From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

For the past week we have been enjoying a respite from the heat in the shade of the majestic redwoods. Redwoods are related to Sequoias, and these gigantic trees can grow up to 100 m high and can live for more than 2000 years. The trees can reach 6 m in diameter around the base! We felt like ants next to these ancient flora.

Since Crescent City we’ve been riding with Nathan and Ben, the two brothers that we ran into a few times before. It’s been a real pleasure to share our day to day lives with them: we laugh a lot, and encourage each other, and helpfully we have just about the same pace of travel! They actually were “attacked” by wild animals two nights in a row: first by a skunk and then by a raccoon that sniffed around inside their bags!

We’re discovering the “real” California now, the California that is warm and sunny. The landscape is dry, inland and along the coasts.

We’re now about 3 days away from San Francisco, and we hope that next week we will be able to meet with some of the key players in the world of microfinance.

Sara & Sébastien

We left Oregon after spending one more night in Harris Beach State Park, Oregon, where we had been invited to share a camp the site with Dixie and Patrick, two cyclo-tourists that we had met along the way.

After passing kilometres of road work, we had to pass through customs into the state of California, which including the “Agricultural Inspection Station”. California tries to protect its own agricultural industries by strictly limiting the entry of any fruits or vegetables from other states.

Patrick had warned us in the morning, and so we had eaten the two peaches that we had been carrying. We certainly didn’t want the government of California to take them!
When we came up to this official road block, we could see that the customs officials looked busy, but we couldn’t tell what they were doing. There were three lines, although the one on the right was closed. We took the middle lane – the officials still seemed to be shuffling places. And then the following exchange took place:

“Where are you going?”

“To Argentina.”

“Oh, I see, let me guess: you left from Alaska, right?”

“Well yes, actually, how did you know?”

“All the bicyclists that go through here on their way to Argentina have come from Alaska. We give them all little lamps: here’s two for you. Have a good trip.”

And now we are in California, with two little lamps and a few carrots still in our bags!

We met up with our friends Nathan and Ben at a camping site/ranch that belongs to a couple of their friends. They only have sites for tents, and you can bring your horse! Unfortunately, they had put all their horses out in their winter field, and we couldn’t go for a ride. Too bad!

Sara

It’s strange weather here on the coast of Oregon. In September, high pressure systems mean that clouds collect over the ocean but the land itself often stays sunny. It’s a constant battle between the land and sea – played out in the skies above us. After having several sunny days, it seems that the ocean is winning this one: the fog right now is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Every day we meet more and more bicyclists. Everyone’s got their own story, and we’re all happy to share our experiences. We’ve made friends with Ben and Nathan (in their thirties), two brothers from California, who hadn’t sat in the saddle since they were teenagers and who are now travelling down the West coast from the Canadian border to the Mexican one. We’ve been running into them at night, at the camping sites, for about a week now – although we never made plans to meet up! Yesterday we also met a Dutch/Australian couple, Aaldrik and Sonya, who were two years into a five year trip around the world. After doing Europe and Asia, they landed in Vancouver, and are taking the same route as us for the next year and a half.

Even though the coast of Oregon is known for all the cyclists, it’s not like the other vehicles on the road really give us any room. We’ve had several close encounters with large flat-bed semis, who not only don’t leave us any room, but they spatter us with sawdust and bits of bark as they pass. But what, you might ask, are all these big trucks doing transporting full load after full load back and forth along the coast? It would seem that the people in the South much prefer the wood that grows in the North, and the people in the North like the wood that grows in the South. Does that seem logical? We’re entirely lost – at any rate, it doesn’t resemble anything like sustainable development.

Scrounnnnnnthch! It was an incongruous noise that interrupted the regular morning sounds of hikers and bikers at the Sunset Bay camp where we were yesterday morning. Everyone was getting ready to go, but the strange noise stopped the preparations in their tracks. The noise came from our own tent as we were trying to take it apart. One of the aluminum supports just gave way entirely. Super annoyed, we continued to pack up and our neighbour Aaldrik (who had the same tent as ours) told us that all of his supports had broken. So he knew what the problem was and had the tools to fix it – if we could meet him that night at the next hiker/biker camp 100km down the road!

So what is a hiker/biker camp? The state of Oregon runs camping sites that are open to everyone – from the huge camping cars, to single hikers and bikers. Hiker/biker camps are just special sites that are reserved and have been fitted for people just like us – no motor vehicles allowed!

PS. Don’t worry – Aaldrik helped us to fix our tent… I just hope it stays that way!

Sara & Sébastien

After our stay in Washington which was generally humid and cloudy, we got to the coast of Oregon: glorious sun shining over long stretches of fine, white sand. At this point in the year, the wind generally blows from North to South – which is good news for us.

Of course, we’re not the only bicyclists to go this way to make the best of the good weather conditions along here. Every day we meet other bicyclists, some travelling light and others just as laden down as we are. The ones that are travelling super light actually have a separate team that takes care of transporting all their stuff. Generally, they leave from the Canadian border and bike south to the Mexican border, in about 5 or 6 weeks.

The countryside looks sometimes like Landes, sometimes like the Pays Basques, and like the Northern coasts of Bretagne.

Having left the bears, now we have to watch out for raccoons. The locals get a pretty good laugh when we ask them where we can safely keep our food bags for the night: “In your vehicle, of course!” Yeah right, in our vehicle!

Sara & Sébastien

Definition: Recreation Vehicle.

Here in the US, though, the term RV means all vehicles that are decked out for American-style “camping.” So it !!include!!s everything from caravans, to vans, to fully equipped buses! The latter are the size of coaches that would fit 30 people with a surface area of 25m2! The standard features that all these RVs come with !!include!!: a fully equipped kitchen (oven, microwave, sink), toilet and bathroom (sink and shower), TV with satellite dish, heat and air conditioning, fridge and freezer. And you can add dishwasher and washing machine! That’s camping in North America!

Most of the RVs tow their cars (4x4 pickups) like a trailer. Some even pull a boat behind the car, that’s already being pulled by the RV!

They are able to travel huge distances on board these gluttonous monsters (more than 40 L unleaded per 100 km), distances unimaginable to Europeans. 80% of the people we encountered in Alaska were from Florida or California. That’s 20,000 km round trip!

RVs never stop in the wild for the night. They much prefer to go to “RV parks” where rows and rows of all different kinds of RVs are lined up, and where they can get all sorts of amenities: running water, electricity, dirty water disposal, wifi, cable TV... and even a RV-wash!

Definition: RV-wash

All good RV drivers want to keep their vehicles clean. And fortunately for them, all good RV parks have RV-washes which are designed to accommodate the giant size of the vehicles. The whole operation can take up to half an hour!

Definition: RV Caravan

Some people go off on their own in search of adventure, but others prefer to travel in “RV caravans.” These caravans can have as many as 50 RVs, travelling together from anywhere between two weeks and three months across all of North America. They follow each other on the roads, stop together at the same places, and drive off at the same time in the morning. Whether in caravan or on their own, RVs average about 500 km per day (from 200 km to more than 1000 km). 

Their favourite topic of conversation: the price of gas, which is much too high according to them.

What they say  once they get up the courage to speak to us: well at least the price of a barrel doesn’t worry you!

Sara & Sébastien