A Short Bike Ride

Back home some of our family and friends make us feel like we’re pretty adventurous people. Sometimes when we’re traveling, we meet people who make us feel our adventures are BEYOND tame! That happened again last night. In fact, for those of you who followed our Baja blog last winter and remember our story of Erin and Aaron who were kayaking 300 miles of the coast of Baja in the Sea of Cortez, we finally met a couple who make that trip look tame!

We had dinner at a favorite restaurant on the plaza in San Ignacio. Sitting at the adjacent table were a couple we had passed and taken note of earlier in the day on the highway – riding bicycles! They had their bikes loaded down with gear, parked next to their table and were conversing in Spanish with the waiter. They looked to be in their 20s. Cathryn couldn’t resist the urge to hear their story so started a conversation. Turns out they met a year ago in Japan. He’s from Orange County, she from Toronto. They both love to bike, so agreed to do a trip together this year until whenever their money runs out! They started in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in August. They pedaled the entire west coast of the United States, crossed the border into Baja, Mexico and are continuing to La Paz, several hundred miles further south. At that point they’ll take a ferry to Mazatlan on the mainland of Mexico, then continue south through central America and all the way to Argentina! They’ve pedaled 2700 miles so far, and expect to come close to 6,000 before it ends. They average about 70 miles a day, but did 95 the day we met them. Their bikes have about 45 pounds of gear including a tent, sleeping bags, clothes, cooking gear and when the water bags are loaded. They were extraordinarily cheerful in telling their story, laughed a lot, and clearly are having a wonderful time! They stay in a motel once every week or two, take real showers (camp ground showers or sponge baths otherwise) and do laundry. We asked how their parents feel about their adventure, and they said his parents had bought them a SPOT device (which we have one of as well) and they send a “We’re OK, and here’s where we are today” message daily. It goes by satellite to selected email addresses, and only costs $100/year, so is not dependent on the availability of internet and is very inexpensive. They sound like very savvy travelers, and between them they speak 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Vietnamese and some Portugese! They gave us their blog address which is http://www.grab-a-wheel.org (see a link also on the right hand side of our blog). We’ll follow their travels from here. See why we feel like we’re tame, conventional travelers????