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2006-11-14 -
Home Sweet Home
A Joyous End to an Epic Journey
 At 1 AM on Sunday morning, after 160 kilometres riding from northern Washington State, I approached a bridge and saw a roadsign I have dreamed of for years: "Vancouver City Limits."
In a wave of pure euphoria, I posed by the sign and snapped photos, as cars whizzed past me in the night. I had slept less than 6 hours across 80% of flood-ravaged Washington State to reach Vancouver on time, was hit by a car, snapped a crank, and was doused by days of rain, but I made it. Racing against a lowering snowline as winter set in, I had squeaked in before the freeze.
Happiness welled inside me to think that I had set out cycling north 2.5 years ago, with the unlikely hope that I would one day return by my own steam to Vancouver.
I had blundered naively into a saga of unexpected perils and challenge, armed with heaps of dumb luck and the cheering support of a whole community behind me. There by the bridge, I felt forever changed by the experience, and the lights of Vancouver lit up the Fraser River's far bank. I let out a spontaneous howl of joy from my perch above the river's north arm. "YEEEEEE- HOOOOOO!!!! I MADE IT!"
I pedalled across town in the dead of night to a home near the forests of Point Grey, where Adrian Sanders and my brother Jonathan, the duo who had sprung me out of jail in Panama, were waiting with a warm meal and tea. We hugged and laughed and threw my drenched clothes in the dryer.
"Wake up, Tim!" came the call to rouse me a few hours later. Where was I? What was happening? Adrian, fill me in!
 When I realized what day it was, I sprun out of bed and we pedalled to the Science Centre. It would be my welcome home! Sure enough, a group of hardy Vancouver cyclists had braved the rain to give me a heart-warming round of applause. Press cameras rolled footage and snapped photos as the group of us -- among them family and wonderful friends -- rolled away for a circuit of Vancouver's West End.
High in the cold wind on the Burrard Street Bridge, things began to unravel. Adrian's tire chose that moment to flatten. With twenty cyclists now stalled as we decided how to improvise, I was hit by an idea: utilize the Xtracycle!
We strapped Adrian's bike as cargo on my Xtracycle, and I gave him my bicycle to ride. As Adrian steered the unweildy beast down the bridge, I sat down on Jonathan's Xtracycle as a passenger. But as we approached the finish line, I couldn't contain my elation, so I stood up, raised my arms and surfed in over the line.
The moment was surreal. My friends from Harbour Publishing handed me a globe as I shook hands with Vancouver's avid-cyclist deputy mayor, Peter Ladner. The press had descended upon me again, and when I emerged from the scrum, only Jonathan, Adrian, and one other friend remained. Where had everyone gone? Well, where else? To the bar!!!
And so the festivities began. My father and his wife, as well as Adrian's entire family and a large contingent of friends were at the Arts Club in Granville Island. Bicycles were heaped outside as we soggy cyclists merrily warmed ourselves with steeming hot food and warm company within. I wished that time would slow down, so the gathering would never have to end.
We migrated back to Adrian's Mom's home in Dunbar, and what I expected to be a quiet denouement evolved spontaneously into further festivities that continued into the wee hours. We ate Sockeye Salmon, laughed around the TV when Peter Wall's documentary aired on CBC, and raised toasts to the reunion of friends.
It was only yesterday, after dashing downtown for a national interview on CTV, that I finally made the break from Vancouver. Cycling again with Jonathan and Adrian, we headed south for the BC Ferries terminal in Tswassen. That night, under a sky blazing with stars, we finally rolled onto a forest road on Galiano Island that leads to the oceanside home of my mother (currently in Africa) where I will write my book. As we rolled past the flicker of a woodstove at the Grand Central Diner, a man called out from the shadows of the patio:
Welcome back from Around the World!"
At last, I was home................................ |
2006-11-09 -
Olympia, Washington, USA
Smoked by a Killer Automobile!
Arrival Press Release download: www.vancouvertovancouver.com/p-r-nov12.doc
A day of "crushing" adversity:
As if the deluge didn't create enough difficulty -- I've been cycling through conditions that registered the most one-day rainfall ever recorded in Oregon (over 13 inches), and which has killed two men and floated away homes all over Washington -- the Fates wove a hair-raising wrinkle into the tapestry of my journey. Last night, I was hit by a car.
I was happily cycling through puddles and drizzle at 8 PM in the town of Centralia. I was lit up like a christmas tree in a forest fire: my headlamp and tail-lights had fresh batteries, I wore a reflective safety vest, and my front panniers and Xtracycle were decked out with reflectors. When I saw a car waiting to turn right onto the street I traveled, I fixed the driver in my headlamp beam and attempted to make eye contact, but I made a critical mistake: I assumed a basic level of intelligence and attention.
The car lurched forward and crunched its bumper into my leg. My bicycle tumbled and I spilled onto the street, rolling away from the oncoming death-machine. The shocked visage of a middle-aged, overweight driver gaped, aghast at what she'd done, and then the primordial human panic reaction, Fight-or-Flight, took charge of her brain. She gunned the gas and sped off into the night.
I leapt up and sprinted after the car, aiming my headlamp at the receding liscence plate. I whipped out my cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
"Hit and Run!" I told the dispatcher, less angry at my particular assailant, than at the mentality of so many hit-and-run drivers who make mincemeat of cyclists every day.
Just last week, a friend of mine in Santa Monica, Jen Diamond, was delivered to a hospital in serious condition after an accident on the road. The driver who hit her bicycle had fled the scene and left Jen bleeding on the street. Jen, a brave woman and dedicated cylist, is sore but on the mend, and vows to keep cycling. She is an inspiration to all who know her. http://alrs.livejournal.com/44975.html
Evidently my own motor-maniac thought better of fleeing the scene, and after a couple of minutes she returned to apologize profusely. The police arrived and took stock of the situation. We discovered that my own physical complaints were mild -- bruised bones on my hands and legs, and a sore knee -- and my bicycle still worked. I was very lucky. As I cycled away, I thought about Dougal Christie, the Vancouver lawyer who was hit and died last summer after almost completing a trans-Canada cycle to win rights for people in poverty. I could have met a similar end. Why do so many cyclists bite the dust?
It's not because we're not wearing helmets, or cycling dangerously. It's because drivers are habitually inattentive and negligent! Anyone steering a massive rolling hunk of metal must assume, at all times, that they're about to mow down a cyclist. I've been hit in Vancouver, Mexico and now Washington, but I still understand that the health benefits of cycling far outweigh the risks - although I sure wish drivers would wake up and view themselves as the hazards on wheels that they are................................ |
2006-11-06 -
Portland, Oregon
Flood Warnings for the US Northwest!
FLOOD WARNINGS -- after posting this news dispatch last night, it rained and rained and rained. This morning, I received phone call from Julie, my friend in Portland. It went like this:
"Tim, you're not seriously thinking of leaving are you? The whole Cascade region is under a flood warning! Wait until its safe to go!"
"I have to try, Julie, I'm so close to home..."
"It's not worth getting swept off the road in a flood! Think about it! What's the worst that can happen, you delay your arrival party?"
Julie probably has a point. Torrential rains kill untold thousands around the world each year, and right now, visibility is all but zero, creeks have spilled their banks, cars skid everywhere, and a rain worthy of mention in the Old Testament just keeps coming down. Global Warning keeps biting me in the backside. Should I stay or should I go?
I'll pack up and give it a try. If you don't hear from me soon, then I'm on the road, very wet, but everything is going to plan... althouth I guess I also won't write if I get washed away in a flash flood. Warnings are all over the internet and radio. It's messy out there. But I'll give it a shot. Stay tuned for my imminent arrival in Vancouver... or not. My fingers are crossed.
Below is what I posted last night:
From where I sat today -- inside, resting my legs for a change -- I would have had a clear view of Mount Saint Helens, if only the heavy rainclouds had cleared. In May 1980, when that volcano blew its top and dusted Portland in ashes, the sound could be heard in Vancouver, BC. That's how close to home I am!
The final days riding will be exciting for me. I start to wonder how I will adapt to days without steady toil through ever-changing weather and landscapes. Will I feel like a Rip Van Winkle, and find the world has evolved without me? Or will I immediatly find my place, and feel relief to simply relax in one spot? A fellow cyclist, Alistair Humphries, advised me to savour my final days as a nomad. The incessant rain is tough to ignore, but I will try.
I arrived in Portland last night during the area's heaviest rainfall so far this season. I was headed for the home of family of my friends in Santa Monica. Paul and Julie Hansen live at the summit of perhaps the tallest hill in Portland. My clothes were heavy with rain, and my vision was blurred by the downpour. In the thick of it, my cell phone rang. It was Paul.
"Tim, where are you? We can come to pick you up!"
Paul and Julie are like that - two kind souls willing to go out of their way to help a wet, weary traveler they had never even met. But soggy as I was, I couldn't accept Paul's offer of a lift. I am addicted to the physical rush of reaching a goal on my own steam, and after 12 hours soaked and struggling, I was almost there, warming my feet by a flickering fire.
Fast Forward 24 hours. I am rested and dry in a Portland bar. The place is packed with standing room only, and all eyes are on me. The person responsible, Melissa Bearns, is in the crowd, aching from a day of river kayaking. Her story on my travels made front page of the Sports section of Oregon's biggest newspaper (also online http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/1162783527263450.xml&coll=7&thispage=1). The event was organized by the editors of a new outdoor adventure magazine, Wend, which bucks the magazine trend by seeking to inspire adventure rather than mass consumption.
I was discreetly sweating bullets until I realized how receptive the audience was. An excellent microbrew stout also helped. The crowd was full of cyclists and progressive thinkers. Somebody had parked an Xtracycle outside. If all Americans (or people anywhere) were like them, there would be no war in Iraq. There would be less threat of climate change. There would be fewer SUVs, and fewer hit-an-runs. They were the people actively making the world a better place.
So as I head onto the bleak, soggy highways for a final five days to Canada, I am uplifted and propelled not only by my proximity to home, but by the people who have touched me along the way, most recently the fine folks of Portland. They give me reason not simply to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," in the words of Dylan Thomas, nor to beleive, as Aldo Leopold put it, that "that the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing out best."
Because the light is not dying. The situation is not hopeless. The world is full of cyclists, like the people of Portland, pedaling in increasing numbers for better health, a cleaner planet, and a way, way cooler future for everyone.
Current News:
Don't forget you're invited to roll with me to the finish line in Vancouver on Sunday, November 12th. Details below (see bold text) or on this press release: www.vancouvertovancouver.com/p-r-nov12.doc............................... |
2006-11-04 -
Tammy's and Brian's house, Grand Ronde, Oregon
Riding through the Storm!
Travel snapshot:
"Is this the worst weather you've had on your whole trip?" the bucktoothed kid in Lincoln City asked me.
I looked at the bending, wind-whipped trees, and listened to the breakers smashing rocky shores below town. As the waves curled and broke, long streamers of spray were carried away in the wind. I had cycled for days in heavy wind and rain, wetter than a scuba diver. The sideways-falling rain beat my back as I rode, wind blowing me up hills and along highways in the dark hours of night.
Life had become a cold, wet experience, but not all bad. The wind from behind had doubled the power of my legs, and seeing the cedar and hemlock bend as I raced the grey, fast-moving rainclouds low overhead, as cars passed and doused me with rooster tails of spray, it felt like West Coast Canada weather. It felt like home.
"No, kid, this weather is fine!" I shouted into the storm. "Some of the best I've ever had!" The kid just stared as the wind whisked me away and I disappeared in the fog and rain.
Get Ready to Ride: Sunday, November 12th is the day. 10 AM, outside the Science Centre, Vancouver. Ride with us around Vancouver, ending at Vanier Park at noon, where Norco will have a tent set up in case of rain, and I'll say a few words to wrap up 2.5 long years of zero-emissions travel. Press is invited.
Breaking news: The CBC TV news coverage filmed last week in California will air this Sunday, November 5, in the morning news (across Canada), and again on November 12 in the evening news.
A Special Thanks
Being so close to home, after endless difficulty for so long, reminds me of hundreds of people who made it possible along the way - the people who helped me stay warm, to heal, fix my bike, build a raft, or to prepare for dangers along the way.
I have also been blessed with some amazing travel partners - my brother Jonathan, the Swedes, Yulia and others -- heck, even Colin and Erden -- who helped me through hard times.
Throughout my journey, I have had the support and encouragement of two very special people in BC, my mother and father, Chris and Dorothy Harvey, who continue to inspire me with their own adventures.
Just last week, my mother summitted the tallest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro, on her own steam, along with her partner, Canadian jazz legend Peter Dent. Congratulations Mom and Peter!
And just last summer, my father and his partner, painter Anne-Marie Harvey, tackled Canada's wildest coast in a 23-foot open boat, where few others choose to venture. They rounded the northwestern cape and descended the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), then crossed Hecate Strait south through a gale to Vancouver Island.
My three great brothers have also helped in huge ways and cheered me on from start to finish, making all the difference.
As I cycle these final days to Vancouver, I remember all of those who have helped and encouraged me along the way. This includes the press who have brought my message to the world, and the people who took an interest. Thank you, all! You know who you are................................ |
2006-10-31 -
Kneeland, Humbolt County, California
Racing a Storm
There is a wet storm brewing just off shore, moving in to shatter the chill that cast a hoary frost across the mountains of Northen California. Just as I climbed, wearing a toque, to those chilly altitudes between 2000 and 4100 feet in the Coast Range, I met up with two intrieguing characters. One was Peter Wall, who at 31 is one of the CBC's top video journalists. His work has been nominated for a Gemini. The other was Brian Tyzzor, who made time away from two jobs and six college journalism courses to help Peter follow a mad cyclist around the woods of Northern California. The cold caught all three of us by surprise.
As was my habit, I was sleeping outside, curled beside the embers of a dying fire, while my friends had pitched tents nearby. A heavy dew settled and then froze, and I felt like I was lying on a block of ice. The filmmakers were suffering also, shivering in separate tents, but we each assumed that the others were better off. What a mistake!
The next day, the gears in Peter's head were spinning fast as he plotted ways to defend against cold. He purchased enough new sleeping bags and fleece blankets live in an igloo!. That night, as we lay under many layers, snug in a single tent, Peter sounded almost gleeful to say "hey guys, guess what? I'M WARM!"
Peter and Brian worked their filmmaking magic by day, as I cycled in hills and forest of breath-taking beauty. I spotted countless deer, ravens and hawks, and even a red fox. Peter's documentary is scheduled to air with the morning news, and maybe also the evening news, on national CBC TV on November 12 -- the same day I will arrive in Vancouver! (see previous news post, below, for arrival details)
I am now writing from Brian's mountain-ridge home near Arcata, California. I have showered, to my great releif, and will pass the night warm, on a couch beside a wood stove, until a 4:30 AM wake-up call. By 5.30 AM, long before dawn, Brian will be at work and I will be cycling. And that's fine by me: with a west coast storm closing in, I am racing to dodge the approaching weather. If necessary, I will head back inland through the coast mountains, to use them as a shield from coastal weather. Why the rush? I am now on the last leg, the final continuous push to Vancouver, which requires long hours on the saddle to stay on schedule. There is so much riding on a timely arrival!
Despite the cold and frosty nights, I love the riding, thanks to world-class terrain. Currently I move among massive redwoods, just a few miles north from the tallest tree in the world, Hyperion.
Further inland I passed a zone of douglas fir and arbutus trees, the same two species that dominate the southern Gulf Islands of BC. After 882 days on the road, I am reveling at last in the sweet taste of being very close to home................................ |
2006-10-27 -
Chico, California
Stuck in High Gear (on a desperate race against time)
After resting my legs and delivering a slide show to an exclusive secret society, I'm set to make fast tracks to Vancouver! The clock is ticking and I have to keep up a fast, fast pace, no matter what obstacles I encounter - because I have set a firm date to be home.
Vancouver Arrival Event News:
Here's the inside scoop on what's planned for my arrival in Vancouver. I will pedal hard to reach Vancouver, so that on Sunday, November 12th, we will all meet outside the Science Centre at 10 AM! You know, that giant silver golf ball at the end of False Creek? That's the Science Centre. Bring your bike, rollerblades, longboard - whatever emission-free wheels you like to roll on, and we'll set out for a casual loop through Gastown, around the Stanley Park Seawall and then across the Burrard Street bridge to congregate at 12 Noon outside the Planetarium in Vanier Park in Kitsilano.
Everyone, including Press, is invited along for the whole ride, or the journey-ending ceremony at Vanier at noon. Rain or shine, come on out! It will be fun. Questions, call the ride coordinator Sarah Paynter at 604-616-4506. From Vanier Park, we'll take ourselves to some funky cafe, maybe The Nam, for lunch.
Can't make it?
You can still catch the excitement by watching the CBC news show Sunday Night, on (you guessed it) Sunday night of the 12th. Video-journalist Peter Wall of the CBC (along with his side-kick, a journalism student from Humbolt University) will cycle and even camp out with me for three days, starting tomorrow, to share the experience with a national audience.
Will you be In Portland, Oregon, November 6th?
Come out to The ACME, Southeast 8th and Main, at 7 PM for a slide show, drinks and Q&A about the expedition.
I'm outta here! This final, non-stop push to Vancouver from California will be a challenge, as I simply can't afford to fall off schedule. I am heading into a wetter, windier climate, so the challenge could become extreme. However, I believe what Richard Bach writes in his hit book "Illusions":
"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however."............................... |
2006-10-22 -
Davis, California
Zig-zagging My Way Home
First, some great news: just prior to leaving Santa Monica, a call to the photo lab revealed that my missing photos were still on their hard drive! Now, you can view three new galleries posted on this website.
 And in California's finest media: a column by young phenom journalist Anna Cummins talks about car culture and our recent meeting when our paths crossed in Anna's hometown. Click here for the story:
http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=4070
Trip logistics: I have had to leave the beautiful California coast for an inland detour, which enables me to speak to a distinguished group of historians later this month. I also aim to make a similar slideshow to the cycling community of Portland on November 6th, at the invitation of Wend Magazine.
After the presentation, I will return to the coast, planning to meet up with the CBC's Peter Wall (of the hit show "Sunday Night") who will cycle alongside me for a day in the redwoods. In order to make all these dates, I am cycling hard, sleeping in fields, and pedaling through each day's pre-dawn chill.
But when do I return to Vancouver? The 12th of November! The date is firm, so get your bicycle ready! Check back soon for a proposed meeting place and time, and plan to join the Sunday morning ride into Vancouver! You are invited!............................... |
2006-10-19 -
Santa Cruz, California
Up the Coast to Home!
I am about the leave the groovy town of Santa Cruz, where organic food and yoga, chai mocha decafs and even theraputic colon irrigations define the new-age way of living. Bicycles are everywhere. I just spent two days getting greasy, with many thanks to Tom Sullivan of Amsterdam Bike Shop, who guided me in fixing a bicycle abused by California's rugged coast hills.
As I climbed up massifs the size of the Squamish Chief, battling a stiff onshore breeze, my spokes were snapping with an alarming frequency. “Please,” I willed my bicycle, “just carry me to Santa Cruz!”
I knew that in Santa Cruz, one of the west coast’s most notoriously cool-cat towns, I could fully renovate my wheels and hubs - if I could make it!
The warm and dry desert was definitely behind me. Suddenly I was among giant coastal redwood forests with elephant seals just offshore, humpback whales and sea otters basking in the waves, and stiff winds defying my efforts to make progress. In drizzle and fog, I pedaled through California’s famous Big Sur coast, thrilled by a sublime and uplifting beauty, taxed by endless hills, but energized by the idea that I was entering a familiar ecological zone – at a glance, it sometimes seemed like I was cycling the coast mountians of BC.
On day seven out of Santa Monica I awoke in windblown rain, near the raging ocean surf, where I had slept beneath the stars. I pedaled for three hours to the nearest coffee joint, and then rode all day until night fell, and hunger attacked me.
I pulled into a pub, but was unable to buy a meal and a pint – because the neighboring table bought it all for me! They had passed me four times that day on the highway. I was thrilled know that I had matched the pace of their truck, without burning any fossil fuels!
I limped into Santa Cruz with wheels that were almost folding for lack of spokes, but I found my way to the home of Kea Gorden, a young PhD student of Political Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was kind enough to allow me to pile a dank load of smelly luggage on her pristine living room floor, and to stretch my weary, overworked bones across her couch for three consecutive nights!
I am now ready to proceed. The hot news is that I will soon announce my arrival date in Vancouver! That’s right, I’ll finally be pedaling into Vancouver, and if you can make it, you will be invited to pedal along. Check back next week for the early November date of my arrival and meeting time.
As I ride north, I will savour every moment of the last leg of my journey. I will push hard up the west coast against the prevailing winds, sticking to the pacific coast for as long as possible.
Why not take the shorter, flatter and less windy 1-5? Because it is an industrial wasteland. The coast, on the other hand, is where the wild ocean spray meets towering seaside forests, where the wind shrieks untamed and dolphins swim in the surf................................ |
2006-10-08 -
Santa Monica, California
The Wonderful People of California
I haven't had time to write a dispatch about my adventure from Tombstone, Arizona to Santa Monica, California – a trans-desert marathon that was training for the longer, final push to Vancouver!
The Santa Monica Experience:
 In Santa Monica I have made a wealth of friends and great new supporters have stepped up to help me on my way. I have been treated to the unsurpassable hospitality of Maryanne and Paul Cummins, the mother and father of Anna Cummins, my visionary friend who founded www.bringyourown.org (also author of www.bitchinspin.blogspot.com, and a local newspaper column). Anna spoke on a discussion panel yesterday at the Santa Monica Library, where she revealed that 80% of marine debris – which is responsible for rampant deaths among seabirds and sea turtles – is plastic, and most of it comes from inland sources like the plastic cups and shopping bags that flow or blow from cities out to sea. Anna's solution: bring your own (cloth bags and coffee mugs) and think twice about using any and all plastics.
Watching Anna move the audience with her speech made me realize how progressive is this California community, but also how much of a challenge remains!
My own personal mission, to survive a zero-emissions journey around the planet, is meant to show that cycling and no-emission transport is a fun and practical alternative to cars. Here in Santa Monica, I was overwhelmed by the massive support for this idea, when I cycled on Friday night in a crowd of over 300 cyclists, in an event called “Critical Mass.” People here are champions of the cycling cause, advocates like me of cycling as a solution to climate change, and yet, neighboring Los Angeles is among the most car-congested cities on this planet. So while the progressive ideas and energy here are inspiring, I am face-to-face with the daunting challenge we must collectively overcome.
Clothing for the cold!
As cold weather and rain sets in along the coast of North America, my clothes from the tropics will leave me cold and wet. Just in time, two companies stepped up to support my mission: REI and Patagonia! REI provided fleece pants and a vest, and Patagonia offered a super-slick high-tech cycling jacket from the latest, most modern fabrics invented by the human race.
The coolest part is that Patagonia leads the outdoors industry as a pioneer in recycling old clothes – you can return your worn-out duds to Patagonia and they will recycle the fabric! Patagonia even makes fleece from plastic bottles, and in 10 years, expects to use virtually nothing other than recycled material.
The Upcoming Push to Vancouver:
A deep gash in my leg (inflicted by my greasy-toothed front chain-ring) requires a chance to heal, so I will depart Monday or Tuesday for a push north to Vancouver, via Portland Orgeon. I will improvise my route along the way, depending on headwinds, but I hope to follow the coast to San Francisco at least. Big Sur, a hilly coastal forest north of Los Angeles, is said to be magnificent. I will challenge those hills, because it is not just good organic food and clean air that fuels this ride, but the breathtaking beauty of the natural world as well.
A Generous Contribution
 One of the great challenges of my journey is simply to fund it. When my own writing hasn't paid the bills, the kindness of people ranging from country folk to established businesses has helped me on my way. Now on the home stretch, just as I face the challenge of budgeting to cross the USA, a caring individual from Galiano Island on the west coast of British Colombia has made a generous contribution, which will help to keep me riding strong all the way home!
Thank you Hedy of Windermere-Gulf Island Realty! Hedi is blessed to live on one of the most beautiful residential islands in the world. Learn more here: www.galiano-realty.com................................ |
2006-10-06 -
Santa Monica, California
Alive and Well!!!
 It has been an exciting and often scary saga of endurance and adversity, full of encounters with inspiring people and places, that brought me from a state of sleep-deprived endurance cycling to the oasis of comfort and caring people who received me in Santa Monica, California.
Details and, with luck, some photos will appear on this site within 48 hours, so check back soon!
In the meantime, last night's bike-surfing antics are documented in a truly inspirational website - www.greenlagirl.com/2006/10/06/green-drinks-balancing-act/ - the labour of one of the dedicated environmentalists I met at a Green Drinks event last night.
On tonight's agenda: a "Critical Mass" bike ride with a swarm of merry cyclists, and this Sunday, many of them will help to send my off in style by cycling along as I leave the city.
Let there be no doubt: the region's prevailing SUV- and car-culture aside, the progressive people of Southern California are among the finest, friendliest and most welcoming in the world... just what a weary traveller needs when stumbling off the road................................ |
2006-09-25 -
Bisbee, Arizona
Roland Saves the Day!
I knew something was seriously awry when my bicycle made a loud snap, then groaned and wobbled uncontrollably. Somewhere below me, amid the struts and tubes that comprise my loyal steed - the dependable bicycle that never complains as I subject it to all manners of torment (wipeouts in mud, rocky off-road descents, long nights left out in the wind) - something had broken. Two metal stays, in fact, and without their support, she was wobbling like drunken belly dancer as we struggled up a hill. My bike and I were on a remote mountain road, so the situation worried me.
I jimmied a quick fix as best I could. One break I dressed with a hose clamp, and the other I braced with an additional metal tube bound against it like a splint on a broken limb.
I then continued uphill, the bicycle still moaning, and progress was an inneficient crawl. I thought I might have to push my bicycle on foot, maybe for days all the way to Tuscon.
Unexpectedly, a miracle occurred.I passed the city limits of Bisbee and spotted a fleet of strange bicycles outside of a home. There were adult-sized tricycles, a few odd cruisers, and some had small electric and gas motors attached. There was even a bicycle with a side-car welded onto it. This triggered a thought - could there be a welder in the house?
"Hello?" I said. "Is anybody home?"
A young dark-haired woman emerged. Heather and her partner Roland had moved into Bisbee just days before, shifting their entire business - Spooky Tooth Motorized Gas and Electric Bicycles and Tricycles (www.spookytoothcycles.com) - to that small mountain town for a simpler life. Roland, a visionary bicycle activist who recently succeed in his campaign to change Arizona state law regarding motorized bicycles, studied the broken peices with interest. I held my breath.
"Hmmm.... you've really mucked this up! You must have been riding some rough terrain!"
"Can it be fixed?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I'll do this for you," he said with a smile.
I couldn't beleive my good fortune - not just the timely fix, but I had stumbled into a couple engaged in the same campaign as me, to promote bicycle solutions to conventional high-emission lifestyles.
With that, the fun began. I unloaded and stripped the components from my frame, and wheeled it into Rolands Bosma's garage. The torch-and-metal artist lowered his mask and went to work. Hours later, when I tested the fully-laden bike on a steep uphill slope, I wondered if the immense strain would cause it to crack and moan again.
But she was rock solid. Not even a whimper. Roland had saved the day!
.............................................................. |
2006-09-24 -
Douglas Arizona!
Good Evening America!
After a gruelling day in the mountains, I pulled up to the edge of Mexico, as the sun's waning rays lit up a border post.... It was sad to leave the fine nation of Mexico, to whose people I am grateful for so much help and friendship as I passed safely through their nation. This includes the unknown family who slowed their truck today, and reached out the window with a juicy bunch of grapes! And the farmer who gave me huge organic green peppers one morning when I found me in his field, and the young friends I made while changing a tire in Torreon.
After a swift and friendly border procedure, I cycled into the state of Arizona and not 45 seconds elapsed passed before southern hospitality reached out and touched me. A vendor of high-energy fruit concoctions, Keoki Skinner, offered me a place to sleep, so I sprinted along behind his scooter, squeezing the day's last juice from my legs.
I am enjoying a drink like none before: a banana-papaya-cantelope-nectarine-cinnamon-spirulina-flaxseed meal- lecathin-oatbran-rice milk extravaganza, a.k.a SLUDGE (courtesy of Keoke's friend Shane). Shane drinks the stuff to power him through days walking the sierra, where he cleans up trash left by undocumented migrants. At 57, his legs look spry thanks to his high-octane bevie and active, outdoors lifestyle.
Keoki and Shane are having a laugh.
"An hour into the USA, and you're at the sludge house - a halfway house for sludge addicts!"
We're all drinking a mix that looks like it was skimmed from a swamp.
What a welcome to the USA!
Now how 'bout some more sludge?
In Other News
Jason Lewis has cycled into Lhasa! Check out his awesome website with a video log and exciting storytelling, from the man who has pedalled, yes pedalled across oceans and almost around the world after leaving England over a decade ago:
http://expedition360.com/journal/............................... |
2006-09-22 -
Nuevas Casas Grandes, Mexico
Into the Wind
Following the rainy passage of Hurricane Lane last week, I had excellent tailwinds to push me north over the flats of Durango and Chihuahua. The rain brought out a fresh collage of green against the red cliffs that line the broad valleys of northern Mexico. I pedalled hard, rising before dawn to maximize my time in the cool morning hours, soaring in the tailwinds until nighfall.
I have camped in my tent almost every night since somewhere in Central Mexico. Here in the semi-desert and deserts of the north, I love the sound of coyotes howling, and gazing up at a sky full of stars as I bed down for the night. The north star, my guiding light home, has not been so high in the sky for almost a year. For every 111.12 kilometres I progress northward, the star known as Polaris rises above the due north horizon by exactly one degree. Just recently it rose beyond 23.5 degrees, as I crossed the tropic of Cancer. When that star shines from 49.19 degrees above me, I will be home!
Just today the going got tough. Following a sudden storm two nights ago - the sort electrical experience that makes you wonder if the shelter of an aluminum-frame tent (which might attract lightning!) is really wise, the winds shifted, and today their strength is, I estimate, up to 50 kph in my face, so the going is tough. The wind is creating dust blizzards. Still, the extreme beauty and satisfaction of cresting each pass from one valley to the next is ample compensation.
I am thrilled to know that I am only a few hundred kilometres, a couple of days, from the border with Arizona. It's been over two years since I have travelled in an English-speaking country... although given the 6,000+ Mexicans who head north across the border daily (often by tunnel, swimming, and a long desert hike, I suppose it might still feel like Latin America!
I am slightly tempted to do as so many Mexicans do, and simply cut north across an empty patch of desert. The adventures is appealing. My route will hug the border as I pedal west for over a hundred kilometres into the border town of Agua Prieta. The desert dash would be an adventure, and it would give me insight into the adversity and bravery of the Mexicans who undertake the challenge - both to improve their lives, and contribute to the American economy - but for me to do so would only invite problems that could be a nightmare. I should respect that the US is gracious enough to open its doors to a Canadian citizen. Conversations with Northern Mexicans makes me realize how lucky I am to carry a passport that is still a ticket into US territory. The Burning of Washington in 1814 (when the White House was torched in retaliation to American invasions of Upper Canada), it seems, is now water under the bridge.
So which road, from the border crossing in Douglas Arizona, do I take? Due north, on the old Highway 666 (recently renumbered for obvious reasons)? Or northeast to Lordsburg? No, I think I'll cruise northwest for Tombstone. I could then veer south to pass through Why. Why not?............................... |
2006-09-16 -
Torreon, Mexico
Lost in the Desert / Back on the Highways / Book News
You'd think I would have learned my lesson in Russia: when offered a choice between asphalt and dirt, choose pavement.
But I never seem to learn. Back in Russia I opted for 2000 kilometres of mud ruts and wilderness of the BAM service road instead of the Trans-Siberian highway. The rough roads were almost the end of my bicycle! Now here in Mexico, I opted for a short-cut of about 200 kilometres of unpaved desert... and boy was the going rough.
Either my maps or my navigation were sketchy, as towns failed to materialize as expected, and I was often hungry. The "desert" was full of seasonal rain and slippery mud that felled me repeatedly. Drinking water, however, was a scarce commodity. I licked the morning dew from my tent, rationed my supplies parsimoniously, and still ran out, forced to boil what I could from lowland ponds. Food, too, ran low. I discovered that of Mexico's national cactus, the nopal - of which one species is delicious when cooked in tuna-can oil -the other three are utterly gross, full of a mucous-like slime. Another cactus species I sampled, said to alleviate hunger and provide a boost of energy, did little to enhance my navigation skills.
Back on the Highway
Stuck by a thousand cactus quills, my bike caked with mud, and feeling a bit peckish, I emerged in the vicinity of Torreon, where the asphalt ribbon weaves north towards Chuihuahua and then the USA. I will ride that beatifully smooth "autopista" with a bike fully restored here in the city - with a new WIDE chain to bear my huge load (don't ask my why I was using Shimano's illogical skinny chain for a 9-speed cogset) which won't snap as it did 3 times in one day recently. I forcast 3 weeks from here to LA, and then a few more weeks to reach that great coastal corner of BC, Canada that I call home... More news in weeks to follow.
Book News:
I have just submitted the final edit of my submission for the Greystone Publishing book Notes from the New Activists: A Generation Stands Up for Change, due to be released in Spring 2007.
EXCELLENT NEWS! I have received a book contract from Harbour Publishing, for a written account of my whole round-the-world adventure. More news updates will follow on this book also slated for a Spring 2007 release................................ |
2006-09-06 -
Real de Catorce, Northern Mexico
First Desert Stretch a Success!
After some great days cruising the highways (days up to 135 km) through the state of San Luis de Potosi, I found myself facing a rough uphill challenge yesterday morning -- 30 kilometres of cobbled stone road rising to an elevation of 3000 metres, where a 3-kilometre mining shaft leads through a sacred mountain to the magical town of Real de Catorce.
My first 24 hours here have been surreal.
I have perched on a cliff's edge where the earth drops away, like a pedestal suspended in the heavens. I have had a local sooth my knee by rubbing it with a medicinal mixture of alcohol, arnica and peyote cactus; I have walked in the ruins of a town all but abandoned when the silver mining crashed a century ago, a town now reclaimed and revived in all its historical and natural beauty. I have learned of the Huichol people who for thousands of years, have made pilgrimages to this site, for vision quests atop this mountain, a mountain where long ago a great blue deer lifted the sun into the sky with its horns, the magical place where the world began. Even today, the quartz-filled massif is seen as a gateway to the gods. The energy of the place is tangible.
If I seem enthused to be here, you are right! It is my reward for days camping amid cactus and riding the hot desert, and a chance to enrich myself with the lore and experience of one of the world's truly unique places.
I owe special thanks to Mercedes and Simone Aquino, who have offered shelter, friendship, knowledge and Mexico's finest homemade nut liqueur!
I will keep my time here brief, as the desert road beckons. Stories and photos of this spellbinding land and village will be posted as soon as time allows.
In other news: Magazine Roundup:
A few publications to check out for expedition coverage, in all cases, in the upcoming issue:
1) WEND Magazine, printed in Oregon, http://www.wendmagazine.com/
2) Aqua - Gulf Islands Living, fall issue, available in Southwestern BC.
3) Cycle California
4) And for Spanish Readers, out of Real de Catorce: El Chuzo de Catorce. Click the animated link "El Chuzo" at the bottom of the Real de Catorce main page http://www.realdecatorce.net/............................... |
2006-08-31 -
Departing San Miguel de Allende, State of Guanajuato, Mexico
Run Down by a Truck and Menaced with Firearms!
A new dispatch and photos have been posted. Read the latest dispatch for details on the harrowing first days riding solo into Northern Mexico.
It hasn't all been bad. I met Guanajuato State's current over-30 champion mountain bike racer, Javier Gonzales, who generously invited me into his home and organized an early-morning talk show appointment in the city of Moroleon. Javier is a family man who gave up booze to centre his life around his two young daughters and his bicycle while building himself into a tower of power! Thanks for the hospitality Javier!
Things turned scary when I ran into a raving drunk with two guns (a rifle and a handgun) on a quiet country lane. I couldn't understand a word of his slurred speech, but the way he kept waving his guns around led me to believe I was on his land, and better get going in a hurry!
And then early yesterday I was hit by a truck, for the first time since leaving Vancouver in June 2004. The driver side-swiped me on a close pass and knocked me off my bicycle. My bike snagged on his bumper and was dragged mercilessly down the highway, breaking the front wheel's axle (already load-stressed) and the hooks on one panner. I pushed my bicycle into San Miguel, Allende.
While my wheel is rebuilt I've taken a few minutes to post a dispatch. I'll be on the road in an hour, high-tailing it for a few days to the town Real de Catorce, a place shrouded in myth, legend and mystery.................................. |
2006-08-25 -
Morelia, Michoacán, México
Sunday Departure, Thanks to the Heros of Michoacán, and Human-powered Cars!
News Items:
1)Three entertaining multi-part dispatches have been posted (at last!), and photos will follow very soon - enjoy!
2) I am deeply grateful to the family of Ester Ramírez for the shelter and support they have offered during my time in Morelia. Her three sons Ulises, Raul and Jupiter have contributed to the planning and execution of my journey in innumerable ways, and they and their many cousins and friends have made my time here a pleasure beyond words. Ulises especially, and his cousin Oscar were critical helping Jonathan out of Mexico (Jonathan is now safely home) and Ulises dedicated many hours on many days to accessing every media outlet in Morelia, to bring my story and message to to the millions of people in Michoacán. Many thanks are due, especially to Ester, Ulises, Raul and Jupiter.
3) Health Update: Ester arranged a meeting with the State of Michoacán's leading tropical disease authority, and I became the focus of a lengthy inquest as the first case of malaria diagnosed in Michoacán in two years. Just ten years ago, there were almost 5000 cases in the state each year, but due to a special 3-year treatment program, which I am now on, the disease was offcially erradicated in the state two years ago. Before meeting with the malariologist, my symptoms were yet again on the rise, but thanks to the fine medicine practiced in this part of Mexico, I expect to remain in excellent shape for the rest of my ride home.
For the entertaining low-down on the blood-borne critters, check out the dispatches "Muy Parasitado" and "Nuking the Nuclei."
4) Looking for fun, informative and inspiring news from the cycling world? It may be chick-oriented, but I can't get enough of this blog out of California - just this week I learned about a human-powered car! How cool is that? Find out more at www.bitchinspin.blogspot.com
5) Last but not least: I'm on the road this Sunday! It's been a busy, fun and healing time in Morelia, but I'm aching to be back on the road, for a solid push through the frying-pan heat of northern Mexico and west to the California coast! Stay tuned for news from the road.................................. |
2006-08-21 -
Morelia, Michoacán, México
\Preparing for the Desert
Jonathan and I cycled into the Mexican city of Morelia after a 140-kilometre day last Thursday, and a long string of back-to-back days riding from Oaxaca - broken only by a final bout of malaria that hit again in Puebla.
Now back in full health, I have made myself available to press in Morelia to spread my zero-emissions message here in Mexico. As I prepare to embark on the vast ultra-hot desert expanse of Northern Mexico this week, I will post more news, photos and a dispatch in coming days. In the meantime, here is the latest:
- Jonathan has flown home to ready himself for university, so I will cycle north solo from here.
- CBC As it Happens will broadcast an interview this evening (rebroadcast on NPR in the US).
- I have posted a poem in the dispatches section.
- I owe many thanks to the hospitality of the Martinez family, and my friend Ulises here in Morelia for receiving Jonathan and me, helping Jonathan catch his flight, and coordinating press (and the search for hard-to-find malaria medicine). I lived with this family in the summer of 1999, and my return to Morelia has felt like a homecoming!
More news in days to come................................ |
2006-08-08 -
Near Oaxaca / Puebla border
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Tim reports:
The last two days have been the best of times, because we are on the move. Slowly, but steadily, we have been climing the long uphill that takes us to the state of Puebla - the Teohuacan valley, home to much of the world's oldest fossilized corn (dinner leftovers dating back over 5,500 years!). It boosts our morale to be putting kilometres behind us once again.
But it has been the worst of times as well - my hardest days cycling since the being frostbitten in Siberia, even harder than climbing the endless Andes in Colombia. The reason, of course, is the malaria. Every second day it hits hard. Three days ago I was in bed with Jonathan running laps to the bathroom with a bucket. Yesterday the malaria protists - the parasitic organisms running amuck in my bloodstream - hid out inside my red blood cells. Despite being fatigued (they had, after all, destroyed a portion of blood's ability to carry oxygen) we nevertheless made good headway.
Today was a different story. With a pounding head, limp legs, and a fever I climbed hill after hill at a snails pace. I found myself guzzling water and wishing for my old climbing legs! The town we're in - one of Oaxaca's zillion towns - is near enough to the cusp of the Teohuacan valley that we expect the reward of a long downhill cruise tomorrow, after two days of pain.
But we're on the move, in health improving by the day! Things can only get better from here................................ |
2006-08-04 -
Oaxaca - still!
Bad News - Malaria relapse (big time)
Tim reports:
I've been in denial the last few days about my deteriorating health, but when the bikes were packed today, and we were about to roll out the door, I did a final check and all systems were not go.
High fever, fatigue, no appetite, joint pain, wearing an alpaca jacket when everyone else was shirtless.... the symptoms were back. Its ironic that I felt in the best health of my life a week ago after tackling the winds of Tehuantepec, and then a couple days climbing. But malaria hit hard and fast! Going for a blood test today, I knew it had to be malaria - the test was a formality.
What have I learned? Well, listen to your body, of course, and don't stop cycling! I think it was the almost steady cycling since Nicaragua, last time I felt the pangs of malaria, that kept it under control. Cycling pumps your system with loads of oxygen, and keeps your system working at 100%. The malaria didn't stand a chance. But when we stopped, it came pouring out of my liver, invaded my bloodstream and started making my red blood cells explode. Not fun!
The plan is to get the symptoms under control, and then try the cycling treatment once again. Hopefully this time the drugs will knock the Plasmodium vivax out of my system for good. I know, last time I thought it was Plasmodium falciparum, but that was after a doctor telling me I had the variety that would put me in a coma.
The doctors of Oaxaca, so far, haven't known quite how to treat vivax. Jonathan has just gone to the Red Cross, hoping someone there has some answers...
For now, the journey is on a pause, but I am optimistic that I'll be rolling again soon.
If anyone happens to know a great deal about Plas. vivax and how to kick it, I would love to hear! I recently learned that its not a virus, and not a bacteria, its something funky called a protist and it has about 15 life stages, and very little rDNA, which gets stripped away in the course of evolution - meaning malaria is one of the most highly evolved little buggers on earth.
My mother, of course, wants me home - but something tells me the folks on Galiano wouldn't be so thrilled to know that local mosquitos were slurping up my plasmodium! I remain optimistic, and for inspiration I look to Expedition 360's around-the-world voyager Jason Lewis, who has been battling the same strain of malaria as he cycles the Himalayas.
www.expedition360.com/journal/archives/2006/04/malaria_revisit.html............................... |
2006-08-03 -
Departing Oaxaca, México
North for Morelia!
Tim Reports:
Jonathan (who posted a great dispatch!) and I have enjoyed the rich culture and delights of Oaxaca, but we are stoked to hit the highways by bicycle again tomorrow (Friday).
Tim plugged his brain into a computer for several days to provide a feature article to Wend Magazine (www.wendmagazine.com) about his Siberian winter, to be published this fall.
Local news here in Oaxaca is dominated by the ongoing occupation by protesters of the town's central plaza. The recent Mexican elections, they say, were a total fraud.
This week I had some great correspondence with a number of people, including an adventurer I have long admired. Karl Bushby (www.goliathexpedition.com) is raising the bar on what is humanly possible. He was an inspiration and source of information for me, when researching the Darien Gap, which Karl crossd by foot, on a mission to walk - on a path of unbroken footsteps - from Tierra del Fuego to Britain, his home.
He had some questions regarding Chukotka, and I was happy to oblige - after all, the man recently WALKED ACROSS THE SEMI-FROZEN (i.e. JAWS-OF-DEATH) BERING STRAIT! Makes rowing look like child's play. Good luck in Chukotka, Karl!
I also had a chance to think about my arrival in Vancouver next fall... I won't yet post a secure date, but I will say there's a good chance that I will pull in riding the world's coolest bicycle. I know, I know, it's pretty close already, with the Xtracycle bolted to a Norco frame, but have you seen the Soul Cycles, a.k.a. Party Bikes, created by cycle-artist-guru Paul Freedman in Berkeley California? Click the Soul Cycle link here: www.fossilfool.com
And finally, but certainly most importantly, I learned more from Anna Cummins about the issue of plastics at sea. It's worse than I thought - while Anna was doing marine biology research off the coast of Mexico, she discovered in the stomach of EVERY albatross checked, that the birds had eaten between 30% and 60% plastic. THAT'S GROSS! So the sea birds are in decline - largely because humans are using too much plastic, period. Don't beleive me? See for your self, the diet of an Albatross found off Guadelupe, Mexico:
http://www.shiftingbaselines.org/news/news_plastics_albatross.htm
....................
What's next, for Jonathan and me?
Over about ten days to Morelia, we'll cycle through the busy heartland of Central Mexico, via Puebla, but dodging the world's largest metropolis, Mexico City. In Morelia, a city with a great colonial atmophere, we'll visit the family I lived with for three months, seven years ago, and my old Spanish teacher! We'll also post photos and a new dispatch by Tim, this time, a break from the norm: "Why I love cycling!"
It is the dispatch I feel like writing every time my foot touches a pedal.................................. |
2006-07-27 -
Oaxaca, Mexico
Pedals, Pyramids and Plastic Trees
Tim Reports:
Coming soon, by popular demand: a dispatch by Jonathan!
First, a few words from me:
Two weeks pushin’ pedals carried us from scorching hot El Salvador, across Guatemala’s Pacific plains and deep into Mexico, again over a continental divide and coasting into the historic Oaxaca Valley. A high-elevation plateau of cactus and agave (from which the potent Mezcal drink is distilled), the valley of Oaxaca is peppered with ancient stone structures built around 500 BC by the ancient Zapotecans, and more recently, was the chosen home of Hernan Cortez, the Spaniard who conquered Aztec Mexico. We penetrated Oaxaca city at 4 PM, cycling amid old Spanish architecture as a tropical deluge soaked the city.
That morning we had been aching from fifteen consecutive days on the saddle, riding by 7.25 AM to tackle fifteen uphill kilometres in a race against the rising sun. We were sore – Jonathan’s feet were bleeding and raw – but cresting the last hill to view the magical Oaxaca valley was uplifting beyond words. The coming 60-kilometre gentle dowhhill cruise felt like sailing – but instead of waves, we sped past fields of nopal cactus, red-stone cliffs and Zapotec pyramids and horse-powered agave mills.
What a world is Mexico!
In other news:
As we pedaled downwind of a garbage dump, I made a wry joke to Jonathan: “hey look,” I said, “a plastic bag farm!” But it wasn’t funny at all – trees and cacti were covered with plastic bags, trash that wind had scattered from the dump, creating an ugly hazard for local wildlife.
It isn’t just happening in Mexico – wordwide, over 284 BILLION plastic bags have been consumed already this year (and counting fast). According to science cited on www.bringyourown.org, “a garbage patch the size of Texas is floating in the North Pacific Ocean”, and worldwide, “ocean surface waters contain six times more plastic than plankton.”
What can you do? Maybe you’re already doing it – start by supplying your own coffee cups and shopping bags. Learn more and be inspired by Californian Anna Cummins’ fun website, www.bringyourown.org!............................... |
2006-07-16 -
Coatepeque, Guatemala
Cruisin' for Mexico!
Tim reports:
Jonathan and I have pedalled into Coatepeque, Guatemala, and it is all down hill to Mexico (only 30 km away)! For the last two days, the police have trailed us in pickup trucks as a safety escort. They reported that earlier this week, a carload of American tourists were asalted en route to Lago Atitlan, so we appreciate the added safety!
We have cycled through torrential tropical rains, soaked to the skin, and up through cool breezes to high-altitude pine forests on the flanks of volcanoes. This sure beats the heat we suffered along the coast of El Salvador! Look for more news and dispatches coming soon, from Mexico.
A big thanks to Sarah Paynter, who mailed me a camera from Vancouver! My last camera was destroyed in the whitewater of the Darien. Finally I can snap photos again! Thanks Sarah!
...............................
2006-07-10 - Somewhere in El Salvador...
Armadillo for Dinner?!
A man waved at me from the side of the highway, holding a live armadillo by the tail.
“Fifteen dollars! Yours for fifteen dollars!” he said.
“Why are you selling this? As a pet?”
“Yes. Or as food! Fifteen dollars!”
“I’m not going to buy your armadillo.” I prepared to cycle away, but the man gave my arm another tug.
“Ten dollars!” The armadillo, its big funnel-like ears adapted to listening for insects in the forest, tried to pull its head back under its shell, but hanging upside-down, was unable. It could only twitch painfully whenever a truck roared past, or the salesman yelled close to its ear.
“Five dollars!” he yelled as we left.
“Fresh armadillo!”............................... |
2006-07-08 -
Santa Tecla, El Salvador
Heat Stroke Strikes Again
Tim Reports:
We cycled 6 days from Leon, Nicaragua to a suburb of El Salvador’s capital city, over the pacific coastal plains of Central America – the hottest place I have ever been. “It’s like Dante’s Inferno” Jonathan wheezed after pedalling through Usulatan, where heat of 42 degrees Celcius was amplified by roadside ovens and sunlight reflected by windows and metal. By that time, pushing through a 109-kilometre day, we were both pouring with sweat, but also bloated, nauseous and strangely without appetite.
In our state of semi-delirious exhaustion, we thought the bloating and cramps were from something we drank in the local water. They are, however, classic symptoms of heat stroke, which can literally cook internal organs and cause sudden death in minutes or hours after extreme heat exposure. The heat, in our case, was baking our kidneys, a pair of organs that control blood purity, acid concentration and water balance through urination.
Luckily we were received in Santa Tecla by the Ramírez family of my biologist friend Enriqueta, with whom I worked on an ecological project three years ago. They immediately had us lie down in the shade of their garden to rest and cool down. That was Thursday. Now Saturday, the cramps are still here, but my abdominal pain and digestion have improved. Jonathan is also improving.
How will we proceed through the heat wave blazing across tropical Mesoamerica? In a “rainy season” that was tinder-dry as we cycled through three nations? We cannot underestimate the dangers of vigorous exercise in heat above 40 degrees. Professional football players in the USA have dropped dead on the field from heat stroke. Athletes are cited as a primary at-risk group for heat-induced illness. A female marathon runner once won a race, then keeled over, dead from the heat. Clearly, this is something we aim to avoid.
We will proceed with caution, taking more frequent breaks in the shade, with icy drinks, replenishing our salts and vitamins (a key to fighting dehydration and heat), and as soon as possible, climb Mexico’s interior plateau, at an elevation where temperatures should be less severe (and on the way, we will share news of the culture, people and places of the journey).
Heatstroke is a major killer worldwide, now more than ever in the age of climate change. Paradoxically, air-conditioned cars are not so much the solution as the cause, so we should all keep cycling, but cycle with care................................ |
2006-06-30 -
Leaving Nicaragua
All Systems Go - On the Road Again!
Jonathan reports:
There is a new entry in the dispatches!
Our technical difficulties have been solved, so at the first light of dawn we leave León, Nicaragua and start a two-month push home to Vancouver.
On Wednesday we were without a bankcard (Tim lost it) and down to our last $3 - when a surprise donation arrived just in time (whew!). The saviour was Heidi from Windemere Realty on Galiano Island - thank you Heidi!
Heidi's website is the most comprehensive source of real estate listings for Galiano, a natural island paradise between Vancouver and Victoria, BC.
Visit the website online at www.galiano-realty.com............................... |
2006-06-22 -
Nicaragua
Technical Difficulties...
While a freak hailstorm and hurricane-force winds battered nearby Chinandega, Nicaragua, Tim and Jonathan were cycling 130 km to the colonial city of León - when Jonathan was hit by heatstroke. The cyclists made a recovery break in León, and as Jonathan's health returned, freak weather continued: Nicaragua's pacific coast was swamped by 10-metre waves that crushed houses and people................................ |
2006-06-13 -
Nicaragua
Cycling Nicaragua
Tim and Jonathan are now cycling alonside Central America's largest lake, lake Nicaragua (best known for its active volcano and world's only population of fresh-water sharks).
The cyclists are impressed by Nicaragua's cyclist culture. It is the first time since Medellin, Colombia that Tim has seen bicycle lanes. Even on the highway, packs of commuters have overtaken the duo. In town, taxis are outnumbered by three-wheeled, passenger bicycles.
If only nations like Canada used pedal-power to the same degree (although the Netherlands, for one, is already leading the way), says Jonathan, "there sure would be a lot less asthma!"............................... |
2006-06-10 -
Cañas, Costa Rica
Another Break to Battle Malaria
Tim and Jonathan took a break in rainy Cañas, Costa Rica after an exciting but difficult three days riding, when Tim's lingering malaria forced them to rest.
Check out the new additions to the photos and dispatches sections.
Starting Sunday, the team will push into Nicaragua, with hopes that Tim's immune system, bolstered by rest and tropical fruit, has won the war with the malaria virus................................ |
2006-06-05 -
San Jose, Costa Rica
Ready to Roll!
With Tim feeling fit to pedal, he and Jonathan have readied their Norco / Xtracycle steeds to push north through Central America, for an early Tuesday morning departure.
"It feels like I've shaken off the malaria," Tim reports while listening to a surprising Oilers loss on internet radio. "At this point, getting out of the deisel-impregnated city of San Jose, to crank out some long days in the fresh tropical air, is probably the healthiest thing we could do."
Jonathan adds "it will be different cycling as a team of two - from here, we're going to push through western Nicaragua and Honduras, into El Salvador. I love the feeling of having unknown adventures just ahead..."
After racking up a hefty hotel bill during Tim's convalescence in San Jose, the duo are looking forward to tent life in Central America................................ |
2006-06-01 -
San Jose, Costa Rica
Two Years of Adventure!
Exciting new photos are posted in the photography section of this website.
It wasn't supposed to take this long! Today marks two years to the day since Tim cycled out of Vancouver as part of the Vancouver to Moscow Expedition Team. What a ride it has been!
Starting Year Three of the journey, Tim finds himself in Costa Rica immobilized by malaria, only a few months of riding from Vancouver. So close, but so far away!
In coming days look for an entry in the dispatches section. While Tim mends from malaria, Jonathan is enjoying a few days at the beach, Adrian is flying home to work on archeology papers.
"I can't wait until I'm healthy to ride," Tim says. "With or without malaria, I am going to ride home this summer."............................... |
2006-05-30 -
Hotel Caribe, San Jose, Costa Rica
Tim Sick with Malaria
When he arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica last Friday night, after cycling through heavy rains, Tim believed that his chills, sweats, headaches, sore limbs and back, and nausea were the effect of over-exertion.
“I had been feeling strange chills for a couple of weeks,” Tim says,” but as other symptoms appeared, I assumed they were due to long days cycling. Finally this weekend I realized that something was seriously wrong, when the symptoms got so bad I could hardly get out of bed.”
Tim visited Calderon Hospital in San Jose on Sunday and was diagnosed with Plasmodium falciparum, a common strain of malaria that is the cause of over a million deaths worldwide each year. A doctor prescribed heavy doses of chloroquine and primaquine for 14 days and explained that Tim’s symptoms were the effect of the plasmodium virus attacking red blood cells and causing them to explode, releasing toxins into Tim’s blood stream. The doctor said that the disease should respond quickly to medication, but if left untreated, it would likely have caused Tim to weaken and die.
“Last night, after taking four chloroquine pills, the malaria was still raging in my bloodstream. I woke up with intense chills – my teeth were chattering like I was back in Siberia,” Tim recalls. “Half an hour later I awoke with a fever, sweating heavily. Today I stayed in bed all day with a headache. I hope to feel better as the medicine takes effect.”
Tim believes that he was bitten by an infected mosquito during his crossing of the Darien mountains or while descending the Atrato River in Colombia. However, the plasmodium virus incubates in the liver for as little as eight days, or for several months, so it is impossible to know precisely when he was infected.
Malaria is spread by mosquitos and is said to have killed more people throughout history than all wars and other plagues combined. Currently, one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies of malaria every 30 seconds. Over the next twenty years, for reasons including global warming and drug-resistant strains of the plasmodium virus, the prevalence of malaria is expected to double.
“It was really my fault that I became infected,” Tim admits, “because I lost my anti-malarial pills when they fell out of my canoe in Colombia, right in the thick of malaria territory. Mosquitos were feasting on me all the time.”............................... |
2006-05-21 -
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Team Endures 3.5 days Sleepless in Panama, Cycling Non-Stop to Beat Visa Deadline
Check out two new dispatches, including Tim's Darien Gap saga and an interview with his new cycling partners, brother Jonathan Harvey and long-time friend Adrian Sanders.
The three cyclists battled sleep deprivation last week, cycling almost four days without sleep to beat Tim's legal deadline to exit Panama by the 18th of May.
After springing Tim from Jail, the team had regrouped in the Darien early May 11th to descend a section of the lower Tuira River, then began almost 1000 kilometres to Costa Rica by bike, including a mountain trek to the Caribbean coast - at night!
To avoid missing Tim's deadline, the team cycled 3.5 days without sleep. In the final stretch, Adrian cycled ahead in a sprint to reach Puerto Viejo for a soccer match, while Tim and Jonathan fixed a faulty rear wheel, reaching the border crossing on the day of Tim's deadline - but it was closed!
The team's worries were swept away when an official accepted a small fine the next morning and permitted the cyclists to exit Panama, for a deserved rest and more adventures in Costa Rica.
Read the latest dispatches for the inside story................................ |
2006-05-10 -
Panama City, Panama
From the Jungle to Jail
GREAT NEWS! TIM HARVEY IS ALIVE AND WELL AFTER A SUCESSFUL CROSSING OF THE DARIEN WILDERNESS.
Photos and dispatches to be posted as soon as possible.
Tim was released yesterday from a holding cell in Panama City's Ministry of Justice and Immigration, after being spotted at 2 AM last Saturday morning by soldiers stationed along Panama's Tuira River, in the notorious Darien region. Tim was paddling a balsa wood raft.
"After reaching junction of the Cacarica and Atrato Rivers in Colombia, I realized the safest and most efficient way to enter Panama, without burning fossil fuel, was to paddle upstream into the Darien Mountains and hike for three days, then to build a raft and paddle the down the Class 3 whitewater river by night. Things were going really well and I had reached the placid lower Tuira after two hair-raising nights, when all of a sudden I heard about five machine guns being cocked and I was ordered off the river." Tim was taken into custody and taken to Panama city for processing.
Tim's strategy of sticking to the rivers and night hours when possible was a method of avoiding the Colombian rebels who frequent the forest trails of the Darien, on both sides of the border. Tim says "I minimized the human danger in exchange for the most dangerous whitewater mission of my life, two nights of river running on a balsawood raft."
Having paid a hefty fine and received legal permission to travel in Panama, Tim has reunited with his brother Jonathan Harvey and BC archeologist Adrian Sanders, both close friends he hasn't seen in two years. The trio will retun this week to the military base where Tim was apprehended, canoe the lower river, and then cycle across Panama towards Costa Rica, on their way to Vancouver.
Tim hopes the journey ahead will feature more adventures than misadventures, which characterized the Darien crossing.
"In two years of travel, nothing compares with the experience I had in the Darien Jungle. The adrenaline and fear factor of charging through river rapids at night was one extreme, offset by the inexpressible joy of floating under a pack of curious monkeys at night, and hiking alongside a native Embera people who were teaching me about the medicinal plants of he Darien. There really is nowhere else like it on Earth."
Currently the Embera are facing pressure from the Colombian government to sign away indiginous title rights to a strip of land that would allow a road to penetrate their wilderness, an area recognized by the UN as having global ecological and cultural significance.
"I hope the Embera don't give in," Tim says. "The Darien is a global treasure, and I hope that one day soon Colombia's guerilla warfare problem will be solved and the Embera will be able to invite others to safely witness the wonders of their homeland. They have a lot to show and teach the world."
Tim, although he arrived uninvited, was invited by the Embera to make a return visit in coming years.
"If and when I return to the Darien, I certainly won't run the sort of risks I took this time around. I really urge others to think twice before pulling such a stunt - almost forty percent of outsiders who attempt to cross the Darien are said not to make it out alive."............................... |
2006-04-29 -
Rio Sucio (town), Rio Atrato (river), Choco (province), Colombia
Stung, Wet and Dirty
Tim believes that he is just a day away from switching from canoe to foot. Read his exciting latest dispatch on the dispaches page.
Remember, you can also scan past news entries on the news page.
Tim is doing well despite a stomach illness and a range of challenges, excited to the entering the final stage his Darien crossing................................ |
2006-04-25 -
Bojaya, Rio Atrato, Choco
Still Alive
A new dispatch has been posted! Tim now plunges into the depths of the Choco / Darien Wilderness, having swapped his massive dugout canoe for a sleeker, faster version, and died his skin dark green, to keep a lower profile.
If all goes well, Tim will leave his canoe later this week and walk over a mountain into Panama. Learn more in the latest dispatch.
According to Tim, "the photo opportunities have been amazing. The wildlife and culture has been spectacular. All the guns and rocketlaunchers are a bit worrisome, but with a few added precautions I should make it through safely."
Tim reports sleeping through rainstorms in his canoe and paddling all daylight hours, and even into the pitch darkness of night, to make headway towards Panama.
Also today, Adrian Sanders touched down in Panama with the Norco bikes Tim and Jonathan Harvey will use for the trek to Vancouver. The archeologist will join the team through Central America after the current solo paddle and hike from South to Central America................................ |
2006-04-18 -
Rio Atrato, Chocó, Colombia
Have Dug-out, Will Travel
PLEASE NOTE: Tim will be out of contact for a period while crossing the dense heart of the Choco and Darien Rainforests
After a brief stop in Quibdo, Tim is now poised to launch onto the fast-flowing Atrato River, having today purchased a dug-out canoe from an indiginous Embera man on the banks of Colombia's remote rainforest river, the Atrato.
The Embera man, wearing only a loincloth and a wooden spike through one ear, had carved the traditional canoe himself by hollowing out the trunk of a rainforest tree.
"This is how people have traveled the Atrato for about 10,000 years, so I'm definitely not the first to do this," Tim said after making his purchase. "It really is a beautiful boat, longer than a Canadian canoe, but with much lower side-walls. Each end has its gunwales flared into a sitting position. It will be extremely tippy, but hopefully I can learn the Embera art of river paddling without capsizing too often."
On his first day in Quibdo, Tim constructed a backpack using boards, fabric straps, bolts, foam and dental floss. He will use his home-made backpack after paddling 350 to 400 kilometres down the Atrato, when he sells the canoe to begin hiking through one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems that exists anywhere. The Choco and Darien comprise one of the most-globally-significant tropcial rainforests that remain virtually pristine (though not without many threats, including Colombia's plan for a future environmentally-devastating road to North America, which so far, Panama has stymied by refusing to cooperate). Unpenetrated by roads, the region, like parts of the Amazon, is home to indiginous who had little contact with outsiders until civil war invaded the area a decade ago.
"I will be hiking in gumboots, because it's currently the wet season. Any literature on hiking the so-called Darien Gap says don't even try hiking in the wet season. I don't have much choice, so I'm bracing for the Heart of Darkess down river. Snakes, crocs, mudslides, even guerrilla warriors - that's what I'll be up against.
"In fact, the whole river was closed to all non-military traffic, even local traffic, for a period until two years ago, due to the intensely violent civil war. The armed forces are still there, but the killing has subsided a bit and the river has re-opened to local traffic. I expect to be pulled over daily by gun-wielding forces from any one of three sides involved in the conflict."
"I will likely be out of touch for a couple of weeks, because there is no internet where I'm going. If all goes well, I will emerge from the forest and file a report in a couple of weeks.
"Please be patient - anything, and I mean anything, could happen down this river. There is nowhere else like it on earth. But I will make it out alive."............................... |
2006-04-17 -
Quibdó, Choco Region, Colombia
From Pedal to Paddle - adventure will switch to River travel
On April 16th Tim completed the 2.5 day cycle from Medellin to Quibdo, a mostly-downhill ride on rough dirt roads into the heart of the Choco region. Here he will switch his bicycle for a canoe, to launch the most difficult, and potentially most dangerous, leg of his journey around the world.
"It is incredibly hot and humid in the Choco, which is why the tropical wildlife is so abundant. This region, about the size of Vancouver Island in Canada, is home to one of the world's most dense and diverse tropical rainforests, full of crocodiles, snakes, spiders and jaguars. The road system ends here in Quibdó, so my job now is to barter the bike and a few pesos for one of the dug-out canoes beside the river, and start paddling dowstream for about 400 kilometres, which takes me close to the Panama border."
The Choco region of Colombia is notorious for a history of guerrilla warfare. The region's remoteness makes it an ideal hideout for rebel forces who also control much of the Choco's illegal smuggling from Colombia into Panama. The FARC, a group known for kidnappings and violence, is active in the area, often warring with paramilitaries funded by wealthy landowners.
"Between the crocodiles, the FARC and the paramilitaries, there is a real element of danger to this part of the journey. But in the rainy season, which is now, to descend the Atrato river is the only means to access the Panama border without burning fossil fuels. So my task is to navigate the dangers ahead in the safest possible way. Here in Quibdo I will begin the paddle, and a certain point downstream, I will leave the canoe and hike by foot into the wilderness of the Choco and Darien. I am, actually, very excited to experience one of the earth's most productive and challenging environments."
Before launching downstream by canoe, Tim will build a backpack out of locally available materials, to use on the overland crossing from South to Central America.
More details to appear here and in a coming entry to the dispatches section................................ |
2006-04-13 -
Medellín, Colombia
New Photos and Dispatches Posted
Tim has been resting in Medellin and will now cycle to Quibdo, in the Choco region of Colombia, where he will launch a 350 km canoe descent of the Atrato River, into the heart of the Darien.
Watch for more dispatches prior to Tim's launch, outlining plans and preparations for this jungle river odyssey.
Currently new expedion photos have been posted, and dispatches were updated recently.
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2006-04-10 -
Medellín, Colombia
Late-night arrival in Medellín
Tim will be taking a well-earned break in Medellín, Colombia's second largest city. In recent days he struggled through the sweltering lowlands of the Magdalena River basin (Colombia's major watershed, between two spines of the Andes) and then climbed back into the cooler, but rainier mountains. Pelted by incessent rains, he rode hard into the night - which he usually avoids as a rule - last night, in a bid to reach Medellín. It was nearly midnight when he rolled into a valley of light and into a city that, at night, sent chills up his spine.
Stay tuned for dispatches to appear in coming days!............................... |
2006-04-03 -
Pamplona, Colombia
Miguel Bindon Going Strong after Robbery, to Part Ways with Tim
Tim and Miguel will cycle in separate directions following (they hope) a 120-km day tomorrow, including a 50-km downhill into the town of Bucaramanga, Colombia. Miguel, who has cycled with Tim for almost a week since they joined forces in Merida, a town in the Venezuelan Andes, is bound west for Bogota and Cali, Colombia, and Tim is heading north for the Darien.
The two cyclists who met by chance have made an excellent team, encouraging each other through such difficulties as yesterday’s net gain of over 2200 metres. By day’s end, the men were reduced by fatigue to pushing their bicycles up the long, winding highway, well into the darkness of night in a heavy tropical rain. Mechanical problems stalled the team in the beautiful mist-shrouded town of Pamplona today, where a bicycle shop kindly offered to lodge them.
“Traveling was Miguel was a huge pleasure, for safety reasons too, but mainly because he can summon a laugh at the toughest moments,” Tim notes. “Now, I’ve got to focus on reaching Medellin, Colombia, and then the Darien, cycling alone.”
As for Miguel, the burly Argentine says “I’m cycling to Ecuador, and then Cuzco, where I will catch a train to Argentina. I have to hurry, or I will miss the World Cup!”
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2006-04-01 -
Cúcuta, Colombia
Robbed at Gunpoint!
Please Note – Tim’s personal dispatches will be written and posted as soon as he takes a day off from cycling. The latest news-in-brief is as follows:
Tim Harvey's traveling companion, the Argentine rugby athlete Miguel Bindon, was robbed with a firearm today as night fell in Cucuta, Colombia, just beyond the Venezuelan border, a few hours after he and Tim had cycled South America’s northernmost nation.
"I had just bought a loaf of bread and was walking a few metres back to the hotel, when a well-dressed man pulled back his jacket, where he had a gun pointed at me. He said to give him all my money. I felt like tossing him across the street, but I calmly gave him some money that I had in one pocket," Miguel reported a few minutes later. "That’s it for me – I am not leaving this hotel room again tonight!"
Miguel and Tim plan a departure at dawn tomorrow to avoid another incident in the city. The cycling duo has been lodging in cheap hotels many nights, because safe campsites have been scarce. The pattern is likely to shift as the duo travels deeper into Colombia, but in light of today's events, safety will remain a top priority.
As Miguel cooled his rattled nerves in the rented room, Tim was faced with the suddenly-daunting task of changing a wad of Venezuelan currency into Colombian pesos, in the black market currency exchange on the dark evening streets of Cucuta. Tim opted to cycle, stopping only long enough to change his cash before sprinting back to the hotel. He then carefully divided and hid cash to avoid loosing it all in the unlikely event of another armed robbery.
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2006-04-01 -
San Pedro - Venezuela
Tim Harvey and Argentine cyclist to cross border to Colombia
Now cycling with Miguel Bindon of Argentina, Tim has pulled into the Andean borderlands of Venezuela and Colombia. The terrain mountain terrain has taken a toll on body and bikes, as have the humidity and heat that strikes whenever Tim and Miguel drop into the lowlands. Hours-long grinding uphills and breaking bicycles (snapped racks and pedal cranks that loosening, in Tim's case) have tipified this leg of the journey.
"What strikes me most about the Venezuelans is their incredible friendliness - they keep offering us accomodation and help, and are forever honking and cheering us on as we ride." Tim reports. "There are places, like Merida (right beside Venezuela's tallest peak) where many locals speak English and they developed a culture of affordable adventure tours. I was offered a complimentary whitewater kayak trip within hours of arriving. I would recommend it as a travel destination for anyone with an interest in adventure sports."............................... |
2006-03-23 -
Caracas, Venezuela
Have Bike, Will Travel
Tim has purchased an economy-grade bicycle for the cycle into Colombia, and will depart early tomorrow from Caracas, Venezuela. His passport has just arrived after rush-processing by Canadian authorities.
"It's been half a year since I stepped off my bicycle in Portugal. This will be, mentally, by far the most challenging leg of the adventure, as I head off the beaten track in South America. There have been a rash of kidnappings recently, including two Canadian citizens in Venezuela, and two Spanish doctors (who were never seen again) in the Darien, within the last couple of months. But I have learned in my short time here that the warmth and kindness of the locals is far more widespread than the dangerous elements, so as long as I exercize caution I should have a safe and rewarding adventure. My route in weeks to come will traverse the little-known, less-travelled regions of Venezuela and Colombia, which is exciting for me."
Tim is scheduled to start riding on March 24th................................ |
2006-03-21 -
Caracas, Venzuela
Imminent Launch of South America Cycle
Tim has spent the week organizing logistics for the upcoming leg of his journey, a cycle through Venezuela and Colombia, set to launch in coming days. See details in the latest entry in on the dispatches page.
Also this week Tim was interviewed by Klawdia Henke, a native of Yakutia, Russia currently living in Austria, for a website soon to be released (news pending). (download PDF here)................................ |
2006-03-13 -
Caracas, Venezuela
Tim on South American soil, Tackling Logistics in Anticipation of Dangerous Cycle Journey
The Swedes have sailed away! Tim is now stationed in Caracas working fast to replace a stolen passport, to find a beater bike that will take him through Venezuela and Colombia, as well as coordinating logistics surrounding the delivery of two Norco Chargers, to Old Man Mountain Sherpa front rack sets, and two Xtracycles, to be sent to Panama where Jonathan Harvey is standing by.
While the passport is processed and delivered as rapidly as the Canadian government is able (the Canadian Embassy in Caracas has been particularly helpful in this respect) Tim will saddle up and ride the Venezuelan section of his journey. Stay tuned for news and dispatches about Venezuela and Tim´s research into the EXTREME DANGER that he will face in weeks to come................................ |
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