellowstone NP

The elk were in the middle of their rutt (males competing for breeding rights)so at night we heard bugling males with their haunting calls echoing through the forest. At Fire-hole valley we saw large herds of bison feeding in the open plains and dusting themselves in dust bowls. We were in awe of these amazing creatures so close, the young calves, and the big bulls. We could only imagine the plains of North America filled with millions of these stampeding creatures supporting an amazingly diverse indigenous culture long before the white man arrived.

The Great Plains of North America were once filled with herds of millions of these majestic Bison

The two Belgians we had met at Glacier NP, Thomas and Colin rolled into the biker camping area at Madison campground, so we shared a fire and decided to travel with them for the rest of the ride down to Jackson. The roads were still surprisingly busy and we rode 78 miles in the rain through the park to Lewis lake campground, passing more large herds of bison, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Yellowstone lake. Our biggest day of the trip so far, it was mostly uphill crossing the continental divide for the last time, and in the process clocked up 4,000 miles for the trip so far, so a day of big milestones.

On the road with Thomas and Colin through steaming Yellowstone NP

The 'Grand Canyon' of Yellowstone NP

We awoke to snow and freezing conditions at Lewis Lake, so made a quick escape down out of the park. The conditions improved once we had descended down to Grand Teton NP and we had amazing views of the Tetons with vivid autumn colours of the aspen, alder and cottonwood trees on the lake and hillsides.

The four of us hiked up the Cascade Canyon trail to Solitude lake on a clear but windy day. The autumn colours were spectacular along this glacially carved canyon, rocky mountain peaks and alpine moraine lake.

Solitude Lake, Grand Teton NP

We nearly came head-to-head with two male moose on the trail back down. Luckily they stepped off the trail and crossed the creek into the willow thickets. Amazing to see them so close with their huge racks of antlers.

Mr Moose on the trail

So we arrived in Jackson yesterday and booked into a motel for four days for some needed rest and relaxation...not to mention the forecast for snow for the next three days! Today, it is snowing pretty well . Another reminder to keep moving south fairly swiftly. The Canada geese can't all be wrong flying overhead to the south! Winter is nipping at our heels...4,100 miles on the clock for the Fuego Project so far.

happy pedalling and snowflakes from the north, enjoy.

Alister and Anna

Banff to Missoula...the great north parks and big sky country

thefuegoproject — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:40:00 GMT

After a chilly week tent bound with the flu in Banff, and spending time with friends, it was time for us to hit the road again with winter nipping at our heels and a lot of mountains between us and the desert country. As soon as we left Banff along the Bow Valley Parkway the sun began to shine and warmed our spirits.

Anna on the climb out of Castle junction with Castle mountain in the background

A little weary from the flu, it took several days to find our strength again. We followed highway 93 down the Kootenay river valley, through the Kootenay National Park, crossing the continental divide, passing through glacial river valleys and large burnt out hillsides of pines from fires in the 90's and this decade. We awoke to frozen tents, and water at Vermillon crossing, so while the days were sunny, the nights well below zero degrees celsius.

Frozen morning camps along the Kootenay River

A rare portrait of the two of us taken by some fellow bikers

A major climb over Sinclair pass then downhill off the mountains all the way to Radium Hot Springs where we soaked our weary legs...the best way yet to end a day of hard cycling! We met two cyclists, John and Eli, biking from Kodiak Alaska to Jackson Wyoming, so we shared a campspot and stories with these guys before they powered on the next day.

The change from Canada back into the States at Roosville Montana was quite dramatic, big open skies, golden fields, ranches, red barns, big pick up trucks and cowboys! All of a sudden we didnt feel so comfortable just in cycling knicks walking into a shop with 'Budweiser - hunters welcome' out front and leather cowboy boots the norm...so out came the over shorts!

We decided to take a detour into Glacier National Park to ride the going-to-the-sun road to Logan Pass and maybe a rest day off the bikes while the sun was still shining and the skies blue. Unfortunately we were a day late with road works blocking the road from West Glacier to Logan Pass and a two day detour around the eastern end of the park not really an option.

The 'Not Going to the Sun Road' for us...unfortunately closed a day earlier

As a alternative we decided to head to the mountains for a day hike up to Sperry Glacier trail...a lazy 18 mile return trip with an elevation gain of 4,500 feet! The reward was in the last few miles where high up above the tree line we walked across red and green rock scree slopes, over waterfalls fed by glacial streams, views of carved rock faces, alpine meadows, hoary marmots whistling from the boulders and then a group of five mountain goats on the trail. They didn't move for us, this was their domain. So we shared a few moments with them in their mountain paradise and began our descent. One mountain goat stood high above us on a rock, they truly are the kings of that mountain kingdom.

Ali hiking the Sperry glacier trail

Kings of the mountain kingdom, mountain goats

At Glacier NP we also met up with Thomas and Colin from Belgium, they were one day into a year long bike trip from Whitefish Montana to Bolivia. We were inspired by their enthusiasm and excitement heading out on a big trip, and shared with them stories of the road, fellow cyclists and the usual map dreaming.

Thomas and Colin from Belgium, with Ali

Finally the blue skies broke and we rode through drizzling cold rain through the Swan Valley. After entering the Laughing Horse Lodge dripping wet, we warmed by the fire and enjoyed hot coffee and a cooked 'second breakfast' (something we have learnt from fellow cyclists Ken and Neill). A friendly local couple shared a story of a motorbike trip through South America, and must have felt sorry for us pedalling on in the rain and paid our bill while leaving without us knowing. This was a generous gesture that summed up the hospitality we have received on the road especially in Montana.

Missoula MT was our next destination to visit the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) office and plan our journey to Jackson WY. A huge storm dumped down rain (the heaviest of the trip so far) as we rolled into Missoula. So with an already wet tent, we found the first motel we could in the downpour 'the Ponderosa' and checked in after a month in the tent. Red plush carpet, with our tent set up inside we dried all of our gear and dropped pine needles everywhere.

At the ACA we met Greg Siple, one of the founders of the organisation and also the first (along with his wife) to ride their bikes from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina in 1973-74. He showed us around the ACA offices: a shrine to bicycle touring with old touring bikes hung on the walls, black and white portraits of bike tourists from the 70's, 80's and 90's, walls of maps and routes through the US, a library of bike related matter and a bunch of dedicated staff committed to getting more people touring the country on bikes. Greg showed us his special collection of black and whites from that original north to south expedition from Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Alaska. He asked us to return the next day with our loaded bikes to take black and white photos of us to add to his portrait collection, which we did and we feel privileged to become part of that collection.

The ACA adventure cyclist portraits - Ali seems to have a problem keeping his arms straight, while Anna seems more comfortable in her role!

After meeting Greg we feel even more inspired to complete the journey to Argentina, and he makes us feel like it is achievable, that we should follow our dream and we are not the only crazy ones who believe in this journey. The next step however will be Jackson in Wyoming where we will leave the rocky mountains.

happy pedalling, blue skies ahead

from the fuego team

Alister and Anna

Sea to Sky Highway, Icefields Parkway and the Dave Matthews Band

thefuegoproject — Sat, 6 Sep 2008 18:04:00 GMT

We said goodbye to Vancouver in style, cruising the harbor with Tas (Ali's former housemate) and Scarlett in their little yacht.

It suddenly turned really hot for a few days, and we sweated our way up

the Sea to Sky highway, from Vancouver to Squamish and onwards to Whistler.

Squamish is known for the Chief, a huge monolith (rock), and very popular amongst rockclimbers. A whole different crowd from cyclists, climbers are, and we were amused and also intimidated a little by the crashpads, ropes, shoes, carabiners etc. We just kept things simple, and walked up the Chief via a hiking trail, still challenging and the muscle aches reminded us of the climb for another few days.

The Chief, Squamish, BC

Then onwards and upwards, on the narrow, winding road and with more or less continuous construction sites. Sometimes the drop off the shoulder would be over a foot, and we had to take care not to get too close to either that drop or the thousands of cars making their way to Whistler.

The reason for this influx to Whistler was Crankworx, an anual downhill and slopestyle mountainbike event. Picture a luxurious French ski resort (without the snow), a big hill with a jumpspark and downhill track, a 25000 people crowd, and some of the best downhillers/ slopestylers in the world. We were thrilled watching the slopestyle, where young guys flip and toss their bike into seamingly impossible acrobatic manouvres, always landing back on two wheels (almost always...).

Slopestyle, Crankworx, Whistler BC

We were lucky to be invited by friends of Marty, and camped on their deck for some nights. Good to hear their stories about riding, skiing, hiking, music, travelling and the black bear that had visited their kitchen recently. Sietse organised for us to go on a Ziptrek tour, an exhilarating and beautiful way to see the rainforest from above, zipping at high speed in a harness from tree to tree.

Ali geared up for the Zip-trek

Then one enormous bustrip brought us from Whistler to Jasper, in the Rocky Mountains. We're kind of fighting our way against the seasons, the days already shortening, and as we learned in the past 2 weeks, the cold and snow kicking in.

The Icefields Parkway, also named one of the most beautiful roads in the world, runs about 230 kms from Jasper to Lake Louise. It passes 8 Icefields with some 23 glaciers. And beautiful it was. Little sidetrips brought us to small lakes with colours turquoois and emerald, glaciers hanging of mountains and waterfalls gushing through gorges. On a walk up a pass we saw bighorned sheep smacking their horns together with a loud "bang". We also had our first snow since Alaska, first wet, than dry, leaving the slopes with a thin white blanket.

On the Icefields Parkway, Athabasca Glacier in the background

Big horn rams among the pines

The blue waters of Peyto Lake

We met Ken and Neill, two friendly American cyclists in their fifties, who inspired us with their enthousiastic ways, mixing vodka and gatorade powder for real deal camp cocktails, and with a good outlook on life, friendship and hardship.

Between all these mountainous adventures we indulged ourselves into a 4 day cartrip to Washington State, to see our favourite band, The Dave Matthews Band play at The Gorge. It was mindblowing to see them, playing in this natural amphitheater set against the Columbia River Gorge. A sad but intense concert, for their saxophonist passed away recently.

Dave Matthews Band - Live at the Gorge, Washington state

So it is cold, and we've both caught a decent flu, keeping us in our tent for almost a week. Lucky it's snug and warm inside. But it also makes us ponder if the route we're taking is possible and more so, safe and fun. For now we're trying to regain our strength, and continue down to the USA border and into Montana.

Lots of love

Anna and Ali

Vancouver Island, the wild pacific coast and the city

thefuegoproject — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:34:00 GMT

After the gas leak in Prince Rupert we were eventually moved to 'emergency' accomodation at midnight which meant a not so long sleep before an early morning ferry on our way to Vancouver Island. Tired heads we slept pretty well then i woke at 7am...aahhh! we had slept through our alarm and the wake up call from the hotel never came...calm down, we can still make the 7:30am boat. Moments from leaving the bed we were all on our bikes powering to the ferry. We scraped on board with 10 minutes to spare and a warm reception from the passenger deck, as we were the only ones holding the boat up as we rode down the ramp (thanks Jeroen and Arda for stopping the ramp from being lifted!).

So we made it, and after a coffee or two the nerves eased and we sat back and enjoyed a sunny day through the inside passage to Port Hardy. Sheer cliffs of black rock, waterfalls plunging into the ocean and humpback whales surfacing occasionally near the boat with sprays of water followed by their rolling bodies and tails. Good times spent with a dutch family, keeping the kids busy, sleeping, cards, enjoying the sun and watching for whales before a late night arrival in Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.

We took nine days to ride the length of 'the island', 600 km in all from the north with its beautiful forested hills and high lakes and rivers, forestry scarred hills and log trucks to the busy south of the island with dual lane highways, RV parks, busy coastal roads and people everywhere. I guess from our time starting in Alaska we had been spoiled with open space and wilderness and now in peak summer holiday time we had hit civilisation on Vancouver Island. This took a little while to adjust to as we longed for the quiet roads, quiet camp spots and unscarred natural beauty. Two of the best spots we discovered were Alert Bay in the north and Salt Spring Island in the south as we ferry hopped across to Sidney and the end of our ride south. Alert Bay is a first nations village where the U'mista Cultural Centre is which houses one of the largest collections of masks used in the Potlatch which had been confiscated by the Canadian government now rightfully returned. A moving place, and more sad stories of the destruction of indigenous culture in this part of the world.

Arnout, Anna's brother had joined us for this part of the trip and we enjoyed his enthusiasm, laughter, exercise regime (which he unsuccessfully passed on to us) and fresh perspective on the journey and the people we meet along the way. We introduced him to mountain biking on the rooty, technical singletrack of Cumberland which he loved and passed the test. As we struggled a little with the busy roads, lack of beautiful camp spots and peoples well-intentioned but highly annoying comments on the weight of our bikes, he kept us focussed and turned it all into a positive experience...thanks Ar!

We then met up with Dad and Joan in Sidney, Vancouver Island a day later than planned (Hazeldine planning for you...we share the blame) for some down time from the bikes and to explore the west coast, Victoria and Strathcona region of the island...did i mention rest as well. We have enjoyed the family time and catch-ups from back home. Explored the culture of Victoria, spent time on the west coast with ocean walks on the pacific rim, a short kayak trip, then some forest walks in Strathcona and time around Campbell River.

We have just enjoyed a couple of days around Vancouver, a beautiful city full of contrasts, the mountain backdrop, the ocean lapping at its feet, contruction everywhere, the rich and the extremely poor and homeless and then Stanley Park, a huge park near the heart of the city which we rode our bikes around the seawall. So after some good value family time, and a stint off the bike, Dad and Joan are heading up the inside passage to Alaska and we will be heading from the sea to the sky up to Whistler for Crankworx (a free ride mtb festival) and then onto Jasper in the rockies.

So we feel that our first phase of the trip has come to an end from Alaska to Vancouver...which then opens another page for the second phase of the Fuego Project which will be the rockies south into the deserts of north america.

Life is good, blue skies, enjoy the journey...

Love from the north

Alister and Anna

the Fuego Project