Years of traveling brought me many different insights, philosophies and countries I needed to be (over 90 in total). I lived in Pakistan, went over 15 times to India and when I stopped cycling the world, that was after 50.000 kilometer through 45 countries, I met Geo. Together we now try to be more self-sustainable, grow our own food and live off-grid. I now juggle with the logistics of being an old-fashioned housewife, cook and creative artist loving the outdoors. The pouches I create are for sale on www.cindyneedleart.com
This post starts with part I
Like all seasoned cyclists, nervous about setting up my tent somewhere is not an issue anymore. We have done this so often that I look at every spot in nature as a potential place to camp, even when I do not need to camp.
Days roll into weeks and being absorbed into our own little bulb where silence, peace and no-nonsense makes for a supporting base to create, grow and admire, I find it difficult to leave. Yet I know that out in nature all that I don’t have in my own quiet green cocoon is present. I call it the magic of plant life; a strange realization for the traveler I was.
I know most people who read this are not interested in vegetables and the thing is, I wasn’t so much either a couple of years ago. Same when I met a Dutch cyclist in Pakistan, I was not interested the slightest bit (a few years prior that I cycled 50.000 kilometers). May I try to inspire you once more, and promised, the next time with a touring story.
Before I can write a story about a kickbike travel, I first need to go on a tour (it’s in the planning). For now, let me allow you to share a very short story about Llama.
‘Cold is not the issue,’ says José, ‘but the fact that your holiday is over and that you need to work again.’
I told José that I am happy to go home and work, although it is a cold Hungarian home. José is our Airbnb host and he’s accommodating us from his third floor apartment in Málaga. He works behind a couple of computers, curtains drawn closed, balcony door open for the cigarette smoke to escape and a can of beer within reach.
Part 1. Kickbiking. Why and how?
Part 2. Kickbiking. Can I do this too?
Part 3. How is the set-up? From an illogical set-up to one that works.
A write-up from 2020 unearthed:
After 50.000 kilometer cycling in roughly 5 years, through West Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian continent and South America I thought it’ll be peanuts to kickbike a relative little loop somewhere through USA. Wrong. Yes, I needed a challenge. But I sort of forgot, or took out of the equation, that every new endeavor needs practice.
The difference with a bicycle to a kickbike is that I can make more kilometers and can reach further out and therefor see ‘far-flung’ beauty in Croatia. That’s where I am heading.
I was inspired to work on this write-up after a very kind someone asked me several times to go by car and have beverages at a cafe in town, as ‘I needed a change of environment’. Soon after a second happening surprised me: the dependency of another very kind person’s expectations way beyond what has become my natural way of living.
It is not about a journey but the effects of a journey.
The movie I saw on an airplane after the book I red in India. I liked both. My husband did not. But my imagination is big and I love to escape in my own world, so it fitted me. The same with this pillow, this little write up is about the life of this Pi(llow).
Days of kicking: 9. Total distance: 275 kilometer. Average on a day: 30 kilometer while average speed is about 11 km/per hour. Nights of camping: 10. Average a day spend: € 5,60 (exclusive the new tick tweezer and the food I brought along ).
Clothes laundered in a creek, wet stinky shoes and a damp sleeping bag drying in a fishy corner surrounded by overflowing containers with unwanted-clothing, far removed from the main entrance of Tesco supermarket. I feel too old for it. Like I felt too old, or outgrown, for hostels and bunk beds. The last bunked I shared was in Malaysia; a room without a window, dark as a cell, except when the only female roommate stumbled in at night and left the light on. I must have been 35 years of age. Always been a loner, I disliked these dorms.
Kéktúra: an almost 1200 kilometer long walking trail through the upper part of Hungary. I kick a tiny part. Days of kicking: 3/Days in camp: 2/Average speed: 9/Maximum kilometers in a day: 60
Distance made: 65 kilometer. Average speed: 7.6. Number of nights: 5. Coldest temperature: minus 7.
Every time Geo and I drive in the car with lake Balaton quietly looming in the distance, the low series of mountains sharply contrasting, appearing to be a man-made painting, I feel a strong desire to be on those hills, looking out over the lake and absorbing the unrealistic looking shapes embracing the lake.
This is the last post in the Little Dutch Farmer aka Permaculture series! What went before is post 3: Travel & food: a happy marriage (summer 2021). Post 2: The juggling housewife (summer 2021). Post 1: It’s all about food (early spring 2021). The little Dutch farmer shows winter and early spring when we had nothing going yet. A short update from the here and now shows our coming to Hungary.
There were times, when I cycled in Patagonia for example, that I did not look forward to the day. I’d wake up and know it’d be a hard day. A day with cold gripping at my toes, making me colder the further I’d climb towards a snowy pass. There were many days with rain, one day after the other, the only thing visible a black strip of tarmac and not much else. Cold and mist, clouds and wet camp spots. Such days I had to muster myself to see some beauty and to somehow look forward to the day ahead. Just like when I worked, at times I had to find reason why I would look forward to the day coming. I did however always succeed.
The photo below shows me not enjoying Patagonia, all the folowing pictures are of a higher Hungarian enjoyment.
Better a handful with quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind. 'Vanity of vanities', says the preacher in Ecclesiastes; 'all is vanity.'
A year as no other (as has been the case so far), so much that was going on was not as ever before. Indeed, quarantaine and stay-at-home was our self chosen situation and in this I bloomed.
What is the thing with winter camping? I was never into it but when I had to cross Patagonia I could not avoid cold temperatures, snow and frost. Heat reaching to a 50 degrees is not pleasant either but cold starts to sit in the bones and makes stiff. Cold has the easiness to disable pleasure and make the whole trip a grim nonsense ongoing rather than a pleasurable challenge.
Plan: 2 nights camping, 70 kilometer in 2.5 days. Done: 1 night camping, 60 kilometer in 2 days. Average speed: 9 (much pushing through mud). Level of happiness and satisfaction: high.
Food. One can not do otherwise than loving Indian street food, in particular the dishes available at truck dhaba’s. The inventiveness of African mom’s is not to dismiss either. They cook up delicious meals with leavy vegetables and home-made palm oil. A delight for a cyclist on sandy roads through the few patches of virgin forest. I vividly remember my breakfast at restaurants lining the streets in Sana’a, though busy with clientele I would eat in quietness. Fresh fish perfectly fried, while goat heads would simmer next to where I sat. In the far away past I would wander the streets of Bangladesh and Pakistan in search of a restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet, sometimes it took me hours to find such place, not seldom wandering off forgetting to eat. Though my own prepared sugary tomato paste pasta in the desert was tasty and bread fried in olive oil whether at a soppy wet Patagonian patch, the hostile windy pampa or a sweltering Argentinian yerba mate grove was always good enough. Food mixed up with sand in Mauritania, quick decaying beef in warm sunny Bolivia and constipation enhancing dishes in Paraguay, it all had its charm.
Cycling the desert, the Atacama in particular, is a state of awareness, a way of living, a manner of being perhaps best comparable to be on a high. The swollen covering of such an opiate is simply all encompassing. Of course, such a state can not last, unless perhaps one sinks into it and finds himself unable to reach the utmost crosspiece of the ladder, instead hovering half way, at best, most of the time.
I’d like to say I live a slow life. A slow life in the sleepy countryside. We are relatively detached from negative influences and time does not have a play in our lives. A slow life.
Distance: 332 km. Days: 7. Average distance a day: 47 km. Maximum speed: 56 km per hour. First week of June 2021.
Time for a tour. The mountains in the distance surrounding lake Balaton beckon me. One hill after another passing a shade onto the one following up, the light crisp, the color of the lake a blue I can not describe. The hills are calling out for me for some months now.
My new experience of a winter in Hungary, for The ‘Farmer’ I feel, was challenging, to say the least. There was no soil to turn over (well… not that I knew of). There were no weeds to discover (well… not that I knew of). There was no comfort for a tour, not even a little one. I tried.
Thinking back about Atacama reveals it was the best ride ever! Reason enough to share this post. I had this short write-up done as ‘The story behind the pouch (my creative embroidery projects)’, so you’ll see some creativity pass by. Don’t let that withhold you, its really about the good old cycling lifestyle. Fully emerged and a total ball of bliss! WOOOOOHAAAAAA….
Total distance: 170 km. Average speed: 10 km per hour (fully loaded). Days: 6.
My patience paid off: the weather forecast showed more than 7 sunny symbols in a row. It is the second half of February and the temperatures at night still drop below zero. But it ought to be dry, so fires will warm me (and stretching too).
Daytime temperature: zero. Daylight hours: 7 AM to 4.30 PM. Distance: a stunning 13 kilometers.
A short tour in January stretching from east to west at the North Balaton in Hungary is a very plausible plan.
You have subscribed to CyclingCindy because you are interested in cycling. Yet cycling is the least that I can offer you now, this is no story about cycling adventures you are going to read. Instead it is what I am able to do because I stopped cycling (although this is old news).
We drove a 150cc motorbike through 5 countries of South America. The only reason to drive this little motorbike with so much luggage and two persons was that Geo had bought the motorbike 2 years prior in Paraguay to explore the continent by himself. But he never did. Now was the chance. And that was what we did.
A set-up of any form of transport is important. Not when you are cycling or rolling back and forth to the bakery but when you try to get some distance done, it better be the right set-up for you. We did not had the chance to test any kickbike before we started the journey through the USA. We ordered straight from the Kickbike supplier and that is not the way I’d recommend. When I ordered my bicycle years prior I had it more or less custom made. This is crazily expensive, something I would not recommend either.
So, a camping in Florida.
Can it get more adventurous than that?
Certainly not.
Corona Circus is doing well, it attracts lots of people. The show is being followed on television and though its running behind on Europa, a large following grows steadily in the USA as well.
March: upon checking in at the airport of Guayaquil, Ecuador we were asked whether we’d been in China or Italy. Entering the USA we’d seen noticeboards warning for Corona virus. It’s a far away business for us, Corona, though not for our relatives in Europe, it seems the virus has gotten a hold there. It seems they all comply with what the government asks them?
A very short update about the Iveco truck which Geo and I fetched from Spain. In times like these, we´d waited for long to get this done. Mobile diary notes with Instagram snapshots on my creative weblog. 5 days of driving an overloaded truck through 5 countries, how´s that on the pshyche of one who passionately dislikes cars?
From Ecuador to the USA. From a motorbike to something very different. Geo and I each make a concession: Geo goes kickbiking with me and I am okay with starting our tour in Georgia. Back in Ecuador I spend lots of time connecting off-road routes to tracks with small town roads towards hidden gems in Carolina and on to the Appalachians.
It’s different than cycling. Obviously. The challenge, after cycling the world 5 years, had vanished and I searched for a new demanding way of transport and travel. Because our society allows me, I discovered something so amusing as the kickbike… and I knew instantly, intuitively, that I would love it.
This is the last post about our South American motorbike tour. And fortune has it that we are on one of the best roads ever. We love to be on these roads, it gives us the feeling we are battling with nature. That we are part of what we are busy with, a sort of self inflicted hardship. These sort of roads give me, even when I sit on the back, a notion that I am working too. This is pure off-road motorcross, and sure enough it’s fun.
We leave Vilcabamba with mixed emotions. One reason is because I do not look forward to camp in lousy abandoned structures where wetness reigns. Camping right along the main road in rainy season in a rain forest is just not that very desirable.
Our next stop where we hope to be able to take a longer rest is Vilcabamba. Not knowing anything about the town it turns out not to be much of a typical Ecuadorian village but an Ecuadorian village infused with heavy American influence. There are people who developed into Mother Earth-types, believing that the center is right here in Vilcabamba. In this town inhabitants consider to reach an older age than elsewhere because of certain minerals. Worse is that the prices went up drastically by expats who spread money as if sowing papaya seeds.
Over the years I transformed from a traveler going from city to city to one who’s avoiding them. Simply because cities are stressful, where nature is powerful. I guess age has to do with it as well?
The Kickbike was bought online while we were in Ecuador. We arranged it to be shipped to an address in Atlanta, USA. That was March 2020 and I am liking this way of transport, especially for shorter tours. Yet Geo and I tried to kick through several states in east of USA.
We drive from Tingo Maria to Tocache. It rains every day, and with each drop my mood sinks. With every passing cloud, I wish to be back at the Pan American highway, where it was at least dry. There is not much beauty to my eyes, only trees, green lushness, rivers and never very far to have my sight wander. In the jungle uninterrupted views do not exist.
An honest critique without negative undertone
By now, sitting on the back of a motorbike is no fun anymore. Neither is camping in the jungle of North Peru, it never really was. Yet, looking back, it is always less problematic than in the very moment. Sitting on a porch, writing under a roof while the rain falls, makes up for the dragging ongoing in a humid jungle. Let’s go back to where I was in my previous post.
When Geo and I were in South America we often ate bread which was not too memorable, not when it comes to quality. Soft, white, sugared dry bread is what South American countries often offer.
Cycling Cindy