The first phase of our bike odyssey is over. We've completed Central and South America, and South Africa, and now we're about to head back to the northern hemisphere, and spend six months in Europe and eastern North America. It's hard to condense two and half months into a short essay, but these are some of the highlights. The trip has not gone exactly as we envisioned.
It started on December 30, 1999, when we met the rest of the 247 riders of this tour called "Odyssey 2000", at the Burbank Airport Hilton. There was a 7 hour session as everybody introduced themselves, and then another day's worth as the tour leaders, Tim Kneeland and Karen-Ann Sutter (who along with her daughter Britt-Simone constitute Tim Kneeland & Associates or TK&A) gave a long introduction to the trip. We learned there that Tim and Karen-Ann can speak volumes, but can't necessarily stick to the point.
The ride got under way early on January 1, 2000 as we headed to Pasadena for the Rose Parade. The parade organizers and/or the TK&A publicity machine insisted that all the riders wear matching blue jerseys, black shorts, and yellow helmets, and nothing else - despite the fact that the temperature at 5:30 that morning was in the 30's. We made our way, shivering, to the parade start at about 7 and hung out there. At 10 minutes before 8, the officials told us to start riding. A little odd, since the parade didn't start until 8, at least as far as the TV coverage. So if you tuned in to the parade and wondered where we were, that's the reason.
After we regrouped at the end of the parade route (and put on warmer clothes) we got underway, and biked across Los Angeles, along a surprisingly pleasant bike route. We spent the first night in a campground in southern Orange County. The next day would set the tone for the rest of the leg down to La Paz, Baja California, Mexico: wake up before dawn, fold up your tent, stand in line with 240 others for breakfast, start riding at sunrise, ride until about sunset, put up your tent, stand in line with 240 others for dinner, and go to bed. We did this for 7 days straight before our first scheduled rest day, some place in central Baja. This was January, so the days were short. And even though it got pretty hot during the day, the nights were quite cold.
After the one rest day, we had a 60 mile day, and then three 90 mile days in a row. Gesa and I came to the realization that if we wanted to do anything but grind away on our bikes all day long, that we would have to create our own time off. We let the tour ride out from the little town of Guerrero Negro, stayed an extra night (in a hotel), and then caught an intercity bus to Mulege where the tour would be in 2 days. It can be a challenge to get bikes into these buses, but the drivers are very accomodating, and will get them in if possible. We had to wait for a second bus. In those 2 days, we saw 10 other riders trying or succeeding in getting aboard the buses, so we were not alone in our inspiration.
Baja California was not particularly memorable for me, except for a few things: a hair-raising ride through Tijuana, the endless miles of cactus, and the beautiful sight of the Sea of Cortez when we got to the south of Baja. In La Paz, we had a nice layover day as we waited for our first airplane transit to Costa Rica. We were scheduled to fly 2 chartered Boeing 727s with all the riders, their bikes and luggage, the 25 support staff and all the support gear. One of the riders is an airline pilot, and his opinion was: "no way". He turned out to be right, only half the bikes got loaded, so TK&A had to hire another airplane, at unimaginable expense.
We got in to San Jose, Costa Rica, late and without most of our bikes, so we got shuttled in from the airport to the hotel and had 2 nice rest days. Alot of the riders took sightseeing tours around Costa Rica. It's a beautiful country, with volcanoes, rain forest, coffee plantations, and tropical beaches.
The first day of riding was a memorable one. After a somewhat unpleasant ride across the city of San Jose, we went over the Cerro de los Muertos (Mountain of the Dead), so called because of the many people who died while building the road. The top of the mountain is at 3491 m (11,000 ft) and inexplicably, the road goes right over the summit. So there was a 70 km climb from 4000 ft to 11,000 ft in a cold, rainy, windy fog, and then a very fast 40 km descent to about the same elevation on the other side. Once one came out of the cloud on the far side, the view down was amazing. Less than 50 of the 247 riders, actually completed that day's ride (I'm happy to say I did). The tour organizers did not distinguish themselves that day. Alot of the riders were exhausted and hypothermic, and many feared for their safety on the road, but the sag wagons were instructed to keep people riding for as long as possible. As a result, many of the riders picked up a new habit for Odyssey 2000, hitch-hiking.
The next day started easily enough, but the afternoon consisted of a seemingly endless series of short steep climbs and descents, in 90-plus temperatures. If anything, it was more challenging than the day before. The day after that started with a very steep, 15 km climb out of the town of San Vito. The local taxi drivers had a field day with us, carrying a good fraction of the riders up the hill, and often down the long, steep descent on the other side. The afternoon was taken up by the border crossing into Panama, which was an amazingly disorganized mess. It took Gesa and me 2 hours to clear immigration, riders who got there after us waited for 4 hours or more, and many were there at 6 PM as the sun started to set, with another 40 km to go to the camp. TK&A had to send a bus for those folks.
After completing those last 3 days, I said: "Let's take the bus". So the next morning we went to the bus station in David, and got on the bus direct to Panama City. After a relaxing 6 hour ride, we went to hotel, checked in, and got set to wait the 3 days for the tour to come in. We should have known, there were already Odyssey riders there when we got there, and many more filtered in during the next 3 days.
For our next flight to Santiago, Chile, TK&A chartered a Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jet, but we still didn't get everything on, and another airplane had to be hired. We originally had 1 day planned for Santiago, but it turned in to 3 as we waited for our bikes. This was pleasant, but it meant that we would have to lose 2 subsequent rest days, and there would be 12 straight days of riding. Let's just say, many of us weren't planning on riding all those days.
Chile is a beautiful and interesting country, but it has one major drawback as far a bicycle touring goes. It only has one paved north-south road in most places, and that road is a limited access 4-lane highway. So off we went along Highway 5. The first couple of days were through nice fruit farms and vineyards, but the experience was somewhat spoiled by fearing for our lives.
I had planned to race in the Puchon Triathlon, which is a major event with international pro athletes, but even though Odyssey was going very close to Puchon, it was not going to get there until 2 days after the race. So we tried to board a bus in Temuco, to get there early. But we did not manage to get our bikes and ourselves on a bus, so we gave up and rejoined the tour. Two days later we tried again from Conception and succeeded, but it was too late for the triathlon. We still had 3 nice days in Puchon, which is a scenic resort town. Someone had coined the term "Yellowhead" to refer to Odyssey 2000 riders because of our matching helmets, and it was a matter of hours before we saw our first yellowheads in Puchon. You can be hundreds of miles from the tour, but you won't too far from some other yellowhead. We saw some people there, that had come straight from Santiago, and not ridden a mile in Chile.
As we traveled south in Chile, we went from warm dry farm land, to cool damp forest. And when we rejoined the tour near Puchon, we entered a rain cloud, which was to stay over us for the next 5 days. Our ride in South America was capped by a day crossing over the Andes range, the descent of which was on a 25 km dirt and gravel road. That day, my brake pads were worn down to nothing. But the next day was a beatufil ride around Lake Nahuel-Huapo in southern Argentina, on our way to San Carlos de Bariloche. Days like this are what we all hoped for on this tour.
For our next flight to South Africa, we had a Boeing 747, and all the bicycles and gear fit! The only glitch was that only once before had a 747 taken of from San Carlos, and our plane was fully loaded. The airplane was piloted by its owner, a sheik from Qatar in the Persian Gulf. As we taxied to the runway, it could see out the window how short the runway was, and I got a little nervous. The sheik, locked the brakes, revved up the engines to full power, and peeled off down the runway. Luckily I could not see how much runway we used, but we got airborne and everybody cheered.
After many, many hours, we landed in Johannesberg, South Africa. All during the flight, people were plotting how they were going to go about getting off-route. Gesa and I hooked up with a group that was leaving straight from Johannesburg, to go to Kruger National Park and do several days of wildlife safari. We were a bit lucky. There had been several weeks of rain, and many bridges around the park were washed out, and after we left, several cyclones came through and devastated south-east Africa. But we had fairly good weather, and saw incredible wildlife, and even got chased by a bull elephant.
We joined the tour again in the town of Hazyview, just outside the park. But we also had other plans. We joined 4 other people and rented a VW microbus, so that we could sag ourselves and choose how long to ride each day, and also take a side trip. First though, we biked into and through Swaziland, which was great. On the first morning in Swaziland though, after a 100 mile day, it was pouring down rain. We had our own vehicle, but some folks who had done more riding, got discouraged and chartered a bus to take them directly to Durban, a few riding days down the road. By mid-morning, 70 people had signed up for the bus and a second bus was necessary to carry the bikes.
We biked in to Durban, along the Indian Ocean coast and did a little swimming. Somewhere along there I got a nasty insect bite that got infected and required a week of antibiotics. In Durban, we found at least 7 other rented vans and many other arrangements for alternative transport. By that time, there were two categories of riders, those who had ridden EFI (where the E stands for Every and the I stands for Inch), and the Slackers. There were maybe 20 out of the 247 who were still EFI.
The next leg of the tour was through the Transkei region, and many riders were concerned about their personal safety there (unnecessarily it turned out), but they arranged another bus to take them through to East London. Our own blue van group, called "Slacker 3" headed up to the Drakensberg mountain range, and we did 4 days of hiking and stayed at great B&Bs. One day we hiked up the Sani Pass and went briefly into Lesotho, and had lunch at the "Highest pub in Africa".
We met up again in East London. At the point the van group broke up and we rode most of the rest of the way, except the the two of us decided to go in to Capetown early to do some sightseeing, so we hired an economy car and drove in. We could have gone a day earlier still and ridden in the Argus Cycle Race, which is the biggest bike race in the world, with 35,000 riders. A lot of other Odyssey riders did it and had a great time, but somehow, I wasn't in the mood.
Now, we're waiting for our flight to Greece, and most everybody I talk to is saying they have no intention of riding the first day out of Athens after our long flight, so we'll see what plots are hatched during this next flight. Welcome to the Odyssey 2000, the trip around the world with (but not necessarily on) bikes.
2. Athens to Lisbon 
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