The roads were dry and empty but the fresh sea wind kept us cool. That is, until we headed inland and up a very steep hill. After some pushing we ended up at another military checkpoint on top of a mesa, before the road dropped quickly into the dusty town of El Rosario.

We bought some yoghurt and even though we had only cycled 50km, we decided to stay the afternoon and work in the Internet cafe. The previous owner was the current pharmacist and he send us to a place on the far side of town to pitch our tent: Baja’s Best.

It is a nice restaurant and B&B, run by ‘Eduardo’, American Edward Lusk, recognizable by the large ‘Starbucks’ sign on the side of the yellow building. Not sure if the coffee is from SB, but according to Ivana (who, unlike me, likes the beanjuice) the freshly made stuff was great.

When we go in for the evening, 3 drunk Mexicans are singing loudly. The youngest one starts messing with the friendly rottweiler Bruno, to the point that Bruno is about to attack. His two friends try to persuade him to stop, even lock him in his car, but somehow he manages to escape and stumble back in again. They are living proof that it is not wise to drive or ride after sunset on the Highway 1…

We camped on a nice patch of grass, a luxury in Baja and when we packed the next morning, Ed’s friend and neighbour Duffy came by. He was intrigued by our trip and bought us a breakfast in the restaurant.

We had been warned about the next section of the road, dangerous for all vehicles and cyclists in particular. Not only was it about 500m up, but the road was narrow, curvy and for some weird reason some curves were grading outwards creating danger for trucks.

As we would spend the next day pushing up most hills we decided to take a ride and got one a minute later, with Angel, a nice guy from La Paz. He mentioned that there had been some car-jacking on this section and that not everybody might stop for hitchhikers.

We quickly passed steep hills and very narrow corners and felt the centrifugal forces resulting from the road-designers’ engineering mistakes from the back of the pick-up.

After about 60km we got out and started cycling and immediately regretted not having stayed on another minute as the road climbed up steeply out of a small valley. But even worse, once we got to the top, we almost got blown off the road.

A gale-force wind was coming from the East and as we were headed SouthEast, it was almost impossible to cycle. The dry dusty storm pushed us all over the place and every truck passing created dangerous vacuums. It took us over an hour on relatively flat ground to cover 10km and we were happy to get some shade and a soda in a small ‘llantera’ one of the many car workshops (‘Body & Pain_’ as I saw once in San Diego ) along the road.

We headed up as well now and the speed dropped even lower and we quickly ran out of water as we were basically fighting a life-size blowdryer at full force. In a small restaurant we bought a gallon of water. We had to buy our first plastic container on the trip as there was simply no water to filter around, we were in the middle of the desert.

Another hour later we stopped at a place that was called ‘Sonora’ on the map, which turned out to be exactly one house on the side of the road. We decided to call it a day as we had only done 30km in over 3 hours and were completely exhausted. Santiago, the owner of the ranch and his son Alonso, let us camp outside and we watched the milky way, while the wind stopped exactly at sunset…

The next morning we left early to avoid the wind, but it had gotten up early with us. Still it was not as bad and we made it to Catavina relatively quickly. Catavina, the touristy little town in the middle of the desert of the same name was a depressing place.

At 10 o’ clock in the morning we entered the local abarrotes, the name for the small minimarkets that were to be found in every dusty place in Mexico, selling basic un-necessities and some useful items like water.

I saw a large electric waterfilter (‘Reverse OSmosis + UV!’) as asked the woman if we could refill our bottles.

She said the filter was working and the water was safe, but when I checked the back of the machine the electrical cord and plug were tied in a not, covered with years of dust and spiderwebs, so unfortunately we had to purchase another plastic container…

The other clients all bought either beer, or coke and liquor, while the sun was still rising. We bought some refried beans burritos and some quesadillas and watched a half-drunk family get back in their battered old van, 6 people on 3 seats, the rest was on a mattress in the back, sipping litre-bottles of beer.

It was getting hot, so we headed back up the hills. Sometimes the wind was pushing in the back, then either it or we turned a bit and got mummified from the front. Ivana’s thermometer said it was 45 degrees Celsius (113F) and even though I drank more than one litre per hour, I could not pee a drop in a course of 2 days, the water just evaporated from our bodies.

Still it was a great place, giant cacti between graffiti-covered boulders lined the quiet road and we felt in a different world. The odd cirius trees were growing everywhere as well, simply a single almost-straight trunk, sometimes ending up divided near the top, but generally without any branches.

We had already climbed a lot during the day and as some places on the map were were out of business or simply did not exists, we had not rested during the hottest period. After another steep uphill where I had to again help overheated Ivana push her bike up, we were passed by a pick-up who offered us to take us to the next place. It was only 16km and most of it would be down-hill as we were on the highest point, but Ivana wanted to get out of the sun. The cold beer the guys gave us eased a bit of the pain of 10 minutes of driving down a nice steep slope.

We entered the small ‘Loncheria’ (where you can buy, yes you guessed it, ‘Lonch’) and had a short conversation with the sturdy woman behind the counter.

‘Buenos tardes (Good afternoon)!’ we greeted.

‘?Que queria?’ (What did you want?), was the reply.

We tried again with a greeting but got the same reply. We bought some water and asked if we could pitch our tent somewhere around the place.

‘There is a hotel somewhere.’, she pointed out towards the desert.

‘Where and how far?’ we asked out of politeness, adding that we were on bicycles.

‘There!’ she pointed again into the dust.

After this depressing person and similar place added enough tension between us to cause a short fight about taking rides, we decided to make some extra miles to make up for it and to enjoy the cooler afternoon air.

We had seen a small place called ‘El Crucero’ on the map, 29 km away. Even though it was late, we had some great down hills and the wind was suddenly pushing, so we made it just before dark. The only downside was that there was no place to be found anywhere.

As we had to get off the road before dark, we followed a sideroad until we were out of sight and pushed our bikes into the desert. We were warned about the many spikes and cacti that had punctured so many a biketraveller’s tire and camping gear, so we carefully tried to remove the spikes from our path.

Stupid gringo as I am I tried to kick away a small fallen part of a cactus, but it punched right into my hard sole and managed to warp around, into my foot at the same time. I had to ask Ivana to pull it out, which took a lot more effort than getting it in…

We did not need to put the tent-fly, so if we hadn’t been so tired from this hot and hilly day (103km, excluding the 16km ride!) we could have watched the gazillion stars from our matresses…

We woke up to another hot day. We were sweating at 7 in the morning trying to get our bikes out the minefield of spiky things. Somehow I like the desert, but when all animals, plants and animate objects are apparently only put there to make life harder or even end it prematurely (in the case of some plants and many insects, snakes and spiders), it was good to be on the hot dark road again…

We learned from our mistake and stopped before 11 o’ clock, lounging and lunching on some car seats on the patio of a small Loncheria until it was a bit bearable again. We had gotten a book from our host Gary, back in Oregon, and due to lack of power and Internet (though my solar panel was charging the batteries) I finally had time to start this great travelogue: Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend

We spent 4.5 hours in Punta Prieta, waiting for the sun to ease its angle on the Mexican part of the earth’s surface, while fat girls cared for babies with American toys. I managed to make the world a slightly better place by killing about 10 flies in the meantime. Guess that Buddhism, the last religion that had any hopes for me, also has given up by now…

It was still 40km to go to our next destination, Nuevo Rosarito and we rushed through the hills, over smaller and then bigger rollercoasters.

I waited for Ivana besides the road on one of the rare flat parts where you could see half a mile. Ivana was almost next to me, when an oversized SUV with Californian license plates, loaded with beach-stuff and two fat guys approached her with about 70 mile per hour (112km/h), swerving wildly to the left just before hitting her, then wildly back just in front.

All this on a clear road with no other traffic, perfect sight and a maximum speed of 30mph (60km/h). While passing they gestured maniacally with their hands indicating that we were crazy, to which I kindly attended them to the longest of my fingers.

Almost all large Mexican trucks always give plenty of space and wait when it is even a little bit unsafe to pass and then waive or honk friendly when they do, but somehow it is always the typical obese beach-yankee in their useless oversized SUV’s that think that they own the country, that are the biggest danger on the road…

I was still pissed off when we zoomed down towards Nuevo Rosarito and stopped at the first restaurant we saw.

To celebrate the survival of our first real dessert we ordered some fried fish and camped our tent in the nice backyard, where we even discovered a hot shower!

But the night turned out less pleasant than expected. Not only were big trucks stopping all night long, their stinking diesel engines running stationary for hours before pulling out of the restaurant, but we both woke up feeling sick. I went into the bathroom and threw up my dinner, while Ivana passed it through the natural way, but at an unnatural speed and viscosity.

22 April 2009: with empty stomachs from Rosarito towards the 28th Parallel, 76km

We felt weak but luckily the road flattened out after some minor climbs and even the road surface that for 10km had resembled something out of a horror movie rather than asphalt returned to Mexican normal.

It was still hot and though close to the sea, the vegetation was mostly limited to thorny things and surprising amounts of a close cousin of the Joshua Tree, but I also discovered some tiny brave berries on the desert floor.

Halfway was a place called Villa Jesus Maria, not much more than a truckstop, where a nice family cut up a delicious fresh fruit mix on the spot. Ivana’s stomach was till upset and she due to her cramps she stuck with safer foods.

The next 40 km were almost straight and as the wind changed from coming from the side to slightly from behind, we raced along the empty desert, passing many ‘vado’ signs.

It is hard to believe that these dips in the road have ever seen water, as we had not seen a drop of fresh water since leaving San Diego…

From miles away I could see a shape in the sky, that turned out to be a giant flag, rivalling the one in Ensenada for size, beating it in location: in the middle of nowhere.

The position was not as random as it might have appeared as we were approaching the 28th parallel. Not only a nice circle around the planet, but also the border between two Mexican states: Baja California Norte & Baja California Sur, the latter even being in a different time zone.

It was time to get my Internet fix and as Ivana was still feeling sick we checked in the first motel we saw with ‘Internet’ on the side.

We got half price and awarded ourselves with an easy rest day before turning our clocks one hour ahead to Southern Baja Time. We survived the Northern part of Baja California. Not unscathed though and it is interesting to see what the even larger Southern part will bring…

Ivana’s knee was still hurting a bit, but we enjoyed the little house that Gerardo has opened up for cyclists passing South. We visited his friends Delia & Jose Antonio often and enjoyed just walking around the neighbourhood.

15th April, Ensenada – Santo Thomas, 35 km

It was time to hit the road again and we made our way across busy streets. We noticed a lot of ‘Yonke’ signs and realized that it one more Mexicanisation of an English word, ‘junk’!

After I took a photo of the Romero Yonke, for my friend Romke Jonker , I turned to take a photo of Ivana approaching and almost shot her being run over by a truck that passed way too close for comfort.

It was going slow, but we were warned…

On top of a hill we saw our first of several military checkpoints. They check for weapons going South from the USA to Mexico and beyond and drugs going the opposite way, but never once did we have to stop, nor were our passports or bags checked.

We did more climbing than expected and as Ivana started feeling some pain, we decided to call it a day in a small town of Santa Thomas. The local campsite wanted more cash than the hiker-biker sites in the USA, so we continued down the road to ask for a suitable place to pitch a tent.

We found a small local hospital where a nice doctor was teaching the local and rural population about birth control, AIDS, nutrition and more.

She did not only share a nice ‘sopa de mariscos’ (seafood soup), but offered us the office to put our mattresses, so we did not even have to pitch a tent.

16th April, Santo Thomas – Colonet, 76km

We got our first taste of Baja climbing today, slowly climbing over a 450m high slope. The road was not too busy, but once we hit the steepest part, the road curved and we realized that although we could hear them coming from a kilometre away, the big trucks could not see us, so mostly we waited on the side of the road to let them pass.

We had seen many signs depicting ‘campsite’ along the way, but they never had any direction, explanation, name or distance attached to them, so we never actually saw one.

The town of Colonet seemed to be nothing more than just a few dusty convenience stores along the highway, but when we went in one of the side roads we found a nice central Plaza, where we could ask the Police for a place to camp.

We entered to see about 5 guys lounging lazily in comfortable chairs, watching some soap opera on TV. One managed to get up and showed us a place in the backyard, where we could sleep. When we headed to a nearby mini-market to buy our totopos (nacho chips!) and salsa and to refill our water bottles (cheaper and more ecological than buying bottles), we got a lot of positive comments from kids and elders.

One family that apparently already had seen us on the road got so excited that they invited us to their house for dinner. As they could not explain much more than ‘up and behind that steep hill’, we decided to put our bikes in their van and -after letting the police know that we wouldn’t be staying- off we went.

Gerardo and his family lived outside of town in a small place, erected by a church group. Around it a few dogs were keeping the cows away from the food for the pigs and the chickens. They also had a campervan, which was normally reserved for his 3 girls to study, but now they insisted that we use the bed inside after we shared our totopos and some quesedillas, sharing mutual stories, 7 people around the light of 2 candles…

17th April 2009: Colonet – past san Quintin

Gerardo, his wife and 2 daughters left at 6 in the morning to catch the bus that would take them to work on the fields, paying about $10 per person per day. We spent some time with the 3rd daughter, Areli and then headed out on the bumpy road, back to Highway 1.

Mexico Highway 1 is just a two lane-road, exactly 2 trucks wide, divided in half by a mostly uninterrupted non-passing line. As with all traffic signals (stop signs, speed limits and even distances to the next town), this is merely a polite suggestion, and rarely appreciated.,There is no room for a bicycle if two vehicles are passing each other, so we had to be watchful all the time and our little rear-view mirrors were lifesavers.

Fortunately a large part of todays trip, a small part beside the road was paved, creating a narrow shoulder as wide as 1-2 feet, just enough to make cycling a bit more relaxed.

We passed some busy parts, the area called San Quintin was full of large and small trucks, but right after, traffic was much rarer and the wind was finally in our back for a while. We noticed some regular patterns around the road: trash every meter, ripped car tires every 10 meters and a memorial sign looking like a grave amidst car debris every kilometre or so…

This area was home to many tomato & strawberry growers and we ended up camping at a rest area between big farms, while big trucks were roaming around non-stop.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of Baja California Norte!

4th October: Cache Creek – Lytton, 78km

Cache Creek is a bit of a weird city, or maybe it was just that we were there in rainstorms, while it is one of the driest parts in the country.. Anyway, the sun welcomed us again when we left the row of fastfood chains behind us and the dry landscape showed itself.

It was a fun day of cycling, as we were treated with some verrry nice downhills.

I have felt that one of the things that makes me most happy is cycling downhill fast: the wind in my face, the mix of speed, fear and excitement and the resulting cocktail of endorphins and adrenaline. Many physical and mental bystanders think that this borders to suicidal behaviour, but they have no idea about how much you can enjoy and celebrate life even in just a split second; it makes you want to scream and sometimes you just do

Halfway down I noticed some fruit stalls alongside the road and stopped at the biggest one and got some apples. After Mike, the owner showed us around and told us he had too much fruit and not enough pickers, we were tempted to stay a while and make some extra money. But with my back it would not be a good idea and we were still being chased by winter, so we headed back on the road instead, loaded with a bag of fruit and veggies that Mike had let us pick..

The rain suddenly came back in full-force showers and we stayed a while in a nice small lodge and bakery in Spences Bridge. We saw more of the huge freight trains passing and twice I counted over 210 wagons per train…

We planned to get to Lytton, where the Thompson River merges with the might Fraser river, but the small uphills and upcoming winds made us stop a few miles before. We ended up pitching our tent behind the house of an old and very deaf lady and were happy that we had not chosen some of the deserted campsites, as we were now completely sheltered from the wind, which started blowing with hurricane force, howling through the canyon…

5th October: Lytton – Spuzzum, 77km: wind & tunnels…

Unfortunately the next day the wind had not dropped much in force and we fought our way into it in our lightest gears. It was getting ridiculous when I was going downhill at 8km/h (5mph), having to push hard. Ivanas face was showing her frustration and tiredness, she is much lighter than me and almost got blown off the road by the winds.

After getting into the true Fraser Canyon, the winds slowed down a bit, but our idea that cycling in a canyon would mean no hills was definitely wrong. We were already quite close to sealavel, while about 250km away from Vancouver. Jackass mountain, named after the mules and donkeys hauling supplies up the Canyon in the days of the gold rushes, was a nasty climb and the resulting downhill was windy. The skies cleared a bit though and when we stopped in Boston Bar to buy some supplies, it actually got sunny and the wind dropped.

Next in our Adventure obstacle course were some unexpected dangers: tunnels! We had been warned about them but in reality only the first one was very scary. As a cyclist you are supposed to push a button, which will light some warning lights above both entrances of the tunnel, alerting drivers of our presence. That was very nice, but none of the drivers slowed down, and passed us with sometimes just centimeters to spare, while the huge roars of the diesel engines of the trucks and oversized RV’s reflected against the concrete tunnel walls, creating a deafening mix of noises. Ivana panicked as she is lighter and cannot cycle as fast, but we made it through…

There were more tunnels to follow, but at least the others had small elevated sidewalks, where we could cycle or just walk our bikes, which was definitely much safer.

Our map showed a small dot called ‘Spuzzum’ and when we got there it turned out to be only one parallel street with some houses. Some were messy, others well taken care of. We were looking for people when we noticed a large trailer, parked on a  nice green lawn next to a vegetable garden. Tips for Biketravellers: somebody who messes up his own house and garden might mess up your night as well, but somebody who spends energy in creating a vegetable garden usually is a friendly person and therefore a great host

This street wisdom definitely was true as when we rode our bikes onto the grass an elderly, but young and very friendly looking man came out, surprised to see any visitors. “Hi I am JP!”

It was no problem for us to pitch our tent on his lawn, he even started raking the dead leaves, while apologising for the ‘mess’ on the grass!’

‘You are the first cyclists I have ever seen! Wait, are you sleeping in that tent? You need a light!’ And with those words, he went into his trailer, then into his toolshed (‘The Shop’) and came out with a bedside table lamp and an extension cord. So that night we had the luxury of reading without head lamps and could even recharge the laptop.. Ivana tried to wake me up in the middle of the night as she heard some noises outside, but was not successful.

JP & his girlfriend Christy took us for a tour of the town the next morning. We passed a very nice piece of land, which belonged to his town-mate and friend Pete. We found Pete and his son watching over the Fraser River and they showed us around on their great land, filled with fruit trees. While we were eating some of the best tasting apples Pete had given us, we noticed a few piles of apple pieces on the ground. ‘Yeah, those damn bears. They eat all apples and shit them out right away!’.

Back at JP’s place we noticed the same piles of bear-scat and Ivana suddenly remembered that she had heard all those noises, right next to our tents. JP already had let us use the shower in his small campervan, the style you place on the back of a pick-up. when he saw Ivanas fear and the rain that had just started pouring down again, he told us that we could sleep inside his campervan if we wanted? (see JP & Christie here on 1000 Americans)

7 October: Spuzzum – Agassiz

It was great to be warm and cosy, while the rain and wind were pounding on our roof, but the next day we had to continue, the big city was waiting! The weather was terrible again, lots of wind and rain and some smaller tunnels and hills to top it off, so we did not see much of the fabled vistas in the Southern Fraser Valley. When it cleared up a bit, we did notice that the snowlevel was actually not so far above us, which made us pedal just a bit faster… We were now heading straight west for the first time since, well, since ever The winds playfully changed directions as well and tried to keep us from getting anywhere, but we made it to a small city called Agassiz. One of the best things of Agassiz is that they have a Dutch store! Yeah, we bough a small bag of Dropjes! Another bonus is the library, where we could not only get free Wifi, but were also surprised by a friendly woman who emerged from the building, just when it got dark and we were packing our stuff.

‘Hey, are you travelling on those bicycles?’

‘Yes, we are on our way from Alaska to Argentina’

‘Great, do you already have a place to stay tonight? Come with me, I live close, I hope you are not afraid of dogs?’

It turned out that Barbara was a traveler and a dog (and cat) lover, who had adopted several dogs she found on the streets in India. She was also a great cook and host and treated us on stories and a very yummie breakfast!

8 & 9 October: Agassiz – Vancouver via Mission: 50 + 60 km

After leaving Agassiz we were treated on a very steep hill. the sign said only 11%, but it was definitely more at the steepest, as even pushing was near impossible and a truck couldn’t make it. We continued on the highway 7, which was also know as the Sasquatch Highway. various sighting of the infamous Sasquatch/Bigfoot have been recorded in this area, including one in Spuzzum!

The roads were getting very busy now, the shoulder disappeared completely at times and we called it a night when evening traffic started to form ne big noisy polluting line on the Highway 7. We got permission to camp in a garden of an elderly couple, who were hesitant at first, but brought us breakfast at our tent the next day. It is nice to know that we can spread the knowledge that not all cyclist and travellers are scary people…

The final part into Vancouver was frankly not nice. Even though the city is known for its bike routes, parks and positive attitude towards cycling, there is no real way to get into the city on a bike, and it the entire last day we spent on busy roads leading into the real Vancouver, marked only by a small sign alongside the road. We managed to use some parks and after a nice lunch we were stopped for the first time by a police officer:

‘Is there any reason you are not wearing helmets?’ he asked

I pointed to my rear pannier and told them that they were in there. ‘You better wear them, people drive like crazy over here…’ , and with those words he took off, without actually checking if we had put on our helmets. We did though, as there was a lot of traffic and we only put them off when we reached the house of Kirsten and her friends, our host for the coming days. After 5000km we were back at sealevel. We had traveled from 70 degrees North to about 49 degrees North. Vancouver. It had a magical ring to it: the start of the cities, the start of maybe a mix of easier (more shops and organisation) and harder (traffic, more roads to choose from) cycling… I was happy that I could take a little rest, so my back could recover a bit and I could work on the website, that had been on- and offline constantly the past weeks. There was work to do…

Kowalski! Status report!

Amazingly, even after 5000 overloaded km, our bikes, panniers and Computer are still without any problems. My back is hurting again, hopefully the rest will do us good.

Here is a little visual overview of the sections above, unfortunately the last days are missing as the memory was full…

Of course we took the road less travelled Highway 37, The Stewart Cassiar Highway, or simply The Cassiar Highway. All names for this infamous road, almost 1000km long, known for the lack of services, bad weather, bears and gravel patches. The latter issue had been solved we had been promised, but the other?

2nd September: Nugget City – French Creek, 58km

The adventure started sunny, but dark clouds appeared, especially on Ivana’s face when she noticed the first set of hills. “is this going to be like that for the rest of the road?” she asked. I truly did not know, but suspected that this was just the beginning…

Fortunately some nice people made our day by donating a full bag of cut-up watermelon, just what the doctor ordered as the sun had come out. Unfortunately the wind had come to and after a week of tailwind, we were not happy to have it in our face again, slowing us down.

Ivana spotted a black bear, right beside the road, I must have raced right past him on the downhill. At least that made her a bit happier and when we also found a nice deserted rest area called French Creek where we -after hanging our foodbags in the trees- could relax near a good campfire.

3rd September: French Creek – Jade City, 72km

We woke up to a sunny day and followed the road into the mountain range. Clearly this road was not made for tourism or speed. This was not only noticable in the many small ups and downs, but also in the lack of services along the way. We passed the blocked turn-off for the small town of Cassiar, after which the highway is nicknamed. It does not exist anymore, it’s a ghost town after demand for its asbestos dried up and access to what is left is now restricted.

Just before we entered the small First nation town of Good Hope lake, where some of Cassiar’s residents moved to, I stopped to film Ivana passing me in front of one of many ‘Wonderful lakes’ we had seen today. In any other place, such natural beauty would be lined with parking lots, jetskis and tourist services, but here it is just part of the rugged landscape. I noticed Ivana had stopped and was gesturing wildly.

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“I don’t know!”

“Well, then I don’t know if I saw it! What did it look like”

“I saw something cross the street. I could not see a tail, but long legs and it was dark coloured. It sounds strange, but after browsing through all mental images of animals in my mind I think it came closest to being a monkey!”

After some debate we decided that it probably was not a new species of Canadian monkey, but what was it?  Just behind us was a sign next to the road, saying: “watch for wildlife, next 10km”. Ok, so we agreed: the animal Ivana had seen was ‘a wildlife‘, a very useful description of all future unidentified animals…

Good Hope lake promised to have a supermarket, which was good, as we were almost out of food. We noticed a girl with a baby, loading things in a car.

“Is this the supermarket?” we asked, pointing at the damaged building where she had appeared from, while a small dog-like creature (wildlife?) barked annoyingly at our boots.

“You caught me just in time, I was just about to head out”, she said. This was true in many ways it appeared. Not only was she about to close the shop for the day (at 2 ‘o clock in teh afternoon), but also for the season, which became painfully clear by the roughly 23 items still left for sale on the dusty shelves. Fortunately it included some biketravellers staple diet: spaghetti & noodle soups!

The wind was not so bad here and we entered Jade City while it was still light. The signs ‘Free Coffee’ and ‘Free Camping’ were both irresistible. We checked the place out, which is basically not more than a collection of some buildings and a shop where all kinds of jade thingies are being sold. We helped ourselves shamelessly to the exquisite collection of hot drinks and got to chat with Robin & Claudia and stay the rest of the day, having to pitch our tent in the dark.

I had proposed to Ivana on the summit of Kilimanjaro, 3 months before, but as I only had a carabiner at the time, we did not have rings, we both do not like too fancy jewelry anyway. We found some nice, simple, cheap -and green- jade ones in the store: perfect!

4th September: Jade City – Rabid Grizzly, 88km

We had heard some animals near our tent and the next morning we saw a big black fox cross the road. After a brief climb we enjoyed many nice downhills between logged and replanted forests and yet more Wonderful Lakes and snowy peaks.

Ivana had stopped in front of me and I saw she was looking at a fox which was hiding in the grass. Though quite shy, his curiosity apparently won as he came very close to us. We were not only enjoying being around such a wonderful creature, but also that we could take the tame and play with him for an hour or so. In the meantime maybe 3 trucks and 2 RV’s passed, at which moment we had to chase the fox off the road…

We got a triple ‘Cassiar-surprise‘ at the end of the day: rain, very steep hills and gravel, a great combination to ruin your day. We had though that we could maybe make it to Dease lake, but were beat after the muddy uphills and called it quits at the interestingly named Rabid Grizzly (though other travellers also referred to it as Rabbit Grizzly as well as Rapid Grizzly) rest area.  It still rained, so we cooked inside the small toilet.

We had to evacuate it soon after as a passing car carried some passengers that needed it. A few minutes later they came back, stopped and gave us bananas, noodle soups and other goodies, great! It still surprises us how generous so many people can be towards total strangers that might be considered bums or even hippies by others…

5/6 September: Dease Lake

After the rest of the more than 20km long hilly gravel patch we arrived in Dease Lake. Not exactly a very wild place, hardly alive at all. But it had a very well stocked supermarket with an ATM, so our moods were indestructible, we wouldn’t have to go hunt’n for a week!

After our bellies were finally full we went looking for a Wifi spot and found a great one in the learning center building, also housing the small library. When we were working, a van stopped and a guy came out, lit a cigarette and asked with a heavy french accent if we were online. It turned out that he and his friend were driving the support vehicle for a totally different kind of cyclist: Swiss Jean-Philippe Patthey is trying to set a record time for cycling from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia. What will take us about 3 years, he s trying to do in roughly 130 days!

As ‘Jean-Phi’ arrives on his recumbent bike a bit later, we are amazed to hear that he started only 2 weeks before. Furthermore, when we will arrive in Seattle, he will be in Panama…

It is impressive as he is not the youngest cyclist. But he is not carrying anything (all his gear is in the truck), he does not have to arrange any logistics, places to sleep or food (his team does that) and he has no time to meet people or see places along the way, which is our main goal.

Ivana is very happy when she finds out that Jean-Phi is the logistical partner and friend of Mike Horn and that she had been reading about him in one of Mike’s books.

We had secretly camped behind the Library as we could charge our batteries from our tent and do some online back-ups on our Elephant Drive while the connection was good.

The next day another van appeared and two fit Californians introduce themselves: Megan and Guy. It is nice to see their small van, a great contrast with the 10+ m Rv’s we saw before.

While we were having lunch with them, and older woman passed us and stopped for a chat. She mentioned that she would come back later and that she might have her propane tank filled by then, so we could take a a shower if we wanted. That sounded great, but when darkness came it cold very cold and so we quickly fixed our tent again. We did hear a car late at night, but we were deep inside our sleeping bags as it was close to freezing outside.

The next morning we found a note, starting off with: “Dear Travellers”, explaining that her shower was ready and that we were welcome to come by for breakfast. Signed: Holly Eden (see her picture here). It was accompanied by some great tasting cookies, all packaged in plastic to protect them from the rain and morning dew.

We did get our shower from Holly, as well as a great breakfast. While we were cooking an Indian man came by, with very long hair. He was more impressed with our hair -both quite long by now- than our trip. Holly and her church work with him and of his friends, many of whom have had serious problems with alcohol. He told with wild gestures about his recent quad-accident and then went out to help a neighbour.

When we had said goodbye he came towards me and offered me a small bottle of whiskey, secretly hidden in a pocket. I told him ‘no thanks, I do not drink that’ and he took off without saying a word with an expression on his face that showed anger, shame, disbelief and pride at the same time.

We headed out of Dease Lake, climbing almost 400 vertical meters non stop. We passed Gnat lake pass, with 1100m our second highest point so far on the trip. The landscape was probably pretty, but the rain and cold wind took away any joy that was left.

What goes up must come down and we were treated to some excellent downhill sections. Alas, it was raining and we ended up going down on 8% muddy gravel with many potholes, which was no real fun anymore.

At the bottom of the slope we ended up at the Stikine River bridge. Holly had told us about a friend of hers that lived on a ranch, close to here, so we went to find him. It was further than we though, but we arrived at a large clearing with several buildings.

Willie Williams (Please see his photo here) is a great man and he invited us in immediately and even let us sleep in his old house, lined with memories.

8- 11 September: Stikine River Ranch – Meziadin Junction, 288km. 2800m up, 3500m down..

Willie insisted that he would take us and our bikes with his pickup back to the road, over the bridge and halfway up the first hill. When we saw the muddy 8% uphill gravel road we were glad we took his offer..

We spend the night at the Kisaskan campground, arriving very late, in the dark. It was a beautiful place, next to a lake. You have to pay for it, but there was no self-registration and no park warden, so we got away cheap.

The day promised much good as it was very sunny, but soon we met the culprit of the day: a fierce wind pushed us back the entire day, exhausting us totally. Thanks to some huge downhills we managed to arrive at the Bob Quinn lake rest area (more like a parking space, next to the road, but it did have a toilet/shelter and bear-containers).

The 10th was a rainy day, a very rainy day. We made it to a wooden shelter about 25km passed Bell 2 Lodge, under which we could make a campfire and pitch our tent.

Ivana got quite nervous in the night as she heard footsteps and noises near the tent. I was too sleepy to get bothered, but the next day we found quite some mouse scat on our Ortlieb bags

We were now in a new river valley and the going was easy and the forests and valleys beautiful. We met some Dutch people at lunch who prepared a nice lunch for us!

Alas, the ‘venom was in the tail’ as we say in Holland: we were treated on some steep and long climbs out of the valley and some old-fashioned Rollercoasters to top them off and we were happy when we arrived at the Meziadin Junction. There were some abandoned buildings there, in which we could pitch our tent, but it all looked a bit spooky. we decided to pay for the acclaimed campground next to the wonderful Meziadin lake.

We were glad we did after hearing from 2 South African motor-biketravellers, Johan & Charmaine that they spotted some black bears near the buildings, less than 5 minutes after we decided not to crash there! It was the first time that Ivana had ever heard afrikaans and though she recognized some Dutch words, she could not make it out (‘it’s an older code, Skipper!‘). This is what they wrote about us on their site:

Daar het ons ‘n egpaar op fietse ontmoet, Harry (Holand) en sy vrou (Argentinie) ry hul fietse vanaf Prudhoe Bay na Usiua, en julle het gedink ons is braaf?

After I had to ask the RV next door to finally shut off their outside (!) generator, we could finally sleep. Most of the infamous Cassiar Highway was done. We hated it at times, but already missed it before we were done with it… First we were going to go on a nice little side trip tomorrow: on the 37a highways, towards the small towns of Stewart & Hyder, Alaska!

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Below is a rough map of the section described above. For more detailed and an overal map, see the route map page here.

We managed to delay ourselves until about 16.00 in Whitehorse and then left in a terrible downpour, and as the first few km were steep uphill to get out of the valley, we were feeling down. But the sky stopped dumping water on us and soon we found ourselves going up and down over rolling hills besides more Wonderful Lakes. We had set ourselves a new goal: get to Scott’s Anarchy Farm! We had met Scott in the Potlatch (see previous post here) and he had invited us to visit him when we would pass.

Unfortunately he was not in the Greenhouse: a big plastic covered collection of wonderful smelling flowers and vegetables. We waited outside for some moments and cycled around in the area, but as we did not had the directions to their house, we returned to the greenhouse. The rain started again, and we decided to sleep inside the greenhouse, setting up our inner tent only. It was by far the best smelling campsite on our entire trip.

In the middle of the night we heard some noises and Scott came in. He did not seem to surprised to see us sleeping in the middle of hundreds of flowers and added one more log to the slow burning woodstove, so the temperature stayed above freezing.

The next morning he came back with coffee. A few weeks later he sent us a great poem, please check it out here on his 1000 Americans page. We stayed close to the warm fire all morning and only after noon, we packed our tent and continued riding through the rainy Yukon lake District. The wind was friendly and even with our late starts we did over 100 km, ending up late at a deserted state campground, close to Teslin lake.

August 28 – 30: through the lake District with Mate & tortas

We had promised ourselves to start earlier, and actually managed to get on our bikes before 8 ‘o clock! We arrived quickly at the small place of Teslin, where we spend several hours in the library. We were surprised at the many small libraries we met, there is so much great stuff to see and hear, most offer Internet access and the ladies running them are without exception all nice and friendly, so support your local Library and get your kids to read!

We spend some time in the Teslin Motel, working on our reports and chatting with Heather, who was on her way North, on a big BMW motorbike (see her picture here). We fixed her iPhone for her and chatted with this lovely woman, who was in great spirit.. Do not pass the Motel without seeing the hidden gem: a small museum with stuffed animals in the gift shop (some of Ivana’s images are on Flickr here). This sounds much worse than it is, they have done a wonderful job. Oh, and the Wifi is free at the Motel

Ivana managed to cross the scary and long bridge, which had a steel bottom, through which you could see water below. As with most rivers, we had to climb a steep hill to get out of the valley it had created, but during the climb a van stopped.

‘Hola!’ Ariel & Claudia stopped besides Ivana in their van which was totally covered with pictures of Patagonia and maps. Ivana started chatting away in turbo-spanish, but I reminded her that we wanted to get to a rest area for the night before dark, 17km ahead, so we had to keep going. No problem, they said, we will wait for you there with mate & tortas fritas. These words had a wonderful effect on Ivana. She started cycling faster then ever before and raced up and over hills with a determined look on her face, it was very hard to keep up!

When we reached Claudia an hour later, she was surprised to see us already, but immediately invited us in their van. I heard a hissing sound and noticed that Ivana’s rear tire was making the noise. A staple was stuck in it: our 2nd flat tire! I quickly fixed it and set up the tent together with Ariel, while it slowly dawned on me that he really did not speak any word of English

We drank several rounds of mate and Claudia made her tortas fritas as promised. We had such a great time, they were so happy to travel and see the world and eachother. Ivana was happy to speak Spanish again and drink and eat the taste of home, even though she was so many miles away…

In the morning we said goodbye to them and headed up more and more. Fortunately the wind was still good as we kept on climbing until we actually crossed a continental divide, where rivers on one side were draining into the Arctic Ocean, while water that falls just a mile back makes its way into the Pacific via the Yukon. Logically this meant some downhill as well and we raced towards our stop for the night: a rest area next to the nice Rancheria Falls, where we ate our spaghetti next to a big campfire we managed to get going, though all wood was soaked.

31st August: Frost, bear & Nuggets

We woke up by a strange sensation: a yellow light came into our tent. Sun! I got up quickly and took off the tent to dry off the condensation. When I noticed that some small pools were actually frozen, I checked the temperature: it was only 2 degrees and it had frozen in the night! We had not noticed it in our cozy warm Carinthia sleeping bags, but when outside it was crispy..

We headed out early for probably the first time in, well, almost ever and got rewarded right away; not just with a deserted Highway, but with our first sighting. Ivana and I both heard some cracking noises in the trees left of the Alaska Highway. We stopped and looked. A black bear looked at us, hesitated and then ran up a steep hill, out of sight. Our first Black bear! We had thought that we would be scared, but we were both so happy to see the beautiful animal and had not thought about the usual precautions, though the bearspray was always within reach. We celebrated our first bear with a breakfast in the first restaurant, and as they had Wifi, we – as usual – managed to limit the actual cycling hours drastically by typing and reading..

Soon it got warm enough to take of my jacket, we were in T-shirt again! It was great, with the wind in our back and sun in our face we hardly noticed the many rolling hills and did our 2nd longest day so far: 110km. We ended up at Nugget City, a huge RV campground just before the junction of the Alaska Highway and the infamous Cassiar Highway. The friendly host allowed us to camp for free next to a picknick table in the trees, while the endless line of RV’s (Recreational Vehicles) lined up on the boring, empty and soulless patch of gravel. We have never understood why people need to take such large vehicles: the typical set-up is as follow:

- A 30ft or longer RV (Recreational Vehicle)

- With a Jeep, Truck or similar 4 wheel drive behind (the RV is towing it!)

- With (sometimes) some muddy bicycles on the back of either vehicle, usually too dirty to ride and clearly only dirty from the transportation, not from using it..

- Often a senior citizen is peering over the steering wheel, controlling (?) a 15 meter long combination, for which you only need a regular driving license… We are not afraid of the trucks in North America, these are professionals and know what they are doing, but these RV’s scare us, however friendly the people inside may be.

Some quick calculations tell me that they burn about $1/km, but I need some confirmation here. Anybody know how many calories there are in a couple of Snickers bars and a pound of pasta as apposed to a tank of gasoline? Then we can calculate the relative efficiency of moving two people and their belongings over 100km..

This was our last chance to change our plans as the two roads/routes would only meet up over 1000 km ahead: should we continue over easier ground with much more services or take the road less travelled? Choose the comfort of lighter loads

or choose the chance of more wildlife? What would you do if you were on a bicycle?

Kowalski! Status report!

We had some very nice long days, and the distances seemed not so long as feared. Still quite a few hills adding up to an average of almost 750 meters up and down per day… Almost 3000km on (and off) the road: Kowalski is still puncture-less, Greeny had her second, but otherwise the Santos Travelmasters have no problems!