From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

We are living an extraordinary and meaningful adventure. I often try to take a step back and consider everything that we have experienced. And each time I tell myself that I don’t regret it for a moment. Deciding to leave everything behind and embark on this journey was difficult, and took some time getting to, but it was the right choice and I would make it again. We have learned so much, maturing a little more each day. It is our determination that has been our constant guide, and without it we would not be able to continue. Our most difficult moments so far have been when we lacked determination, but it always returned and we found the courage to continue. We have learned how to adapt, to quickly analyze a situation, to deal with the unforeseen and to make decisions. We have picked up Spanish and we are much more comfortable with everyone we encounter, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, education, or native tongue. These are important lessons that will no doubt help us out when we come back.

Sébastien

Exactly one year ago we said goodbye to our family and friends and left, full of doubts, to start our adventure. Doubts, you ask, really? Yes, we had doubts. There were those people who really made us question our decision to leave. They raised all sorts of issues and made us call our whole plan into question. I wasn’t even sure myself of our trip, and because of all these sceptical people doubting my ability to follow through on such an adventure,  I left with many nagging uncertainties about my own abilities. But they didn’t take into account my determination and willpower!

One year later, after having traveled more than 13,200 km across 10 countries, and climbed 126,321 m in altitude, I feel capable of taking on anything! I am proud of what I have accomplished. Of course I still have a few doubts, but fewer than before. And to everyone who thought that I wouldn’t be physically capable, well here I am, in the saddle, climbing mountains as high as the Alps and the Pyrenees, with a bike that weighs 30 pounds and another 70 pounds of equipment. To all those that doubted me – so there!

Sara

Our microfinance projects are progressing as we hoped they would. We’ve been able to meet with lots of MFIs, and they usually spend enough time with us for us to understand how they work and to compare them to other MFIs that we have visited. The only thing missing would be to meet with more micro-entrepreneurs, those people who actually benefit from the MFIs.

We are stronger than ever now, and ready to take on the road to Ushuaia. In two days we will be in Peru! We want to thank everyone who is following our journey for all your support! Your comments are a real source of energy and inspiration for us. We really appreciate your words and are always eager to read them!

Sara & Sébastien

We stayed a couple of days in Cuenca, just enough time to visit a Microfinance Institution, adjust to the altitude, and visit the town. The rainy season was supposed to be over 2 or 3 weeks ago, but most days seem to be sunny periods in between the rain.

There are, depending on the source of information, between 100 and 200 km from Cuenca to Loja. We planned to make it in three days, but the altitude and relief of the terrain meant that it took us four days – and it would have been five had we not had to meet Rene, our host in Loja. The mountains certainly didn’t go easy on us. Every day we climbed up 3000m, and that doesn’t even count the smaller hills along the way. During the whole 4 days, we didn’t bike once along a flat road: every downhill of 15km or so was followed by another 15 km uphill. So we would coast downhill for 45 minutes, stopping to take pictures and let the brakes cool down, and then settle in for a hard 2 to 4 hour climb. 

We have covered segments worthy of the great races in the Alpes and the Pyrenees. And remember that our bikes aren’t exactly the featherweights that the Tour de France racers ride on and that they can lift with their pinkies! Our bikes weigh more than 30 pounds with another 65 pounds of luggage, and that doesn’t count the water! And boy did we have sore legs!

The Ecuadorian Andes have been tough to get through, but they are stunningly beautiful. The light is wonderful, and the clouds filter the sunlight in a way that brings out a delicate palette of greens along the “páramo,” the high plateaus in the mountains. Many of the regions that we have passed through are relatively isolated, and the inhabitants are all indigenous peoples, wearing traditional costumes. The first night we camped beside a shepherd’s hut. It was nice to set up the tent again and dust off our camping skills. It hasn’t been safe for us to camp since Mexico, more than 3 months ago. 

There was one unfortunate incident which tainted a little the beauty of our passage through the mountains. As we passed through one village, we heard “gringo, gringa” and pretended, like we normally do, not to hear. But in the next village, the cries started up again, only this time from a group of children, about 10 years old, perched along the base of a cliff. I saw out of the corner of my eye one of kids pick up a stone and throw it at us. We stopped abruptly and I couldn’t help myself from giving them a little lecture. There were two women who watched the whole thing, seemingly impassively…

Sébastien

Identity

Their real name is the Enchanted Isles – the name “Galapagos” was given to the islands after their discovery and refers to the giant turtles called “Galapagos” that live there. 

History

After being discovered in 1535, the islands were inhabited for 300 hundred years by pirates and fishermen who found shelter, food and water there. They even ate those turtles. Charles Darwin is the islands’ most well known visitor, and he spent 5 weeks there in 1835. The observations he made then would later support his theory of evolution, published many years afterwards.

The first permanent resident arrived in 1535, but for the next century few people actually lived on the island chain. In 1959, the whole archipelago was declared a national park, and tourism began to pick up through the 1960s. Since then the numbers of inhabitants and tourists has risen steadily, and today more than 30,000 people calls the islands their home, although they are now carefully protected and it is no longer possible to take up residence. 

Geography, evolution and conservation

The archipelago is made up of 12 main islands and 12 smaller ones. They lie just south of the equator and more than 1000 km west of Ecuador. They are all volcanic islands: they were formed by the eruption of underwater volcanoes caused by the pressure of the tectonic plates, which means that they were never part of the main continent. Because of that, they were absolutely devoid of life at the beginning. Little by little, different species came to live on the islands, coming by air (from birds), and floating along the ocean currents. The first organisms to colonize the islands were lichens which don’t need much to survive and which attached themselves to the volcanic rock. Next, sea birds came to live on the islands. All of the organisms which followed came mostly from South America, and a few came from Central America. Those that did, however, adapted little by little to their new environment. Only one species of finch came originally from Central America, for example, but now there are five different finch species on different islands, each adapted to their particular environment. 

Comparatively recently, humans have introduced new species to the islands from all over the world. These new species are dangerous for the survival of the native flora and fauna of the Galapagos. Once domesticated goats run wild and eat the food of the endemic species (endemic means native to only one particular area), wild dogs chase the land iguanas, red ants chew through the vegetation, and wasps sting the birds. 

To try to protect this fragile ecosystem, strict rules have been put in place for the Galapagos islands by the National Parks. Everything that is imported has to go through quarantine. The inflow of people is also strictly regulated: everyone who arrives on the islands has to pay US$10 to register their passport with the INGALA (“Instituto National Galapagos”). The institute keeps track of the precise location of every visitor. The luggage is also carefully inspected by SICGAL (“Sistema de Inspeccion y Cuarentena para Galapagos”) both coming in and leaving the archipelago. It is absolutely forbidden to take anything off the islands, no rocks, no shells, no feathers. When we arrived, our bags were disinfected and we had to pass through a foot wash and clean our hands with disinfectant. 

Tourists are only allowed into a few sites and must absolutely be accompanied by an official park guide. The sites are generally made up of one looped path that you must stay on. Naturally, it is forbidden to feed the animals, or get too close to them. You can’t eat in any of the sites, and certainly can’t throw anything out. The guides are there to make sure the rules are properly followed. 

It isn’t easy to become a national park guide. This year, only 120 were accepted, out of 1000 applicants. Those who don’t pass the exam don’t get a second chance. And every year, all the guides have to take a special test which checks their knowledge and skill level, and if they don’t pass their license is revoked. All this administration is expensive, which helps explain the $100 fee for park entry.

All these careful controls have served their purpose: the original environment of the islands has been preserved, and the native species are able live and develop peacefully. The animals and birds are hardly bothered by humans and aren’t afraid of people, and people can get pretty close to them. If we want our children to be able to see these animals in their natural habitats, this is the price that must be paid: a certain lack of freedom which, we have to admit, took us some time to understand and accept. Like we said, access to these sites is very carefully monitored. The park authorities ensure that the quotas of visitors is respected by directly controlling the itinerary of the boats!

Our honeymoon

Our trip was everything we had imagined a honeymoon could be! After having gone through all the customs and inspections, we were taken by the park guides to the “Fragata,” the yacht that would be our home as we travelled around the islands. On board, there were 8 crew members to attend to us (the captain, the second in command, a waiter, a cook, a cook’s helper, a mechanic, a guide, and someone in charge of the cabins) and the 14 other tourists. The boat sailed during the night between the islands and took us to two sites each day. We also had daily snorkelling opportunities to see what was going on underwater. We had an absolutely wonderful time! We had been a little apprehensive that we would be seasick, but we had no trouble. The organization, atmosphere, and service were all fantastic, and we were entirely absorbed the whole time with the wildlife and scenery of the Enchanted Isles.

Isla Santa Cruz

On the first day we visited Darwin’s research centre on Santa Cruz island where we learned about the famous giant tortoises, their young, as well as land iguanas. The centre collects turtle eggs from their nests and puts them in an incubator so that they will have a better chance of survival. In the wild, only about 5% of the eggs that hatch actually make it to adulthood, which isn’t enough to sustain the species. The centre looks after the turtles until the age of 5, when their shell has hardened and they don’t have any predators, and then they release them back into their natural habitat. We also saw George the loner, the last survivor of his species. They keep him in an enclosure with two females of a closely related species, but apparently it’s not working out between them. When he dies, his species of turtle will die with him.

We spent the next morning on Santa Cruz, walking between the Gemelos, twin volcanic craters whose basins are still sinking. The guide told us about the vegetation and native birds species that lived up there, 700 m above sea level. Later we walked through a lava tunnel, a spectacular manifestation of the plate tectonics that caused the island formation. 

Isla Santa Fé

It was here that we had our first Galapagos snorkelling experience. We slipped out of the small dinghies into the cool waters. We saw sea turtles, tropical fish, and playful sea-lions. One of them actually climbed up on a rock just in front of us and posed for the cameras!

Then we landed on a white sand beach right in the middle of a whole colony of sea-lions. It wasn’t exactly easy to pick our way through them! The mother sea-lions nurse their young until the birth of another cub and cubs generally stay with their mothers until they are three years old. The males keep watch over the colony. We walked around and saw some land iguanas, lots of lizards, and a strange kind of cactus that grows more than 10 m high and can live for more than 300 years. We also saw lots of different kinds of sea birds.

Isla Espanola

We went on a wonderful hike near Puenta Suarez: every 10 yards there was something new to discover! First we saw sea iguanas. Normally they are black but during mating season (happily when we were there) they turn red. They are cold-blooded creatures and so spend the mornings sunning themselves on the dark lava rocks or on the sand. If they get too hot, they lift up their legs to let air under their bodies. Once they get their body temperatures up to about 45°C (113° F) – usually around noon – they head towards to the water to find food. They dive up to 10 m deep to eat algae, and after a couple of hours, they climb out of the ocean and spit out all the salt water that they had swallowed.

After that, we walked through the nests of albatross (with wingspans of up to 2 m), masked boobies, and blue-footed boobies. None of the birds stirred a feather as we walked by. They seemed totally trusting and some had even built their nests only a foot away from the path where dozens of tourists pass by each day. There were mockingbirds that kept us company as we walked, sometimes blocking the path. We also saw seagulls and finches. We walked up to the edge of a cliff where the young albatross take their first flight. A little further on, we saw the Galapagos geyser: a small crevice in the rocks that has a little hole above it, so that when the waves come in, the pressure forces the water through the hole and up 50 feet in the air, just like a geyser.

In the afternoon, after about an hour on the boat, we arrived at Gardner Bay beach, a beautiful white sand beach with a colony of sea-lions. Before landing, we went snorkelling around a little rocky island. Even though the water was cloudy and a bit stirred up, we saw a stingray, two reef sharks, and lot of colourful surgeonfish.

Isla Floreana

We landed at Punta Cormorant, on a brown sandy beach, although the beach was green in some parts because of the high concentration of olivine, a green mineral. Just a little ways beyond the beach there was a pond with bright pink flamingos. The guide told us that they got their flamboyant colour from all the shrimp that they eat, and that they can only live in that specific type of pond, somewhere between salt and fresh water. As we walked through the underbrush, we saw a few finches, and as we climbed a little higher, we noticed containers full of anti-wasp liquid. Apparently they protect both the tourists and the birds from being stung. Sugar Mountain loomed and taunted us from the right, so named because its slopes are so sandy that it is too unstable to climb.

Just a little further we came across a magnificent white sandy beach. From the shore we were supposed to be able to see stingrays in the water, as well as turtle nests further up the beach. We saw neither, but we did see lots of frigate birds circling around waiting to make meal out of newly-hatched baby turtles. We stayed a little while watching the crabs crawl across the rocks.

Later we went snorkelling around the Devil’s Crown, a half-submerged peak of an old volcano. The strong ocean currents carried us quickly from one side of the cone to the other, where the boat picked us up and took us back to where we had gotten in so that we could float around the other side. The water was crystal clear and both the fish and the reefs were brightly coloured.

In the afternoon we landed at Post Office Bay, which takes its name from the barrel that once served as a mailbox for the fishermen. Today, tourists can “mail” postcards by putting them in barrels, no stamps required. Every visitor that goes by looks through the postcards to see if any are near their home, and if there are, they are supposed to take them and deliver them once they get back. Afterwards, more snorkelling from the beach, where we saw a gigantic turtle in the middle of eating and watched sea-lions play.

Isla Seymour

We got up before 6 to watch the sunrise and admire the frigate birds and their huge red throat-pouches. We saw blue-footed boobies, swallow-tailed gulls and sea-lions. The blue-footed boobies are funny to watch – they seem to dance around on land, lifting one foot after the other. Later in the day, at Playas Bachas on Santa Cruz Island, we witnessed the harsh laws of nature in action. It’s hatching season for the turtle babies, and the frigate birds wait en masse. The turtle nests are high up on the beach, 30 feet from the water and buried in the sand. When the baby turtles hatch, their instinct is to wiggle out from under the sand and head towards the ocean. It’s a suicide mission, and we saw one turtle try to make it. It emerged out of sand, about the size of our palm, and took a few steps towards the water. Our guide stepped over towards it to protect it, and while he explained its probable fate, the frigate birds circled overhead. As soon as he was done he walked away from the baby turtle and it didn’t take long for one of the birds to swoop in and catch it. Of all the eggs laid on the beach, only 5% will make it adulthood. Even those that make past the first treacherous beach run aren’t safe in the water. Only after a couple of years, once they have grown in size and their shells have hardened, are they safe from predators.

Isla Genovesa

We crossed back over the equator during the night and returned to the Northern Hemisphere to see Genovesa Island. In the morning we climbed over the cliffs called Prince Philips’s steps. We saw lots of sea birds’ nests, including frigate birds, gulls, mockingbirds and masked boobies.

In the afternoon we landed in Darwin’s Bay and walked through more bird nests. We snorkelled from the beach and saw five silvertip reef sharks napping under a rock and two stingrays. Back on the boat, two sea turtles occupied our attention for the rest of the afternoon.

Isla Bartolomé

We circled around the island in the small boats to reach Pinnacle Rock where the Galapagos Penguins live. Not more than a foot high, they are the smallest penguins in the world. For a spectacular view of the island and surrounding ocean, we climbed up to its highest point, a peak 114 m above sea level in the middle of a desert of lava. It was almost as if we were back in Iceland.

After returning to the boat, we donned masks, fins and snorkels in order to check out those penguins under water! We also saw starfish in all sorts of colors, a shark, a sea-lion and lots of colorful fish. In the afternoon we went back to Santa Cruz to see Black Turtle Cove. It was a sort of lagoon, open to the ocean but surrounded by mangroves. We saw sea turtles, pelicans, and a school of large stingrays swimming up to the surface. We headed back to the boat and spent a quiet night sailing through the Plaza islands.

Islas Plazas

Again up before 6 to see the sunrise and the land iguanas of the Southern Plaza island and the hybrid iguanas. They only exist here on this island, where the sea and land iguanas have the same mating season. Sometimes they interbreed which results in a hybrid land-sea iguana. We saw sea-lions, swallow-tailed gulls, frigate birds and tropicbirds.

The boat dropped us off at Puerto Ayora, where we got on a bus headed back to the airport, still accompanied by a guide.

We really had a wonderful time here, and would recommend the Galapagos Islands to everyone!

This trip was outside the scope of the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire, but we are using the website to share our adventures with you all.

Sébastien

Mountains and traditions (by Sébastien)

Since leaving Quito, we have been winding our way through the mountains, and almost every day we climb slopes of more than 3000 m (check out the most recent statistics!). We set another altitude record: 3620 m! We crossed the Avenue of the Volcanoes, and although Cotopaxi stayed hidden, we had several chances to marvel at Chimborazo (6310 m). In rain or shine, the landscapes are stunning. Around every bend in the road was a new and magnificent view.

We have biked through some very rural areas where the people survive on small scale subsistence farming, eked out on their little patches of land. They are for the most part indigenous people, and almost all wear traditional clothing. 

The only downside of the past couple of days has been the pollution – atmospheric this time! The ditches by the side of the road are a little cleaner (or rather a little less dirty!) than in Mexico or Central America, but the vehicles here produce a lot more exhaust fumes. The buses and trucks are the worst, but the cars are pretty bad too. We’ve noticed a big difference from country to country in the levels of air pollution. Until now, we thought that Guatemala was the heaviest polluter, but it seems that Equator takes that honour. Every vehicle that passes us leaves us suffocating in a black cloud of putrid and noxious fumes. By the end of the day, our clothes reek of pollution, as much as if we had been biking through Paris. We were trying to think of an explanation for this discrepancy between countries, and we think it might be the level of refinement of the fuel. Diesel here costs only $1.03/gallon (less than 30 cents a litre) and so it just can’t be very high quality.

A run-in with the bus (by Sara)

We left Guamote in the morning, planning to make it to Chunchi that night. But the sign just outside the town read 75 km away. We checked the map, and the discrepancy between them made us nervous. It seemed like too much to cover in one day, especially since it was mostly uphill and Sara was not feeling well: the cold she caught seemed here to stay. We managed to get to Alausi, where Angelo called out to us, in English. We quickly rectified his mistake: we’re French, not American. Since we started biking through the small mountain towns, we’re back to being called “gringo” and “gringa” – and we are not so pleased!

During the course of our conversation with him, we told him that we didn’t really appreciate being called names by the locals, and he seemed totally surprised. We tried to find a good comparison and discovered that what really annoys an Equatorian is being mistaken for a Colombian! There were two women sitting on the sidewalk and so we explained to them that being called a “gringo” was like being called a “Colombian” for them. They jumped up so fast they nearly banged their heads on the bus stop sign above them!! Now we have a little “insurance” against those who call us “gringos”!

We absolutely had to get to Chunchi that night and so Angelo negotiated with the passing bus drivers to get them to take us and our bikes the rest of the way. The first driver refused, but the second agreed to take us, happy to help the travellers... especially since the official story is that we started our trip in Quito and are biking to Lima, Peru. We thought this might make us seem less conspicuous and less affluent but we’re not entirely sure it’s working. Anyway, the bikes were hoisted up onto the roof of the Chicken bus, where they ended up with best view as we climbed up the last 39 km without ever getting out of breath!

Tire troubles (by Sara)

We’re going downhill; Sara is in front. All the sudden, Sébastien notices that her back tire is a little distended in one area. When we take a closer look, we see that the structure of the whole tire is damaged and that it might rupture at any time which could seriously damage the wheel frame. So we decide to change the tire. Sara’s family brought us a spare tire in Costa Rica, and so we put that one on the back wheel, for the moment. But the next time we had a rest day, we switched the two tires, putting the newer one on the front wheel. When biking, the back wheel ends up with more wear and tear since it supports most of the weight, traction, and braking. So it’s best to move the less worn tires from the front wheel to the back wheel to get the most use out of them, and put the new tires on the front. What a system!

All for the tourist (by Sara)

The inhabitants of Equator have come to understand that tourists can be useful, and that their money is a great source of income for the country. So, in most little villages there is at least one hotel that, in principle, has hot water. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case in practice, and we have certainly taken some very speedy cold mountain showers! And of course, some of the hotels only have water at certain times of the day (or night). The last one like that only had water between 7 pm and 5 am! And, how are we supposed to brush our teeth or flush the toilet?

There is usually a little restaurant in the village, frequented by tourists and locals alike. They have set menus for “desayuno” (breakfast), “almuerzo” (lunch), and “merienda” (dinner). It’s usually a full meal, complete with soup, a main, and a drink, all for just $1 or $2! And there are also internet cafés and cabinas (like internet cafés, but with telephones instead of computers). Naturally, the internet is of variable speed, or rather of variable slowness. But at least there are lots of options if one doesn’t work.

A little trip through the islands (by Sara)

The whole Efren’s family (from the network hospitalityclub.org) is waiting for us in Cuenca, and if we seem overly eager to arrive there, it is also because we have a trip planned. The trip is outside the framework of the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire, and it’s pretty much our honeymoon and one-year anniversary trip all rolled into one. And being in Equator, we couldn’t very well not go to the Galapagos Islands!! We’re flying out Monday morning (Efren will keep our bikes and our gear) and we’re staying on the islands for eight days!

Our worst enemy on four legs… can you guess what it is? (by Sara)

Some of you have warned us about swine flu, but no, it’s not the pig (and anyway, there haven’t been any confirmed cases of Equator, a fact that they are very proud of).

You might think of bird flu, but no, it isn’t the chickens that frolic by the side of the road – and besides, they only have two legs!

Mad cow disease, perhaps, but no, neither the bovine nor the ovine that graze by the side of the road trouble us much.

Can you figure it out yet? Here’s a clue: it’s the animal that they call “man’s best friend,” and also “the cyclist’s worst enemy:” the dog!

Every domesticated dog we see goes crazy when we bike by (the ones who were abandoned all run away from us). They bark and strain at their leash – if we are lucky enough that they are actually tied up – or else they find a hole in the fence and tear after us. Sara got a real fright from a medium-sized grey dog who was sleeping peacefully in the courtyard of a farm. She had barely passed the gate when the dog leapt up in pursuit. Sara lifted up her legs, and furious dog attached itself with its teeth to the strap of her pannier. Eventually it figured out that it wasn’t worth the effort and let her go. Sébastien too had a serious run-in with a dog who leapt up on the bike. He nearly went over and certainly swore a blue streak. Most recently, two young children were playing with their dog in what seemed to be an enclosed yard. When we went by, however, the dog went right through the fence! We both got off our bikes so we could put them between us and the animal. We stopped walking and yelled at the dog, but it wouldn’t stop barking and moving towards us. We couldn’t even back up without him attacking us. Hearing our yells, an older child came out of the house and grabbed the dog, who earned a few smacks from the two small children back in the yard.

These incidents are pretty upsetting, since even though we got the rabies vaccine before we left, if we did get bitten, we would still have to get an antidote. And the animals here, even the pets, don’t get vaccinated and aren’t really taken care of. They pretty much just fend for themselves. It’s certainly a far cry from the attention that house pets get in France. 

Open call for ideas (by Sara)

In order to protect ourselves from the dogs, we have a “dog-repeller.” It’s a little electronic device that emits ultrasonic frequencies that only dogs can hear and that bothers them so that, at least in theory, they leave us alone. Unfortunately, it’s not fool-proof, as you may have guessed from our stories. In the cyclo-blogs that we’ve read, it seems that the best defence is a simple stick. And yes, given the choice between protecting our ankles or whacking a dog, we’ll use the stick. The only problem is that we can’t figure out how to attach the “weapons” to the bikes so that they don’t get in our way, aren’t dangerous for us, and so that we can get “deploy” them quickly when the need arises.

So we’re asking you for suggestions. How can we attach the sticks to the bikes using simple materials that you could find anywhere?

Sara & Sébastien

Naturally, after baking under the Central American sun and dreaming of cold drinks and ice baths, now we find ourselves shivering away, dreaming this time of fire places, hot chocolate and hot showers!

It’s still the rainy season in Equator, and after sparing us in Quito, the rains have not let up. We had to dig out all our raingear: gloves, jackets, rain pants and overshoes, all Goretex. And even though we are right on the equator, we’re pretty high up and it is cold. Even the fleeces came out. It’s hard to know what to wear though, since we’re sweating through our t-shirts going uphill, but as soon as we stop climbing, the light tail wind freezes our backs and makes us shiver. The result is a runny nose, a scratchy throat, and a looming fever. 

The countryside is very green (not surprising given all the rain!) and reminds us of Washington and Oregon in the States. The surrounding volcanoes are sadly hidden in the clouds. We went right by the Cotopaxi volcano (5897 m) but couldn’t see its perfectly shaped ice cone. We beat our previous altitude record when we biked along its side, at 3503m. And no altitude sickness, which bodes well for what’s coming up!

Going down wasn’t nearly as fun as it could have been. Under the pouring rain, our brake pads seemed to melt away like snow in the sun. We’d been keeping our eyes on them for a while, but didn’t think that they’d wear out so quickly – even though we knew that the rain is really not good for them. So we had to go slowly down the last part of the mountain, and we even had to walk the bikes for a bit when the road was really steep. We got the brake pads replaced at the first village that we came to, and a bike mechanic charged us $8 to change all 8 brakes. We made quite the spectacle in the village, all bundled up beside our loaded bikes!

Sara & Sébastien