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Travel Update #7

The End of the Road - A Reflection

About 18 months ago I pinned a world map to my bedroom wall in North Wales. I had wanted to travel for a while, I didn’t take a gap year between my studies and went tirelessly from school to college to university to a few years of full time employment without a break. Long story short, I was bored, craved adventure and happened to be middle class and privileged enough to be able to quit my job, sell my possessions and go on a big walkabout.

18 months ago I had little idea as to where I wanted to go. I didn’t know what kind of experience I wanted to have. I didn’t put much thought into how these experiences would shape the person that I am today. I remember when I sat in front of that big world map with Max and drew a crude line through Central & South America in a dried up red whiteboard marker and first discussed the idea of travelling that line by bicycle.

Since then, I’ve travelled 4000km in 6 months, over 4 countries and two continents - all by bike. I changed location nearly everyday. My bicycle weighed more than I did. Most days I woke up at 5am, cycled around 70km and climbed over 2000m of elevation. I repeated this routine day after day. I got to enjoy the true beauty, magnitude and power of the Andes. I learnt a new language. I got fit and lost 8 kgs in the process. I discovered a love for particularly awful reggaeton and garishly patterned shirts.

Away from the pace of my normal life in the UK; I was anticipating that I would learn a little more about myself. Naively before I spun my pedals for the first time back in Costa Rica, I thought I would be learning about light hearted subject matter, such as the kind of company that I would like to work for upon my return to London.

What I didn’t know back then was that cycling in this relentless manner strips you to your absolute core!

What I learnt most about was how I cope with extreme fatigue, pressure and exhaustion (the answer is not so well!) And that I have a tendency to jump headfirst into challenges without thinking too deeply about what they entail. In hindsight, it was an incredibly insane decision to cycle through the longest mountain range on the planet having never cycle-toured before in my life. I hadn’t even owned a geared bike since I was about 10 years old.

I have no regrets about any of this and despite finding the trip the most exhausting holiday of all time, I highly, highly recommend cycle-touring! Every ounce of effort that I put into cycling; I was rewarded with breathtaking views and dramatic scenery. Reaching a milestone or a border crossing was emotional as I had spent days, weeks or months and literally climbed mountains to get there.

Cycle-touring pushed the boundaries of my mental and physical endurance and I now feel confident in my ability to accomplish any challenge that life throws at me. Not a lot (in my opinion) can be harder than cycling my 70kg bike up 10% gradient hills in the rain all day everyday (yes I’m talking about you, Ecuador).

I spent so much time outdoors with so few possessions that I have a new found appreciation for small luxuries such as a sleeping in a comfy bed, wearing clean clothes and taking baths whenever I please.

The slow nature of travelling by bicycle is awe-inspiring. I know in detail entire stretches of the countries that we crossed and I have a deep understanding of how both the landscape and culture shift with this progression. I saw the big, glitzy cities and the stark, poverty stricken reality of the locals lives outside of them. This is something I never would have seen travelling by bus from one tourist hotspot to another. We spent so much time in each country that after a while, they started to feel like home.

I know that my experience cycle-touring will be something that I remember for the rest of my life and mentally revisit whenever I want to feel inspired.

Two months ago I woke up everyday with little idea as to where I would be sleeping that night and had the freedom to go wherever I pleased. My world was so big! Fast-forward to now and my world encompasses my parents house and a few kilometres surrounding it. This shift has been a huge mental challenge for me. I spent a lot of time whilst on the trip thinking about all of the amazing places that I would soon be visiting, so its been hard accepting that I will no longer be cycling the Peru Divide or through the Salt Flats in Bolivia or the Atacama Desert in Chile. Unfortunately, a few weeks after returning to the UK, me and Max split up, so I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that the person that I shared my cycle-touring experiences with, will not be part of my life going forwards.

After spending 6 months on the move, in lockdown I have started to discover that there is elegance in staying still. Travel is really just a means of filling your life with distractions - albeit new, picturesque and adventurous ones.

In the quietness of the past couple of months, I’ve learnt more about who I am and what I want out of life than during my entire trip. This time that we have for introspection and self improvement at the moment is priceless. It’s something that can’t be bought with a plane ticket and a bicycle.

I thought I would round off my blog with a some of my favourite, memorable moments. Im not sure how relevant these will be for you guys (sorry!) I just wanted to write them all down somewhere so that I don’t forget!

Here goes:

Looking down on Medellín, Colombia from high up in the mountains, lit up in the darkness. I had spent 12 hours cycling uphill that day to get there. Then spent an hour and a half descending. My hands ached the next day from holding my brakes- thats how steep it was.

Everyone applauding a beautiful sunset on the beach in Salvador, Brazil.

Swimming in the sea around the San Blas islands in Panama and seeing dolphins under the water. 

Cycling up to a viewing point in Jacó, Costa Rica. Looking down on the bay and the jungle beneath and seeing a flock of red parrots fly above the rainforest canopy.

Cycling through Cotopaxi National Park in Ecuador and camping near Volcán Cotopaxi. 

Getting soaked to the bone by the tropical storms everyday in Costa Rica and Panama. Attempting to dry out my shoes every night became a ritual.

The importance of always having a supply of peanut butter and the joy of finding a rare jar in a supermarket. It was like gold dust. 

Camping on Lauras floor in Popayán, Colombia.

Limonada all day everyday in Colombia. 

Seeing sloths in Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica.

Arriving into the town of Salento, Colombia and cycling up a hill so steep that people in the town clapped and cheered once I reached the top. 

Getting my bike stuck in the mud after a storm in San Onofre, Colombia. The bus drove past and refused to let us on because both us and our bikes were so muddy. We were stranded.

Helados everyday in Ecuador.

The pure joy of finding pasta sauce (not ketchup) in a supermarket. This was also like gold dust.

Camping next to waterfalls at Cascadas Condor Machay, Ecuador.

Getting my scuba diving license in Coveñas, Colombia.

Camping on a volleyball pitch near Alausí, Ecuador.

Crossing the bridge of the Americas in Panama and completing the Central American section of the trip.

Cycling to our highest altitude - 40009m above sea level in Ecuador.

The smell of rotting animals that had been hit by cars on the Panamericana in Panama.

Seeing the Champions Parade at the Sambadromo in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.

How beautiful the cycle route was during the 3/4 day journey into Medellín, on an abandoned road.

Swimming in Guatapé Lake, Colombia.

Experiencing a Colombian black hairdressers (to get my hair re-braided). Damn they’re loud.

How near the end of the trip, getting chased by dogs was such a regular occurrence that it didn’t bother me anymore.

Seeing crocodiles sunbathing next to a river in Costa Rica 

The cycle into Baños, Ecuador, near Volcán Tungurahua.

Camping in an old lady’s garden in Colombia because we had run out of time that day to get to the next town. She lived in a wooden shack, with a dirt floor and slept in a hammock.

Blocos at Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during Carnival.

Looking out across endless misty fields of frailjones, in El Angel National Park, Ecuador.

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Video of my time in

Brazil 🇧🇷

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Final pics of Brazil

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Travel update #6

Brazil

After leaving my bike and bags behind for safe keeping with a friend in Peru, I boarded a flight to Brazil, blissfully unaware of all of the events that would unfold in the coming months. The plan was for both me and Max to have a little break from cycling before reconvening in Peru, full of energy and ready to carry on pedalling South.

Max was off spending some time with his family in the Galapagos for a couple of weeks and I was heading to Rio de Janeiro for Carnival!

I had wanted to visit Brazil for years. Unfortunately our cycle route didn’t take us through Brazil, so I was excited about the prospect of getting to visit whilst on this trip. I had spent so much time imagining what Brazil would be like over the years that I was nervous about it not living up to my expectations.

Brazil during Carnival exceeded my expectations by a long shot. I arrived about halfway through Carnival, which in hindsight I’m actually pleased about because I don’t think my body could have taken much more.

Carnival in Rio is everywhere. It takes the form of huge street parties called “Blocos”. If you don’t know anything about Carnival (which I ignorantly did not before arriving) Blocos are neighbourhood parties created by local residents - some of which have been taking place annually for over 100 years. Some have musical themes, some have a dress code and the general idea is that locals follow a huge band or sound system around the block, dancing, singing, drinking and generally letting loose.

What I did not know before Carnival is that there are a few hundred of these Blocos over the course of the celebrations and most have between 5,000-30,0000 people in attendance. So even if you want to innocently pop out to pick something up from the shops or grab a bite to eat, you can’t help but getting roped into the partying and suddenly you wake up the next day with a hangover, covered in glitter, wondering how the hell you got home.

The biggest Blocos start at 8am and I’m pretty sure they have no end. I tried on a couple of occasions to stay until the end but called it quits around 5 or 6am when the partying somehow seemed to gain a new lease of life. Blocos aren’t just for young people, there are a lot of families and elderly Cariocas getting down with the best of them.

During Carnival, it becomes normal to see people going about their daily business dressed like this:

Or taking the Metro dressed like this:

Of course, I also had an outfit and found it pretty entertaining to spend the week wearing hot pants and a huge flower crown.

On this note, one of the best things about Brazil is how body positive everybody is. Rio is known for its beaches- Copacabana, Ipanema and Joatinga, so I spent a lot of time at them. It was refreshing to see so many women rocking itty bitty bikini’s no matter their size. In Brazil, it didn’t seem to matter what type of body you had, as long as you owned it, exuded confidence and showed it off.

The city in itself is backed onto by Tijuca National Park - a tropical rainforest. Walking down the iconic patterned cobbled streets, it feels like the built environment is in constant struggle with the nature that surrounds it. Plants and trees sprout from cracks in the pavement, vines overtake and dangle down from powerlines. Favelas sprawl up into the mountains, looking down on the Atlantic Ocean.

Rio isn’t polished, its full of graffiti and grimy. On one occasion I saw a pile of rats on a discarded sofa in the middle of the street fighting over half a salgado (a type of Brazilian pasty). For me, this added to its charm. I’ve spent a lot of time in cities in South America that felt like they were trying really hard to be something their not in order to attract tourists. Rio doesn’t try, its effortlessly cool and its people felt genuine.

For me the best thing about Brazil was the amount of other mixed-race people. I’m normally the odd one out in the largely white spaces that I inhabit back in the UK. I’ve grown up with it being that way so have learnt to look past this. However in Brazil, there was something really comforting about seeing so many other faces that looked just like mine. For the first time in my life I felt like I fitted in.

Aside from partying, I did all of the touristy things while in Rio. I drank Caipirinhas on the beach, visited Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain.

My absolute highlight of Carnival was watching the final parade in the Sambadromo. The Sambadromo is an open air stadium in which Rio de Janeiro’s famous samba schools dance across the 100 metre long stage to mark the start and end of Carnival. If you have ever seen photos on the news or the internet of Brazilian dancers wearing incredible costumes with huge floats in the background - the Sambadromo is where they were taken. The schools parade with moving structures about the size of a two storey house, each one decorated with dancers. Each samba school has a bespoke song that’s played throughout the stadium- these songs are also sung in the Blocos and become the sound of Carnival as a whole. In the stands, Cariocas sing, drink and dance while the performers in their dazzling costumes samba on stage. It takes about an hour for each school to cross the 100m stage and the entire performance goes on for about 6 hours. The Sambadromo has to be the greatest parade on earth and I highly, highly recommend seeing it. It’s such a huge spectacle, no description can really do it any justice.

I accidentally ended up spending more time in Rio than I first anticipated and more or less had to tear myself away. I was heading to Paraty, a small, beautiful Portuguese colonial town - a stopover between Rio and Sao Paulo. During my time in Brazil I was mainly travelling by bus - for the first time on the whole trip. I gained a new found respect for bus travelling backpackers whilst in Brazil because it is so arduous and boring sitting still for hours on end!

Unfortunately a couple of days into my time in Paraty, I received some awful news from Max. After returning from the Galapagos, Max had planned to continue cycling south into Peru in order to meet up with me in a couple of weeks time once I had returned from Brazil. On the first day of cycling alone he had been robbed by two men in a pickup truck at gunpoint, losing his bicycle and all of his possessions. Fortunately he had been able to get away with his life, despite the assailants wanting him to get into the pickup truck too. The police were involved and followed the GPS tracker that he had (that had been stolen) to try and find the whereabouts of his possessions. Unfortunately the police didn’t find anything at the location where the GPS tracker cut out, so its likely that they found it and turned it off.

The entire time that I was in Ecuador I felt very safe. On a couple of occasions, locals and the police told us to be careful but we took their advice with a pinch of salt. In every country that we crossed in Central and South America, people frequently told us that it was “too dangerous” to be there. When I landed in Brazil I thought to myself that if I were to get robbed during this trip, it would happen in Rio de Janeiro. Everyone gets robbed in Rio (it’s almost a rite of passage, especially during Carnival) - yet it didn’t happen to me. It’s not that either of us ever let our guards down, I think it was just a case of extremely bad luck. Max was robbed on a busy road - the Panamericana, during the daytime. I’m not sure how the robbery could have been avoided unless we had decided not to travel around South America all of those months ago and stayed at home instead.

After picking up an emergency passport, Max decided to join me in Brazil. We weren’t sure whether it would be possible to cycle anymore, or even if we wanted to after what had happened. We were 6 months into our year long trip, so we needed to come up with a new plan.

We were reunited in São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city. We spent our time there hanging out in São Paulo’s coolest neighbourhood - Vila Madalena. It’s similar to Hackney Wick so felt a lot like a home from home (but with much better weather!) We happened to be in São Paulo during their International Women’s day protests, which sort of felt like a mini, politicised version of Carnival. Again, people were wearing costumes, chanting and street vendors were selling alcohol. It reminded me of how uptight we are in the UK - selling alcohol at a protest would never happen in London!

From São Paulo we took an internal flight up to Salvador, Bahía. Salvador is know for its old Portuguese historical centre, full of picturesque pastel coloured buildings.

It was during our time in Salvador that Coronavirus started to ramp up in the UK and the first time we considered the possibility that it may affect our trip. Whilst we were in Salvador, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile suddenly closed their borders without warning.

We both had flights to Peru in a couple of weeks time that were cancelled. My bike and all of my belongings were now stuck in Peru.

For about 5 days we lived in a state of denial, deciding that if we had to isolate in Brazil, we would get an Airbnb somewhere near the coast and wait it out. I was convinced that Peru would re-open its borders in a few weeks and we would be able to pick up my bike and carry on travelling.

I think we felt this way because there was an utter lack of panic in Brazil. The Brazilian president, Bolsanaro, is still to this day dismissing Coronavirus as “just a little flu”. In the days before leaving Brazil, we were frequenting packed restaurants, beaches and coffee shops. We felt that it was a silly idea to return to Europe; the epicentre of the virus.

Looking at the situation in the rest of South America, it started to become apparent that travelling freely was not going to be possible for some time. Max no longer had a bike. I no longer had a bike. The trip that we had planned in a sense was already over.

The beaches started to close in Brazil and the locals mentality towards foreigners was shifting. People no longer wanted tourists as they were the people bringing across the virus. It became clear that with so many people already in extreme poverty in Brazil, people could become very desperate very quickly. That morning we made the decision to leave.

My journey back to the UK was swift and boring, so I won’t bog you down with all of the details. I found it funny that I had left the UK with two lots of extra hold luggage but was returning with only a small backpack.

I had been functioning in Spanish and a little bit of bad Portuguese for the past 6 months so it was weird and distracting to overhear conversations and understand everything being said in Gatwick Airport. We arrived a couple of days before total lockdown was announced but I remember travelling in the car and the roads being completely desolate; so different to the hustle and bustle of Salvador. It was also mid March so the clouds were low in the sky, the trees barren and the landscape shockingly flat (in comparison to the Andes!) Earlier that day I was surrounded by the lush, tropical, sunny, sweetness of Brazil so it felt like I was suffering from some form of mental whiplash.

My return to the UK wasn’t what I wanted it to be but I’ve come to accept it. My travels haven’t been something that I have spoken about with my friends or family since returning as everyone is justifiably wrapped up in discussing Coronavirus (myself included). It’s actually been incredibly cathartic to write about the final few weeks of the trip and remind myself about the fun times that I had!

I am super grateful for the 6 months that I spent away, especially now that travelling is off the cards for everyone for a while!

I’m going to follow this update with a reflective post on the trip as a whole in order to conclude my blog. Like I did in all of my previous posts, I have written a list of all of the interesting things that I noticed/appreciated whilst I was in Brazil. Here goes:

It’s true that literally everyone wears Havaianas in Brazil.

For some reason the builders van/bus/ vehicle of choice is the old vintage VW camper van in white. They’re everywhere in Brazil and I’m not sure why, the don’t even make them here in the UK anymore, maybe they still make them in Brazil

The most popular thing sold on the beach is grilled cheese on a stick.

Açai smoothies. Yum Yum Yum. I still dream about these. Before Brazil I wasn’t sure what açai berries were but it turns out that they are grown in Brazil, so açai smoothies are super cheap there. They’re sold on every street corner and everyone drinks them. They’re full of caffeine so you get pretty buzzed.

There are lots and lots of “kilo buffet” restaurants.

50% of the people you see around will be wearing a Brazil football shirt.

The rest of South America seemed to be all about sweet things and desserts (there were Panaderías everywhere!) Brazil is more about savoury snacks, salgados and pasteïs. I only saw one bakery while I was there and it was a boujee, hipstery one.

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Video of our journey through Ecuador 🇪🇨

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Travel update #5

Ecuador

A lot of events have transpired since I last posted a blog update! I signed off my last post at the border between Colombia and Ecuador. There is a lot to get through and so without further ado, welcome to the fourth country of our travels so far - Ecuador. 

Normally at a border crossing the scenery subtly merged from one country to the next but upon arriving into El Ángel National Park at the Ecuadorian border, we were transported into another world. I don’t know how to describe El Ángel National Park as even the photos that I took are pale in comparison to the experience of being there. We were travelling through the park on a dirt track and there were frailjones (a specific type of Latin American sunflower) as far as the eye could see in every direction. We were the only souls along the entirety of this track and the only sounds were those of our tyres on the dirt. It was surreal. It felt like we were the only people on this strange, desolate new planet. 

We passed through a few different towns before we reached the famous Ottavalo Market. The market is known throughout South America for being the best place to buy alpaca wool goods handcrafted by the indigenous people of Ottavalo. The market was vast, bursting with piles of rugs, jumpers, gloves, hats, toys (to name a few) being sold by charming Ottovaleños. We both bought a jumper each and I’ve pretty much been living in it ever since. 

Probably the nicest thing about Ecuador is the amount of indigenous people wearing traditional dress. In Ecuador, 25% of people define themselves as indigenous - 22% more than in Colombia. More often than not in Ecuador, entire villages will be wearing their own cultural variation of the traditional dress. It was interesting to see how this changed as we crossed the country. Women in the North tended to wear long blue dresses, handmade blue sandals, a white blouse with an ornately embroidered belt. Men wore a blue poncho or shirt and a fedora. Once we travelled South, the women of the highlands now wore extremely bright coloured felt shawls held together with a brooch. They wore knee length bright skirts -usually in a contrasting colour to their shawl, wellington boots and a fedora. The men of the highlands wore striped ponchos and wellingtons. This was the first time I had ever seen so many people dressed traditionally throughout the entirely of a country and it was inspiring to see a culture so rich. 

The capital of Ecuador is in the North, so we reached Quito fairly early into our journey. Out of all of the Latin American capitals we had visited, Quito felt the most European. It had a really relaxed yet quiet and private vibe. People ran in the parks and took their dogs out for walks in the evening. It was extremely civilised but it seemed to lack the intensity, drama and disinhibition of cities in its neighbouring countries. 

The roads after Quito were beautiful. We were cycling through Ecuador’s Volcanic corridor, which took us around Cotopaxi Volcano and ended with the vast and breathtaking Quilatoa Lake. 

The scenery was spectacular but the cycling was becoming extremely difficult. The small roads that we usually cycled on were now cobbled instead of paved or dirt. We had to bump along up hills of extreme gradients. It was rainy season in Ecuador so we frequently found ourselves cycling in dense fog or rain all day. The dampness made cycling uphill on cobbles extremely slippery and dangerous to do, especially on a bike that weighed the same amount as I did! I found myself having to get off the saddle and push my bike up steep hill after steep hill, most of which only 4x4’s were able to drive up.

Ecuadorians seemed to prefer to build roads straight up the mountain rather than having the road switch back a few times to gradually take you up. Because of this, our progress became infuriatingly slow - down from 80km per day in Colombia to 40-50km in good weather. 

Ecuador took us to new heights. Most days we were at an altitude of 3000-4000m. Although thankfully neither of us got altitude sickness, doing such intense physical activity so far above sea level left me incredibly out of puff to the point that I would struggle to catch my breath. 

The picture painted of cycling through Ecuador online and on social media contrasted immensely with the reality of doing so. Cycle-touring blogs and Instagram accounts that I’ve been following whilst on the trip are endlessly positive highlight reels of what it’s like cycling on the best days. Nobody tells you that you will be woken up in the middle of the night with searing pain in your legs from the build up of lactic acid. Nobody tells you that on the worst day of your period you will be biking 2000m of elevation instead of running yourself a hot bath and stuffing your face with chocolate. 

After a while in Ecuador, I started to expect every day to be another bad day, which kickstarted a dangerous spiral of negativity. I would look at Max cycling ahead of me in the distance, conquering each hill much more easily and happily than I could, and I would wonder why I was not able to do the same. I was asking myself why on earth I was putting my mind and body through this every day. It was the first time on the trip that I truly missed home.

Ecuador uses the dollar and is much more expensive than Colombia. Because of this to save money we did a lot more camping than we usually would. However because of the persistent rain we found ourselves needing to camp under shelter, once taking refuge on a volleyball pitch next to the side of the road, other times in hostel courtyards. Not splashing out on a bed in a hostel very often meant that we were tackling the Andes on very little sleep for as long as ten days in a row without a break. 

This has been a pretty negative account (sorry!). However it was not totally miserable in Ecuador. On dry days, we got to camp in some of the most amazing, wild spots that have been better than anywhere else on the trip thus far. We spent time camping next to waterfalls and at the base of volcanoes. Between villages while cycling on dirt roads we were very often the only the people around. We saw lots of llamas and alpacas for the first time on the trip! 

However no amount of cute, fluffy llamas could make up for the difficulty of the cycling and unfortunately my morale was low. The strain of undertaking such an intense physical challenge and spending every minute of the day together began to take a toll on mine and Max’s relationship. We were exhausted and bickering with each other at every opportunity. I was falling out of love with the cycling and in the end we decided that it would be good to take a break from biking and spend some time apart. 

Max and his family were heading to visit him in the Galapagos for ten days, and although I was invited along too I decided to fly to Brazil instead. We were 5 months into the trip and halfway through our time on the continent so it felt like a good moment to rest our bodies and treat ourselves a little bit. 

Our cycle route down the Western side of South America doesn’t take us through Brazil and it has always been a country that I have wanted to visit. I booked my flights to Rio de Janeiro and found out a couple of days later that I was going to be there while it’s Carnival! I really needed to blow off some steam and now had the perfect opportunity to do so - it felt like the stars were aligning! 

So about a week ago, we both left our bikes behind and flew to completely different places. We are going to return to our bikes refreshed, rested and ready to take on the Peruvian section of the Andes! Other cyclists that we have met on this trip rave about Peru being one of the most beautiful countries to cycle through, so I’m pretty excited. More importantly others have said that Peru is far less steep than Ecuador because they thankfully build long, winding hairpins up the mountain at a gradual gradient when possible. Obviously, there will still be hills to climb but after a good rest I’ll be able to take them on with fresh legs and a positive attitude.

I landed in Rio de Janeiro a few days ago and Carnival is every bit as exciting, intense, raucous and dynamic as you would imagine it to be - just times by one hundred. I’ve been at some of the street parties (that seemingly have no start or end) for a few days now. I will save writing about my time in Brazil for my next update. 

Below I’ve posted the full video of our time cycling through Colombia. I’m in the process of putting together the Ecuador video and will upload it in a few days.

Here is the link to track our progress (although we won’t be cycling for a while so you won’t see a lot of progression!) 

http://share.garmin.com/DMB7R

Similarly to my previous post about reaching the end of Colombia, I thought I would write a list of all the interesting things that I noticed while travelling through Ecuador. Again, it’s lifted from my journal so it informally written.

Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream! For a country so cold it’s crazy to see how into ice cream the locals are. On every street there is an ice cream shop. In the North they cover ice cream in cheese (crazy combination I know...) I was intrigued by this but in the end I was too grossed out to give it a try. 

The possibility of taking a hot shower is back- for the first time on the entire trip! Ecuadorians mostly have warm showers, which is nice. They don’t have central heating in their buildings so they use propane tanks to heat their water. Every morning a truck selling gas canisters trawls around every neighbourhood, blaring a song sung by children with shrill voices. It’s the same song in every town we have visited. 

Ecuador has a strangely large amount of Chinese restaurants called “Chifas.”

They’re mad about topiary gardens. In the North every town square had shrubs with peoples faces and animals cut into them. 

Ecuadorians are very quiet, reserved, friendly and humble people.

A very large amount of people drive old school classic VW Beetles. It’s definitely the most common type of classic car you will see in Ecuador. 

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Current stats

(End of Ecuador)

Total distance travelled by bike: 3596Kms

Total punctures: 8

Longest distance in one day: 147km

Highest altitude: 4020m

Longest downhill: 30Km

Dog incidents: Too many to count.

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Final pics of Colombia

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Video of our journey through Colombia 🇨🇴

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Travel Update #4

Medellín to Ecuador

After a total of one month pedalling and one month sight seeing, we have finished the Colombian chapter of our trip and are now in Ecuador!

When I think about the second half of our journey through Colombia after leaving Medellín, it feels far less eventful than the first half of the trip. After 3 months in total on the bike by this point, we were now comfortable negotiating our way through Colombia and managed to avoid any silly mishaps.

After a few days in Medellín the overwhelming amount of pollution trapped in the valley started getting to me so I felt relieved to pedal onwards into the hilly, peaceful coffee region of Salento. Salento is near the Cocora Valley - home to the world’s largest palm trees! The whole region is kind of other-worldly and feels like it’s been ripped straight out of a Dr. Seuss novel.

We ended up having a peaceful Christmas here before cycling on to the loudest, brightest and most vibrant city in Colombia (in my opinion): Cali.

Cali is known as the ‘salsa capital of the world.’ I had a blasé attitude about this beforehand but I quickly changed my mind after a few days in the city. Salsa is life in Cali. It blasts out of every bar and restaurant. From 7pm onwards the streets come alive - everyone is out, even small children who stay up until the early hours of the morning, playing in the park while their parents sit down with a beer. Absolutely everyone knows how to salsa and clubs are bursting with dancing couples. We took a salsa class to feel like we fitted in but after an hour we realised that we were not naturally gifted at salsa. We salsa’d (clumsily) in the bars anyway and made up for our obvious lack of skill with passion.

We also happened to arrive when the ‘Feria de Cali’ was taking place - a 5 day festival from Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve where day after day, residents party and dance salsa on the streets to incredible live brass bands. It’s safe to say that Cali was a pretty entertaining place to spend New Year’s Eve.

Recently we have started using an app called ‘Warm Showers.’ It’s similar to couch surfing except that it’s only used by cycle-tourers looking to be hosted in the homes other bike enthusiasts. We arranged to stay with a lady called Laura in her house in Popayán - 140km south of Cali. In text messages beforehand she let us know that we would be ‘camping on her balcony’ as she didn’t have a spare room. Having done plenty of camping on the trip so far, we were happy with this offer and glad to have a night of free accommodation in the city. However, once we got there we discovered that her ‘balcony’ was her concrete attic space that’s main function was as a toilet for her two dogs. Being English and too polite to tell her that the space was unsuitable for human habitation, we set up our tent and tried to ignore the overpowering smell of years worth of dog urine. Almost a month later, the ground sheet of our tent still smells of the terrible aromas of that fateful night.

The one upside of staying with Laura was that she let us store our bikes in her house for a few days while we visited Max’s friends Dad, Fernando in San Agustin. The bad track and warnings of potential guerrilla activity in the region put us off cycling there so we took a bus. The track was so bad that it took 6 hours for the bus to travel 150km!

Staying with Fernando in the impressive wooden house that he built himself was incredibly peaceful and a good opportunity to rest and recuperate. We went on walks and ate fresh fruit and vegetables from his garden.

The road onwards from Popayán towards the border was where the real hard work started. We were now entering the Andes and cycled up to high altitudes proved to be quite difficult. Just as we would climb to 3000m altitude, the road would drop off and we would descend all the way back down to around 1000m. I understand that’s how mountains work but after half an hour of fun whizzing downhill it became demoralising to have to then climb all the way back up. The views of the valley below were spectacular which made all uphill climbing worthwhile. We took an alternate, quieter route through the mountains which had very little traffic, enabling us to stop and admire the green Colombian section of the Andes. Climbing a few thousand metres of elevation day upon day was exhausting but I could feel my body getting stronger. At the start of our trip in Costa Rica we would only travel 50km per day on a relatively flat road. Now we were managing 80-90km through mountain ranges, carrying more food and luggage than before. I was even starting to get used to getting out of bed when our alarm goes off at 5am.

When we reached the border I felt really proud. Crossing Colombia by bike had been the most challenging thing that I had ever done, both physically and mentally. Despite the weather, feeling tired or unwell we got up each day and got back on the bike.

After two months in Colombia, I was excited to see what Ecuador had to offer. During our last few weeks cycling we have seen lots of groups of Venezuelans on the walking with all of their belongings towards Ecuador to try and find work. It was the first time that I have encountered people in such a state of desperation and made me realise how lucky I am to have a home to go back to. Despite their situation, most had a positive outlook and asked us about our trip and where we were heading, before wishing us “buen viaje” - a pleasant journey on the road ahead.

Ecuador so far has been a whirlwind and we are now in Quito - the second highest capital city in the world! I will write about our journey through Ecuador all in one go in the next update.

Now that the Colombian chapter of our trip is over, I thought I would write a list of all the interesting things that I noticed about the country and its people during our two month journey. Its lifted straight from my journal so please excuse how colloquial it is. Here you go:

Mullets seem to be the most popular hairstyle for young men.

Colombia has an amazing variety of fruit I’ve never heard of before- Lulo, Guanabana, Maracuya (to name a few!)

A large amount of adults have braces. So many that it’s noticeable. Is dental care cheap?

Motorola smartphones are popular in Colombia. I didn’t know Motorola even made smartphones...

Lots of women work in construction. I say lots but I mean compared to the amount of women working in construction in the UK

The best fresh juices and free limonada with every meal! Limonada is a drink made of water and panela (refined sugar cane.) Colombians knock this back 24/7. I’m going to miss it.

Colombians have an overwhelming amount of passion for cycling. It’s admirable.

Little Colombian girls all have incredibly elaborate hairstyles consisting of braids, cornrows, coloured hairbands, glitter and the occasional bow.

Sweet things (dulces) are king in Colombia. There is a Panadería (bakery) roughly every couple of hundred metres. My favourite Colombian pastries are Chicharrons (puff pastry with guava jelly) or Pan de Bananos with apricot jam.

As usual, here is the link to track our progress http://share.garmin.com/DMB7R

Remember to hit “view all” and zoom out to see the whole journey. You will find us in Ecuador!

[twopedalpushers]

Current stats

Total distance travelled by bike: 2 120 Km

Total punctures: 5

Longest distance in one day: 147Km

Longest day spent on bike: 16 hours

Highest altitude: 2 800m

Longest downhill: 30Km

Dog incidents: too many to count

[twopedalpushers]

A few more pics of our journey into Medellín & Salento

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Travel update #3

Cartagena to Medellín

We have made it to Medellín! When I first got off the boat and took my first (wobbly) steps on Colombian soil I had no idea how incredibly vibrant, beautiful and challenging the road ahead would be... after 36 hours of non-stop travelling at sea, Cartagena was an overload to our senses.

Cartagena is an old Spanish colonial city full of cobbled streets, balconies decorated with huge bougainvilleas, graffiti, brightly coloured buildings and lots and lots of street performers (with varying degrees of talent). After the soulless, American style cities in Panama, Cartagena felt like a breath of fresh air. We ended up spending a week in Cartagena, exploring the city and getting some of the components swapped on our bikes to make the road ahead easier.

After the longest break from the saddle so far, we finally continued our journey. We cycled a few hundred kilometres from Cartagena to a town called Coveñas where Max convinced me to get my PADI scuba diving license. I had only done snorkeling before so the sensation of breathing underwater was peculiar. Diving in the Caribbean Sea was blissful, there was no need for a wetsuit as the ocean temperature averaged 30°C. The corals were still vibrant and full of tropical fish despite rising sea temperatures. We went out to some islands off the coast of Colombia to dive and got to visit the most populated island on Earth - Santa Cruz del Islote. Unfortunately the majority of the island is in poverty and the foundations are literally built from rubbish.

After I got my diving license we decided to cycle everyday in order to get to Medellín - the half way point in our journey through Colombia. Cycling in Colombia is divine. There is music everywhere, blasting out from little tiendas (shops) on the side of the road or from peoples houses. One sound system merges into another while we cycle along; in Colombia it’s a constant party. Out of Coveñas, roads around the coast were fairly flat enabling us to do 100km a day. We were fuelled by incredible Tinto’s (espresso’s) from little old ladies at fruit stands along the road - it’s the best coffee you will ever have for only 10p!

Anything goes in Colombia. On the road, you frequently see 4 or more people travelling on one motorbike and people transporting long metal wire by dragging it along the floor off the back of their bikes. On one occasion we saw a guy transporting a dead pig on the back of his motorbike.

It’s fun travelling through a country where cycling is a national sport. On the weekends the roads are full of other cyclists and some sections of roads are closed and turned into huge cycle lanes. We spent a morning cycling with around 30 other cyclists, all cheering each other on.

This section of the journey saw us stray off paved roads more than usual. We took a road between Moñitos and Arboletes that we thought would be a shortcut. The road happened to be a dirt track, which we happily bumped along until it started to torrentially rain. We quickly found shelter and watched the once dirt road turn into sloshy mud. Of course when we set back off on our bikes once the rain had stopped, cycling was impossible - our wheels got clogged with thick mud until they would no longer turn. Some locals helped us carry our muddy bikes to the side of the road and we sat outside a tienda and weighed up our options. The shop-owner told us that there was a bus that went down this road that could take us to Montería, leaving in an hour. As we were stuck and losing daylight quickly we decided to wait for the bus and get back to a paved road before it started raining again. After an hour, the bus splashed down the road. The bus driver took one look at us (covered in mud) and our bikes (covered in mud) and refused to let us on. It was now late in the day and we were quite literally stuck in the middle of nowhere.

There were private farmyards on either side of the road for the entire stretch, making wild camping risky. We asked a few locals if we could camp in their garden and eventually a little old lady agreed and we spent the night in a tent next to her pig sty. In the morning she brought us coffee and wished us well on our travels as we set off on the now dry road. The moment that the dirt road turned back into tarmac was as joyous as a border crossing.

Writing this down, it sounds like a crazy ordeal but in hindsight I find it funny. The moment the bus drove past, both of us completely covered in mud will be forever ingrained in my memory.

Peoples lives outside of cities in Colombia are tough. The old lady who’s garden we stayed in had very very little, which seems the case for the majority of rural Colombia. Most people live in self built wooden huts with a dirt floor, no electricity and no plumbing. They share their space with farmyard animals that they keep for food. At first I found this pretty shocking because this was not the image I had in my head when I thought about Colombia before the trip. You would never see this side of Colombia travelling by bus from city to city. I feel really grateful for the real version of each country that I am experiencing by travelling by bike.

After our mishaps in the mud cycling to Arboletes, we had a day off to clean our bikes before hitting the road again - this time travelling every day in order to get to Medellín. We left the coast and pedalled into the mountains for the first time on this trip. Being off grid in the mountains with epic views, waterfalls and rivers felt really special. It wasn’t until the final ascent into Medellín that we started to realise just how challenging the cycling had become.

Medellín lies inside a crater, so for 3 days you climb around 2600m day after day before losing all of your ascent 75km away from Medellín. The final day entails climbing from 0 back up to 2800m and descending for 18 Km into Medellín.

On the final day, a road had been washed out by a river, which meant that we had to take a detour along a dirt track with a ridiculous level of gradient that was impossible to cycle. Max could push his bike up the mountain, but my bike was too heavy for me, so I had to take my luggage off my bike, push my bike up the mountain and then go back down and carry the luggage up. It took 2 hours to travel 2km of the 75km overall journey! The road after this was much easier at a lower gradient, enabling us to cycle.

However by 4pm we were wondering when the mountain would drop off - we had counted on the downhill in order for us to get to Medellín in one day rather than two. By 5pm and 6pm we were still crawling up hill, losing morale and starting to feel that we wouldn’t get there in one day. It didn’t help that every 800m or so there would be a bunch of dogs that would bark and try and chase us, meaning that we would have to get off our bikes and scare them away before walking past them.

We were now cycling in the dark, out of energy and still waiting for the downhill to appear when we stumbled upon a little village called Boqueron where we got hot chocolates and put on warm clothes (it’s cold at 2800m!) Finally as we turned the corner out of Boqueron the hill dropped off and there was the downhill! We whizzed down, in complete darkness and got epic views of the cityscape from above which was beautifully lit up at night.

We spent the next two hours going downhill into the city - that’s how high up we were! At points it was too steep to go downhill and we had to walk down. By 9:30pm (16 hours on the saddle!) we finally made it to our hostel where we would chill out for the next week.

The challenging cycle into Medellín made us appreciate our time in the city much more.

Medellín is an interesting city with a dark recent past - only 20 years ago it was the murder capital of the world and now it is much safer than a lot of cities in the United States. The city has a friendly vibe with lots of street art and performers. Everyone seems keen to put the past behind them and move on to happier times.

We are leaving Medellín now and travelling to Salento, where we will be spending Christmas.

As usual, here is the link to track our progress http://share.garmin.com/DMB7R

Remember to hit “view all” and zoom out to see the whole journey. We are halfway through Colombia now!

I plan on making the Colombia video in two parts, so I will post it to here shortly - when I have finished editing it.

[twopedalpushers]

Video of our journey through Panama

[twopedalpushers]

Current Stats

Total distance travelled by bike: 810Km

Total punctures: 4

Total unprovoked dog incidents: 9

Top speed to date: 61 Km/hr

[twopedalpushers]

A few more San Blas pics

[twopedalpushers]

Travel update #2

Panama & San Blas

It seems like a lot has happened since I last sat down to write an update on our journey. The section of our cycle through Central America is now over, having arrived into Colombia a couple of days ago.

It’s safe to say that our experience cycling through Panama was a little different to crossing exotic Costa Rica. As soon as we passed the border, our familiar single laned section of the Pan-American Highway opened up into a dual carriageway populated by huge 4x4s, pick-up trucks and buses. Welcoming you at the border was a McDonald’s; the first that we had seen on this trip. This set the tone for the whole of our journey through Panama.

The best thing about cycling on the Pan- Am through Panama were the people that we met along the road attempting far more radical journeys than our own. We met another bike packer who had came all the way from Alaska who was planning on pedalling down to Argentina. We met people crossing the Americas by motorbike and camper van. We met Casper, an inspirational athlete in the process of running from Vancouver, Canada to the Southern tip of Argentina. He ran 60KM every day for 10 consecutive days before having a rest day. That’s 1 and a half marathons per day, day after day. He made our cycle seem like a walk in the park!

Another great thing that came out of travelling through Panama was the camping. We had avoided camping in Costa Rica because of the daily torrential thunderstorms. Thankfully there were plenty of hostels along the road to stay in. However in car centric Panama there were very few hostels along the route, forcing us to find sheltered camping spots as it was wet season in Panama also. Panamanians are incredibly friendly (even friendlier than Costa Ricans) and showed us the best places to camp in their villages and towns. We stayed in some pretty unusual spots, camping one night on a village theatre stage to avoid the wet weather.

November in Panama is full of National holidays- Independence day from Colombia, Spain and the US. We were lucky enough to be in a little beach town in time for one of their 3 day fiestas, where everyone gets pretty wild dancing to marching bands, drinking and eating street food. We had no idea what was in store until we tried to buy alcohol the day beforehand and were told that the government prohibited the sale of alcohol until Independence Day in order to try and keep a lid on the celebrations. Everyone more than managed to make up for this during the fiesta.

In between Panamas Americanised cities there were some pretty picturesque stretches of the highway high up in the mountains. Distances cycled varied, doing a minimum of 50KM per day and maximum of 76KM. I’ve decided to keep a log of distances cycled, amount of punctures and other fun stats at the bottom of these emails. We tend to burn upwards of 2600 calories per day when cycling. I have a suspicion that it may be more than this as I don’t think our bike computer takes into account the amount of luggage we have strapped to our bikes...

Cycling intensely everyday made us realise that we need to modify our bikes slightly in order to make it easier to get up the hills with so much luggage. For anyone that’s nerdy about bikes, our current crankset is 50-39-30T with a 9 speed cassette, 11-34T. We are swapping this out for a smaller mountain bike 44-32-22T crankset when we get to Colombia to prepare us for the Andes.

Our frequent run ins with street dogs that chase us on our bikes inspired us to carry “dog beating sticks” that we made by cutting up an old mop and strapped to our bikes with cable ties. Writing this it sounds pretty funny and extreme, but every few days on our bikes we get chased by dogs that are definitely out for blood. We have tried other tactics such as growling, shouting and picking up rocks but none seem to work as well as waving a big stick at them. So far we haven’t had to properly hurt any of them. To be on the safe side we have purchased a machete...If anyone has any successful methods of deterring dogs let me know!

As we pedalled closer to Panama City the traffic got heavier and heavier until we reached the Bridge of the America’s, over the Panama Canal. For anyone that doesn’t know, the Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and basically acts as a shortcut for ships. We were super excited about crossing the Bridge of The America’s as it marked the end of our cycling journey in Central America- the end of the road! However you’re only allowed to cross the bridge by motor vehicle and we had read that the police pick you up on the bridge and escort you across if you attempt to cycle.

We wanted to at least give crossing it a go, so pedalled fast (avoiding pot holes) up the incline of the bridge. I looked to my right and saw the canal and the city beneath and got a huge surge of adrenaline. Then I heard sirens. As I pedalled faster to try and get across, the sirens passed me and I realised that it was an ambulance rather than the police!We made it to the other side of the bridge, got off our bikes and celebrated. Few people manage to cross the bridge by bike and we were happy that we were a couple of the lucky ones. Once we had stopped a car behind us honked a few times and we realised that the car had been purposely going slow behind us to shield us from the traffic so that we could cross. It was such a simple heartwarming act of kindness, it filled me with joy.

Panama City was the end of cycling for a while, as we prepared for our sailing voyage to Colombia. We decided to get a boat to avoid the logistical issues of having to put our bikes on another flight. We also wanted to visit the San Blas Islands, a collection of tiny untouched paradise islands in the Caribbean Sea between Panama and Colombia. So on the 13th, we boarded the Alessandra and set sail!

Sailing around the San Blas islands has been hands down the best thing I have ever done. Rudi, our Captain took us to the islands, where we could snorkel around the amazing coral reefs, visit the islands or just chill out on the boat if we wanted to. We got to see an amazing variety of marine life, including manta-rays and pods of dolphins that played with and chased our boat. There was an occasion when we were in the sea and completely wild dolphins swam around us. We caught fresh fish on the boat and ate barracuda, tuna, red snapper and lobster for dinner. Everyone on the boat was young and super friendly and we spent our evenings hanging out on the boat and making bonfires on the islands with the help of the indigenous Kuna people. It was really easy to get used to that kind of lifestyle! After 3 days visiting the islands, we spent a day and a half continuing to sail across to Cartagena, Colombia.

I have uploaded more photos of San Blas to my next post

We will be exploring Cartagena for a week or so before modifying our bikes and hitting the road again to Medellín.

As before, here is the link to track our progress

share.garmin.com/DMB7R

Remember to hit “view all” and zoom out to see the whole journey. We forgot to bring the Garmin above deck when we were sailing (it needs to be above ground to register your location) so unfortunately our blue line disappears in Panama City and reappears in Cartagena 🤦🏽‍♀️