The Restless Biker

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 The cold and the hard work over the last few days has taken a bit out of me. My batteries are low, so I'm taking a rest day in Los Barriles. I once again ran into Kelly, the Canuck cyclist with Tanya, who I had run into earlier. It's been a really lazy day with not much to write about. Just lolling about, drinking coffee and catching up on the blog. The campground had a group of cobbers, camped away from the RV crowd. It's a workshop where people, mostly young folks from Canada and the USA, come to learn how to build cobb houses. That's basically straw and mud, in a nutshell. About half the group seemed to be from BC. I decided to invite myself over to their site, under the guise of inquiring about availability of vegetarian food in town. After all, there would certainly be some vegetarians and vegans with a group like this. Before I knew it I was invited to stay for beer and vegan food. As it turns out, the organizers are from Mayne Island,...

Friday, February 1st, 2008 El Cardonal to Los Barriles. 20km's all on sand and dirt, by bicycle. Since I was the only guest at the campground, nothing woke me up in the morning. That was a good thing, since I had to do several starlit nocturnal squats during the night. The sky was simply stupendous. There were so many stars that I had no idea what I was looking at. Not that I really know what I'm looking at if there's only one star in the sky. But it's the kind of sight a typical city person rarely ever gets to see. I could picture myself lying on the beach, with Patti by my side, musing about life in outer space. Of course, we'd be covered with a heavy blanket since it was freezing cold with a stiff wind blowing. When I finally crawled out of my tent, feeling all groggy and still a bit bagged from yesterday's ride, it was 9:00am. Vicente Lucero, the substitute campground caretaker made me some free coffee and graciously allowed me to butcher his native tongue f...

Thursday, January 31, 2008 La Ventana to El Cardonal 55km's by bicycle. Mostly on dirt and sand. Today I had vowed to leave town by 9:00am. Much to my shock and surprise, I actually did. And that was after having a really good breakfast of Huevos Rancheros, orange juice and coffee. As I was getting ready to leave, a gringa turista walked up to the restaurant, took a look at my bike and me, and started quietly laughing uncontrolably. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, so I hopped on the bike and pedalled off while hung over windsurfer dude types starting piling into the restaurant. I already knew today would be tough, even though the book promised it would only be about 36km's to El Cardonal. As usual, "the book" was inaccurate. It was closer to 45km's. That may not seem like much, but it's a world of difference on a fully loaded bike after having to push the damn thing for 2km's due to too much sand on the road. I was downright elated to be on a...