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North and Central America (Jun-Dec 2004 2004)
Preparation
Canada
USA
Mexico
Guatemela
Honduras
Nicaragua
Costa Rica
South America
A 1000 km from red-neck Calgary across the Rocky Mountains to cosmopolitan Vancouver:
Since they found oil in Alberta, Calgary has become the Texas of Canada, with nothing but ugly sky crapers, immense pick-ups sliding through down-town, red-necks eating at chainies, and the cultural high-light of the year is the big Stampede. So I bought a bicycle, left the cow-boy city as quickly as possible, and biked into the prairie towards the Rocky Mountains.
Long distance biking is not a big thing in Canada so the bike shops were loaded with full suspended mountain bikes with disc brakes and futuristic frames but there was little choice in serious bikes. I ended up buying a cheap hybrid one, which should last till Mexico, I hope. The few other bikers I have met on the road were not only surprised with this simple bike but even more with the unconventional packing, being two not exactly water proof Aldi side bags, topped of with my large backpack attached with a single rope, and some super market bags swinging about. It is a little unstable construction but it works, allthough I will sent some stuff home to travel lighter, because I have about 40 kg on the back. Another big difference with Europe is that biking in Canada means peddalling on the shoulder ("vluchtstrook") of the highway. Seams dangerous, but the Canadians drive pretty slow and carefull.
The Rockies were very beautifull, especially the national parks. The first time I camped out in the wild, I didn't feel like putting up my tent so I slept under a pick-nick roof. When I woke up the next morning, I looked straight into the eyes of a big moose, so now I'm always using the tent. I also saw black bear, elk and other large animals at just a few metres, they are not shy at all.
Most dangerous thing is not the animals but the traffic: on the highway I saw a car on the other side losing a front wheel, which came onto my lane but fortunately missed me an dissapeared into the woods, while this guy was giving a free fire work show on the highway.
When I crossed the Rockies, I left the American-like province Alberta and entered the European-like British Columbia. To my surprise I had to cross an extreme hot and dry desert-like area, one day I had to peddal a 180 km to get to a shower. Via the beautifull East coast mountains I finally reached Vancouver, an interesting cultural hotchpotch.
June 12: Calgary; 13,14: Calgary; 15: Cochrane; 16: Banff national Park; 17: Lake Louise, Yoho National Park, Field; 18: Golden, Roger's pass, Glacier national park; 19: Revelstoke, Sicamous; 20: Salmon Arm's, Kamloops, Savona; 21: Cache Creek, Pavillion; 22: Lilloet, Pemberton, Whistler; 23: Garibaldi, Squamish; 24: Vancouver; 25: Vancouver
USA part 1: Almost 2000 km from Vancouver along the Pacific coast to San Fransisco:
The USA Pacific coast is beautiful and has lots of different sceneries: rocky coasts, dunes, redwood forests, grassland, etc.
Some funny things:
- I went for a shower in a State Park, and when I came back it was dark, I was wearing only a flash light and my underpants, and the bread I left on the table was gone. As soon as I was in my tent, I heard this breazing and graoming sound, and suddenly remembered the cougar (puma) warning at the camping's entrance. He was snuffing in my food stuff I left on the table, and when I got up the next morning I stepped in his shit...I sure do like pussy, but not this nasty! A coule of days later in another state park, I heard another when I was putting up my tent around dusk, and that was the first night in my life that I've slept with a kitchen knife in my hands. Another time I was chased by a bull, fortunately down-hill, a crow sat on top of my bike picking a hole in my food bag, etc
- On the road I met Fritz "abenteuer" Kratzeisen, a 65 year-old German biker with 70 kg's of luggage (see photo), and biking round the world, making true his childhood dream! This man was incredible, he's writing some books so buy 'm when they are issued.
- Biking on the road, this race biker with his wife comes along and asks: "Where are you going to?". "Mexico". "How is your money?". "Huh?". Then he puts over 30 dollars in my hand saying I can use this, and he's gone. His wife explains to me: "he just wishes he as you" and is gone too. It must have been my shitty gear and my duct-taped Aldi bags. The Americans are really friendly, I have real interesting discussions with them everywhere, and they offer me food and other things.
- It´s a cliche, but if you actually see it, you just can´t believe why the Yanks all drive immense Pick-up trucks and the RV´s ("campers") are even more ridiculously large. Since they are not used to bicyclists, they cut you off at turns, but one time a police car was behind me and the pick-up got a ticket, gna gna gna (see photo).
- I saw the movie "911 Fahrenheit" from Michael Moore, and the crowd when wild and applauded at the end. It must have been all Democrats and Bush haters. America seems to be divided in Bush-lovers and Bush-haters, and the gaps keeps growing, some people even talked about civil war...
- My legs are really trained now and I bike on average about 120 km a day. Sometimes I meet bikers on the campground in the evening, the next morning they get up early and are already gone, but I bike faster so I catch up and pass them. Then I meet interesting people on the road and while I am talking for hours, the bikers pass me again, and so on and on.
June 26: Bellingham; 27: Pemberton, Townsend, State Park Fort Wordsworth; 28: Twanooh State Park: 29: Centralia, Chehalis; 30: Longview
July 1: Astoria, Manzanita, Nehalim State Park; 2: Lincoln City; 3: Newport, Florence; 4: Reedsport, North Bend, Bandon; 5: Bandon, Gold Beach, Brookings; 6: Crescent Cicty, Orich; 7: Eureka, Redcrest, Humbolt Redwood State Park; 8: Garberville, Legett; 9: Fort Bragg, Little River; 10: Point Arena, Jenner; 11: Point Reyes, San Francisco; 12,13,14: San Francisco
USA part 2: From the hilly coast of San Francsisco through the flat central valley over the Sierra Nevada mountains into the Nevada rattle-snake desert, back into the mountains, and with the bus through the desert to Sin City Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon:
Finally I met several Republicans so I could talk politics with them: a female teacher, a Hispanic nurse and other underpaid people vote for Bush simply because he believes. Unbelievable. But Americans are always friendly, they often invite me to their campground, like this old hippie who told me all about his Mexican magic mushrooms experiences way back in the good old hippie times.
In the Sierras I had to climb a lot of mountains, every day 1000 to 2000 heigth meters, but it was harder to cross the Nevada desserts because of the heat. One day I was climbing a desert mountain, and on top of the high altitude, the climbing and the desert heat, I had to pass a bunch rattle snakes: as soon as I had passed one, the next started to rattle, it was a real rattle-estafette. This is the most surprising aspect of America and especially California: the landscape changes so quickly and dramatically, that in the morning in the mountains it can be chilly when you take your food out of the bear-safe box, and a few hours of pedalling later you are sweating in the desert between the scorpions.
Since the desert is pretty boring and pretty hot this time of year, I packed my bike in super market cardboard and took the bus to Las Vegas. This city is like an over-the top bad taste amusement park for grown-ups, but I still had a lot of fun with the Vegas shows and other travellers, check out the movie below.
In the beautifull Grand Cayon I could practise my outdoor climbing (see photo), while a bloke filmed it and nearly pissed his pants.
MOVIE: Usa vegas wedding.avi
July 15: San Francisco, Modeste, Tucor Lake State Park; 16:Greeley Hill, 17: Yosemite Valey; 18: Tuolumne Meadows; 19: Tiogo Pass, Mono Lake, Lake Topaz; 20: Lake Tahoe, Carson City (Nevada); 21, 22: Las Vegas; 23 Grand Canyon, Las Vegas; 24: Phoenix, Tucson (Arizona); 25: Tucson, El Paso, Ciudad de Juarez, Chihuaha (Mexico)
With the train through the Copper Canyons to Creel. From the Netherlands I have taken along a 3 kg Spanish course with books and CD's, and when I had spare time in Canada and the US, I was studying.
I do not want to know what the other campers thougth when they heard me say "Buenas tardes, ¡cuando sale el tren para Sevilla?" at 23.00 hours in my tent somewhere on the Pacific coast.
Anyway, I keep mixing the Spanish up with Italian, and the Mexicans have a different pronunciation and words than European Spanish.
It is so important to know the language, because people all over the world are a lot friendlier when you (try to) speak theirs.
In Mexico, life has become al litlle bit thougher on me: Arriving with the bus in Mexico in Chihuahua, it rained cats and dogs, and I have sent my coat home with other stuff I did not use. Hmmm. No problem. I wanted to take the train out of the Chihuahua desert into the mountains through the famous Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyons, even larger and almost as beautifull than the US Grand Canyon).
Unfortunately, the first day the train office was closed. No problem. The second day I overslept. No problem.
When I finally took the train and stayed in the mountains for a day, a rock fell on the railroad, and the train is the only way to cross the mountains.
No problem, I will just wait for some days. After a couple of days a freigth train derailled on the same track.
No problem, so now I will take a bus back to where I came from.
I could have, if I had not met the Turista, which in Mexican does not only mean tourist but also the diseases that hit the tourist, so I drained in all possible ways.
Things could only get better, and they did: after 2 days I was ok again, I met some Mexican party people, and I had a great time in Creel with Jorge, Sergio and Marco.
A lot of fun in Chihuahua with Jorge and his friends. From Creel, I took the bus to Jorge´s place in Chihuahua to stay for a weekend or so. However, the weekend became a whole month since Jorge was very hospitable and we had a lot of fun, I met a lot of his friends and had the party time of my life. Jorge, you are the best!
Love at first sight with Andrea. When I met Andrea, I hardly spoke any Spanish and she didn't speak any English at all, but love at first sight does not need any spoken language.
I started studying Spanish like crazy, and each day we could talk more, and after a few weeks we couldn't stop talking. I soon met her two lovely daughters, Regina and Fernanda.
We had the craziest adventures, I can't tell 'm here and you wouldn't believe them anyway...
MOVIE: Mexico Chihuahua afterparty at Jorges.avi
Sick in bed. In the mean time I had moved in with Andrea and the kids. Life is a rollercoaster, and it went down again. It was probably a very bad hamburger which gave me the multi-senses experience of a 'toxication de alimento': I was puking like a baby, my head felt like an atomic bomb research centre, the fever made me feel like jumping from the sauna into the ice bath and back again, my muscles felt beaten-up by a motor cycle club, my stomach and intestines sounded like an old fashioned dish washer, and my ass like a queer gang bang.
After two days of struggling I had to surrender because I even vomitted water and was completely dehydrated.
I crawled to the car and Andrea brought me to the hospital where they pumped a couple of bags of liquid in to my vains.
Finally, back to life and back home, I started hallucinating on the medicines. But I loved the nurse...
MOVIE: Mexico Chihuahua sick in bed.avi
Mazatlan. After two months of sex, drugs and rock and roll in Chiuhuahua, I woke up from a dream. Que bueno, que rico, que lindo, pais latino. But you can't go around the world staying in Chihuahua.
So we went for a few days to Mazatlan on the coast to say adios. Andrea was about to move with the kids to Cancun, while I would be pedalling and bussing South Mexico from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast to Cancun, where we would meet again.
MOVIE: Mexico Mazatlan mum and dad 40 years married.avi
More Pacific coast. Having dinner on the beautiful beach of Puerto Vallarta with Juan from San Salvador, who tries to make it to the US for work, with nothing but his clothes, an aluminum pan, and half of my chicken.
Also a picture of the black sand beach of Yucutlan.
Uruapan to Morelia. Back in the saddle again on the Mexican roads. In the mountains I visited the beautifull towns of Uruapan, Paracho (where very store is a guitar shop), the vulcano of Paricutin (see the photo in the bottom of the smoking crater), Patzcuaro, and Morelia, both at 3000 m altitude. Some interesting encounters:
- When I arrived in Uruapan, I had a 5pm breakfast on the street with a police helicopter pilot, whose job was to identify marihuana in the mountains all over Mexico; this year already two of his collegeaus got shot by the farmers and crashed with their hellicopter. But his main concern however was where he could meet the best whores of the world. It seems like every mature man I meet wants to talk about the whores and drugs in Holland...
- When the vulcano Paricutin erupted in 1943, an adjacent village was completely covered in lava, except for the church (see photo). By accident I met 67 year old Norbert, who lived in that village and whose house of birth is under the lava, but he remembered the eruption as one huge beautifull firework.
- Alongside the road a ranchero (see picture) was herding his cattle, and explained me how he did all his work, including the ploughing, with his horses.
Morelia to Oaxaca. And onwards, bussing and a little biking, to see the famous old bricks: the ruines of Malinalco, the giant piramides of Teotihuacan, the beautifull mountain town of Taxco, the huge caves of Cacuamilpan, the beautifull cultural city of Oaxaca with the ruines of Monte Alban, and the ruines of Mitla.
- Busses: The highway seems the only safe road to bike here because all the others are endangered by busses. Even at night on small windy uphill roads, they overtake everybody, after which they switch on the dash board light to make a large 'fuck you to' gesture in the mirror to respond the objections of the truck or car behind. I experienced already two times in different busses an attempt to overtake two trucks at once on a hill, which failed both, resulting in a manouvre to slip in between the two trucks to avoid the upcoming car; everyone in the bus just keeps on sleeping, while the bus driver explains me that Mexican bus drivers are very very good because they have to handle these situations. Preventing them is no option of course. Also, the mountain town of Taxco had a beautifull collection of Volkswagen mini busses and Beatles for public transport, and it is a wonder how they drive in the narrow winding and hilly streets between all the pedestrians.
- Police: On every street corner in Taxco was a police man with a giant shot gun, and I saw right in front of my nose an arrest where a handcuffed man was thrown in the back of a police pick-up truck accompanied by six shot guns. Also, the police tries to make an extra buck. In Chihuahua we had to bribe a police officer because he stopped us for passing a pedestrian crossing whithout stopping allthough there were no pedestrians at all. In Mazatlan a police duo accused us of making love on the beach, but we got away this time. When I asked Mexicans why there are so many incredible expensive pick-up trucks in this poor country, they explained that only the police, the politicians and the drug dealers can afford them, because they are all corrupt. They forgot to mention some bus drivers who ask extra money for transporting my bike.
- Drink and drive: Alongside the road you see a large number of memorials for traffic victims (see photo), indicating the result of the Mexican driving behaviour. Lots of people drink and drive, because if you get caught by the police you just bribe them. Earlier in Chihuahua, we had to carry a friend to her car, after which she drove home; two weeks later she wrecked her car. Another friend went for cigarettes, completely drunk, returned hours later without the car because he got busted, and had to buy it back again.
- Dogs: The little dog is an Oaxacan pup relieving itself. The rest of the Mexican dogs are less charming, because they run around on the streets, chase you if you bike to fast, or get run over by traffic: near a big trash dump I had to manouvre my bike between four smelly corpses.
Tuxtla Gutierrez to Palenque. Finally the most beautifull route of Mexico, this was biking at its best, through the mountaineous jungle of Chiapas with numerous little indian villages, and a lot of highlights:
- With a speedboot through the spectacular Sumidero Canon, with its 1 km high straight-up cliffs.
- Walking through San Cristobal, the most beautifull town of Mexico, all the way up in the mountains.
- Taking a refreshing dip at the waterfalls of Agua Azul and Ixol-Ha.
- Admiring the Maya ruins of Palenque in the jungle.
Palenque to Valladolid. After Palenque the landscape de pronto changed from mountains into one flat big jungle: the Yucatan Peninsula. Here I saw some more ruines in Uxmal and Chichen Itza, and the cities of Campeche, Merida, and Valladolid.
Andrea in Cancun. My last biking day I managed to make a 165 km.
This was not only because of the flat landscape, but also because my travelling guide mentioned about my final stop in Mexico, at the Caribbean coast, the city of Cancun: "a metropolis whose alcohol soaked, sex stirred, disco shaken insanity surpasses any other in the western hemisphere". Unfortunately I don not like alcohol nor beach resort with only huge gringo hotels, but I did have a good time... The last photo is for my dear former colleague Peter Little Millman, whom I promissed at my goodbye to sent a picture of a nice Brazilian butt, but a think this Mexican will do as well, won"t it Peter?
Far more beautifull and entertaining than Cancun were the nearby ruines of Tulum, the beaches of Playa del Carmen, and the snorkeling and SCUBA diving on the reefs of the Cozumel island. And thanks everyone for my birthday gratulations.
Biking break. From now on I will be backpacking the rest of Central and South America, as planned and to catch up some time. I parked my bike with Andrea in Cancun, and I will pick it up afterwards when I will go to New Zealand. In Mexico I took the bus via Belize to Guatemala.
July 25, 26: Chihuaha; 27, 28, 29, 30, 31: Creel
Aug 1, 2, 3: Creel; 4-31: Chihuahua
Sept 1-30: Chihuahua
Oct 1-3: Mazatlan
Oct 4,5: Puerto Vallarta; 6: Ameria; 7:Tecolam; 8: Uruapan, Paracho; 9: Paricutin; 10: Patzcuaro; 11: Morelia; 12: Ixtapan de Sal; 13: Malinalco; 14: Teotihuacan; 15, 16: Taxco; 17: Oaxaca; 18: Oaxaca, Monte Alban; 19: Mitla; 20: Juchitan; 21: Tuxtla Gutierrez; 22: Sumidero Canon, San Cristobal; 23: Ocosingo; 24: Cascades Agua Azul; 25: Cascade Isol-Ha, Palenque; 26: Palenque; 27:Campeche; 28: Merida; 29: Valladolid; 30,31: Cancun
Nov 1-23: Cancun; Nov 24: Chetumal
This is the most authentic country of Central America due to its majority of the people are indigenas (indians) and they are still living proudly. In the north I visited the village of Flores on an isle, and the impresive Tikal ruines in the jungle where we saw the quetzal birds, the icon of Guatemala. On our way, our bus broke down. In Mexico I already experienced my bus runnig out of fuel and also my bus bumping into a car, but this time the wheel nearly rolled of, ha ha. With a number of colourfull chicken busses we crossed the country, sometimes on unpaved hilly roads, swam at the Chemuc Champey waterfalls, took a look in the Lanquin caves, went down a river in a tube, visited the indigenas market of Chichicastenango, and finally spent some days at the beatifull lake Atitalan. Here we climed a vulcano and stayed in the unforgetabble bohemian village of San Pedro, where everyone is either a indigena, a backpacker, a hippie, or something inbetween, and gets lost in the labyrinth of narrow paths. Finally I visited the colonial town of Antigua between the volcanos, and said goodbye to Henrik, Bart en Stella, my companions for Guatemala.
Nov 25: Belize (passing through), Flores (Guatemala); 26: Tikal, Coban; 27: Chemuc Champey, Lanquin, Coban; 28: Quiche; 29: Chichicastenango, Panajachel (Lago Tikitlan); 30: San Pedro
Dec 1: San Pedro; 2: Antigua
In Honduras I only visited the Copan ruines, famous for the decorative art on the stones, and the not so beautifull capital Tegucigalpa.
Dec 3: Copan; 4: Tegucigalpa
On the Nicaraguan lake lies the old colonial town of Granada, nice but smelly. On a sunday evening in the city centre, everyone seems to sit in his rocking chair on the pavement in front of his old colonial house filled with colourful and blinking christmas lights. At the night of my visit, Maria´s immaculate conception was celebrated with a procession and fireworks. Like most central America´s countries, Nicaragua has not only suffered a lot from earthquakes and hurricanes, but even more from corrupt politics and a US-fuelled civil war. Thanks a lot Ronnie, I hope you don´t rest in peace...
Dec 5: Managua, Granada
Costa Rica is famous for its national parks, so I took a trip into the tropical forest. In the first picture, if you switch on your hawk eye mode, you can see a spider monkey hanging in the trees, and I also heard some howler monkeys. In the second picuture, if you switch on your x-ray mode to see through the fog, you can see the lava coming down from the vulcano Arenal, one of the few active vulcanos in the world.
The landscape of Costa Rica is very different from Nicaragua and Honduras, sometimes it even looks European, see pictures. I was invited to the to spend my last night in the modest house of the family of Juan in San Jose, very interesting.
Dec 6: San Jose; 7, 8: La Fortuna; 9: San Jose
Since there is no road from Central America to South America, I took a flight from Costa Rica to
Peru skipping Panama (not very interesting), Colombia (dangerous), and Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and French Guyana (onward overland travel only possible via the Amazon jungle).
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