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 I´m next to the only empty seat. I love Peru, Dirty, Bribes, and much more edge than Chile.
Realized that you never see books as roadside litter, perhaps just the fact that you can read and do so makes a little seed of ecology grow in people.
May the irigation ditches of the desert fill with ssand for dessert. This is a gramatical joke, and a sincer comment to boot. We even managed to wreck the one good thing the desert had going for it. Solitude. The Industrial Chicken Farms North of Lima Peru bring House flies galor and squash any peace gained from the absence of people. The wind carries one fly and one chicken feather past my tent, 20+k from the factories.
What ever you did from the time yuou were 6 to 16 (give or take) was cool, so keep doing it...
Managed to piss off Thoreau and Abbey by having a solo dance party to bad english pop (Lilly Allen) in the dessert. This Anarqist uses an I-pod shuffle but only because of the trade off of technology to simplicity to cost, a three way sliding scale.
The town of huancua had a big day today, with in five minutes of each other their was a run-a-way donkey & cart and a gringo towing a trailer with a found manikin torso.
Crossed path with info for a bike hostel in Trujillo and met Lucho, the propritor and jack of all, king of nothing. With amazing Ideas such as nothing is trash. ¨That worn down brake pad is trash right? Nope save it for selling back to the metal recycler guy.¨ Lucho the insomniac and i widdle away night time hours while fixing a horibly decrepid bike rack. Cracked, rewelded and falling apart, we cut apart anouther rack and piece it together bit by bit. Brain storming with out rulers the whole way. His shop was/the/is most confortable i have felt with a fellow mechanic due to the use and design of things the come out of his taller. extensions: This is because he has the same mind set as me, save every thing, aluminum scraps have value for the future if not only the recycle man (woman, but not in peru.) An impromptu teacher as well. Their are two types of mechanics, Thusly i have decided to look for problems that my arise on my rig rather than let them occur. I suspect my father can attest to this.
Leaving Trujillo late in the day with a group of 5 touring rides!
Lucho - Bike hostel and all around rad Peruvian insamniac.
Claire - USA-er on a bike minded tour similar to my own, (only way better spanish) Her site is here:
http://www.movementporuncambio.blogspot.com/
Christian - Ecuadoriano, and fellow BMXer
Carlos - 53 dabler in this and that and so chilled out he could be content watching cloths dry and is.
Thus a drafting touring freight train with a minor derailment a night fall. Turns out its not so easy to house 5 touring cyclist for free in a city. The bombderos (volonteer fire fighters) turned us down, an old biter lady upped her price from free to 20 soles each after i moved all the bikes up three flights of very narrow stairs. So i move them back down. But that does not matter cause carlos is singing right know in a cement room that sounds so good. A school teacher that has to work at 5:30 in the morning took us in, the sloppy sweaty lot and fed us too.
En route, unplesently reminded of the privilage i have as a man bike touring. Claire was assalted this morning while riding. Being called a gringo is depressing but it never brought tears to my eyes. She is tuff though and finished the day ride with stregth.
Equation of touring: Contraction and expantion, mornign the former, evening the later.
¨consider first how slight a structure is absolutly nessicary.¨HDT
My list of things i can do in S.A. but not in the US of good ol A.
-run red lights in front of cops
-ride my bike on I-freakin-5 (Pan-Americano)
-camp at gas stations?!... (well maybe not on this list)
-buy cheep food in a publis market.
-get lied to buy people selling cheep food.
-have to ask for the price of something and try to get it for less.
-pee in the streets. (nice to have the option although i don´t use it much)
-ride the wrong way down a one way with out getting honked at.
-be rich
-ride in the back of pickup truck
(all with out the fear of getting f-ed with by the filth ((cops)).)
Talked at legth to Javier, Chiclayo casa de ciclista owner. Retiered rancher with chipped rotten teath and some sort of skim problem. He has witnessed the change in agriculture here and knows it is no longer posible to grow organic. 28 years of pesticid use just would not allow for a viable organic option. The wells of the desert are deeper not, often 50 meters deep and very expensive. He has seen a world of change in a life time, and i make him a guitaro.
I sit where i slept, outside of a three person tent deamed unnecicary by the uninhabitants.
Been riding with Carlos, a fellow minimalist, and great teacher of the subject.
We eat wild hawk.
Reasons for eating road kill: (if you eat meat, which i do on this bike tour)
Warning, this requires common sence, don´t read this if you don´t have it.
-fresh
(use your judgement, if the digits move smoothly their are no insect and fresh blood your good.
Look for a sign of impact from a death box (car) too.).
-100% Organic (Is their such a thing as not free range hawk?).
-Pestiside and Antibiotic Free.
-100% Natural (no Preservitives).
-No Use of Factory Farms.
-Minimal animal cruelty, a quick death due to the death box.
-Utilization of food that would otherwise return to the earth (waste not want not).
-Cleaning of the road way. (dead animals atrack other victums to cars violent speeds.)
-Less fossil fuels used in shipping of animal products.
-No GMO
-Natural Procesess of human evolution and a direct conection to the food you eat.
(Road side feathers plucked and gutted with paticience, knowldge and a knife.)
-Oh yeah its free and the best hawk i´ve ever had.
If i am going to eat meat, i might as well really eat meat. This is real, not some plastic factory chicken to witch i have no conection.
onward.
At night its hot, buggy and hot. I drank some untreated water to rehidrate my sore throt and end up paying dearly with vomit out one end, shit out the other and misquito bites on my full moon with a full moon shinning down.
Enter Ecuador! Yeah no more Peru! They use the U$D hear is its wierd not haveing to convert prices in my head before every perchase. Some things don´t change though, sugar is before oranges on the ingrediant list of my OJ and little old ladies with mustashes sell 100% mantequilla de mani (peanut fucking butter!) for a dollar fifty a pound.
My technology is failing again, but whats new their. Carlos makes a tea on a paint can stove at the abandon end of hotel amazona, our rooms have a bed and a door. So simple it hurts and i like this kinda pain.
¨But i returned it sharper than i received it.¨ HDT on ax lending, extend this is every direction posible!!!
Speculating a rural amazon road for the future, currently stuffy head cold and held up at the good ol hotel Amazona $3 a night!
Thats one thrid of what i would pay for rent at my bellingham house and i can leave when ever i want.
Link for claire´s sight and a picture too...
http://www.movementporuncambio.blogspot.com/
got an e-mail from a friend with the title to blog or not to blog...
I just spent $2 on internet time and two hours typing all this just so that other could read it...
For what? Conection with friends is well worth it, but please turn off your computer for a week read Walden for a year.
4 Comments -
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Send Private MessageThat was sort of a random post but I love it none the less. I miss you soo much.
please come and live in my back yard forever.
I am from Ecuador and read Claire's blog. I got to it from Ciclopolis' ezine. From Claire's blog I got to yours.
I am very impressed with your trip. Very interesting. I think you should write a book about your adventures. You have a very nice writing style.
I think you should continue by bike if you go elsewhere. Always travel with a partner. Be strong to keep cycling and remember a van is not as natural as a bike. Abike will keep you in contact with the paccha mama (mother Earth).
Hey Tys, Your folks called the other day and bragged 'bout your ride. I used to live in VT and worked with Ken. Sounds like great ride and experience. Many years ago I quit my job and toured Greece on a bike for a month. While I thought it was a big deal back then, it is nothing compared to yours. I got sucked back into the race when I returned to the USA. Please post your hawk recipe when you get a chance. Wishing you the best! Pete
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