A year in retrospect: I left Paraguay, tailing the trail of Geo, whom I married. Trying to combine a husband, a house, a truck and myself is a different cookie than traversing the world on a bicycle.
Categories
1 Photo of Each Entry in South America
Is South America on your wish-list of countries to travel through, perhaps by bicycle, then I hope I can inspire you. When you like to see pretty, soothing or curious photo’s, here they are.
Categories
Yes, you can!
Can I start cycling (half) around the world?
Yes, you can. In fact, anyone can. Just start. It helps getting a decent bicycle and a little bit of knowledge about mechanics, although you will soon learn those skills on the road. Truing a wheel is not easy but I am sure you can fix a puncture in an inner tube, isn’t it? If the answer is yes you might seriously be in for cycling around the world! Read ‘Adventure Cyle-Touring Handbook’ to make you warm, or definitely decide otherwise.
Before you set out it is handy to know you really like cycling. For me, I cycled every day to my work and back home from work, an hour a day in total. That’s not much to set your goals on cycling half around the world. I wanted to know for sure I would like cycling each day at least 60 kilometer, camp and eat anywhere my stomach would requires me. So I took my mom’s bicycle, not a very fancy model. I cycled about 150 kilometer up and back and I was hooked.
The search for a good bicycle could start now!
Read on forums and other people’s weblogs what you think you want and according your way of purchasing, set out. The more simple the bicycle, the lesser can break down. Over the years my style of buying is very manlike: one shop, a long search and I am set. No endless doubting, searching and going back to the first shop to end with nothing. Go to a shop where they have it all.
Decide you need cooking gear and a tent. Without your folding home and mini kitchen you cycle way lighter, but if you are addicted to masala chai, then a kitchen might come in handy. Your own kitchen and synthetic home give you total freedom in terms of where you stay the night. That is if you got no security behind you who keeps no low profile and forbid you to sleep in the desert. I would always opt for a well hidden spot to camp. Not only that a clearly in sight spot would attract too many visitors or make yourself a one woman show, but rather not to scare off the locals too much. In general people don’t rob nor rape you, but sleeping in the open is less comfi than invisible in the bush. Unless you have no choice or really no one is around. Be the nomad you always wanted to be!
How do you handle being in an unknown country with aliens?
I assume when you set out on a tour half around the world, or just in one continent, you are not unworldly. You neither have to be good at speaking for a large crowd, no way you have to have capability to be a intermediate, or counselor. It does help though. You often are all those, and on your own if you set out alone. It sure can be all very daunting. Either you love it, you like it, you start dealing with it or you never will.
How much does it cost?
In general you could easily live by a daily budget of €15 a day. Not including the visa fees. A lot of camping can drop the average down to about €7 a day (Ghana) but countries like Liberia multiplied with visa requirements, thus sleeping and waiting in hotels, adds up to an average of €29 a day! Just get yourself accustomed to wild camping quickly and you safe money. The most expensive visa I paid for were the ones from Côte d’Ivoire (€110) and (a second entry for) Guinea Conakry (€93) (never stamped nor seen though). It pays to check prices beforehand ’cause in some countries visa are cheaper to obtain. Yet in some countries they won’t issue at all.
Add up the costs of your bicycle, gear, insurance, unexpected flights, doctor and double the food intake : )
I have the luck to be able to store everything I owe (not much) at my parents house. Actually, that’s where I live when I am not traveling. I am not traveling when my money is finished and thus need to save money. In the past I always came back to the Netherlands to find work and save a decent amount until I could set off again.
How can I fit all my equipment in those tiny bags?
You can’t. Initially you will take too much with you. All you have in mind to take with you, won’t fit. And I can reassure you, you will never use it anyway. Cycling is a main task. It is a very high maintenance life style. Way higher than backpacking! The tasks you are busy with are finding food, fetching drinkable water, washing your dirty clothes, preparing a nutritious meal and finding a spot to sleep. You really hardly got time to sketch a drawing, read a book or repair your clothes. This life style is very back to basic, and so it’s very time consuming, but as rewarding as well.
The arrangements drive me crazy before I even started it!
Although I never had to deliver a real life baby, consider it the same. Your head is full with things to do as if it were your belly is growing each day. Lists are ever increasing and only dissolving the last day, the day of the delivery of you into the never ending beauty of the world. Be prepared to organize a health insurance while traveling, get yourself registered as a non-citizen in case you are gone for more than 8 months (if you are Dutch) in order not to pay double health insurance. Perhaps a second passport? Carry documents you think you might need them. Buy all the screws, nuts, bolts and spare parts you won’t come by in parts of the world other than where you live. Decide whether you want to support the pharmaceutical industry by buying pills against malaria. Perhaps you like to set out a general route? Maybe start writing stories so your family knows what cycling is all about? Good luck: start your own weblog. But keep in mind this is something you mostly do for your own sake, as not many people got time to read the fantastic adventures you experience. Camera? Smartphone? GPS or maps? Shoes? Clothes? This is all gear and what do you need and what will you certainly not use? This you will find out on the road…
The day you leave, you feel free. All the notes become unimportant. All the to-do list seems so silly. Are silly. Thus, all the things you have not finished are not important. Make not too many plans, they will change. Follow the road, it’s people. Dare to get lost, follow your heart. Off you are!
How did I start choosing a bicycle over public transport?
I wanted to buy a motorbike but the Indian Sahib did not want to sell me one. I thought he might have a point with me having no license nor skills nor experience. The only option left would be a bicycle. I did not fancy the idea of ploughing a bicycle, so I continued by public transport until I start missing adventure and challenge. Knowing that I start missing those things while staying too long in the deeply troubled backstreets of Kashmir, traveling through unstable Afghanistan and mystic Yemen, and living for a year in fabulous Pakistan. Not coincidentally, while liberated from Kashmir, I passed two cyclists on a most difficult stretch in Zanskar, and I knew: this is it!
Okay! This I get. Now, do you need to be fit?
I think you don’t need to be, but you inevitable will become very fit. Me, as a saleswoman I stand on my two feet each and every day, and I walk constantly all day. I cycle an hour a day but never did any sport. My height is 158 centimeter and my weight was 48 kilo. A perfect BMI. People who were jealous said I had anorexia, I knew better: I was having a healthy life style. And I still have. A fact is that when you are light, you carry the same amount as a more heavy person, thus in comparison you carry too much for your weight. Get used to it. Right after coming back from Cameroon I have gained about 5 kilogram. But I ate a lot, a lot of food while I did not cycle for two weeks. Your body will tell you to eat more and more, even though you stopped cycling for a few weeks. While on the road your body needs plenty of food, in the beginning it will even ask for it in the middle of the night. In the beginning you’ll eat the weirdest things, like bags of chips before going to have your dinner. Until the moment comes your body is well maintained and predictable. I gained weight and my legs have become clearly more built. Your most real power, by the way, is not in your body, but in your mind. If your mind says you can, you can.
Books are written about this topic, and no way I am going to try to do the same on this page. I recommend this book and a few websites, to start your own challenge.
At the end, this post has bloody images, unsuitable when you’re having your lunch synchronous with reading this post. But when you’re a carnivore, I urge you to watch them.
The farm had slaughtered a cow as she was having a tumor of some sort. She was released relatively painless.
Categories
Wild Camping Guidance
Have you decided to explore the world on a bicycle, then camping is part of it. As the outside seems so much more spooky than a house, the first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Is it not dangerous?’ On the contrary, in fact, it is not so much about danger. Much more camping is about management of daily changing circumstances and how to deal with them. Rather exciting and never dull indeed!
Having attracted a bacterial infection makes walking painful, not a very welcome happening now Geo (who soon became my husband!) and I are replacing the hardworking Andreas and Elvira at Iparoma farm. Meanwhile the news reports about a missing Austrian man in Cerro Leon reach us, and Geo and I decide to go another little trip as soon as we are relieved from our tasks. Off to Cerro Leon!
Categories
Life Changing Bread
An overrated name for a bread but besides that, a very welcome change! When you have had enough fluffy bread, walnut sourdough, chapati’s, baguette and whole grain healthy staff of life, or when you need just that little bit of difference in your daily diet, and you have the luxury of an oven or something alike, try the Life Changing Bread.
Nearly a year earlier: ending up at a farm in Paraguay I met another traveler, Geo, whom I have married. Very unexpected we decided to move away from the farm, somewhere else in Paraguay. But we kept a promise: to replace the workers at the farm when their mom from Germany would visit them, so they could go on a little holiday.
My husband and me leave the lushness of the cordillera behind, zipping through Brazil, meeting unreal real-estate agents on a motorbike and meeting with more Paraguayans in an unchanged rural setting.
Categories
Independent in Indepedencia
More than a year ago: I am together with Geo, whom I met on a Paraguayan farm far north (and who has become my husband). Working and traveling together is one thing, now we will find out whether we match in a whole different surrounding.
More than a year ago: I had lessons in cheese making in mind, where I would portray the newly made foodies with elaborate photographs. The harsh Chaco sunlight filtered by the mosquito screen would make for classy pictures, probably more beautiful than the end result.
Categories
Vargo titanium 2 – piece stove set
Having an interest in ultra light hiking I had to have a stove that is super light weight. I can not carry much as I am not very strong in this mode of travelling. Yet preparing a chai is so important that I don’t want to be depended on the weather but I don’t want to carry a sturdy stove either. So, like finding a perfect bento box, this was another thorough online search.
Categories
Settled In (Paraguay Farmlife 4)
More than a year ago: Baking whole grain bread on a camp fire needs a bit more practise. It takes me 20 kilometer to find a supermarket selling rye, barley and spelt and see who I make happy with it! No better face than a happy face! And I get to see more happy faces: I exchange goat Emma for a human person.
Categories
Settling In (Paraguay Farmlife 3)
This post has bloody images. This post shows photo’s not corresponding with the farm I worked on. The farm I worked on, and the farm where some of the pictures come from are not unnecessarily cruel to their animals as far as I have been a witness (slaughtering went professional).
Previous post: I am at a big farm, 20 kilometers away from Filadelfia, the capital of the Chaco. I met Marilyn previous year in the supermarket where she asked me whether I wanted to stay at her house. I wanted that, and we have kept contact. Now I can work on a Work Away basis for as long as I want.
I am at a big farm, 20 kilometers away from Filadelfia, the capital of the Chaco, a province far from where the action of Paraguay is. In this town I met Marilyn previous year in the supermarket where she asked me whether I wanted to stay at her house. I wanted that, and we have kept contact. Now, when I am tired of cycling, in need for some good rest, I can work on a Work Away basis for as long as I want, on her farm. ‘Let’s start working!’ is every’s Mennonite motto, this means no rest whatsoever. I start working the day after I arrive.
Categories
Women Department
There’s – little – difference between a man and a woman when it comes to strength. A man is often physically obviously stronger. A woman often mentally. There are, however, significant differences: being a woman requires other items. This is a post for woman in the saddle. Yet, when we are both strong, but on other fields, women do need other stuff than men.
Heike made a post where she asks 4 other experienced solo female cyclists about wild camping. Since we are lone women, many people think this is extra dangerous. But the truth is, it is not, at all. On the contrary.
Categories
Finally, the Final!
People ask me the obvious: ‘Are you cycling to Bolivia?’, as this is the only border crossing. I reply: ‘No, I cycle to Filadelfia.’ With cycling to Filadelfia I am trapped. Cornered in a part of the world where is only one official way out. I have set the capital of the Chaco as my final destination, but one day I have to move on, and the only two, official, choices I have I both despise: crossing into Bolivia over a horrible road or turning back.
Categories
Welcome to chai
One thing I never go without is masala chai. In every country cycling through I produce it, or it is produced for me. I always have my own roasted and pounded spices with me. Always! Except nowadays in South America: I can not find cardamom, and if I do, it is crazily expensive!
A couple of months ago, in summer, I met Heike, a German world cyclist whom I know for some years. We got to know each other through social media when I was cycling in India and Heike was somewhere relatively near, perhaps in Oman. Years later we were able to meet.
Categories
Jumping the River Paraguay
The big city. Asunción. It turns out to be a good choice. There where bus drivers drink térére while driving, watching their clientage wrestling out of the bus.
Categories
Wading the Torrent
I have found myself the wrong place to camp, resulting in an adventure though. After two nights of camping peacefully and baking bread, which I described into detail in this post, a surprise came at my tent door. Being back in Paraguay feels remarkable pleasant and the boredom of the Brazilian and Argentinean roads has been exchanged for Paraguayan people I find different, remarkable good-humored.
Categories
Zipper Repair
How to repair a zipper
Nothing as annoying when the zipper of your tent derails, leaving you with flapping doors. Nothing quite as disappointing when your expensive tent is prone to wearing out, just as any other brand.
Categories
Back in Town, Biting the Bullet
The second time in Paraguay brings me a different experience. I now know the people, have much more comprehensive skills of the language, I know the landscape’s limitations, it’ll bring me nothing but agriculture, I know it’s only a wastefulness of 400 kilometers before I reach a different geographical region. Then I am done with the long long long long long formation of visible cultivation.
Categories
Cycling’s Downsides
Upon seeing my bicycle, I view it still as my only possible mode of transport but the hooks and eyes are apparent. Besides the usual things such as lack of battery energy means I can’t read much would I have the time for it. Tending friendships are eating up my battery power, if only I had time to write because usually when I am a day in camp I am full with activities which push and pull each other to be done or wanting to be done. I feel my life is brimming to the rim with simplicities I simply can’t get done nor keep up with.
As if injected with a shot containing a little bit of everything, I feel revived, swimming in a pool of contentment, tranquility and a feeling usually unknown to me: at rest. After nearly three weeks inactivity, I must take a day off to reset back into camping, fires and bread baking.
Categories
World Cycling
Counted nearly 50.000 kilometers in about 5 years, more or less continously solo pedaling through more than 40 countries. I started off in Africa, where I cycled first through Europe to get accustomed to the cycling lifestyle. When my bicycle broke down I went back to Europe to have the bicycle fixed and continued on, among other countries, via Iraq and Iran. The highlight and also the downfall of my cycling odyssey happened in South America.
I do cycle now and then, these post are mentioned below.
Uruguayan music channel on television shows attractive women insufficient dressed, out to rape their overjoyed boyfriends. These boyfriends like to be ravaged by their pretty ladies in bikini, who, in between actions, cook meals. A healthy plate of food where the guy’s pistol is delicately placed next to. After the meal the pistol is tucked into the back of his belt, a shirt pulled over. Another so-called sexy scene arrives, where the bikini clad girl compete over attention with the pistol.
Categories
Bicycle Traveler
Have you heard of the online magazine from Grace? It is a free magazine about cycling touring where she features people who are on the road, people with stories, tips and idea’s and beautiful photographs. A source of inspiration and a good read. I’m proud to announce that Grace featured me. Grace used a photo I made from one of the best cycling experiences I had.
In blogs you probably don’t read how boring a country can be. Experiences must be great, exhilarating and fantastic. Not on this blog. Uruguay has me waking up in the mornings thinking how I can make this day a memorable one. I have to come up with my own ideas to have something like, still far removed from, an exciting experience in Uruguay.
Categories
Questions?
Very often I ask myself the question ‘why?’ This is tiresome, but I need to ask it in order to understand the country and it’s people. I need to ask it myself in order to get answers. And so, now and then, when I allow myself, here comes a lengthy viewpoint of mine…
Categories
Abundance of Boredom (in Eucalyptuguay) I
When I ask people where it is beautiful in natural surroundings, they slowly shrug up their shoulders, their eyes start looking into their minds cabinet, and they come up with no real answer. When I trow ‘Tucuarembo’ in, they reply with a lukewarm ‘yeah, it’s hilly there’ or ‘that is the real Uruguay still, with gaucho’s’ or ‘the road to there is 200 kilometer with nothing’.
Categories
Small Shares: Full Feelings
When Koen squeezes his fists together, he comes to an abrupt halt in front of the door I sit behind. We meet at the Shell station, a person I have never seen before, with a twinkle in his eyes, moving with the ease of an adolescent youngster, one of 45. He’s having a bright smile, and when I see him I jump of my chair to greet him. Funny, not to know a person except by typed words over Messenger.
Categories
Moor Mellow Meetings
Cycling in the Pampa is nothing spectacular. Since December the vast agricultural lands have changed into swamps, large masses of wetlands have become plain lakes. Mosquitoes dwells happily alongside snakes, storks, owls, foxes, nutria’s and everything in between with wings, feet or no feet crawls around, is caught against the speeding wheels of trucks and cars and… receives the occasionally secretive hair cut.
It happens that some don’t know where I am, or wonder where the country I’m cycling through is actually situated, or that I am elsewhere than where some think I am. Confusion all over.
Categories
Ointment for the Needy: Pampa Pampers
An update of where I am at the moment follows soon, but first this adventure: 3 days out of a truck-driver’s life are the highlight of my trip in Patagonia. I am leaving the gloomy south of Argentina for warmer, sunnier and happier feelings.
Categories
Heike Pushbikegirl Interview
German world-cyclist Heike Pushbikegirl asked me to participate in a post about tricks to make life living on the road easier. Although daily life is full with tricks and tips one has adopted over the course of a few years, I came up with 5 (not necessarily life saving ones though).
A bit of a boast…