Pictorial Highlights

This is Heaven!

This portion of my travels came out of a few moments of whimsical contemplation, of entertaining one of those "what if I try this..." ideas and taking it one leap further. It has become a great lesson in trusting my instincts and an adventure of a lifetime. At 29 I still love personal challenges the way I did when I was a kid climbing trees of increasing height as a self administered antidote to an unsatisfactory fear of heights- an impulse I sincerely hope doesn't fade. This last leg of a two month bike journey has been a string of exhilarating challenges and true day to day adventure building. At the end of each day I have this feeling in my gut that reminds me a little of rock-skipping. I am reminded of the whole ritual of hunting and finding what could be the perfect rock; a smooth, flat, rounded stone that cradles just-so between the thumb and index finger- the one you just know is going to sail across and skip to perfection. In the end, piecing together this ride is like finding that stone. Each choice is an oxymoronic, cant-go-wrong-but-could-go-wrong surefire-Hail Mary blend, but at the end of the day, whether the bundle of tosses trend minimally impressive or end up on the side of pitch perfect, failing and succeeding on my own terms leads to a kind of pure and frivolous happiness. 

My route has thus become very ad-hoc. As I roll in and out of valleys, earning every bit of progress with my overburdened bike, I let the landscape and the relative zip left in my legs determine my next destination. I have a small ocean of time to meander through this paradise before I meet with friends and I have been taking full advantage of the freedom. The only down side to the solo riding is the lack of conversation. It is a little strange not to hear your own voice for days at a time. I pass through this country mostly unnoticed in a sea of other bike travelers, which is novel compared to every other place I have toured. The silence has felt good too. It feels freeing and a little bit powerful to be comfortably alone.  

The weather has turned cold for the moment, so high passes are out until temperatures thaw. This is a fickle season that bounces, a few days at a time, from sizzling to freezing and back again. I am near Zurich now after a hypothermic attempt at riding through a driving rain. I remain paused until things clear up. Here is a revised bike route so far.

The Alps!

My next adventure is through the Alps! I fly home through Frankfurt and decided to look into creating an adventure around getting there. I looked up the cheapest destination on one side of the mass of mountains and came up with the following rough itinerary. I am looking forward to my first attempt at solo bike touring, and of course the full alpine immersion. I am extremely excited meet with Eva and Steph in the Zurich area for some side adventure bike exploration near the end. I will be camping, with a few opportunities to couch surf along the way. It is near the end of the season for traversing these mountains, so I am hoping for good weather and the friendly company of fellow straggling bike tourists. I fly into Torino tomorrow, train to Aosta, and if all goes as planned I'll be sleeping at the base of the Matterhorn tomorrow night!

Here's a rough estimate of the day to day:

Aosta to Matterhorn 55k ( it's too close to miss!)

Matterhorn to Aosta 55k 

Aosta to Martigney 77k

Mart. - Visp 73k 

Visp- Oberwald 50.5k 

Oberwald- Gadmen 45k

Gadmen- Altdorf 63k

Altdorf- Luchsingen 54k

Luchsingen- Wattwil 47k

Wattwil- Winterthur 48.5k 

Train to Frankfurt, or bike as far as I can into Germany and then train the remainder. 

Wish me luck!

Frozen Time

The concept of frozen time applies to so many aspects of this trip. We've just returned from the Kakheti region where castles abound and 8,000 year old wine making traditions live on. The surrounding mountains are multi-colored, folded masses of extruded earth- massive, frozen geologic revolt. And then there is the general feeling that time pauses when you exit the stream of constant contact with technology and information.

There is so much more to say about Georgia, but I'll limit it to a few entertaining nuggets and hopefully get one last thoughtful note about this leg of the trip after I have had some time to let it all sink in. For now, just these last thoughts: 

Food, Cont.

I neglected to add much about our dinner prep in the last post that was a shoddy attempt at sifting out our dailiness. We cook in the backcountry most days. We split the weight of carrying rice, pasta and lentils (soaking rice and lentils in a Nalgene during the day), as well as a fairly standard combo of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, garlic, oil and spices. We have pushed our limits of enjoying this mix, but it has   fueled many a mile. The market experience is, as ever, the best part of meal prep. We tend to plan further ahead than needed, but just about every route has taken us through a town with enough commerce to gain us  the delight of searching out new treats and the assurance of securing what we need. Georgia doesn't have the restaurant culture that Turkey seemed to (they were closed for Ramzan, but they existed even in the tiniest of towns). The go-to fast meal here is a danish called khachapuri that is filled with strong cheese, or beans (lobiani), or a spiced meet and either folded or encased in a personal pizza sized pastry. Dumplings called khinkali are also cheap and popularly filled with meat, potatoes or mushrooms. My favorite meal is lobio (stewed beans in a clay pot) and chvistari (a dense cornmeal lump with cheese). Georgian yogurt made from cow, goat or sheep milk is called "matsoni" and is the go-to for breakfast. Fresh fruit and veggies fill in the snack gaps nicely too and give us a satisfactory taste of summer outside the Willamette Valley. 

Transportation

Jumping off the bike and exploring the tangle of public transportation is its very own treat. We've been introduced to the Georgian road scene from the fringe, but our perspective from inside a moving vehicle has been limited. Other passengers make the habit of crossing themselves more than once after getting on the bus (granted it's a pious country), and this automatically gives the sense that your continuing existence might be in a state of tenuous fragility. Riding in the marshruktas, as the mini buses are called, is a lot like engaging in a high speed chase- the hunted end. These things catapult, pass with extreme confidence while sustaining high speeds, and seem to delight in playing "chicken" with much larger trucks. It's a giant prick joust to be honest and, well, candid. There are lane dividers on most all of the roads, but those are cosmetic and merely suggestive of traffic division. At the end of the day it's a free-for-all and the fastest, biggest guy wins. Traveling by bus through Georgia has got to be one of the world's few passive adrenaline sports. 

We have had some luck hitching rides on remote roads. Our three day trek through the Borjomi National Forest ended at a set of tracks on the fringe, miles from anything. We arrived three hours early with empty food bags, so we decided to flag down a ride to a larger town on the rail line. Success! A sand-filled dump truck driven by two grinning Georgians pulled over. The boys jumped in the back, while I bounced around to operatic Russian techno in the cab. These guys were the brand of dude you compare tattoos with, who chain smoke and drink vodka to round out a complete breakfast. Though appearing slightly surly with nicotine -stained mustaches, toothless grins and generous amounts of gut and chest hair escaping half-zipped track jackets, they were as gentle and kind as could be. We exchanged the standard limited questions about nationality, marital status, thoughts on Georgia (thumbs up!), before exchanging side cheek smooches (oh yes) and an extended over-waved goodbye.