From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

Getting through Los Angeles turned out to be a lot easier and nicer than people had told us it would be. We travelled along beaches and the wide streets with bike trails. Then, at a bend in the road, a gigantic 4x4 passed us. As they drove by, the passengers in the car sprayed us with a liquid that seemed related to water… It was 5:30 pm, 75 km biked that day, and no camp sites in site, but we knew that already. We arrived at Huntington Beach and a police officer came up to us to ask where we were planning to stay the night. Sébastien answered, “No clue,” before biting him tongue… you’re never supposed to say “I don’t know” to a police officer in the US, especially in a city only 150 km from the Mexican border. We told him about a youth hostel and gave the address. He starts up his motorcycle and says that he’ll join us… But the youth hostel doesn’t exist anymore, it was sold two years ago, and is still apparently on the internet. The police officer gave us the news, then asked us where we’re planning to sleep… On the street?? No, No!! Definitely not!! He leaves, but we’re sure that he’ll be back to check up on us later.

We’re out of options. It’s already dark (the sun goes down at 5:00 pm now). We settle for the cheapest motel we can find (still $75 and no breakfast !!!include!!!d!). We take all our bags upstairs but leave the bikes down in the parking lot like the owner told us to… securely locked.

We slept well and woke up !!!refresh!!!ed. Sébastien went downstairs first with the first load of bags… and found four connector wires lying on the ground beside the bikes. Strange… “I should ask Sara whether they were there last night…” Then 2 seconds later: “Oh no!” Some thieves had seen our bikes and had tried to unscrew the speedometer on Sara’s bike and her front lamp. They must have been interrupted right in the middle of the job… but still managed to get away with the bag of bear-spray that had been attached under the handle bars. All in all, nothing too serious, and everything is fixed. But we realized just how vulnerable we are… and we are a little more apprehensive about the rest of the trip now. From now on we will always take the bikes into the rooms with us, and make sure to take off all the accessories when we’re camping. Fortunately the bikes were securely locked up… but our morale still took a bit of a hit.

We had a good breakfast in a little cafe on the main street to re-motivate the troops. We met a lovely lady there, who when she heard about our trip, invited us to her house for a shower! Another biker wanted to buy us coffee and give us some advice for the road ahead. Unfortunately we didn’t have to time – we had a meeting with Steve in Newport to discuss microfinance.

After the meeting, which went quite well, all the people we met afterwards on the road were warm and friendly, and full of encouragement. The morale began to creep back up… !

Tonight the border is only 70 km away. Vera and Uli, the two Germans we met two weeks ago, are waiting for us so we can all cross together and get out as quickly as possible of Tijuana, the city on the border, because it has been increasingly dangerous these last couple of months.

Sara & Sébastien