2.5 days on our bikes

Kim and I are in Illescas now ....

On Day One we spent most of the day hauling our bikes up and down at least a dozen flights of stairs at three Metro stations, en route to the southernmost station out of Madrid. It was a three or four hour ordeal, during which I managed to pop my front tire tube in the process. We stopped for a late lunch at a Moroccan dive filled with about 25 Moroccan men and no women. They eagerly insisted on changing my tire and walking us to a gas station, where we used Kim´s converter to fill the tube.

It was late by the time we began riding, we went 10 kilometers before it was dusk and we slept in an abandoned shack by the side of the road near Grinon. We awoke the next morning to the sound of the voices of the farmers who own the shack .... they stood really close to us, talking, and even drove their tractor by us, but never saw us. I told Kim it was a ´Jedi mind trick´ .... since they weren´t expecting to see us, they didn´t.

Yesterday was FREAKIN WINDY and hella terrifying; the winds were so strong my front handlebars would jerk side to side and I felt like I had no control over the bike´s direction .... 3 feet to the left means a certain death, with cars speeding by at 100 kilometers an hour. We slept in a park in Yuncos at night, and backtracked to Illescas today to find internet so we could GoogleMap a less-traffic-y road, if possible.

We´re ultimately heading to La Yedra, though it looks like it´ll take much longer than expected .... our slow butts went only 30 kilometers yesterday. We wake up around 10 a.m., pack the tent by 11, stop to hand-wash our bike shorts and eat lunch and look at maps and mess with our seat positions and shoes and other bike components, we want to start setting up camp by no later than 7 pm each night before it gets dark .... all of it takes time away from biking, and I imagine, after today´s GoogleMapping and a stop at the grocery store and stopping to hand-wash our bike shorts, we´ll probably go 40 km today .... maybe 50 km because there´s relatively little wind today. We´ll see.

Whether the weather

The bike and most of my luggage has been found -- one camping mat is missing, everything else was returned. (For the record, NEVER fly TAP Portugal airlines). The weather, which is Spain is normally sunny, has been chilly and rainy since we arrived. It's expected to clear up tomorrow, which is when Kim and I will bike south, chasing sunny skies.

The plan is to leave Madrid tomorrow on our bikes, head to a farm run by a guy named Alejandro, stay there for a week, spend two weeks ambiguously biking through the south (maybe pedal to Cordoba and Seville .... we have no solid destination for that time). After that, we'll return to Madrid to greet my parents when they fly in on May 7, spend a week with them, and then return to the south, by bus, to spend four weeks on a Spanish-speaking-only farm in Málaga. We'd leave the farm June 10, bus to Germany, and spend a few days there before Kim flies out June 15 and I fly out June 17.

In the meantime, we're staying with Kim's friend Matt and his two Spanish roommates, Juan Carlos and Leida, in an apartment in Madrid's financial district. Hanging out with them feels like the study abroad I never had -- its a nice insight into the day-to-day life of studying and working in Madrid as a young twentysomething. We've visited several parks and eaten at some of their favorite tapas bars, but for the most part, we're avoiding "touristy" attractions -- museums and so forth -- and focusing on the residential experience.

As is always the case with traveling, something as simple as going to the grocery store can be an adventure, leading you down narrow cobblestone paths with hundreds of balconies overhead and a centuries-old basilica on the corner. Normally when traveling, we can relax and go with the flow, but putting together a bike trip -- where specifics and details matter -- makes it a bit more challenging. I spent the better part of a day trying to find isobutane for the camp stove before giving up -- apparently Madrid lacks camping gear, and hey, bread and brie is cheap here :-)

A bike trip without a bike?

I arrived in Madrid yesterday, but my luggage didn't. My nice sleek little road bike, my panniers, my biking gear, my solar charger -- all in the hands of TAP Portugal airlines?? I'm hoping for the best and trying to visualize recieving my luggage, but I have a sinking feeling about this ....


Fortunately, Kim has a friend in central Madrid, and we can stay in his apartment for as long as it takes for the luggage to come. That's a better option than camping while we wait, especially considering that my sleeping bag and camp stove are in that luggage ....

I quit my job, moved out of my apartment and have a 10-week ticket to Europe

Well, the headline says it all. In the course of the last four days, I've quit a job I've held for three years (today is my last day at work), moved out of my apartment, and prepared for a 10-week bicycle tour through Spain with one of my best friends.

My checklist is nearly complete. Buy a digital camera, check. Donate, sell or store my belongings,
check. Create a training manual for the guy who'll replace me at work, check. Download Spanish lessons onto my ipod, check. (Thanks Will!)

Now I'm sitting at an empty desk, 4:30 on a Friday, knowing that the next step is to box my bike and board a plane. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what routes we'll ride, where we'll stay, how we'll afford to eat in a land where sandwiches cost 5 euro. But I do know this much: I can't wait to see Kim's face at a baggage carousel in Madrid ....

Nepal and Thailand

This past November and December, I spent six weeks touring Nepal and Thailand. (My editor was kind enough to grant me a leave of absence.)



There's a Nepali word -- "khatham!" -- which means, "it's F*****." That describes the state of Kathmandu.

The Himalayas seem dwarfed by the mountains of trash on the streets, cleared occasionally by trash fire. Starving goats nibble on the shawls of beggars. The air pollution gives you a headache by noon; you're asleep by 5 p.m., trying to make it disappear in dreamland.

Yet it's rich culture -- filled with vibrant cloths, bright powders, children swinging on oak branches and old women feeding stray cows -- lend Nepal a beauty that even poverty and pollution can't cloak.

The people's daily lives are triumphs of the human spirit. One feeble man, with meager possessions, saved enough to buy a bathroom scale. Each day he sits on the sidewalk, charging passers-by a few pennies to check their weight. Resourcefulness in action.

Thailand, by contrast, is a European resort. Bangkok is a party destination, with hot restaurants and nightclubs and street-vendor Pad Thai Noodles and refreshing mango juice. Chiang Mai, in the north, is lush and green, with forests of bamboo trees that seem to shoot a mile high. The islands in the south have crystal-clear water and white beaches.

Just see what happens and go from there

From my horoscope today: "loosen up and let life take its course. Don't be so quick to plan."

Vinyasa

I read recently that true happiness comes from "flow," the act immersing in an activity so fully that you lose all concept of self, space, and time.

I find flow from many things: reading, writing, climbing, cycling, socializing, trotting down the sidewalk in a new, distant country, taking in the languages, signs, smells, shirts. The way dogs in Bangkok wear tank tops. The way Costa Ricans greet each other with "pura vida." The funny jingles for "mango fruti" on Nepalese television sets.