On the road

The original post by mysite blog was posted here

I felt empty and void of any feelings or emotion in the last three days cycling towards the Panama Canal. I couldn’t work out why and it was frustrating. Alex beamed with smiles all the way but I was struggling with it and was subconsciously stalling at every opportunity to delay the end. Part of me could not wait for it all to be over but another part of me was worried about what I would do afterwards.

With 20kms to go I steadied myself and tried to prepare for the end. But nothing could stop me from bursting into tears as soon as I caught my first glimpse of the top of the bridge in the distance. I cried all the way to the end. I don’t know what happened but it suddenly hit me, the enormity of what we had done. On top of the actual ride itself, from a personal point of view it felt amazing completing the goal having almost lost my leg one and a half years ago. I could still live life, still complete huge physical challenges. Even more fulfilling was the thought of how proud my friend Brett would have been, living life to the full, a life he never got to live having died so tragically in spearfishing accident in the Marshall Islands last year. Brett I thought of you every day mate and you willed me on to the end. 

It was a shock to see the police escort gathered and the Panama Tourism Authority along with the film crew. After meeting the crew and regaining my composure we cycled ove the bridge guided by the police, as the crew filmed us from the back of the van. It felt amazing.

After a double magarita (promised to Ron and Barb in Anchorage) at the end of the bridge we headed off for the Gamboa Rainforest Resort – where the Panama Tourism Authority kindly put us up for 4 wonderful nights. I spent the majority of the 4 days, three sheets to the wind, with a sore head most mornings. It was an incredible hotel, right on the Canal, where we could go kayaking next the cruise liners passing through, or hike in the pristine rainforest. The breakfast buffets were also so so good and we got caught 3 days in a row, walking out with muffins and pancakes stuffed down our trousers.

The best part of all was that our good friends from the road arrived in Panama City on various modes of transport and all of them came out to party and crash in our room at the resort. It was a wonderful end, to be able to reminice and share with the fabulous friends we had made – Tuulia, the girl from Finland we had met 4/5 times throughout Central America, Nicholas and Emi, the cyclists we had pedalled with from Guatemala to Leon, Nicaragua and of course brothers Paul and Eric, the motorbikers we hung out with many times whom we first met in Oaxaca Mexico.

Now I am back in Costa Rica for a 10 days rest before heading back to the UK for my much needed knee and ankle surgery. I am so glad I was able to do this, its been the most incredible experience. You have to live life to the full and take every opportunity life gives…cos in 15 years or even 5 years you may not get that chance again. Live the dream not the pay check! Thanks for reading and sharing this amazing journey with me. One final huge thanks to Alex – mate you have made this experience unforgettable and I couldn’t have wished for a better person to share this with. See you on the road mate.

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The original post by Tara was posted here

I was a little overwhelmed by our new camera when we picked it up from Greek customs two days ago. At first glance, it looked like the flight deck of a 767 to me. Even more ridiculous (in the confines of our small apartment) was our gigantic telephoto lens. I jokingly deemed it more applicable for snipers than cycle tourists.

But, after a little fiddling, and a lot of instruction from Tyler (who has thoroughly over-researched this purchase), I’ve quickly come to the realization that is no big deal at all! In fact, I love it. I am really excited about getting back on the road with all of the new tools we have at our disposal to capture the world around us.

Our 20mm prime lens is super wide, meaning we can fit a lot into our photos, and dramatically play with perspective in ways our old mid-range zoom couldn’t. Where before we would’ve only been able to capture a small portion of this large graffiti (without standing in the middle of the street anyway), we were able to get the whole thing in the shot, standing right on the sidewalk!

Our new camera is incredible for shooting in low light, and our our wide aperture 50mm prime lens makes it even better. This dark, indoor shot would have been very difficult to capture with our D60; I just snapped this like I would any outdoor shot with our D700. Amazing!

Our telephoto lens is great! It still makes me think of Jason Bourne, and it certainly isn’t inconspicuous, but it means we can finally take closeup shots from far away. I’ve lost count of how many animal photos we’ve deleted because they were a tiny speck in the frame. Check out this pigeon!

While we were snapping photos, a kind, artsy-looking woman stopped us and said if we really wanted to see an amazing piece of graffiti/art, we should follow her directions. She instructed us to cross the street, enter a campus sort of area, and make our way through the academic buildings. We did, and found this taking up a large portion of an outside wall:

Incredible! My favorite, though, was this:

Tomorrow the general strike hits Athens– I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to practice with our new gear!

Syndicated from Tara, via Bicycle Touring Around the World

The original post by Graham Gillies was posted here

Mark and Greg catch up ahead of their first time meeting face to face since the challenge began back in May 2009.

Tune in to Radio 1 at 1pm on Friday (12th March) to hear how Greg gets on with Mark’s Sport Relief challenge.

Syndicated from Graham Gillies, via Mark Beaumont Cycling the Americas Blog

The original post by mysite blog was posted here

After many border crossings we had become quite relaxed about getting the camera out to film. Unfortuantely when the Panama Customs officials got sight of the $8000 camera they decided we needed a good searching. Asides an extra hour at the border and having to repack all my gear the inspection proved fairly uneventful and we rode off into our final country of the journey.

Immediately we hit thunderstorms, head winds and undulating hills. We had made the mistake of thinking we had finished but we soon realised we still had 400km of the Pan American Highway to do, a long and tedious highway road. If the roads weren’t bad enough we got attacked twice by swarms of killer bees which didnt do much to help our motivation. Alex was hit the worst with about 15 stings and I got off lightly with 3 – fortunately we weren’t allergic.

But with only a few day to go, we were crossed by Paul and Eric again who we had first met in Oaxaca Mexico – it reminded us of just how far we had come and the enormity of the trip. It gave us the extra boost to get to the end. Next post – Crossing the Canal

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The original post by Tyler was posted here

Signs of the economic crisis occurring Greece are easy to find in Athens. We frequently pass police in full riot gear, we’ve seen several protests during our short time here, and taxes have risen (on some goods, to astronomical levels!). I won’t attempt to explain the nature of the political situation; the video below provides a pretty good picture of the current state of affairs.

In addition to the evidence of protesting, strikes and tax hikes, the city is covered in political graffiti. We’re told that Greece has always taken a somewhat lax approach to dealing with civil unrest, and that seems to be true. We’ve witnessed people with spray-cans tagging walls in broad daylight on more than one occasion!

On our second day here, we witnessed a taxi drivers strike. Unfortunately, neither of us speaks enough Greek to understand what exactly was going on. We didn’t have much luck asking around, but we did get a few photos and took some (unintelligible to us) audio.

There is a general strike on March 11^th. The entire city will be shut down and there will be many demonstrations. We’ll be there taking photos. It is a pretty remarkable time to be in Athens!

Syndicated from Tyler, via Bicycle Touring Around the World

The original post by Cycling To The Ashes was posted here

Syndicated from Cycling To The Ashes, via Cycling To The Ashes

The original post by Travel Blog | Grab a Wheel was posted here

For those of you not from the YL you might not know what the YL is. And who can blame you it’s a tiny area in North Orange County famous for being my home town but originally famousor is that infamous for being the hometown of Richard Nixon. You’ll now find here the Richard Nixon library and I think there is some sort of shack leaning up next to the library that represents his home or bedr

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