‘Nos disparó,’ I say. ‘Quién?’ Ceci says. ‘El güey ahí, gritando.’ ‘Cómo crees?’ ‘Si mira…’ Together we look over to the tiny man screaming at us in the distance, waving his gun, a plume of smoke rising over his head. ‘No manches.’ Ceci says. ‘Pues vamonos, no?’ ‘Un segundito,’ I say. My phone died a…
Tag: Cycling
Cycling Ecuador
All I will say is that Richard Carapaz recognized us first. Ceci & I, we were minding our own business, we’d woken up in Colombia that morning (where Carapaz is not from), packed up our things, crossed the border into Ecuador, and perhaps we’d cycled 20kms on the Trans-Ecuador route we’ll be following for the…
Cycling Sumba + Wrap-Up
‘Well,’ Ceci says, as we ride along a peaceful seaside road. ‘I don’t think today’s going to add much to the overall uphill of the trip…’ Two minutes later, the road ends. ‘Huh.’ I say. On paper, the day was all downhill. All of 34kms with 600 metres of cumulative downhill. We even slept in…
Cycling Sumbawa + Flores
‘Kiri-kanan, kiri-kanan, kiri-kanan, kiri!’ It’s 0530, dark still. Ceci & I have stopped cycling to spy on a schoolyard. A sergeant is yelling in Indonesian, but the military singsong is impossible to miss. It’s the classic ‘Left-right, left-right, left-right, left!’ of a marching drill. The kids marching in line chant back in unison, matching the…
Cycling Bali + Lombok
Ceci sticks her tongue out in concentration. Or maybe it’s one of those stick-your-tongue-out selfie poses? She’s trying to capture the essence of two large demonic sculpture, but the tiny little screen on our GoPro makes it hard to tell whether they are properly in frame. It seems like they are carved out of sheer…
Cycling Sumatra
Banyu Hadi looks up. Looks up again. His face, still swollen from sleep, still dripping from the morning’s ablution, expresses many things in the next seconds. Consternation, first. The knit brow, the glance over his shoulder. Then, the true facial acrobatics begin. Confusion, perhaps even awe. Surprise certainly, fluidly transitioning into wide-eyed, slack-jawed, befuddlement; before…
TranSierra Norte
Take a swig of this, te va a rehidratar! The day is over, we’re in a rusty carcass on wheels sucking diesel. Through the dusty windshield ahead another miracle of engineering running on black smoke and buena suerte is transporting the bikes. I’m looking through the Gatorade bottle that’s being handed down to me, at…
Cycling Malaysia
We’re sitting on the ground outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere drinking white coffee, eating cake. Que vamos a hacer? My bike is propped upside down, my panniers are all over the place. No sé. Ceci gets up and tries to yank it out. She sits back down and eats more cake. Then I…
Cycling Thailand
Sweat is pooling in my eyes. We’ve been cycling for more than 140km and hunger is fierce. We finished the day in the searing heat of 1pm and now we’re sitting at a tiny table behind a little food stand on wheels and for the thousandth time, I’m wiping the sweat from my face with…
Cycling Laos
The Mekong river flows sluggish and brown beside the boardwalk plaza where Ceci & I are dancing. We are celebrating. Our 46hr trip from Mexico City to Vientiane has been costly and stressful, yet somehow both we and our bikes have made it all the way through on time and mostly undamaged. It was my…
LifeAthlon 