Mutts On Bikes

What´s this?

muttsonbikes — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:35:00 GMT

The last one of these.

Our bikes are in boxes.
No one has stolen the ringer.
Hope is waning.
We leave at four in the morning.

We won´t leave without having seen condors, though they were at the zoo. We won´t leave without plenty of cheek kisses from the people who have made our last days here so good, and we won´t be leaving for good.

Over our time, riding, limping, finegaling, scheming, and persevering, over this South American landscape, from jungle to desert, we have learned a lot of things, about each other, and ourselves, that we haven´t yet had time to realize we learned. Let alone spanish, and bicycle navigation, there is something to be said about who we are now verses who we couldn´t have been before we left, or in Texas.

There is too much to be felt out about that, and too much abstract interperception to be dragging it out in one of the last things to be written here, so, here is a list of FIFTY things. Fifty things, because we are always just half way there. Some things that went right and some things that went wrong and some things inbetween, some old and some new. You will have to discern what is what, which is which. To revert back, and say that there is maybe one thing we already know we have learned (or that has atleast been re-emphasized) that could be said here; it is that. It is that it is up to you, people, each person, to sort out the good and the bad, what was good, and what was bad, because at any time, and all at once, those things, each thing, can be both, can be either, good or bad, and you have to make a choice about that. And you have to make a choice about humor.

1. Road in a thuderstorm.

2. Had a pair of very scratched sun glasses stolen, amateurs.

3. Held rhinocerous beetles, they filled our whole hand.

4. Slept on a stranger´s floor.

5. Sold the Santosa, Cat´s replacement bike, for sixty five US dollars to a women in high heels at a motorcylce shop.

6. Chewed coca leaves.

7. Got a ride in the back of a truck.

8. Road uphill for 100kms. after being told that the ride was downhill for 50kms.

9. ran into a road cone.

10. tried to help a man having a seizure on a bus.

11. witnessed a man having a seizure in the middle of the sidewalk.

12. got sunburned.

13. Went in natural hot springs with Germans.

14. Threw up.

15. Played cards for money without knowing the rules.

16. Stood with one leg on each side of the Ecuator at the center of the world.

17. Went to an active volcano.

18. Laughed out loud.

19. Wrote to our families using these: ñ, and a few of these: ¿

20. Road in a boat with giant jellyfish beneath us.

21. Didn´t meet any other woman traveling on a bicycle without a man.

22. Danced at a disco.

23. Made things out of, and decorated things with, roadkill.

24. Sang a song by the backstreet boys.

25. Road the bicycle using only one leg.

26. Attempted explanations of very complicated things like norwals and jokes in spanish.

27. Wore the same socks for three months.

28. Cut our hair.

29. Apologized

30. Broke something that didn´t belong to us, including shatteringa jar, and disjointing parts of each others bicycles when rotating them due to the integeration of the Santosa.

31.Changed our minds.

32. Left a money belt (or FUP, if you recall) laying on the floor of an establishment for a good hour before realizing it was gone and going back to retreave it.

33. held hands.

34. road the bicycle in both a dress and mini skirt.

35. went to a church service.

36. went to a punk show in the basement of a huge building squatted by two men who rent rooms to hookers for a dollar.

37. took a cold shower.

38. took a risk.

39. Saw the Nazca Lines, sort of.

40. Forgave.

41. Stuck our head of the window of a moving vehicle, despite knowing better, sorry Rachel´s dad.

42. found insects in our shoes.

43. Found our way, to somewhere we´d never been, soaking wet in the middle of the night.

44. repeated something we´d already said, forgetting we had.

45. repeated something we´d already said, forgetting we had.

46. wore all the way threw our shorts.

47. made it just in time.

48. had ¡Hey Gringa, Mango! yelled at us, among other things.

49. Ate too much sugar.

50. told people stories of what we had done, and reminded each other.

(and most of these things happened repeatedley.)

Soy many sexy

muttsonbikes — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:43:00 GMT

Done is a four letter word. The four of us have four days here in Quito before our flight, but as for the biking, for the most part, we are done.

After celebrating with only products containing only sugar from a gas station and then changing in front of that gas station in to our, off the bike clothing; a firemans one piece jump suit, a summer dress that your grandma wouldn´t be caught dead in...acompanied in appropriate weather conditions by a sun umbrella, a punk rock pink mini skirt, and a david bowie haircut, we have had a little time to reflect on what our last week of biking has held.

So lets just say. Cats helmet was both stolen off of a table in front of a gas station by young men who fled the scene on a motorcycle, and returned to her by the more sympathetic young gentlemen who chased the culprites down on his motorcycle, after observing the crime, but with not a word from us. But how did you get them to give it back? Cat asked with tears in here eyes. I just told them that you needed it. That was all he ever said to us before or after, he just went and got it without a word and brought it back handing it to Cat punctuated with that simple explanation. Unfortunately no one has stolen the ringer , the name by which Cat has come to call her decoy theft mechanism which is a broken cell phone she found on the side of the road wrapped in a fraudulent hundred dollar bill she found on the floor of the bus. We dread, with such little time left, that no one will try rob us before we leave and thus give us the opportunity to deploy the ringer.

And lets just say that we slept in a pool.

And that after being interviewed by a local television reporter, who convinced us to sing Living on A Prayer on camera, his camera man asked if he could join us for the next days ride. And he and three of his biking friends dawning full gear and aluminum frames did the next morning, along with some locals on cruisers and two firefighters on a motorcycle, in the marvaled upon parade of two wheels that headed out of the small city that morning. They now have our spoke cards in there wheel sticks and we have a big place for them in our hearts, as so many other things mentioned about this trip, we made the necessary room for them there. It was as pleasing as cycling moments get, after being warned so much specifically of this particular stretch of road as very dangerous, to be accompanied on one of our most enjoyable rides by this group of bikers, from the oldest whom was in his fifties, to the youngest, fifteen who, refusing to be passed by girls with twenty pounds of crap on the back of their bikes, beat us up every hill, and beat Kate in a race more than once.

And lets just say there has been kareoke, and medical care, and meals, and beds, and music videos galore, and card games in which Rachel won all the money without understanding precisely what the peramiters of the game actually were, from firefighters in the midst of all this. The firefighters in Ecuador have been extra special.

We can leave it, emphasizing there presence in this last week of ours, at the morning of the day we arrived here, where, upon departing from the firestation rec room we slept in the night before, Rachel was gifted a red firemans one piece uniform due to her complimenting of it that previous night. It fits with room to grow. She wears it like there is official business to be had, riding her red bicycle around.

And she will be seen in it for these next four days, caught out of the corners of the eyes of the passers by, as we furiously have this city, take what there is for the taking for us four here, make the best there is to make for the forclosure of our months of fortitude, and try to make sure the ringer is the only thing available for the taking throughout our perils of constant forwarned danger and theft, for what it is worth.

Living on a prayer

muttsonbikes — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:43:00 GMT

The sun shines, penetrating through the waves of guitar riff wafting down from above, on us in Lima this morning. Having made it to our end destination, we all got some fresh haircuts and tried to scrub off the helmet tan lines, in vain.

But it does not end. Since, with the foresight possessed within the toeholds of a travelers mayhem, we changed our flights to go out of Quito Ecuador some month ago, the land of lesser embargo, where we think we will be able to fly back from with our bikes. It looked like we were only going to make it out of here with our seats, so onwards,

and,

upwards.

Tomorrow, after our time here, lavishly living the rock star life of sleeping on a punk house floor, serenaded by the possesive squeals of the theremin, whispers of drug dealers on the street,and by wiggling children´s fingers to the accompaniament wiggity wiggity wiggity. After playing so many hands of ochos locos we turn to cucharas,the mystical game of snaps, it is much easier to diseave people into believing you are psychichly charged if they can´t understand what you are saying, and our classic and continuos battles of destructo, the game of drawing demise. After surviving our second Friday the thirteenth with little more encounter than singing when a man loves a women to the accordion played by a fifty year old peruvian man at a collective. After all is said and done, in spanish, how badly depending on which one of us is speaking.

We will be done eating more calories than we can burn dancing to bad eighties music, and so, we will go,

to Quito.

No Disco

muttsonbikes — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:37:00 GMT

There is a train, a one and a half our train, to Machu Picchu.

We did go to Machu Picchu, but we did not take the train. Or, the bus that allows visitors to bipass the thousands of stairs woven in to the mountain that lead you to the threshold of Machu Picchu, which costs three times as much for tourists to cross through.

We opted for the two day route. It saved us under thirty dollars.

1. Our bikes to the bus station at five in the morning.

2. A bus from Cusco to the top of a 400 something meter pass. Meg doubled over, cursing into her lap, from fear or illness, both often present for her, periodically in combination.

3. Our bikes down the mountain, the paved portion, then not paved.

4. A collectivo, a shared van, from Santa Maria along a cliff wall for a few hours. Meg doubled over, cursing into her lap, from fear or illness, both often present for her, periodically in combination. Later, after discussion with the tourists that we were sharing the van with, discovering that we had payed extra for the driver to drive extra fast. The others explained...because the road is dangerous at night. So the driver excelerated around every curve inches from the absence of gaurd rails at the bending of the sheer sidewalls that dropped over a thousand feet straight down from the rocky sand road, to insure that we would we reach our destination before night fall.

DAY 2

4. A taxi along a cliff wall for a half an hour at five in the morning from Santa Teresa to some train tracks in the middle of the jungle. Meg doubled over, cursing into her lap, from fear or illness, both often present for her, periodically in combination.

5. On foot along the train tracks, through the jungle, over a bridge that would not have held our weight if we had eaten breakfast, until light, and until finding the path that tourists coming from the opposite direction, the tourist town where the train drops you off, were taking a bus up.

6. Stairway to Heaven. A winding set of stone stairs in the side of the mountain in the jungle.

7. Back down, a hell of a lot faster. A winding set of stone stairs in the side of the mountain in the jungle.

8. On foot along the train tracks, through the jungle, over a bridge that would not have held our weight if we had eaten lunch, until finding the tourists coming from the opposite direction, the tourist town where the train drops you off, who were trying to figure out how to get back to Cusco a more adventuress way, and so chose to come with us. Two guys, photographers, from the East Coast.

9. A collectivo, a shared van, along a cliff wall for a few hours. Slower this time, but with ten extra people, two guys from the east coast, various locals, grandparents, children, many more people than seats. Meg doubled over, cursing into her lap, from fear or illness, both often present for her, periodically in combination.

10. Another collectivo, the last one leaving town, hurry you have to go now, if the cops catch you they won´t let you leave, was our send-off from the women who sold us the tickets on the sidewalk. All four of our bicycles tied to the roof verticaly. The two guys from the east coast, two children, and two mothers. The six hour ride in the dark in the fog in the rain up the 400 something meter pass. Meg doubled over, cursing into her lap, from fear or illness, both often present for her, periodically in combination. Though we had not paid the driver extra, he swung around every curve, every truck, with the label Peligro, as our bikes thudded the roof, as they drooped until they could be seen from the passenger window.

Peligro means danger.

Are those plastic cranks?

muttsonbikes — Wed, 4 Mar 2009 09:10:00 GMT

The man in the street had an empty wheelbarrow. He stood there, along with the four of us, in the street in Cochabamba, Bolivia, chucking and pointing unabashedly at our quandry. My (Cat's) left crank arm had just fallen off in the street. With little more than a rattle as warning.

"Maybe we should look in the street for the bolt?" Rachel is genreally optimistic.

"What are the chances of finding a new crank bolt in Cochabamba?" I felt this was a more realistic option. Kate wore a discouraging facial expression in response. Rachel and i walked the street, scanning amid the whizzing mini busses and taxis.

"could this be it?" it was the first and only bolt we would find, and it belonged to my bicycle. A moment of awe, a half day of one-legged riding and a trip to Freddy's Tattoo Shop later, we were all fixed up. No guns, though. The search continues.

As we prepared to embark on a bus to Oruro and toward much-anticipated Carnaval celebrations, we gathered our things from the fire station. We took turns sliding down the fire pole. Kate took her turn in her summer dress, resulting in sideways glances and muffled giggles from the (entire) firefighting force, assembled in formation, out of sight, below. We exchanged the ususal formalities about where we are going, what are you doing, what the hell are you thinking. Yes, we are bussing because my friend's knee has stitches. The generally accepted method of removal at this time was for Rachel to find a somewhat clean place to remove them herself, thereby avoiding the hospital.

The firefighter-paremedic was unconvinced of our optomistic appraisal of the situation. He cooly removed the bandages, speaking in slow, calm Spanish throughout, until the wound was exposed.

"This is a fucking problem." He stated in plain English. And so began Rachel's knee infection, the removal of her stitches, a round of antibiotics and complex cleaning procedures, a painful scab scraping procedure executed blithely by said paramedic, and a whole new can o worms.

There was Carnaval. There was water, there was spray foam. In our eyes. In our shirts. There was water balloon retaliation. There was the smothering of foam in very small children's faces. There was also a good deal of folkloric dancing and revelry.

We fanagled four bicycles onto a bus to La Paz, where we were met by Ronald Ruiz' three-story mansion. There we stayed as Meg underwent round two of traveler's plague no. 64. And there I awoke to find my bicycle oddly missing from behind Ronald's 10-foot locked solid gate. We perused the neighborhood. We asked the neighbors. We came to accept the fact that the south american bicycle tour was now down one bicycle.

We waited in the police station. The third police station we'd visited that day. We waited, and we explained as a stone-faced police officer didn't take notes. We waited as he sought paper and some kind of complex printing tape from nearby desks. We waited as the loud, shaky mechanism printed an "official certificate of certification" certifying that we'd asked for a certified report. We'd have to come back tomorrow. We'd have to pay him about $7 for his trouble. Have a nice day.

The everythings-stolen flea market yeilded no bicycle. The plague crept into Cat's already agitated veins. We waited and watched American action movies about a deadly poison that can only be stopped by adreneline.

We are in Peru. We are down one green 2008 Bianchi Volpe and we are up one jet-black (year unknown) Santosa 21-speed Mountain Bike. (Thanks to Ronald, his mother (who still had it in the closet) and the mechanic next door, who happily cut the lock that had been holding in safely in place for the last two years.)

We are on the move after $70 and an afternoon of magical bicycle upgrading by Kate Mills, Rachel Milligan, and a La Paz bike mechanic with a sense of humor Rachel is now the proud owner of. Helmet no. 3, in all its free golden bmx glory.

Amateurs.

I Am tRyInG tO jOG YouR MeMory

muttsonbikes — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:55:00 GMT

It is a sunny day in Cochabamba in the rainy season. We survived the amazon jungle with little more than an unidentified plant rash. We are a day away from carnival and a day away from Ororu where, upon arival, we either have three places to stay, or none.

So, about the jungle. MONKEYS put their fingers in our mouths. In a setting, which we have since speculated could not have possibley been regulated in terms of sanitation, we attended a wildlife refuge for mistreated animals where we were immediately given the offer of recroutment as volunteers. Though we almost left Meg to be a Puma trainer, the volunteer positions required a two week commitment minimum, and as always, the ants in our pants roshamboed for no. The spider and cappacino monkeys, in an open wildlife area, found crawling into our shirts, digging in our pockets, and hanging upside down from our faces, were hard to leave behind. There is a lot to be said about looking in to a monkey´s eyes as it looks up from your arms, it resolves wonder for evolutionary theory. Especially the completley bald two day old spider monkey that we saw. Not to get too magical, the monkeys also instigated antics amongst each other while we were there that included a lot of squabling and screeching, and, after many monkey fingers in the mouth, one showed up on the trail in front of us eating a dead mouse.

We also got to see monkeys in the wild, along with bats in caves and orchids in bloom. We crossed a river with a system of pullies and levers, with our ranger, who was not a ranger, but a German volunteer who was given permission to take us into the Jungle as no one else was available that day. We hiked a loop passing delicate cup shaped translucent mushrooms, millapeeds as big as snakes, and butterflies as big as your hand, none of which we know the names for as our guide barely spoke English, let alone spanish.

We slept, dispersed, on the huge porch and in the back yard of the house of Jose´ bordering the amazon as it thunderstormed, the first night. And the second night we slept there as Jose, a middle aged guide whose wardrobe consisted solely of floral print shorts for the entirety of our stay, and who informed us that he had been featured in the lonely planet if we didn´t know, after returning from a night of drinking with his friend to celebrate the purchase of a new car, lifted our sleeping pads to shove plastic bottles and other items that he found lying around and then rolled up under our heads. Along with the two Argentinian travelers who showed up earlier that day and asked us where we were staying, all of us scattered in the circumfrance of Jose´s yard, we all woke that night being tucked in by Jose. For dollar thirty we paid him to stay there, he was quite the host.

We will stay in the recreation room at the fire house tonight, which, different than the ping pong and foosball tables we have encountered previously, contains only thirteen red plastic chairs and a small television in the middle of the room with cable television. E.T. llAMA CASA and Homer Simpson choking bart while speaking casetallano have been witnessed, as has Rambo, yes Rambo, dubbed.

Not to steal the glammer, we aren´t rotting our brains on TV anymore than we spend time surfing the web to bring you this news. We have a date to dance in the street in a women´s only night of festivities and a date to take Rachel´s stitches out, someone might be getting a tattoo(not Meg).

Things change quickly traveling, when you are riding your bike and when you are in a different climate all of the time, (taking all of your newly purchased winter clothes including wool thermals to the jungle, yes we did that). When it is raining and when it is not and you are being pegged with water balloons (yes, until carnival ends, that will remain constant).

And now, here, it has begun to rain so hard that people are falling over in the street as the water hits them.

The BIRDS.

muttsonbikes — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:47:00 GMT

An updated bird list as we prepare to encounter the craziest amazonian animals you ever did see:

Giant Coot

Speckled Teal

Puna Teal

Puna Ibis (only Rachel. we envy her)

Chilean Flamingo (ya´heard.)

Andean Flamingo

Silvery Greebe

Andean Gull

Andean Goose

Straight-billed Earthcreeper

Greenish Yellow Finch

Yellow-rumped Siskin

Yellow-billed tit tyrant (wins for names so far)

Black-hooded Sierra Finch

Andean Negrito

Mountain Caracara

Wren-like Rushbird

Black-chested Buzzard Eagle

Rufous Horneo

Grassland Yellow Finch

·and countless other birds yet to be identified by our very scientific method of field notes-plus-google imaging-when-available.

With BELLS on

muttsonbikes — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:11:00 GMT

We know our parents are the only people who read this, so, parents, we want to reasure you that, now that we have crossed the border to Bolivia, our biggest danger thus far has been water. We can imagine that your concerns were invested in bandits and vagrants and we can assure you they live here, somewhere. Our threatening encounters, remain however, since entering this most diversley cultural landscape, to have come exclusively from children, with water. From windows and with water guns point blank on street corners, water bottles and anything else that will hold water, water is thrown. Who it is thrown at, is not limited to age or gender, ethnicity, or atire. We have been subject to, and seen many others, in an equal opportunity wrong place at the wrong time, subject to this. Buses and bus drivers, local women walking down the street, children in school uniforms, no one is excluded. But, often, everyone is already wet, either from an earlier encounter, or due to the fact that it is almost constantly raining here this time of year.

The good hearted nature of Bolivians is to be the type of people who accept the fact of being wet, take it head on by being more wet, getting others wet in the short time there is an opportunity not to be wet. If the water ceases to fall naturaly from the sky, if the rain pauses for a moment, sun comes from behind clouds, water will fall otherwise from above to land on your head. Bolivians stride through the weather donning little or no protection from it. No more than a brimmed hat, or a faster pace. They are a part of their environment, embracing and reflecting it, the colors in their native clothes seeming to emerge from the surrounding mountains, the patterns on them of the Lamas scattered between the rocks. Their clothes, being saturated, when the earth is saturated. They have such a sense of complacency, acceptance, humor, about the state of the seasons, they even put their Carnival, the biggest outdoor dancing festival of the year, right smack dab in the middle of the rainiest one.

This time of year in Bolivia, it is not just time for rain, but time for dancing in the rain. And we are as wet as anyone else, so, Of course while walking down the sidewalk in the city of Oruro we got invited to dance in Carnival by one of the hundred groups of local women who dance it. Of course they grabbed us, pulled us in to the street and decided we looked like good candidates for participation, Kate in her summer dress, Meg and Cat with their grown-out mullets, Rachel in men´s swimming trunks. Of course they taught us the traditional steps and hip swagger the next day while a news crew pushed microphones in to our faces asking us about our participation in Carnival. But, of course, we couldn´t stay. It wasn´t the week of practice we would have had to commited to rather than being here now boardering a National Park which contains a bird species that lives in caves and hunts with echolocation, it wasn´t that we were stumbling through the steps like embomanable snowmen, it wasn´t that we couldn`t afford to stay in a city that´s prices inflate to seven times as usual for the week due to the once a year, once in a life time, event that tourists from around the world flock to, it was the high heels. Not only would the elaborate sequined costumes have to be rented, but along with them the glittlering high heels.

We are going to see bears.

Our feet in wet sneakers we are getting ready to see Jaguars and Bats in the best place to see birds in Bolivia. We have turned down dancing in the Carnival, but are thanking goodness we didn´t let go of the opportunity to be in Bolivia. Bolivia has our hearts, as the Bolivian men with bells on their boots, tell us that we have their corazon through their expression of the country embracing others that embrace it. Bolivia unfolds with colors we have never seen, the people in clothes out from the animals, the animals out from the mountains, the mountains out from the horizons. Serenaded by marching bands and dubbed movies, Bolivia sways us in to enamored amor.

As the hail pelted us on our first hour here in Bolivia we were reminded of home, all of us having lived in the Northwest extensively, and we were hung heavy, standing several yards from the border, with the residues of what it took to get here. We had done all of the hardest things we had had to do on this trip in the week prior, limping through, splitting up, going back, to get to Bolivia where we now stood in the freezing rain with only grey in sight.

So much is breathtaking here, especially as we are at a much higher altitude. So much more is in the details of what it took to get here, but as we have mentioned, that you parents, are the only ones reading this, we wouldn´t want to worry you.

Gallery: Scalpel

muttsonbikes — Sat, 7 Feb 2009 04:54:00 GMT

Like a Falling Tower of Canned Carrots, aka, A Day in the Atacama

muttsonbikes — Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:48:00 GMT

so it´s a hundred kilometers to our lunch stop

more like 80

but half of that is downhill

half of that is downhill

got it

and so we descended into the largest of the Atacama canyons, a wonder fair scaring the desolate desert terrian with the kitchy town of Cuyo embedded on the canyon floor. We camped at the south end the night before to avoid the Atacama winds which come all fists and elbows at you begining no later than 1pm. now it was the easy breezy morning and we were descending 1250M in 17KM as quoted in an earlier road report debriefing. we would be ascending to the same height.

how long is the ascent?

about 15KM (quoted from a passing trucker at one pasada or another)

i had that smug look as to say rachel and i had done longer than that on a goof, so no one held concern. i had been holding the map the last few days having knighted myself seniorita ojos of the route. sometimes you get too big for your spandex; sweat, urine and vasoline filled aside.

80KM later i was riding against the wind into our pasada being greeted by rachel´s magnetic mohawke and a large bottle of uncabonated water. my lack luster enthusiasm led to a converstation between our eyebrows. The climb and the heat had left her waterless for half the ride. It was safe to assume that this would have been the case with all things living, but if anyone knows of the tales of the Hero Twins, this paricular mutt receives hidration through an unexplained process of osmosis in which i exchange soul matter for water. suffice it to say, my Klean Kanteen was still full. This isn´t a point to brag, i have the most stomach aliments of all the mutts. it´s more, i´m like the kindergardner that sometimes forgets to breath.

i´m going back to see if they need water

were rachel´s words as she stuffed her pannier with the 3 liter barrel and mounted her horse.

leave your bags with me so you can ride easier!

nah, then i´ll just have to put them on again

and off she went. because that is what rachel is like. a saint bernard in an avalanch. i stayed and drank a bottle of water WITH carbonation... from money i borrowed from rachel. because that is what i am like.

within the hour all four of us would unite again, rehydrated and spirits afoat, meg prominading in wearing the tarterd floaral summer gown she had found on the desert floor and her sporty bra. she´s a nice lady.

the canyon debriefing would reveal the ascent was actually 22KM and at a much steaper grade than the descent... my bust. But now filled again with yummy egg sandwitches, chewing gum and donuts, we were ready for the 60KM to our last large city in chile, ARICA! yes, the winds were now a blowing, hot and perfuse like a wind tunnel through a wooden leg, but it was only 60KM! 60KM! and downhill! ...expect for that second canyon. and all in headwind...

and that is how it is. and in wind, no matter if the canyon is smaller, it is harder. but the mutts can do hard. well, not all the mutts (trust me when i say i speak only of myself) which is not how it should be. you know how some people become infuriated by a ticking clock, or a continious nagging poke adorned with come on, poke, come on, poke, come on, poke, tick tock tick tock tick tock, poke... until the madness fills like a sock with quarters and bees being swung at high speeds? it´s irrational, which is simular to my reaction to headwinds. and as the whirling sounds filled my head to irritionality far exceeding that time in tiny goat herder´s town when a beetle flew in my ear and was subsequently drowned by rubbing alcohol inside my head not before scratching and spasming death´s rattle, i began to bicycle very fast. i wanted out of that canyon, out of my breezy inferno and in two ticks (tock tick tock) went from the back of the pack to second, closing in on rachel who was a few kilometers in front. some ladies call it the jet pack phenomenon.

and being freed from the second ascent i grumpy faced plugged along the rest of the route to Arica watching rachel´s sillhouette on the horizon and dreaming of boxed wine (actually cheaper than water. and that is what the desert is like). and then i watched that sillhouette stop behind a semi truck. she must of hailed him down for more water...

and when i came upon her il hombre de camione had in fact given her water. and would like to give her more help... in stopping the blood coming from the wound. the wound she had just received. from being hit by an 18 wheel semi. rachel was looking up at me smiling.

she was sitting up and using bottled water to rinse her knee and trying even harder to communicate with the kind gent.

It is not your fault

she was trying to tell him

i know you could not move over. thank you. the wind sucked my bike under. i am ok. no, sir, i need nothing more. thank you. my friend will fix my bike. no, sir, i need nothing, thank you. i will ride my bike to Arica now.

Rachel looked at me again.

i think my bike is ok. i can ride the rest of the way.

her bike was ok. i looked at her knee. i looked at her now visible knee bone. i saw the image of her riding her bicycle with a B movie amount of blood squirting from the wound at each bend.

i am going to ride my bike to Arica.

because that is what rachel is like.

i don´t think it is a good idea.

because that is what i am like.

it was not long before a truck was hailed and the ladies had assembled in total. all four mutts and all four steeds were riding in comfort listening to Elvis hits on our way to the Arica hospital. Our patron was Mario, an ex rugby couch from Copiapo who coincidently was good friends with our bike shop owning hosts and friends there. by the end of our time together Mario would self proclaim himself our adopted padre, drive us to the hospital (stopping at vista points of interest along the way), wine and dine us and even drive us to our pre arranged host family for the night. he was a big man that laughed easy and expelled kindess with an ease even greater. because that is what Mario is like.

at the hospital the doctor smiled at rachel and promised her a stitch for every year she had lived. the wound was in the patterning of a cross. this was the second fall rachel had from her bicycle in the last two days, the first causing no injury. it was when rachel and i were hit by a desert tornado. it swung us around like annie oakly and stung of small debris. tornados hurt. but that is what the desert is like.

the mutts pulled our finacial resources equally to foot the bill. everything was ok. everything is how is should be. because that is what life is like.

so now we find ourselves priveldged to have a vacation from our vacation for 2 weeks while our nursing mutt recovers. will mutt meg leave to live a brief life at sea with a crew of merry bicycle pirates? will mutt cat sumerge herself in the wildress to track condors and ride unicycles? will mutt rachel learn peg legged street preforming while my vest, summer dress and i accompany her on ukelele? the world is our oayster, dear friends. Because, as i said, that is what life is like.

así es la vida

Fotografias Nuevas

muttsonbikes — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 04:03:00 GMT

Some new photos on flickr, the link can be found in previous posts.

Gallery: Truley Scamper Action

muttsonbikes — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 03:40:00 GMT

Atacama

Divine Interventions don`t make us believers

muttsonbikes — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:54:00 GMT

I am not ready to stop for lunch, Rachel, how about you?

No, I am fine to keep going.

Okay, we will meet you two in Rio Loa.

The words exchanged two and a half hours before Kate and Rachel continued ahead from leaving Cat and Meg to have lunch in Tocopillo Chile before catching up.

Two and a half hours before Kate and Rachel left to immediately ascend a mountain pass straight up for eighteen kilometers. Before heading into the mountains where the coast was no longer visible. Before being asked by an Israeli couple, coincidently positioned dirrectly atop the climb, stopped on the side of the road poised to squat (yes that is what cyclists do in the middle of nowhere when they have to go to the bathroom)why they, Kate and Rachel, were not taking the costal route.

It is beautiful. said the women

after

Ya can`t even takje a s**t around here without bicyclists coming down the road. said the man. and then..

What are two ladies like you doing in this s**thole?

and promptly

I`ve been waiting years to say that.

Kate and I looked at each other and back at the couple as we tried to evaluate the possibility that there were two simultaneous coastal routes.

We are taking the coastal... said Kate

She reached in her handlebar bag to pull out the map.

We had noticed a sign pointing to the left that said Iquique as we coninued on stright up. We had wondered why the climb for the day had not been mentioned in the road report we read.

We had not wondered why the coast had dissapeared from view on this coastal route.

Well, let me take a picture of you and my wife, to commemorate the most women we have seen together cycling over the years we have toured, and to commemorate you two ladies riding all the way up here just to see this s**t hole.

And then we road back down wondering to ourselves if the Hare Krishna chant we were taught by a local in Vacuña, and had subsequently chanted on the way up the mountain, had somehow summened our exposure to this fate where upon we had climbed a mountain to meet two cyclists headed for Argentina at the top, surrounded otherwise by barren desert, who immediately redirected us back down, with the words of wisdom, that is going to suck.

We could not be sure about intervention until later when, set back hours, now restarting our original route, with our friends far in the distance and totaly oblivious to our position, thinking we were in front of them, the messages began to come.

Kate said a note had to be sent ahead, because she was very worried they they would be very worried. Insistant, though we were already pushing daylight, Kate wrote the note and without reading it I flagged a truck down and in my broken spanish asked him to deliver the note signed love Rachel AND Kate to our friends several hours ahead on the road. His calm smile was the kind of reasurance you get from watching PBS donation drives, that sort of good deed way of looking, and his neat and clean plaid shirt did nothing to negate it. It was the first of many of Kate`s note schemes, that I had continuosly and reluctantly particpated in throughout the trip so far, that I had any faith in. My faith was in that truckers gums.

And now we had to go. we looked at our watches and up into the sun.

We had a big tunnel to go through. We had done tunnels in the past, some pretty long ones, always riding past the no bikes allowed sign. But, today was different. Today, not only did our map litteraly show a large gap, as if the road stopped and you would have to clear a mile, or two, or three, or four, or five, long gap, which we had found out was the tunnel, but we had read a report from a couple that had ridden it the other way which described it as a completley unlit tunnel.

We would have to hitch. We got close enough we could see the road bend into the mountain and we stopped and put our thumbs out. No one.

Lets go up a little farther, I want to see inside it. said Kate.

okay.

Just before we got around the bend to see inside, a yellow van came down the road and immediately we stuck our hands out and as it passed me and pulled over next to Kate I realized there was no room for our bikes. But, they were stopped.

The continuing conversation ensued in Spanish:

The driver said do you need to rest?

No, I said, we just needed a ride through the tunnel because it is very dangerous for bicycles.

Both the driver and the passenger tilted there heads at Kate, I, and our fully loaded bicycles, then shrugged and said that we could tie the bicycles to the roof.

Kate began to dissasemble her paneers and as she did I stared at her in hesitation.

As soon as I start to take these off a truck is going to go by.

I said to her between my teeth in English.

She looked up at me and then down the road as I began to throw by bags to the ground.

And there it is. She said as we both turned to watch a big red truck with and empty bed kick up the Atacama dust as it cruised past us.

We squeezed in to the back of the van amongst many electricians tools, our bikes secured on top and as they pulled away saying Let us know where to let you out, we could now see into the tunnel which could not have been more than a few yards long.

So one minute later we told them they could let us out there on the other side.

As we pulled our bikes off the roof, before the yellow van pulled away, our second set of saviours for the day requested a picture to be taken, with them, to record the perseverence in the face of adversity by these american women cyclists. The corners of our mouths tilted upward in ironic composure for the camera.

And now we had to worry. we looked at our watches and up into the sun.

Though faster than yet that day, we didn`t ride far before a truck going the opposite direction slowed as he passed us waving his hand out the window.

It`s a note!

The man pulled over and eagerley crossed the road towards me, before I could make my way safely out of traffic.

Kate Kate?

Kate?

He said, waving the note just out of my reach.

No time for introductions; no I am Rachel, in spanish you just say yes.

I said yes, though he repeated the name several more times before giving me the note which began Halelujah! We got your note!

It was from our friends who on this day in our absence had faced a malfunctioning derailer, a one footed ride due to a broken cleat for clipping in to the pedal (which broke off while they too were hitching through the tunnel that we were all warned of after not looking through it first), and the intense staring of many men, upwards of thirty, who were all in the back of a dumptruck.

After the note, Kate felt better and said we could ride slower now since they knew where we were. We then continued, me keeping up behind Kate, as she road as fast as she possibly could.

Four miles short of riding a century, we made it with time to sit and watch the sunset with our two patient persistent counterparts while we discussed the old man from Austria named Franz who was traveling solo on his bicycle that had a backup motor(only for the hard parts like headwinds and hills), and reflect on how he had shouted over his motor (taking his shirt off since he had seen Cat and Meg) at Kate and I that he had seen our friends, that they were fourty kilometers ahead down the road.

But Kate and I had known we had sixty to go, we already knew about our friends, because we had received a message...

"I will rip your puppy head off" and ROAD REPORT

muttsonbikes — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 09:43:00 GMT

Instead of writing about things such as Bill Murray´s fantastic adventures with Toni Braxton and the rest of the MuttPack, this is the ex-cook, now half-assed photographer with reports from the road! This is maybe, besides the bird list, the only actual useful part of our blog. This is our route, and if any fellow cyclists have questions about the roads or routes, let us know!!!

Argentina: Ruta 7- Lujan-Mendoza (I didnt record much here, its all pretty much the same, and it didnt occur to me to take dilligent notes.) Flat. Crossed in 8 days. First rolling hills seen after Mercedes. All with ´No Bike´signs, but we did it without a problem. No shoulder, but wide gravel/grass on side to pull over for emergencies/trucks passing. High traffic, but safe. East of Lan Luis turns into 4 lane highway with grassy median, otherwise was 2 lane the whole way. Pretty farmland, fairly boring. SOS (help) phones along route.

Andes: Totally do-able, from Argentinian side. From Chile, it would be a challenge, physically. Little shoulder, high traffic, few supplies, few supplies, but can drink out of the rivers, especially with a water filter. Wished we would have biked it, but little preperation/knowledge of roads etc. And high high traffic for new years rush. Approximately 3-4 day ride.

Chile: Ruta 68 Santiago-Valparaiso- Shoulder, rolling hills, 2tunnels, first with large shoulder, and lit. Bike-able, if done quickly and with lights. The second is very sketchy. Hitch through it. No shoulder, sharp metal coming out of the walls. Short, lit. We really were preparing for impact from one of the busses passing through. This is the one time that i was screaming "Holy Sh-t!! We are gonna die!!!!!!" and Cat actually believed me. We found out in Valparaiso that you can call on one of the SOS phones for help, and they will come pick you up and drive you through the tunnels.Long descent into Valparaiso.

After Valparaiso, we jumped on Ruta 5 north.

Do Not bike into Parque Nacional Fray Jorge! Unless you have a full suspension mountain bike with huge tires. Thick sand, very bumpy road. Two mountains to climb, we had to walk our bikes up, and almost impossible to ride either up or down these mountains without immenent death. Not much notable about Ruta 5 now.

La Serena-Vicuna: beautiful ride, tunnel with no lights and sidewalk. ok to ride.

La Serena- Copiapo: not much. Vallanar is a big city.

Vallanar- around km 760: wide shoulder, wonderful. Km760-Copiapo: (more or less 50 km) patchy potholes, loose gravel in places, few short hills. Long descent into copiapo. Posada 70km south of copiapo, another 20km south. stop at posadas for water!

Copiapo-Rodillo: smooth, bike path for a ways north out of copiapo. few potholes, broken pavement but good.

Rodillo-Chanaral: great, beautiful coastal views. white beaches, ok shoulder in some places, whide shoulder after flamenco. flat. few rolling areas.

Chanaral-Pan de Azucar: oiled dirt road. bumpy but very rideable and beautiful!!!

Chanaral-Antofogasta: NOTHING!!!! las bombas-posada. mina la union exit to taltal- posada 5km from here. hosteria 5 km also. km1145 Agua Verde- posada, Copec gas station. After Agua Verde-good shoulder. at km1175 posada (before turnoff to oficina Alemania.) About km2000-bus stop for shade, but no food or water. Km 1281- posada. 1308km (71km to Antofogasta) there is a big frickin hand in the desert, but no food or water. 1354km gas staions outside of antofogasta. Note! We hitched this part, but we were "prepared" carrying enough food and water for 2 or 3 days, but. The good omens fell into line-deciding to Bolivia in the morning, realizing that we needed to hitch part of the desert to save time. We got on our bikes to ride out of Pan de Azucar, when the Amazing Flying Green Van full of Musicians from Santiago passed us, and we decided to go with them. Guess we got a ride for the worst part. This would be the hardest part, in our opinion. Do-able, if you carry enough water for 2 or 3 days.

Antofogasta-Caleta Buena: Ruta 1- long tiem to get out of Antofogasta more or less 10km. Excruciating, since we wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible. High traffic until turn off to Ruta 5, Flat until after Hornitos. Then easy rolling. Posada at 2cd turnoff to Mejillones. Definate Posada and small water store at Michilla. Caleta buena- Posada, Beach camping with tent. Small caletas until Tocopilla.

Caleta Buena- Rio Loa: Rolling hills, plenty of water, food, posadas, camping everywhere! wooooo! beautiful ride. moon scapes like hella.

Rio Loa-Iquique: Rio Loa is a Caravineros (Police) Checkpoint into Region 1. 24hr restaraunt, minimarket. Small roadside stand across from saltmine (the white crystals on the side of the road is salt dropped from passing trucks.) but if you continue 1km further, there is a small beach town called Chanavailla with restaruants, places to buy fruit and water, etc. Road is perfect with wide shoulder, smooth pavement low traffic, strong tailind that carried us into Iquique. Two notable climbs earlier in the ride. And when I say notable, i mean big pain in the ass, but still do able. Straight back down to sea level. Mostly flat with small rolling hills starting 20km south of Iquique, followed by a huge descent into the city.

And that is my crude attempt at stringing together english words into coherent sentences, when the majority of my communication has been in broken spanish ("i am of the having of the bicycle cat, you are the one with the big head in the bottle.") and the rest of my english has been fragments like, "i am the one, who shall be in pain until evening" or "did you take all my! nevermind." so. if you have questions. let me know.

happy pedalling.

Stop Exploring

muttsonbikes — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:59:00 GMT

Secret missions will not allow us to betray our current location.

There is a lot to be said for changing your mind.

We made it through a leg of the desert, but that information in itself is misleading.

Prior to current deceptions, which cannot be resolved until further resolution, we saw penguins.

Chilean Humboldt Penguins a midsized variety that lives on an island off the coast of Pan de Azucar National Park. If the man guiding the boat, who took us there, with a long stick attached to the motor that broke off shortly before we returned to the shore, in the small wooden motor boat was correct, and our spanish does not betray us:

The 5,000 Penguinos de Humboldt are indigenous to the island, an original species there,

have no natural predators,

and give birth to two babies twice a year.

We also saw red footed cormorants drying their wings, spread like crucifixes along the rocks, chilean pelicans with rainbow beaks and blue feet, sea otter pairs swimmming, sea lions basking (sea wolves here in Chile), and HUGE JELLYFISH. Called medusas, they are striped pink and the size of small children (five year olds).

Countless shore birds lined our horizons, countless crabs and urchins line the tide pools.

CAT´S UNOFFICIAL BIRD LIST UPDATE (as gleaned from her shoddy field notes and the occasional too-expensive-to-buy and too-heavy-to-carry bird guide):

Humboldt Penguin

American Oyestercatcher

Blackish Oyestercatcher

Chilean Pelican

Whimbrel

Surf Bird (what the Spanish language book calls it - aphriza virgata)

White-rumped Sandpiper

White-backed stilt

Grey Gull (larus modestus)

Simeon Gull (Also called Peruvian Gull here, I believe)

Franklin´s Gull

Black Skimmer

Olivaceous Cormorant

Red-footed Cormorant (holy crap)

Black-crowned Night Heron

Stripe-backed Bittern

Black Vulture (and many, many turkey vultures near the ocean - strange)

California Quail

Blue and white swallow

Giant Hummingbird (again, holy crap)

Not to be overshadowed by the nature, prior to the roll that in your bird life list and smoke it experience, we camped the night before with a seaweed diver who could hold his breath for sixty feet, the night after we stayed with a third generation bicycle family in Copiapo´, whose members included everyone from shop owners to adventure guides. Diego greated us on a bicycle as we road in, Meg´s ill fated sickness slightly faded after Vallenar, where we had camped inside of a haunted building with Mormons who were rebuilding the interior. In Copiapo´we swam and road the Chileans around double on the back of our bicycles preparing for the desert, which again will not yet be mentioned...

I too am covered in bees (new things for you to view)

muttsonbikes — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:04:00 GMT

Shout out to Shelley E.

She made us this amazing map that you yourself can now use to follow our progress. please do.

http://www.mapme.com/map/MuttTrax

AND...

New pictures on the Flickr yall.

If you forgot the address from the monkey post it is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/getabike/

Gallery: Now we are five

muttsonbikes — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:07:00 GMT

¡Reduce the Velocity!

muttsonbikes — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:38:00 GMT

In a beautiful moment of clarity, Meg and I (Cat) came to realize yes, yes we are indeed soaked to the bone in front of a gaggle of semi-formally dressed co-ed summer-campers aged 10-14. Why hadn´t we thought of this before? Our meal ticket, from here on out, is ¨no no, nunca nunca,¨ a theatrical skit of the highest quality passed down to us by our dear friends tyson and rayne miller. i mean rayne zawesome. zawesome.

And so we sang for our suppers in La Serena, where we were welcomed into a student dorm that empty for the summer, save the police force (why?) and a summer camp. we slept in a classroom, attended their annual dinner and dance, and watched painfully as 10-year-old boys danced on tables to the applause of young girls - an apparent adolescent dance tradition not taken on among the northamerican crowd.

Next came a fated visit to the magnetic center of the universe, sight of UFO sightings, haver of the magic river, and cleanser of the power crystals. we searched for Ziggy the white in vain, but salvaged free grapes and apricots from the side of the road and passersby.

we were wowed by our first genuine tourist experiences - pisco distillery tour and observatory tour - all in one day. the former resulted in little more than a free sample of pisco, the latter in the viewing of SATURN in a telescope. SATURN! we are now slightly better versed in southern hemisphere constellations. (upside-down Orion, taurus, gemini, the southern cross, sirus, etc).

yesterday´s fated occurances included our adoption by a stray dog who followed us many kilometers from the last town, the subsequent close-range death of said dog by passing car, our subsequent grief, followed by the random handoff of a a chocolate bar (accompanied by well-wishes) by a random woman in a passing car. we slept behind a truck stop restaurant.

Meg is the most recent recipient of day-an-a-half-long-traveler´s-illenss number 28. She is resting plesantly in a luxurious hostel in Vallenar, from which we will head north through the Atacama Desert. TAKE HEART! we have been told by cyclists (internet and in the flesh), that the trek is doable, and will be carrying ample supplies. Be forwarned, however, this is the kind of desert that doesn´t have internet. We will be in contact as soon as possible, which will likely be a good long whle, when we reach Copiapo.

no no, nunca nunca.

PALABRA Arriba

muttsonbikes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:32:00 GMT

And then the day came that we mounted our metal steeds, our sturdy saddles, and road up into the sun to conquer the great mountain of sand. Atop the great mountain of sand was a cloud forest, a refuge saught by many in these dessert days sauden with heat, but reveled in by few, maybe no one ever, on a fully loaded touring bicycle.

At the top we danced a dance. A dance of glory for the sight of the small stand of trees which stood soaked in clouds. We also walked a walk. A walk of glory for the 1 km of splendor that lay atop the entires day ride in sand that had absorbed the tread of our gallant tires, on our gallant bicycles, more often than not leaving us lying face down in the dirt. The pace set by this only road to the heavens, coated with a foot of loose desert dirt, easily surpassed by crawling on hand and knee, had brought us here above the cumulus.

How we got back down is another story.

And though, the proportions of all moments surrounding the monumentous mount of the mountain are less epic, they are another story and another story. These have been moments equally close to our hearts, and that have left us with less sand in our mouths.

So, here is a numeric list of those things pleasurable in resant portions, intermingled with the nurses thus far list of ailments, because every item on the list is a story and it is still early there, but it is getting late here.

1 case of insect in ear, one third degree sunburn, one case of travelers bowls.

2 sets of unidentified spots covering faces, tendanitis in two ankles, and two wrecks(both Cat running in to the back of Kate).

3 different goat carcass encounters.

4 new prospects for summer dresses, four fups documented on four mutts, four mattresses slept on in a school room last night.

5 grocery items run over in the street by a car today and much more than five mountain passes climbed on route five.

6 bad knees.

7 waves caught on the beach,never more than seven dollars for a meal and dessert (a lot of helado, huevos, and cafe´), and seven different skin tones head to toe on each body.

8 kisses, two on each of our cheeks.

9 reroutes, nine hour days, conversations with curious nine year old children.

10 discussions with locals on their opinions of how we will die, including the light hearted women at the market today who after asking where we were headed laughed and said you are going to die.

MANY MANY dances with Chileans from La Cebada on the 37th birthday party of their town, on the night we happened to arrive in the middle of nowhere.

Gallery: Summer dresses

muttsonbikes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:20:00 GMT

all four