So... I know its been a while since I last wrote. And so much has happened that its quite overwhelming to imagine putting it all down into writing in one sitting. So, I'm going to bring this blog up to date in a couple of days.
I am currently living just outside of Blenheim, New Zealand (go on, googlemap away). I'm staying at this dormitory style hostel for seasonal workers (www.duncannon.co.nz). Its a great setup because all of my fellow harvest workers at the winery that I'm working at are all living together and cooking together and hanging out together, etc. We already have a pretty tight-knit group, which is fun!
If you didn't know already, I am planning to complete a winery internship for the duration of the 2010 southern hemisphere harvest at Delegat's Wine Estate in the Marlborough wine region of New Zealand. We had a few days of orientation last week and were planning to start work this last Monday. However, the grapes are about a week behind schedule so they gave us one full week of vacation, rent free! So, I've had a week off and we plan to start work for real this coming Monday. I'm really excited!
The winery that I'm working at is incredible. Its a very new facility and its completely state of the art. Delegat's sells wine under the Delegat's label here in New Zealand, but they are most famous for the Oyster Bay label which has been extremely successful internationally. I'm sorry to say to fellow Iowans and midwesterners that you may have to head to one of the coasts to get your mitts on a bottle! :(
Its quite a large winery by most people's standards, but having previously worked at the largest grape crush facility in the world for Gallo in Fresno, California, my scale is a little off. The facility is beautiful though! Rows of stainless steel tanks, shiny new presses, stacks of french barrels, and the building itself is quite stunning on the flat landscape of the Wairau Valley.
Well thats all for now! More to come these next couple of days: mountain biking the Marlborough Sounds, my arrival and adventures pre Blenheim, and a smattering of random stories and adventures here in Blenheim.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The trip back North!
So I know that a post is a little overdue..it was a whirlwind week of traveling for both Jeff and I at the end of our Mexico cycling adventure!!
Here is a quick rundown of our nomadic movement over the past week:
We spent a couple more days in Cabo.
Jeff flew from La Paz to Tijuana, avoiding a 25 hour bus ride on the same road that we rode south on.
I took the 25 hour bus ride, taking care of our bikes and most of our stuff. It was quite an adventure!
We met up in San Diego, stayed at a hotel/hostel for a couple of days.
We took Amtrak to Los Angeles to pick up our car in Santa Monica, stayed in Hollywood and Orange County one night each.
I flew to San Francisco, staying two nights there.
Jeff drove the Volvo wagon to Breckenridge to meet friends skiing, arriving safely, and sleeping in my car for a night.
I flew to and arrived in Auckland, New Zealand!
Our last few days in Cabo were pretty fun and chill. We spent the better part of one morning packing up all of our stuff and getting ready for travel without being on bike. Jeff and I had shared a lot of stuff over the trip, so we figured out what was whose and repacked our bags for the trip home. The real project was packing up our bicycles. One morning while Jeff was doing laundry, I roamed around back alleyways of Cabo and asked stores if they had cardboard boxes sitting around...it was an interesting quest. I found a sufficient amount and swung by a hardware store to pick up a roll of duct tape. Then we basically wrapped our bikes in cardboard and duct tape. It ended up looking like a first grader had wrapped a present, but it worked!
We spent our last afternoon, evening, and night visiting some friends we met on our trip, Tony and Kristie. We met them as we were setting up camp on our awesome campsite on the Bahia Concepcion beach. They came up and chatted us up and later Tony told us that he had done the trip about two years earlier. When we mentioned that we were ending our trip in Cabo, he immediately offered his apartment up to us to host us and show us around! It was a beautiful evening in the smaller and less touristy cabo city that they live in for part of the year. We did an art walk, had some drinks, and some wine out on the balcony. Jeff and I proceeded to go out after, following some hot beats we could hear from their apartment. It was a great last night in Cabo.
The next morning, Tony and Kristie gave us a ride to the bus station. There started my epic bus journey. Jeff really should be sad that he missed out...(he isn't). He admitted that long bus rides grind on his nerves pretty bad, so he found a cheap flight to shorten up his trip a little. All in all, the bus ride really wasn't that bad at all. It was interesting to see all of the countryside that we rode past for the previous month just flash by. All the hills were there, where I had my flats, the flooding, everything. It was like a really really fast rewind. I had some time to reflect on the trip and finish up Lord of the Rings. The only real negative part of the bus ride was the military checks. I don't think I talked about these on the way down, but about every 200 miles or so, there are these military checkpoints where they stop every vehicle and ask questions and they have the right to go through your bags and deny you passage or arrest you or whatever. At first, its a little scary, but we got used to it after a while. Well, on the bus, about every 4 hours or so, we would come to one of these checkpoints, even if they were in the middle of the night. I was the most suspicious and interesting passenger by far, and I had to explain my trip every time (in spanish) and explain what was in my bags as they looked through them. It was hard to be nice about it when its 3am. But, I arrived and crossed the border eventually to San Diego without too much of an issue.
San Diego treated us very well! The first night, we went out in the old downtown area, called the Gaslamp Quarter. We wandered into this bar where there was this pretty cool guy playing guitar and taking requests and just general having a good time, but a pretty sparse crowd. Long story short, a few drinks into it, Jeff is up on stage playing backup guitar and was invited up to do a short set of his own while the guy went to the bathroom and have a drink. I did the Dance Marathon morale dance tidbit for "Sweet Caroline" up on stage and danced with just about every female in the sparse crowd. It was a blast! And the night ended with Thai food (that Jeff and I had been craving for weeks) at approximately 3 am. The next day we kind of bummed around walking the town and did a little shopping (I bought a pair of jeans as I had a crotch rip hole in my only pair of jeans for the trip that started in Cabo and was growing larger and more revealing with each step). The second night we met up with a really good friend of mine from high school, Jo Rausch and her Camp Adventure friend Corey. Jo lives in NYC and was randomly just in San Diego visiting Corey to get out of New York, so it was a really fantastic coincidence that we were both in SD at the same time. We hung out at the hostel for a little while and went out for a few drinks and some late night food. It was a much chiller night than the night but before, but in the best way possible. The next day, we put our bikes together and headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo! It is an awesome place and we both decided that we have a new favorite animal, the Klipspringer. We don't really know why, but we couldn't stop laughing looking at them. Very cool animals.
Wow this is getting long...
That night we took Amtrak to Los Angeles. We sat across from this guy that wanted to tell us every intimate detail of his Mardi Gras escapades from the week before, which was very interesting to listen to. Upon arrival, we made our way to Santa Monica to our car and then to Hollywood to stay with one of Jeff's high school friends. The next night we stayed with some of Jeff's friends in Orange County that are students at Chapman University. They had all studied abroad in Italy this past fall semester, so it was a pretty lively reunion. The next morning I got all of my stuff for New Zealand packed up and Jeff drove me to the airport for my short little flight to San Francisco.
San Francisco was fun too! I love that city. I hung out and stayed with a friend of mine that I met when I visited San Fran while living in California this past fall. I had quite a few last minute errands to run and little things to do that kept me pretty busy. Then on Friday, the 26th....well that is the next chapter and phase of this blog, which deserves an entry of its own. :)
Here is a quick rundown of our nomadic movement over the past week:
We spent a couple more days in Cabo.
Jeff flew from La Paz to Tijuana, avoiding a 25 hour bus ride on the same road that we rode south on.
I took the 25 hour bus ride, taking care of our bikes and most of our stuff. It was quite an adventure!
We met up in San Diego, stayed at a hotel/hostel for a couple of days.
We took Amtrak to Los Angeles to pick up our car in Santa Monica, stayed in Hollywood and Orange County one night each.
I flew to San Francisco, staying two nights there.
Jeff drove the Volvo wagon to Breckenridge to meet friends skiing, arriving safely, and sleeping in my car for a night.
I flew to and arrived in Auckland, New Zealand!
Our last few days in Cabo were pretty fun and chill. We spent the better part of one morning packing up all of our stuff and getting ready for travel without being on bike. Jeff and I had shared a lot of stuff over the trip, so we figured out what was whose and repacked our bags for the trip home. The real project was packing up our bicycles. One morning while Jeff was doing laundry, I roamed around back alleyways of Cabo and asked stores if they had cardboard boxes sitting around...it was an interesting quest. I found a sufficient amount and swung by a hardware store to pick up a roll of duct tape. Then we basically wrapped our bikes in cardboard and duct tape. It ended up looking like a first grader had wrapped a present, but it worked!
We spent our last afternoon, evening, and night visiting some friends we met on our trip, Tony and Kristie. We met them as we were setting up camp on our awesome campsite on the Bahia Concepcion beach. They came up and chatted us up and later Tony told us that he had done the trip about two years earlier. When we mentioned that we were ending our trip in Cabo, he immediately offered his apartment up to us to host us and show us around! It was a beautiful evening in the smaller and less touristy cabo city that they live in for part of the year. We did an art walk, had some drinks, and some wine out on the balcony. Jeff and I proceeded to go out after, following some hot beats we could hear from their apartment. It was a great last night in Cabo.
The next morning, Tony and Kristie gave us a ride to the bus station. There started my epic bus journey. Jeff really should be sad that he missed out...(he isn't). He admitted that long bus rides grind on his nerves pretty bad, so he found a cheap flight to shorten up his trip a little. All in all, the bus ride really wasn't that bad at all. It was interesting to see all of the countryside that we rode past for the previous month just flash by. All the hills were there, where I had my flats, the flooding, everything. It was like a really really fast rewind. I had some time to reflect on the trip and finish up Lord of the Rings. The only real negative part of the bus ride was the military checks. I don't think I talked about these on the way down, but about every 200 miles or so, there are these military checkpoints where they stop every vehicle and ask questions and they have the right to go through your bags and deny you passage or arrest you or whatever. At first, its a little scary, but we got used to it after a while. Well, on the bus, about every 4 hours or so, we would come to one of these checkpoints, even if they were in the middle of the night. I was the most suspicious and interesting passenger by far, and I had to explain my trip every time (in spanish) and explain what was in my bags as they looked through them. It was hard to be nice about it when its 3am. But, I arrived and crossed the border eventually to San Diego without too much of an issue.
San Diego treated us very well! The first night, we went out in the old downtown area, called the Gaslamp Quarter. We wandered into this bar where there was this pretty cool guy playing guitar and taking requests and just general having a good time, but a pretty sparse crowd. Long story short, a few drinks into it, Jeff is up on stage playing backup guitar and was invited up to do a short set of his own while the guy went to the bathroom and have a drink. I did the Dance Marathon morale dance tidbit for "Sweet Caroline" up on stage and danced with just about every female in the sparse crowd. It was a blast! And the night ended with Thai food (that Jeff and I had been craving for weeks) at approximately 3 am. The next day we kind of bummed around walking the town and did a little shopping (I bought a pair of jeans as I had a crotch rip hole in my only pair of jeans for the trip that started in Cabo and was growing larger and more revealing with each step). The second night we met up with a really good friend of mine from high school, Jo Rausch and her Camp Adventure friend Corey. Jo lives in NYC and was randomly just in San Diego visiting Corey to get out of New York, so it was a really fantastic coincidence that we were both in SD at the same time. We hung out at the hostel for a little while and went out for a few drinks and some late night food. It was a much chiller night than the night but before, but in the best way possible. The next day, we put our bikes together and headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo! It is an awesome place and we both decided that we have a new favorite animal, the Klipspringer. We don't really know why, but we couldn't stop laughing looking at them. Very cool animals.
Wow this is getting long...
That night we took Amtrak to Los Angeles. We sat across from this guy that wanted to tell us every intimate detail of his Mardi Gras escapades from the week before, which was very interesting to listen to. Upon arrival, we made our way to Santa Monica to our car and then to Hollywood to stay with one of Jeff's high school friends. The next night we stayed with some of Jeff's friends in Orange County that are students at Chapman University. They had all studied abroad in Italy this past fall semester, so it was a pretty lively reunion. The next morning I got all of my stuff for New Zealand packed up and Jeff drove me to the airport for my short little flight to San Francisco.
San Francisco was fun too! I love that city. I hung out and stayed with a friend of mine that I met when I visited San Fran while living in California this past fall. I had quite a few last minute errands to run and little things to do that kept me pretty busy. Then on Friday, the 26th....well that is the next chapter and phase of this blog, which deserves an entry of its own. :)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Cabo!!!
We have arrived!!!! We rolled into Cabo San Lucas yesterday evening..The last two days of riding were shorter distances, but were more challenging than we expected. But our final days here in Mexico have been filled with much more fun things than just biking. Here is a brief rundown...
Our last night in La Paz, we once again went down to the seashore party street where carnaval was still going strong, wearing the exact same clothes that we had for the previous 2 nights. People had to be on to us by then, but they were polite enough not to say anything. We met up with a couchsurfing friend (couchsuring.com), Jose Carlos just to hang out. He had a backpacker with him from Argentina, Martin, and a cousin of his. It just so happened that we ran into a friend of Jose Carlos' cousin that was from Todos Santos, whom is also on couchsuring. She insisted we stay with her the next day when we arrived there. Its funny how stuff like that just works out. So, we rode down to Todos Santos and had an absolute blast! Todos Santos is a huge tourist/retirement community and we saw more white people in the first two blocks upon arrival than we had for the entire trip, which took a while to get used to.
Shortly after arriving and meeting up with our host, Perla, she informed us that there was a leatherback turtle hatchling release down at the beach that evening. This was an amazing treat. It was run by a sea turtle conservation group that searches the beaches for nests and builds a tent around them, keeping the eggs warm and safe. When they hatch, they release them into the sea in the evening, giving them a better chance for survival. It was an amazing sight being on a secluded beach on the Pacific watching the sun go down and watching little baby sea turtles crawl out into the surf. It was a really neat moment.
We all made a family style pasta meal that night and partied and danced pretty hard into the night, which included a late night beer run (these are always interesting in foreign countries). One of Perla's friends, Kelly, is a professional singer and Martin the Argentinean and Jeff jammed out on a mandolin and our cheap mexican guitar. It was a great night! The next day, Kelly took us to th beach and let us borrow her two surfboards and we hit the waves. That is, I tried to hit the waves and Jeff had a couple of good runs. The surf was pretty big and it wasn't ideal for beginners. It was really fun to just be by the ocean though. In the early afternoon, we somewhat reluctantly got on our bikes and headed out of town.
Upon arrival in Cabo, we had a small dose of culture shock. It is super super touristy and we rode by a McDonalds and tons of huge fancy tourist resorts and yachts. All in all though, a very clean and beautiful place. We found a great moderately priced hotel that just a couple of blocks from the beach and marina. Then last night, we got a taste of Cabo nightlife. Once we got over the extremely expensive drinks compared to what we were used to here in Mexico, it was a really fun night. Today, we are headed to the beach and are taking a glass bottom boat tour out to an island beach and to get a view of the coast from the ocean, instead of the other way around. We also hope to find some cardboard boxes to package our bikes and get all squared away with bus tickets and all.
The trip has gone by so fast, but it seems like so long ago that we started. So many memories along the way and we will both be very sad to leave...
I may not post until we are back safe and sound in Los Angeles at the end of the week, unless we hit up the internet one more time before we leave town...
Also, just as we came into town, our odometer turned over to 1000 miles for our trip!!
Our last night in La Paz, we once again went down to the seashore party street where carnaval was still going strong, wearing the exact same clothes that we had for the previous 2 nights. People had to be on to us by then, but they were polite enough not to say anything. We met up with a couchsurfing friend (couchsuring.com), Jose Carlos just to hang out. He had a backpacker with him from Argentina, Martin, and a cousin of his. It just so happened that we ran into a friend of Jose Carlos' cousin that was from Todos Santos, whom is also on couchsuring. She insisted we stay with her the next day when we arrived there. Its funny how stuff like that just works out. So, we rode down to Todos Santos and had an absolute blast! Todos Santos is a huge tourist/retirement community and we saw more white people in the first two blocks upon arrival than we had for the entire trip, which took a while to get used to.
Shortly after arriving and meeting up with our host, Perla, she informed us that there was a leatherback turtle hatchling release down at the beach that evening. This was an amazing treat. It was run by a sea turtle conservation group that searches the beaches for nests and builds a tent around them, keeping the eggs warm and safe. When they hatch, they release them into the sea in the evening, giving them a better chance for survival. It was an amazing sight being on a secluded beach on the Pacific watching the sun go down and watching little baby sea turtles crawl out into the surf. It was a really neat moment.
We all made a family style pasta meal that night and partied and danced pretty hard into the night, which included a late night beer run (these are always interesting in foreign countries). One of Perla's friends, Kelly, is a professional singer and Martin the Argentinean and Jeff jammed out on a mandolin and our cheap mexican guitar. It was a great night! The next day, Kelly took us to th beach and let us borrow her two surfboards and we hit the waves. That is, I tried to hit the waves and Jeff had a couple of good runs. The surf was pretty big and it wasn't ideal for beginners. It was really fun to just be by the ocean though. In the early afternoon, we somewhat reluctantly got on our bikes and headed out of town.
Upon arrival in Cabo, we had a small dose of culture shock. It is super super touristy and we rode by a McDonalds and tons of huge fancy tourist resorts and yachts. All in all though, a very clean and beautiful place. We found a great moderately priced hotel that just a couple of blocks from the beach and marina. Then last night, we got a taste of Cabo nightlife. Once we got over the extremely expensive drinks compared to what we were used to here in Mexico, it was a really fun night. Today, we are headed to the beach and are taking a glass bottom boat tour out to an island beach and to get a view of the coast from the ocean, instead of the other way around. We also hope to find some cardboard boxes to package our bikes and get all squared away with bus tickets and all.
The trip has gone by so fast, but it seems like so long ago that we started. So many memories along the way and we will both be very sad to leave...
I may not post until we are back safe and sound in Los Angeles at the end of the week, unless we hit up the internet one more time before we leave town...
Also, just as we came into town, our odometer turned over to 1000 miles for our trip!!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
picts!
Here are some picts finally! Here is my all time favorite..Full grown men that were hanging out at Carnaval with luchador masks!
Also, as promised to a couple of bike friends, a quick image of our fully loaded bikes! Note the guitar that I have failed to mention thus far in the blog. We bought it for about 10 bucks at a pawn shop and it has a mind of its own. Jeff plays pretty well, but a different set of strings sounds better each time he picks it up. Its very hit or miss and has been a fun conversation piece.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Carnaval!
We arrived in La Paz finally! It was two pretty long and boring days across some pretty flat and windy desert to get here since ¨the worst cycling day ever¨ It felt great to arrive! It was a little bit of a culture shock when the monotonous boring desert road quickly converted to a four lane highway and we were greeted by a walmart and sam´s club on the outskirts of town. All in all, La Paz is a very happening city and it is quite abuzz with excitement right now being that it is Carnaval.
On our way here, we came to a realisation of just how desolate the desert is. There were two towns that were named after the kilometer marker where they were situated. So we camped in a smattering of buildings called ¨el cien¨ (one hundred). Economically, we were not quite sure how there seemed to be 3 identical shops selling the exact same things (water, cookies, junk food, soda, burritos, batteries, etc) and they all seemed to be doing pretty well. We got an early start to the morning and I fixed hopefully my last flat tire of the trip before heading out of town. I currently have 9 patches on both tubes!
Within an hour or so after arriving in La Paz searching for our typical slightly run down cheapo hotel arrangement, we ran into another american that is working on a sail boat down in Cabo but was up in La Paz for the party weekend. We split a super cheap room for rent only about two blocks from the beach and the party. We hit up the party last night soon after getting cleaned up. And a party it was! There is a street right along the beach about 2 kilometers long that was full of food vendors, carnival rides, games, stages, beer tents, and crammed with people. It was really really fun. Some highlights included the worst corndog that I have ever had, dancing with a group of full grown men wearing mexican wrestling masks, and Jeff using a bathroom labeled "M" for mujeres (women), not men much to the dismay of females in line outside upon exit.
Today we kindof walked around the older part of the city and generally hung out. It felt great to not have to get on a bike, I must say. We feel a little more normal also with some much needed clean clothes. We will see if people notice that we are wearing the same thing that we were last night and probably will be wearing the same tomorrow night too!
We may head back to the party again tonight and we plan to stick around tomorrow for an evening parade that sounds pretty rad. Monday, heading south in two days along the Pacific ocean side beach down to Los Cabos!
Hope everyone is enjoying the olympics and has a great valentines day!
PS...We finally found a computer that accepted Jeffs camera memory card, so some picts are up on facebook! I will put some on here as soon as I can. As far as my personal camera, it fell off of my bike while riding about 5 days into the trip. Jeff has fully taken on the role of photographer though, and with gusto.
On our way here, we came to a realisation of just how desolate the desert is. There were two towns that were named after the kilometer marker where they were situated. So we camped in a smattering of buildings called ¨el cien¨ (one hundred). Economically, we were not quite sure how there seemed to be 3 identical shops selling the exact same things (water, cookies, junk food, soda, burritos, batteries, etc) and they all seemed to be doing pretty well. We got an early start to the morning and I fixed hopefully my last flat tire of the trip before heading out of town. I currently have 9 patches on both tubes!
Within an hour or so after arriving in La Paz searching for our typical slightly run down cheapo hotel arrangement, we ran into another american that is working on a sail boat down in Cabo but was up in La Paz for the party weekend. We split a super cheap room for rent only about two blocks from the beach and the party. We hit up the party last night soon after getting cleaned up. And a party it was! There is a street right along the beach about 2 kilometers long that was full of food vendors, carnival rides, games, stages, beer tents, and crammed with people. It was really really fun. Some highlights included the worst corndog that I have ever had, dancing with a group of full grown men wearing mexican wrestling masks, and Jeff using a bathroom labeled "M" for mujeres (women), not men much to the dismay of females in line outside upon exit.
Today we kindof walked around the older part of the city and generally hung out. It felt great to not have to get on a bike, I must say. We feel a little more normal also with some much needed clean clothes. We will see if people notice that we are wearing the same thing that we were last night and probably will be wearing the same tomorrow night too!
We may head back to the party again tonight and we plan to stick around tomorrow for an evening parade that sounds pretty rad. Monday, heading south in two days along the Pacific ocean side beach down to Los Cabos!
Hope everyone is enjoying the olympics and has a great valentines day!
PS...We finally found a computer that accepted Jeffs camera memory card, so some picts are up on facebook! I will put some on here as soon as I can. As far as my personal camera, it fell off of my bike while riding about 5 days into the trip. Jeff has fully taken on the role of photographer though, and with gusto.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
the.worst.cycling.day.ever!
The title pretty much says it all when describing yesterday. Going into it, we knew it would be a rough day. There was a killer climb right away in the morning and Jeff had battled some residual sickness effects the night before. Pulling out of our campsite, I had a flat front tire. Filled it up, all seemed to be fine.
The climb was killer, about ten solids miles of climb...hard, but doable. Often, what makes hard climbs bearable is that there usually is an intensely fun and fast downhill on the other side to look forward to. In this case we had no such reward. It just flattened out a little bit, with a few barely noticeable downhills leading to a very wide flat plains. It as overcast and cold all day and once we got out onto the flat plain, there was a constant and strong headwind the whole way... :(
On top of that, one of the of the twisty turvy curves, there was a semi behind me for about a quarter mile and I could tell he was getting a little impatient. He was really close over my left shoulder and half out of courtesy and half out of personal safety, I pulled off onto the shoulder. I realised too late that I pulled right into a patch of thorns. Sure enough, two flat tires, not a half mile down the road. I stopped, patched up a few holes after realising that the spare tube I had wouldn´t fit as a few bike experts had assured me. There were more holes than the eye could see of course, so I resorted to limping into town, stopping to fill up my tires every five miles or so for the last 40 miles...not pleasant at all.
Coming into a town just as it was getting dark and cold, not as far as we wanted to go, with two flat tires that needed some serious fixing, we realised that there were not any hotels, just rooms for rent and for more than we wanted to pay. We didn´t have a choice. I spent about 3 hours patching tubes and pulling thorns out of my tires with a tweezers last night and this morning. But they seem to be holding up very well today, at least.
Today, we hope to maybe right as far as we can and hope to arrive in La Paz tomorrow afternoon. Carnaval is in full swing, so we are looking forward to that!
Four more days of riding then we´ll be on the beach! :)
The climb was killer, about ten solids miles of climb...hard, but doable. Often, what makes hard climbs bearable is that there usually is an intensely fun and fast downhill on the other side to look forward to. In this case we had no such reward. It just flattened out a little bit, with a few barely noticeable downhills leading to a very wide flat plains. It as overcast and cold all day and once we got out onto the flat plain, there was a constant and strong headwind the whole way... :(
On top of that, one of the of the twisty turvy curves, there was a semi behind me for about a quarter mile and I could tell he was getting a little impatient. He was really close over my left shoulder and half out of courtesy and half out of personal safety, I pulled off onto the shoulder. I realised too late that I pulled right into a patch of thorns. Sure enough, two flat tires, not a half mile down the road. I stopped, patched up a few holes after realising that the spare tube I had wouldn´t fit as a few bike experts had assured me. There were more holes than the eye could see of course, so I resorted to limping into town, stopping to fill up my tires every five miles or so for the last 40 miles...not pleasant at all.
Coming into a town just as it was getting dark and cold, not as far as we wanted to go, with two flat tires that needed some serious fixing, we realised that there were not any hotels, just rooms for rent and for more than we wanted to pay. We didn´t have a choice. I spent about 3 hours patching tubes and pulling thorns out of my tires with a tweezers last night and this morning. But they seem to be holding up very well today, at least.
Today, we hope to maybe right as far as we can and hope to arrive in La Paz tomorrow afternoon. Carnaval is in full swing, so we are looking forward to that!
Four more days of riding then we´ll be on the beach! :)
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
In sickness and in health
We spent another day in Santa Rosalia before heading back on the road on Sunday. Reason: Jeff was in a very very bad place due to food poisoning. I won´t say anything more about that. Anyways, he´s feeling much better now and we just rolled into a pretty decent sized town called Loreto. The last couple of days have been really really beautiful...Here is the run down
Leaving Santa Rosalia and heading south, we came to Mulege. Following Mulege, we were right along the coast of a beautiful bay called Bahia Concepcion (bay of conception). No word as to who specifically was conceived there. Many people I´m sure, because it was a very beautiful place. After coming out of Mulege we had two priorities, the first being to find a beautiful place to camp for the night. Second would be to find a place where we could maybe catch the super bowl. We took this long dirt road off the highway to this beach to this pretty small smattering of campers and shacks on the beach. It was 20 bucks a night for a shack of our own right on the beach..great! We assumed that the downfall of choosing such a beautiful and remote spot was that the super bowl was out of the question. After chatting it up with our hungarian neighbor, Gaborg, he casually asked if we followed football, because there was a super bowl party just up the beach. What??
Here is a pict of our palapa
So he walked us over there and there is like about 20 retirees in this decked out shack with a big screen tv and surround sound, full kitchen, grill, couches, everything! These people just move down here for like half the year from Canada and homeschool their kids and kitesurf and wakeboard and have a family band and cool stuff like that. What a life! It was a very cool super bowl experience.
Perhaps the funniest moment was when we were headed out the next day and swung by to say goodbye. Their little 6 year old said ¨do you guys live together?¨ We honestly didn´t really know what to say, so we answered ¨for now, yes¨ because we pretty much do. I think her dad may have had to answer some questions later. Hence the title of this blog post lol
We headed out the next afternoon, seeing how far we would get south along the bay. We got only about 20 miles before we found this gorgeous beach that at low tide, there was this sand bar where you could walk out to an island. So we camped there..it was by far the most beautiful campsite that I´ve ever stayed at. Got an early start this morning and hope to ride a ways past Loreto today. We have some mountains to cross tomorrow.. We think about 3 long days of riding until La Paz and then two days down to Los Cabos! The end is near. It has really gone by so so fast, but it seems like such a long time ago that we got started. We will be trying to make the most out of the time that we have left!
A pict of Jeff at our campsite
Leaving Santa Rosalia and heading south, we came to Mulege. Following Mulege, we were right along the coast of a beautiful bay called Bahia Concepcion (bay of conception). No word as to who specifically was conceived there. Many people I´m sure, because it was a very beautiful place. After coming out of Mulege we had two priorities, the first being to find a beautiful place to camp for the night. Second would be to find a place where we could maybe catch the super bowl. We took this long dirt road off the highway to this beach to this pretty small smattering of campers and shacks on the beach. It was 20 bucks a night for a shack of our own right on the beach..great! We assumed that the downfall of choosing such a beautiful and remote spot was that the super bowl was out of the question. After chatting it up with our hungarian neighbor, Gaborg, he casually asked if we followed football, because there was a super bowl party just up the beach. What??
Here is a pict of our palapa
So he walked us over there and there is like about 20 retirees in this decked out shack with a big screen tv and surround sound, full kitchen, grill, couches, everything! These people just move down here for like half the year from Canada and homeschool their kids and kitesurf and wakeboard and have a family band and cool stuff like that. What a life! It was a very cool super bowl experience.
Perhaps the funniest moment was when we were headed out the next day and swung by to say goodbye. Their little 6 year old said ¨do you guys live together?¨ We honestly didn´t really know what to say, so we answered ¨for now, yes¨ because we pretty much do. I think her dad may have had to answer some questions later. Hence the title of this blog post lol
We headed out the next afternoon, seeing how far we would get south along the bay. We got only about 20 miles before we found this gorgeous beach that at low tide, there was this sand bar where you could walk out to an island. So we camped there..it was by far the most beautiful campsite that I´ve ever stayed at. Got an early start this morning and hope to ride a ways past Loreto today. We have some mountains to cross tomorrow.. We think about 3 long days of riding until La Paz and then two days down to Los Cabos! The end is near. It has really gone by so so fast, but it seems like such a long time ago that we got started. We will be trying to make the most out of the time that we have left!
A pict of Jeff at our campsite
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