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Published: July 30th 2010
Behind us are silloutes growing smaller and smaller, the world of the rockies slowly drifts into the past as we race forward towards the looming city of calgary! The world has opened up, no longer valleys and basin towns, now a huge expanse of feilds and sky, and with it comes mammoth clouds, far away storms and the visions of our first city in over three weeks over 30 km's away!
The last week has been nothing short of staggering. For myself it has been a learning curb internally and challenging externally!! I can honestly say the rockie mountains have been one of the most eye opening rides I have ever done, and right now as i write this, im itching for the prairies!!!
Last night we camped for the last time in the rockies, finding a beautifull spot over looking an ever expanding valley, with the peaks jutting all the way down!! We ate, and i put on some headphones and danced a little and then we slipped into the tent. I wanted to read, but it was dark, so I asked charli for the torch. In the pocket she said.... So i reached in, felt the torch and said to myself, aint that funny, charli got a new torch, heres the button. I pressed it and my head exploded into a world of pain!! It took me a second or two to realise this pain was not a torch but the german pepper spray we had been carrying around going directly into my eyes!!!
I couldnt breathe properly, and the pain was ridiculous, like rubbing chilli pepper in your eyes persisnantly, oh and in your throat ears and all over your face.... I managed to get out of the tent, screaming, crying , wailing like a baby, help me help me, fuck fuck. Ive expereinced tear gas a few times, but never peppers spray this strong straight into the eyes! Imagine that, its gotta be funny afterwards, pepper spraying yourself in the eyes! After around two minuites of intense pain i start to calm down a little bit, then after about five i can finally lean back to have water in without nearlly vomiting, after half an hour it still stung like crazy but i could lie down again, and even read. So all in all a pretty shocking, funny, and quite peace bringing last night. Peace bringing because i was already feelign quite peacefull, yet to realise how nice the world is without pepper spray is, quite peacefull!
Before that me and kay had been in banff for six days or so. We were there on safer wheels matters and to recahrge to take stock and meet our other rider, teyln! At first, banff seems like tourist heaven and we almost wanted to leave the same day. Being on a tight budget in a tourist trap is not so great. The first night we rode up to the campground, figuired 30 bucks a night was a bit steep and camped right by the edge of it, ate our tea, read a little fell asleep and jumped in their showers for the morning!! The next day we paid. That day I tried to busk a little to raise a bit of cash but was immediatley told i needed a busking license, it cost 25 bucks for two days but i decided to get one and do a bit of playing anyway. The next day I strummed for a few hours, got a bit of sunstroke and then lost my confidence and went and drank lots of coffee.
Charli arrived that day and we hooked up with kay and charlis freind from montreal, bromwyn. She let is crash in her art studio in the banff centre, which is like student place and seems pretty innovative and proggressive....for example, they use pasta as their coffee stirrers, which i figuired is becasue they are biodegradable.... how that would fit in if everybody did it i dont know, but it seemed pretty cool to me at the time. So the banff centre is cool, and banff actually turned out to be really cool too, wild animals everywhere! We saw lots of elk, we saw a baby black bear, and a lot of little chipmunks running about, one even stole a tomato,dag nammit!
While charli took a break from me and kay in golden, she got some cool work done for safer wheels, which of the main part was completing a safer sex zine. We all hooked up in banff with a bit more energy and by the time we met up with Aids Bow Valley, the organisation in banff we were to collaborate with we were feeling a bit better.
Hooking up with aids bow valley was both inspiring and shocking!! Inspiring becasue they thought our project was so cool, and what they are doing is super cool too! Shocking because of what we learnt is happening to aids organisations in and around calgary. Not to mention some of the new stuff we learnt to do with testing and so on, I already knew that when you go to get tested you are generally put off Hiv test (due to you not being in a high risk group supposdely), which is really fucked up since, technically, anybody can get HIV, infact, if you aint been tested, you could be one of the 1/3 of people with hiv who are walking around not knowing. But we were also told some pretty messed up stories that will add fuel to our moving documentary.
On the sunday night we were due to make a speech about our project and trip, we spent the afternoon washign clothes and writing our speech thingy while Jenna of aids bow valley kindly photocopied our zines, we now have like 70 copies, they have 30 for their area!! It is a super cool zine too! The event was held in a church and they were showing the film big lebowski. Thier deal is they get people up to watch a film, and offer prizes to people who fill in safer sex quizzes...... they also show loads of facts on a projector before the film. Me kay and charli told of our project before the film too, up on the pulpit, pretty surreal but thats life i guess. Before the film infact was even more surreal, walking around with captain comdom and a giant vagina handing out fliers! I really repsect the work they are trying to do here, but what is fucked up and sad is that in two months most of the local aids organistations close down, even treatment centres.... they are all being centralized to calgary, and thats even more interesting because, armed with our own questions and some from aids bow valley, onwards we go to meet with calgarys organisation, where tommorow we have an interview. Maybe we can start to shed some light on this defunding mystery.... i mean afterall, why are local branches being defunded when hiv rates in canada are at their highest since it first became epedemic?
It is thrilling to learn new things as well as sad, but that sadness empowers you and others and so it is a gift, a positive reflected from the negative. I am not sure how long this ride will continue, but i hope for a while yet. We are all very open minded. In banff teyln did not come, her shoulder still hasnt healed........how much longer we can ride as a three? we shall see, we are workign so hard on it individually, with some mistakes but i think we are getting better, more patient and learning to be more respectfull with each other, or so i hope!!
else wise in banff, a little too much coffee drunk , a good few new freinds made, we played silly games in the park with music , leap frog, and trust games and that was beautifull, finding family in far away places! All in all though in the end it was time, and now the project feels like it might of started gaining some energy of its own, lets see, tommorow might give it more.
As for riding, i can not write more than i already have, since golden there was kicking horse pass and me and kay took that togehter, it leads to the highest point in the rockies and of course we were extremeley happy to make the top of that by 8,30 in the morning!! The beauty is indescribable, Kay said to me today "think how many beautifull thigns we have seen in the last three weeks!" And really, you cant think it, you can only feel it, because it is just one whole feeling , one whole spirit that soars away with us out of the rockie mountains, and i think we have all learnt something from it individually and go away slightly changed people!
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Oh No!
Sam! The pepper spray! That almost had my eyes watering thinking of you trying to stop the pain and reminded me of the time you went to brush your teeth with Immac - eurgh! It was warming to read about the people of Banff, as you say finding family. The people met on trips and adventures can add so much to your life, perhaps more so when embarking on at topic of sensitive issues? It was surprising finding out that 1/3 of people who have HIV don't realise it. Is this because they believe they are in a safe group so no need to test for it? I'll be reading more as, ignorant as I sound, I know very little about it (which is terrible as I should really have read up to support your project more, for that I apologise). Keep enjoying the views, the challenges and new experiences; I'm very proud of you all, to see you working so hard to help others is an amazing thing for a mother to see. PS, I love your blogs, keep them coming!