Week 91! Tulku in rehabilitation. Her last surgery was 2 months ago. Now she is in recovery period. That means her daily walking workload is increased weekly. After every 5 kilometers we push (or cycle) Tulku walks for next 500 meters before coming back to her basket. This week she can walk 1,5km in total! It is a good week for that, as we push and walk a lot – the road has many steep parts.
Week 92. Exploring Medellin! We have reached the 2nd biggest town in Colombia. We will spend full week here. Medellin has a lot of things to offer: museums, metro, cable car, parks… We also need to fix Sven’s bike and find medicine for Tulku.
Week 93. Climbing the last pass in the Andes! There is only one peak left for us to climb in the Andes! Well, in fact there are 5 peaks left and we’re quite confused which one is the last. You see, the 3rd peak is the highest point and the 5th peak would be the last, but the climb to it’s top is only 100m of altitude, so it doesn’t really count. And the 4th peak is neither the highest, nor the last, but we’ll consider it the ultimate one. What do you think?. Anyway, afterwards we will roll downhill towards the Caribbean coast. Can’t wait!
Week 94! The Andes are over! We expected that the day when we reach the last summit will be emotional. And it was. Just the emotions weren’t the ones that we expected. We didn’t feel happy that we’ve just reached the mayor milestone. We didn’t feel sad that a very nice chapter was over. Instead, we were frustrated and realised that some things haven’t changed since the first day and we still have a very long way to go. During 10.000 kilometers through the Andes we learned one thing: it doesn’t matter how many huge mountains you’ve already crossed – the hardest and the scariest will always be the next one, that you haven’t climbed yet. Even if it’s a 30 meters bump.
Week 95. Finished cycling South America! It took us 649 days, 11.061 kilometers, 6 countries and a bucket of sweat to do that. We got older and wiser, our stuff got dirtier and Tulku made ‘pipi’ all over the continent and declared it hers. Jokes aside, it is a big deal to us. The second continent – North America – is even bigger deal. It is longer, has more countries and we hear there are bears roaming freely. New challenges and experiences await us! Up next: finding our way to North America.
Week 96. We are sailing from Cartagena, Colombia to Portobelo, Panama on Micamale. Meet Captain Andrea. In his hands we trust our lives, our precious cargo and invaluable livestock. We packed inflatable toys and googles for snorkeling, wet wipes for showering and a bucket for throwing up. Hopefully, the sea is calm, the currents are in our favour and we reach the land today. Up next: exploring Panama canal!
Week 97. Crossing a continent from East to West (North to South according to the map). We have reached a new continent by sailing boat. We have arrived at the same port as Colombus, when he has reached the land at his 4th voyage. This week we cycle from the Atlantic coast back to the Pacific coast. It feels different here than in South America, but we can’t really grasp what exactly. Are the people different? Is the road different? Are the trees in different shade of green? One thing for sure – here are much more rubbish lying around… Up next: running errands in Panama City
Week 98. Stuck in Panama City. We have reached Panama City, got lost and got stuck. Our plan was to quickly run errands and leave on Sunday, but now we’re staying in Panama City for next one or two weeks. Why? Some of our deepest nightmares about the dentists came to life and well… let’s just say you will be happy not to know the details. In addition to this we need to vaccinate Tulku, fix bikes, visit post office, etc.
Week 99. Still stuck in Panama City. Still fixing teeth. Still hoping that Bill Gates would sponsor us. Nevertheless, 99 weeks is a very long time. In fact, we’ve been on the road for so long that we get nostalgic about the places we visited. But the journey is not even over yet! We had a very rough start in Patagonia, but all the hard and sad moments already faded away. Now we’re having a rough patch again. This time we know that soon we will forget all the pain and will remember only those rare good moments we had in Panama City.
Week 100. Still stuck in Panama City. Good news – the Teeth Odyssey is over! We’re still on mashed potato diet, but we hope to get moving soon
Week 101. On the road again! Though not in China, but still in Panama. We managed to escape the black hole (aka Panama City): we didn’t get lost this time and the Bridge of Americas wasn’t that hard or scary as people told us. Up next: cycling Panama.
Week 105. Only 100 days left until Christmas! We made 100-day-plan for all our team members to reach their goals. Tulku’s main goal is to be able to walk 4 hours non stop once per week and reach her pre-operation condition! How much can you achieve in 100 days?
Week 106. There are some certain things that you don’t want to find next to you in the morning, after sleeping outside without a tent. Here is one of those things that we didn’t want to, but yet found. We won’t repeat the experiment ‘let’s ditch the tent’ anytime soon.
Week 107. The drought. Panama is suffering from drought (thanks to el niño) and we are suffering together with it. While Panama is preparing to partially shut down the Panama Canal, our siestas are becoming longer and longer everyday. Can you imagine cycling in a country where you have to start your siesta at 8 in the morning?
Week 108. Birthdays on the road. You know that you’re getting old when there are that many candles on your cake… P.S. Still stuck in Panama.
Week 109. So close, yet so far. We are in the last major town of Panama – David. Only 50 Kilometers and one mountain separates us from the most complicated border of all Latin America. Paso Canoas will be our first Central American bordercrossing. We will be in Costa Rica afterwards.
Week 110. Cycling in Costa Rica (finally!!!). We already cycled 1/4 of the whole county! It’s very green and also very clean. Tulku got a new haircut this week. Not our finest work, but all the humidity makes even dog’s hair go fizzy 🙂
Week 111. Two steps forward, three steps back. We had a minor setback this week. Kira couldn’t walk for 3 days. Reason: bad muscle cramps. We became experts in muscle aches and cramps over the years, but this type of cramp was a new experience. So yeah, minor setback, but all is good now and we’re back on the road with our muscles of steel 😉
Week 112. Pura Vida. Costa Rica has ‘Pura Vida’ written all over it: hotels are called pura vida, shops are called pura vida, soaps are called pura vida, wifi passwords are pura vida, boats are called pura vida, souvenirs have pura vida written on them and people greet each other with pura vida. What about us? Same old: two steps of pura vida, three steps back.
Week 113. Exploring Nicaragua – the land of lakes and volcanoes! We have finished cycling Costa Rica this week and enterend a new country. After crossing the border we did the mad dash to catch a ferry to Ometepe island in Nicaragua lake. The lake is 19th biggest in the world and the island consists of two volcanoes – you can see them both in the picture!
Week 114. Cycling in Nicaragua is perfect! The roads are flat, it’s finally not that hot anymore, we have tailwinds and the scenery is awesome! Also, Nicaragua has a lot to offer – museums, architecture and nature to explore. We even got to try volcano boarding! It’s going downhill on a board, just instead of snow you use volcano ashes.
Week 115. Finished cycling Nicaragua and entered Honduras. Honduras is our country number 10 and we use it just for transit. Nicaragua said good bye to us with the eruption of nearby volcano that left us covered in ashes (Sven’s eyes still hurt!) and Honduras said hello with incredibly bumpy road (Kira’s back still hurst!).
Week 117. Cycling in Guatemala. We left sleepy and calm El Salvador on Friday and entered Guatemala straight into the action movie: errupting volcanoes, eathquakes (5.7!!!), crashing and flaming trucks. Also, very very nice and kind people everywhere!
Week 116. Finished cycling Honduras, started cycling El Salvador. Countries are rolling pretty fast lately, aren’t they? Honduras was hilly and loud, El Salvador is less hilly and queit. We see endless rural landscapes with a volcano here and there, or maybe get sneak-a-peak to the ocean. It is very hot here, with no clouds at all. We drink 4 gallons (12 liters) of beverages every day!
Week 119. We went to Belize and then this happened.
Week 120. Learning about Maya culture. Also, learning to take selfies! When we started our trip ‘selfie’ was not even a word (or was it?) and we spent last 2 years in countries where selfies aren’t that popular. Naturally, when we saw a sticker on the floor marking ‘selfie zone’ in this Maya museum, we understood that we need to step up our game in order to fit in the modern world. So here you go!
Week 121. This week was eventful: 2 different time zones, 3 different climate zones, lot’s of steps and lot’s of sights. We waved goodbye to Kira’s parents, visited set of newest James Bond movie (also known as Mexico City) and came back to our bikes. We dusted them and now we’re getting ready to continue our big trip with our slow speed. Well, we might climb some more steps on some ruins before…
Week 122. We started cycling again, yay! We made it to the next town, 50 km away, yay! And then the life got in our way again, and we’re stuck in this town now… To be more precise: our trusty Primus cooker broke down and well… No cooker = no food = no cycling, I guess. So while we were figuring out how to solve the cooker situation (Primus Equipment is sending us new parts for free, yay to them!), we are exploring local Mexican cuisine. And there is a lot to explore! So far our experience waries from ‘Oh! SPICY! Give me water!’ to ‘Why on earth did you eat a whole jelapeño?!’ to ‘What is that? Oh, tastes gooooood!’ to ‘Are you sure there are no bugs in this meal?’. Yup, in this corner, Mexicans eat bugs. Also, so far we haven’t seen any buritos or chili con carne for sale anywhere… P.S. In those rare spare moments when we’re not eating or breaking stuff (and calling it fixing), we went to Izapa maya ruins and found out that this stone in the picture is a 2000 years old compass.
Week 123. Cycling Soconusco Coast. This 20 km wide coastal strip is known for it’s fertile soil and banana and coffee produce. We know it as ‘frustrating coast’. At first we named it ‘3rd most boring road on Earth’, later the scenery changed, so we changed it’s name to ‘3rd most windy road on Earth’. To make the situation worse, Mexican road engineers decided that the new road will go straight through every hill there is, while the old road conveniently goes around each bump. The tricky part is that the old road is used for the opposite direction traffic. And yet what frustrates us the most is that just a month ago we were cycling 70-80 km per day on even harder and hotter conditions, and now we’re struggling to cycle 40 km…
Week 124. Cycling through wind-farms. We are at the narrowest part of Mexico right now: only 200 Km between Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Even though there is a mountain range in the middle, the wind is coming from Atlantic coast and blowing here on the Pacific coast like crazy. Smart people built many wind-farms in this region. Luckily to us, we get mainly tail winds, but the wind direction changes multiple times per day and cycling through the howling wind is not as easy as we wished it to be. Our week looked like this: Day 1 to 4 – waiting for strong winds (up to 120 km h) to die out; Day 5 to 7 – actually cycling. Up next: climbing back to the mountains and none of us is ready for that!
Week 125. Off to the mountains! We’re still not ready (not at slightest), but oh well… On the bright side, the landscape here is very different. Jungles are truly over for a while now, and we are surrounded by blue mountains, yellow grass fields and brown leave-less trees. The air is dry, it’s not that hot anymore and all plants have thorns. Also – cacti! Plenty of them all over the place. We haven’t seen them since Argentina and we are very happy to see them again.
Week 126. Climbing to the mountains. In order to reach Mexican Altiplano we have to cross 11 mountains. We have already climbed over 10 mountains, so there is only one left. It is the highest, the steepest and with the longest climb. Sven is excited, Kira not so much and Tulku is just happy, because she had her 8th birthday yesterday!
Week 128. Leaving Oaxaca Valley. The first part of the week felt like running a marathon, even though we haven’t cycled. We were busy in Oaxaca with running errands, from 7am to 10pm. All of us – Sven, Kira, Tulku and our bikes – had check ups. We fixed our teeth, Tulku got medicine for her infected ear and our bikes got a lot of new parts. Luckily, we sneaked in some sightseeing and visited couple of UNESCO sites. Now we are in Mexican Highlands, on our way to Puebla.
Week 130. Not as planned. In last two weeks there wasn’t a single thing that went as planned. It was overwhelming and brought both good and bad things. The bad thing – we’re still haven’t reached Puebla. Seriously, how hard can it be to cycle 300 km? Too hard, apparently. The good thing is that all the unexpectedness lead us to discover incredible things, like eating cactus, playing with tumbleweed, exploring rooftops of old monasteries and meeting a girl who travels with a cat!
Puebla!!! We reached Puebla! When we left Oaxaca we thought we will reach Puebla in less than a week. But then the valley turned into mountains, sunshine turned into rain and hail and we started to doubt that we will ever make it to Puebla. But we did! And Puebla is great! And we love it! Also, new video about sightseeing in Puebla: https://youtu.be/kXFLNFi_JEU
Week 132. MWeek 132. Mexico City is behind us! There were 3 main ways to deal with Mexico City: 1. Go around on the west side via Toluca, which includes crossing the most dangerous state in Mexico; 2. Go straight through Mexico City, which is a megalopolis with 9 million inhabitants and chaotic city traffic; 3. Go around on the east side via Arco Norte, which is a brand new motorway that is very strict about ‘No cyclists allowed’ rule. None of the options were favorable for us, so we started digging deeper and at the end we had plans A, B, C, D up to X, Y, Z as well as couple of numbers too. Take these oh-so-many options mix them with things that don’t go as planned every single step and you get… Well, Mexico City is behind us, but please don’t ask us how we got here.
Week 133. Headwinds. Our already slow tempo was slowed even more by strong headwinds. Once again we talked with local people, once again they told us ‘it’s never windy here’. Either that global climate change thing is very real, or we’re just very unlucky and always appear to be in places where ‘it never rains’ and ‘it’s never windy’… Up next: change of course.
Week 135. Crossed the Tropic of Cancer (and got attacked by bees)! It is a huge milestone for us (the tropic, not the bees): it is one of five mayor circles of latitude. During this trip we have already crossed three of them, the fourth – the Arctic Circle – is waiting for us in Alaska. This week we’ve been cycling through an exceptionally beautiful landscape and we’re loving every minute of cycling more than we ever did. Up next: Saltillo. P.S. To put things into perspective: we are now at the same level as Sahara desert.
Week 136. Sick in the desert. People say that when traveling, the highs are very high and the lows are very low. This week was a perfect example of that. On Saturday we have crossed the 15.000 kilometer mark. At the same evening Kira got a cold, which turned very nasty overnight. We were stuck in the middle of the desert (technically still semi-desert) in our tent next to a lone petrol station. Being grounded in the middle of nowhere with a high fever is one of those experiences that we wish to forget as soon as possible. During the day it was +30C with no shade, during the night it was merely +10C. With no chance for a quick recovery we had to find transportation to bring us back to the next town where we could visit the doctor and find some better living arrangements than our tent for next couple of days. Good news: Kira is feeling better. Bad news: now Sven is feeling worse. The best news: Tulku is feeling great.
Week 137. Sick, part II. Last week Kira caught a nasty cold, this week was Sven’s turn to be sick. It got us worse than we first anticipated and it took much more time to get well than we thought it will. Multiple doctor visits and 5 boxes of tissues later we are both feeling much better and preparing to hit the road on Thursday. Tulku on the other hand used her off cycling time wisely and made us play with her ALL THE TIME.
Week 138. Cycling through Sierra Madre. This week we have crossed Nuevo Leon state and entered Coahuila state. It will be the last state in Mexico for us. We made a pit stop in Saltillo where we researched which route to take through mainland USA. The decision has been made and it was one of the biggest decisions we made during this trip. We also ran some errands in the city and made a vlog about it. Please take a look at what do we do when we’re not cycling here: https://youtu.be/-JK5DKMWD_Y
Week 139. Tulku is sick. Tulku was diagnosed with anaplasmosis and it is a serious condition. The treatment is very long and slow and takes 3 to 4 weeks. So we are facing a dilemma: to continue traveling and possibly kill Tulku in the process, or to wait it out and possibly don’t reach Alaska before snowfall, and thus forever. While the choice is obvious, it still hurts. The thing is, we caught Tulku’s disease at super early stage, so she never felt bad or weak and prognosis is good. And yet her blood results are dangerously low with a chance of internal bleeding anytime. She’s getting treatment and we all are grounded until her blood results are back to normal. It is expected that her blood will be back to normal in 2 – 3 weeks and we are waiting for a miracle that it would be sooner. Which is much better situation than waiting for a miracle that your dog would survive, we admit that.
Week 140. On the road again. After a month-long marathon of sickness we are back on the road since Monday! A lot has changed during last month: we got out of shape and the outside temperatures became much higher, which is not a good thing when you’re standing in the beginning of a huge desert. Our start was rough: we got caught in a huge storm with no shelter, with heavy rain, thunder and lighting strikes oh-so-close to us. We’re still struggling to adapt to the new cycling conditions and try to re-establish our daily routine with a siesta under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere, that we used to practice in Argentinian deserts. Up next: #arewethereyet
Week 134. Change of course. This week we have finished cycling Queretero state, crossed Guanajuato state and entered San Luis Potosi state and now we are heading straight north! Our original plan was to continue west via Gualadajara and cycle on the west coast. After lots of careful consideration followed by a quick second glance to the map, the wise words ‘What about that road?’ have been said. We never considered this route and we’re not sure why – it fits us perfectly! So we’ve turned the steering wheel and now we’re heading towards Texas. The scenery is changing and we will be entering the desert very soon. We cycle through once rich mining region. We got a chance to smell the gold rush this week too: we visited a ghost town and climbed 40 meters under ground in an old mine!
Week 141. Extreme weather. This was supposed to be a weekly update about how much we loved Mexico and how happy we are to enter USA, but destiny had other plans for us. We were cycling a lot this week and it was a hot week, with daytime temperatures averaging at +36C and nighttime temperatures at +30C. We were coping okay, until yesterday. Yesterday we were sleeping in the middle of the desert, when the Mother of all Thunderstorms had struck. The thunderstorm was fierce, but far away. It was moving from West to East right in front of us. There were four houses next to the crossroad in the desert. We pitched our tent behind one of them and joined the locals in storm watching. It was amazing: multiple lightnings striking non-stop so hard, that the sky was constantly bright. You could read a book, if you wished. Instead, we were mesmerized by the power of nature. It was quite far, and we couldn’t hear any thunder. At one point, the storm got a bit closer to us, and the wind started howling. We had to evacuate our tent in the middle of the night. Luckily, the home-owner offered his kitchen for us to stay. It was dark, the electricity was out and we were running back and forth in the wind, carrying our stuff to the house with the lightnings in the background. Our tent has survived a lot of strong winds, Patagonian included, but this was too much. The storm has passed without hitting us directly and after 6 hours the desert was calm again. And yet only next morning we realized the true severity of the storm. We woke up, sat on our bikes and started cycling. At first, we noticed that road signs were ripped out. Later, we saw that the desert was flooded. Cacti standing half in the water, grass completely submerged. And then we reached the town. At first it looked okay, but then we noticed huge road signs lying on the street, street lamps bended left and right, church towers broken off, roofs with huge holes, businesses without signs… It was surreal. We checked the weather forecast and there are active warnings for the next two days. Another major storm is expected as well as tornadoes, which are unusual in Mexico, but not impossible. We decided to wait out this extreme weather here in town. If you know a reliable online weather service, please let us know!
Week 142. Tornadoes, surgeries and the end of Latin America! This week we finished cycling Mexico and entered USA. Mexico was huge, colorful and very diverse. Food was awesome, people were kind and nature was spectacular – we loved this country. Our last days in Mexico were intense: thunderstorms, tornado warnings and headwinds. We crossed the bridge into USA on Sunday. It was a big milestone and we felt on top of the world. The next day reality brought us back on the ground: our bank froze our cards due to ‘suspicious activity’ (using ATM in Honduras is perfectly normal, but doing the same in USA is suspicious? Seriously?!) and Kira got a terrible toothache. Timing could not be worse! We sorted out the bank pretty easily, but fixing the painful tooth was more complicated. Everything was closed due to Memorial Day and Eagle Pass doesn’t even have needed root canal specialist, not mentioning the price of the procedure. We listed our options and did what any other person living in Eagle Pass would do: Kira went back to Mexico and had her tooth fixed there. Turns out, the grass is not always greener on the other side…
Week 143. Cycling Texas. This week started slowly: we were waiting for the rain and floods to stop. In the meantime, we were getting stuff done. More precisely we were trying to get stuff done and failing miserably, as usual. Once the thunderstorms were finally over, we dusted our bikes and hit the road. This week’s agenda: one National Park and one State Park. Oh, and Mexico too, to finish fixing Kira’s tooth.
Week 144. Don’t mess with Texas! Texan people are the friendliest and most helpful people that we ever met anywhere. At the same time, they’re the craziest (and dangerous!) people that we have ever met. This week was yet another roller-coaster week. The road was rolling up and down and adventures led us from feeling on top of the world at one moment to falling down the cliff at another. From guns to rainbows, this week had it all! The desert is not for the lighthearted, they say. Distances between town are long and the summer heat is strong. And while the wild west is now a distant past, it’s legends here are still alive. We also may have left our imprint on history by accidentally starting some legends of our own.
Week 145. >+40°C. “It will be much colder day tomorrow! Only +34°C!”. I challenge ya’ll to tell me the last time you used this sentence, because it was a first for us. Back in Argentina, we used to call +30°C “okay weather” and +35°C “too hot to cycle weather”. Due to our marathon of illnesses in Northern Mexico we missed our chance to cross the desert before summer begins. And now we’re here and summer is here and it’s hot. Believe me, +45°C measured in the shade is hot, especially once you realize that there is no shade in the desert! We adjusted our daily schedule in order to survive these temperatures, but it’s still not easy. Good news: we’re almost done with the hot region! Bad news: the region we’re cycling into currently has record breaking high temperatures and wild fires and stuff…
Week 146. Hunt for aliens. This week started with a visit to Carlsbad Caverns NP that was out of this world beautiful. Next, we reached Roswell and visited UFO research museum where we learned about the crash that happened in 1947 that sparked a lot of controversy. That was a loud crash, because people are still talking about it today! Later, we had a chance to hunt for aliens ourselves by crossing an uninhabited and160 km long desert where the UFO crashed, camping in the open desert included. We might report on our findings next week, but most likely, we’ll just keep silent about them for forever.
Week 147. 1000 days on the road and counting! Oh, what a week! We crossed many of our personal boundaries, both mental and physical, in order to arrive to Albuquerque on Independence day in USA. 4th of July coincided with our 1000th day on the road. It was a picture perfect day and welcome reward (fireworks included!) after our hard work. We made a video about this day, go check it out: https://youtu.be/3kCO6saryo4 The festivities were followed by tons of errands that need to be run and tons of research that need to be conducted.
Week 148. Cycling in New Mexico. Our week started in Albuquerque where we went through two-day ordeal of fixing our bikes (thanks, Dave!). Our bikes have lots of wear and tear after 3 years on the road, but still are holding great (thanks, MAXX!). After we left Albuquerque and Chihuahuan desert behind us, we started cycling Colorado Plateau. We found ourselves surrounded by such beautiful landscapes, that words fail to describe them. It’s still pretty deserterous, but yellow and orange rock formations are gorgeous! Best part: people say that even more beauty is in front of us!
Week 149. End of New Mexico! This week started with a climb over the continental divide. We went back to the Pacific side and we’ll stay here until the finish. We were cycling through deserterous areas with spectacular canyons and rock formations all week long. Everyday we found something that left us in awe. Additionally, we did some exploring and visited ancient ruins and Shiprock. Shiprock is holy to Navajo Indians and it’s huge – you can see it from 50 kilometers away and sometimes from even further!
Week 150. Hiding in Colorado. Good news: we have cycled half of the mainland USA! To celebrate this achievement we visited Mesa Verde National Park. We never heard about it before, but it left us speechless. We spent the rest of the week hiding behind blackout curtains and doing nothing at all. Touring full time is a hard job, we work form 5:00 to 23:00 in order to keep everything running smoothly. Cycling is the easiest part, the supporting tasks are the ones that eat up most of our time and energy. There are no weekends, no holidays and often we work overtimes additionally to our 18-hour-workday. The hard work sure pays back in unique, unexpected and quirky ways and couple of days off is a rare, but sometimes needed indulgence. Also, we brought Tulku for her annual vaccination and check up. She got her knees inspected for the first time since her operation in Colombia and turns out that her knees are healthy and patellas are not luxating anymore. Yay!
Week 151. Breathtaking Nature. Yup, this is all we did this week – looked at breathtaking vistas in Utah.
Week 152. Heat again. Our week started with rain and thunderstorms in the morning – very unusual. They were quite short but would have caused a huge effort in time to dry all our gear. It was very tempting to just stay in the tent. The rain left and was replaced by brutal heat in the last days which made it very tempting to stay in the shade in the tent. So we paused Boundless Biking for a week and were just Kira, Sven and Tulku for some time.
Week 158. Last day of summer. Oh, hi there! Yes, we’re still alive and yes, we’re still crippling towards Alaska and Sven’s facial expression sums up the mood of our team perfectly. Yesterday was the last day of summer here in Utah. It was blazing hot, as usual. Today the weather changed. Now it’s cold and raining and the snow is expected tomorrow…
Boundless Biking 