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.
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).
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?
Yet another stove I bought.
I have used all sorts of stoves, from Primus and Optimus Multi Fuel when I started a 5 year worldwide bicycle trip to an Optimus Svea 123. I tried a gas stove, a self-made hobo stove, an alcohol stove and plain wood fires.
I had to get out.
‘Let’s have lunch at the Indian. You can walk home from there,’ says Geo.
I never wanted to eat at Indian restaurants outside India, sole exception London.
When cycling had stopped, the full outdoor lifestyle came to a halt as well. Yet desperately wanting to be out in nature there needed to be other outlets. That is not always easy to combine as the mindset has troubles adjusting: from a home base to try grasping that fleeting living-outside-having-no-home lifestyle. It has been some trying and searching, situations regularly and suddenly changed and having a steady base only recently, let’s see what’s in store.
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!
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.
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.
Plus
I am was quite fully satisfied with the Svea 123. I even use it in hotel rooms, though I am very careful not to spill fuel and always put a folded windscreen underneath the stove as not to burn the hotel down.
This post it too simple for words. But somehow it got stuck in my mind.
Cycling Cindy