http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Adventure Learning Grant/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Adventure Learning Grant en-us Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:22:54 BST Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:22:54 BST I can not believe that it has been over a month since my last post. I guess I am surprized because of how much ground i have covered in the past months very little of it by bike most by boat and bus. Due to travel deadlines my sisters araive to San Jose Costa Rica and a general lack of road from Colombia to Panama I have had to give my legs a bit of rest. Here is a route recap...Bogota C http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/San-Jose/blog-316982.html ...and learn to enjoy it Dandilion greens are my free road side vegie of choice less bitter when cooked...the following is random sentences and tid bits from my journal of the past month moving from Quito to BogotaYour never alone on a bike in a city of 3 million quito i bumped into a scienteist i met in the mountains who studies social spiders. Quito has a bimonthly closing of 35k of http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Bogota/blog-304747.html I realized that some of my past posts have been a bit jumbled Im going to make an effort to make this one understandable for people who may not know my writing style. Please regard each paragraph as a separate space in time...I got some press and have a couple of interviews coming up as well. I will do an interview with a Quito Ecuador program about healthy traveling and the Bellingham Herr http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/Quito/Mitad-del-Mundo/blog-292476.html Been a month so here are some more excerpts from my cuderno and HDT quotes...30 hours on a bus is better than a 4 hour plane ride any day. Plus you can make yourself lemon whole wheat cheese sandwitches with your knife. Got my City smarts back and returned to my starting piont Lima Peru.Time for the long awaited Walden by Henry David Thoreau HDT.20 hours more on a bus and Im next to http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/blog-279454.html After almost 4 weeks off my bike resting thinking planning my route has received a bit of a refresher. Instead of riding to Argentina and Brasil and flying home ill be bussing back to Lima Peru my starting city and riding north from their. Quite posibly to my nonexictant door step in Bellingham. A bit of a trip extention but i have my reasons. One of which is that i would rather live http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/O-Higgins/Pichilemu/blog-269697.html Wrote this after my home made dinner of mote a kinda of barrly i think sauted onions carrots brockoly and tomate last night. Its on the sarcastic side and was fun to write may be it will be fun to read too. The omnivors delema is on my reading list but i have not read it yet. Feel free to email with me with questions and comments. On a different note i am contemplating a big route cha http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Santiago-Region/Santiago/blog-264765.html The hard part about being at the end of the world is getting the out. Hitch hiking with a touring bike trailer and a columbian jewliery maker is a great way to not get anywhere but not a bad way to shair some laughs. So I parted with some coinage and bussed my way back up north to Bariloche Argentina.So interesting to travel the same land by peoples perfered method of travel. Fed by others a d http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Santiago-Region/Santiago/blog-263363.html Well I have run out of road currently in the southern most township in the world. Surprizingly i dont want my bike touring life to end. A little back tracking...I volonteered for a week in a new national park in Chile. Use volonteers pulled fence posts picked seeds and help restore a wetland area over the pirod of a week. The forgein investments in this park is largely inpart due to the Pat http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Tierra-del-Fuego/Ushuaia/blog-254068.html Returned from Columbia to crash on an oil slick in Santiago traffic. No harm done. The past three weeks have been spent riding Chiles famous Carretera Austral a 1000k stretch of dirt road in the jaw dropping patagonian country side. This road is filled with fellow cycle tourist from mainly europe but Chile and Argentian as well. I was lucky enough to have a good friend join me for a good pa http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Aisen/Carretera-Austral/blog-242508.html ...and i dont even like salsa music. The Mantilla family was kind enough to have me for the holidays. Xmas here consists of lots of drinking and dancing. I had never watched sunrise on xmas morning after celibrating all night. In the evening Carlos a Colombian native who currently resides in Vancouver with his wife and 8 month son gave me my BMX bike to assemble We both laughed at the fa http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/blog-233282.html ...is 100k a day and sleeping in abandon factories at night I hope i am bike touring when im 62 in the same way i am while im 24. lots of numbers in this post so if you dont like numbbers i suggest turning off your monitor. Map less in Calama Chile i had no idea of exactly how far Santiago was. but over the past thirteen days i have figured out that its about 1480k. Since my plane f http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Santiago-Region/Santiago/blog-229865.html Been away from the net for a while and all the marrier for it thusly this will be a long and rambling post. Read it only if you have time and can read fast cause if you read slow like me this would be a waist of my time and eye sight. Hear goes.Its know set in stone that i will be doing some bussing to get to santiago intime for my flight to colombia. I am not happy about this but will use http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Antofagasta-Region/Calama/blog-226171.html ...but the joke was that it was a photo copy. It came in handy though as i used it as TP later that day. Not every day that you whip your ass with a Benjermin just bought 25 mangos for 10 bolivianos about 1.20. Been traveling with a couple of frenchies the last few days and some photos are here...httppicasaweb.google.cajakytarafArrivEEnBolivieAfter helping air a kids bike tires on a b http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-220806.html Quote curticy of my fellow Machu Picchu adventurer Mario Guzman and yes he hand squeezes it every morning. He left Santa Cruz 8 months ago and has traveled totally by bus. Together we walk 30 K from Aguas Caliente to the town at marker 82K the majority of which is done at night. After I diagnose him dyslexic and he concures but does not want special treatment for it. We consider our walk http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Puno/blog-219130.html ...but they dont stick to my skateshoes the way one would like. Just got off a 5 day hike to the Inca Ruins of Choquequirau solo with my camera bag as a great sub for a hiking bag. Backcountry hear is a bit different than the states with old ladies seling beers and coca cola at any of the rest points. At the Rio Apurimac crossing i change into my birthday suit and enter the cool perfect tem http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/Cusco/blog-216409.html Abancay Peru. After reading the capter Havasu in Ed Abbys Desert Solitare I decided to head back on to the unpaved mountainious roads. Picture secondary logging roads of the hills of Vermont yet somehow they drive 18wheelers stacked to the brim with potates on them. The terain Difficult slow going somethimes not much faster than a walking pace. With the changing of substrate that these r http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/blog-214002.html After two weeks in the big city the mouantians called. slight change of routing i took straight off for la oroya a four day climb to 4818 meter peak of the andes. These peak some snowcapped are straight from my childhood story books complete with trains lacing in and out of distant mountain sides through tunels. yet these mountains are utalized like everything else here they are mined p http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Junin/Huancayo/blog-209916.html Went to Marinobike yesterday in a poor northern part of Lima. Marino is a Zoom educator and makes trials and BMX frames on the roof top of his families house. Homemade jigs hand cut tubes bottom brackets with lightweightholes drilled in them the works. Very cool to see a downtube cut and fitted by hand within minutes. Check out his website are Marinobike.tk Will be incomunicado for many http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Lima/blog-207688.html all sound the same in spanish to this untrained dyslexic ear. So far i have already said that my host friend looks hot in the shower and asked for a kiss instead of a little beer... many more but thoughs are the good ones. Just a few more days in lima i cant wait to go south. this article was in westerns paper...httpwesternfrontonline.net200709259049artlifestudentsawardedgranttotr http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Lima/blog-207288.html ...and lots of reagey tone. Got into Lima Airport and took an expensive cab to a hostel for my first night. The next day i build my bike and contacted with my internet friend fiorella merchor. Trafic hear is seemingly unyeilding yet i feel safer in trafic here than in the states posibly because of a lack of cell phone drivers... With one quick glimps of a city map i somehow navigated to her http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Lima/Lima/Barranco/blog-205170.html