One of first priorities when we arrived in Buenos Aires was to buy jeans. We had been wearing quick-dry travel pants exclusively for over a year and were excited to feel a bit less like travelers. Once we were happily wearing jeans, we set out to explore the city.
The Boca Juniors soccer match that Matt […]
Posted by cindy on May 28th, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina | 1 Comment »
The road from El Calafate, Argentina to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile was mostly kind to us. We had a nice tailwind for the first 100 km eastward out of town, then the winds died down to almost nothing as we started to head westward. We were quite happy not to fight the […]
Posted by cindy on April 11th, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina, Chile | 1 Comment »
After a week of riding long days down freeway 5, we were excited to turn eastward towards the Chilean lakes district. Our first stop was in the town of Villarica, where we stayed at the Torre Suiza (Swiss Tower) hostel. The Torre is run by a Swiss couple who, after traveling for 2 years by […]
Posted by cindy on February 19th, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina, Chile | No Comments »
Since leaving Cafayate, we have been riding mostly through desert, which means heat (40+ degrees Celsius) with little shade and wind. For the most part, we are able to find a town with a restaurant to stop in for lunch and to wait out the hottest part of the day before continuing on, though we […]
Posted by cindy on January 22nd, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina | 1 Comment »
This is just a quick note to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We made it to Salta, Argentina in time to celebrate Christmas with Ramon and his family at their casa de cicistas. We will write more about our ride to Salta and time here later, but wanted to give you a Christmas […]
Posted by cindy on December 28th, 2007 | Filed under: Bolivia | No Comments »
Potosi, the world’s highest city (of its size-100,000) at 12907 ft / 3934 m is famous mostly for mining in the nearby mountain, Cerro Rico. The abundant silver was drained by the Spanish using indigenous people and as well as imported slaves to do the work. Now, people still mine in cooperative groups looking for […]
Posted by cindy on December 18th, 2007 | Filed under: Bolivia | 3 Comments »
Leaving the city of Cusco, we had our first taste of the Andean altiplano. It reminded Matt of the time we have spent in the mid-west, particularly the flat farm country of North Dakota. I wasn’t fooled, however, as the Andes were clearly visible rimming the edges of the wide plain, whereas in ND there […]
Posted by cindy on November 15th, 2007 | Filed under: Peru, Bolivia | 1 Comment »
There are no good maps of Ecuador. No matter what the map claims the distance between destinations will be, add 20 km to get the real distance. The road signs are additionally misleading, giving distance varying by 20 km in the space of 5 km or less! This problem resulted in more than a couple days […]
Posted by cindy on October 26th, 2007 | Filed under: Ecuador, Peru | 1 Comment »
Our first day in Bogotá was a Sunday, where their weekly event known as Ciclovia meant most of the main streets were severly restricted to car traffic and open instead to bikes. We had hoped to participate, but since my pedals were missing after the flight from Panama, we couldn’t. It turned out to be […]
Posted by cindy on September 8th, 2007 | Filed under: Colombia, Ecuador | 2 Comments »
Our new bike/bus strategy has been working well, though not exactly as planned. The last segment of Central America began by bussing out of San Jose and the Central Valley to the Carribbean coast and the city of Limon from where we planned to ride down the coast to Panama, cross the continental divide and […]
Posted by cindy on August 18th, 2007 | Filed under: Costa Rica, Panama | 1 Comment »