Adventures after the merger
Total distance: 276.5 miles
Day 1 – 51.5 miles – Kennebunk, ME to Province Lake
Biking was a success! We made it to Province Lake on the Maine / New Hampshire border. Somehow a tick leapt up and bit Jess in the thigh while she was biking, but she noticed right away and pulled it off. This was our first indication that this tick season was bad since we hadn’t even been in long grass.
Continue reading “Week 1: Bicycling Kennebunk, ME to Paradox, NY”After returning to the United States, we spent a whirlwind week traveling up the east coast from Philadelphia to Boston visiting family and friends along the way. We then had one week in Boston to get ready for our roughly 1,500-mile bike ride from Kennebunk, Maine to Onamia, Minnesota. We got a free tune-up on our bicycles, some extra gear, and tons of advice from some very helpful employees at Cambridge Bicycle. We traded in our hiking backpacks and hiking boots for panniers and clip-in bicycle shoes, and filled a big box with stuff we’ll need for Phase 3 but don’t want to carry on our bicycles. We did a practice ride to Westwood, MA from Boston (roughly 15 miles) to see how realistic our goal of 30 miles average per day seemed. Jess took a minor tumble when she realized at the last minute she was supposed to stop for a school bus with its stop sign out but forgot to unclip her shoes. That aside, the test was successful. We made a few minor adjustments to our weight distribution and we were set.
Continue reading “Phase 2: Bicycling Maine to Minnesota”
Four and a half months in South America flew by, and we can’t believe we’re already back in the United States. Here is our summary of Phase 1:
Angie, Jess’s sister had been angling to go to Colombia for a while but couldn’t convince anyone to go with her. Since we were planning to go there anyway, we offered to meet up with her at the end of our trip and explore together. We flew to Bogotá from Quito because we had heard the Ecuador-Colombia border was a bit rough, and we wanted to get to Colombia more quickly. We were scheduled to meet Angie and Kevin in Guatapé, a small weekend getaway town two hours from Medellín, on May 8th.
Continue reading “Twelve Days in Colombia”Phase 1 (South America) of our grand adventure is coming to an end. We are returning to the US in the middle of May for a whirlwind family-and-friend tour up the East Coast before setting off on Phase 2 (Biking Maine to Minnesota). Phase 1 has been an amazing, eye-opening experience, and we have thoroughly enjoyed spending so much time in so many different countries and meeting so many awesome people. Despite moving every few days to somewhere new, we have fallen into a routine and are looking forward to shaking things up again.
We hope to see you on our path through the USA!
Two night buses in a row sounds a bit crazy, and if you’d asked us four months ago we would have said that wasn’t a good plan. However, we suddenly found ourselves on a tight schedule despite having had four months to travel and we needed to make some quick progress. Jess’s sister is meeting us in Colombia on May 8th which means we need to get to Quito in time for our flight to Bogotá on May 6th. Since we have friends in Quito we want to spend some time with them, so we’re shooting to be there by May 3rd, and Quito is three night buses from Chachapoyas which we left on April 28th. In addition, we really wanted to visit Cuenca on our way to Quito so we could see something new in Ecuador. Since Eric really doesn’t like only spending one night in a hostel (moving every day), we needed to be in Cuenca by April 30th. That meant two night buses; one from Chachapoyas to Chiclayo arriving at 5:30am and one that evening from Chiclayo to Cuenca departing at 5:30pm.
Continue reading “Ecuador Redeems Itself in Our Eyes”
The bus ride from Cajamarca to Chachapoyas is described as dangerous and difficult because it winds through narrow mountain passes dropping into a valley before climbing back up again. Apparently people like to drive too fast and too close on this road, so it can be a bit of an adventure. Many people also report that the scenery is stunningly beautiful, so we were a bit disappointed to have this experience at nighttime; however, after the cliff roads on the way to the rainforest, we think we’re happy we couldn’t see what was happening.
Continue reading “Chachapoyas: History and Hikes”
Cajamarca is a cute town set into the mountains in northern Peru at about 2,750 meters (9,022 feet) elevation. We arrived at 5:30 in the morning fresh off the night bus and began our now familiar early morning trek to the hostel. Our hostel was located just outside the main city and we were the only people staying there, so we were able to get into our room early. The owner of the hostel made us scrambled eggs and served coffee for breakfast and then we took a nap.
We had ended up in Cajamarca mostly because Jess had read in a blog that it was one of the nicest cities in northern Peru, and Jess was under the (very much mistaken) impression that Chachapoyas was only 40 minutes away. It’s actually a 12-hour very curvy, possibly dangerous, cliff-edge bus ride away, but you know…close.
Continue reading “Cajamarca – End of the Inca Empire”
Our taxi arrived at the appointed time and whisked us away to the Cusco airport for our flight to Trujillo. This was our first flight since arriving in South America and it was confusing to be in an airport again. We boarded our uneventful flight to Lima and then went in search of the VIP lounge at the Lima airport for our three-hour layover. Eric couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he saw delicious food, beautiful cocktails, and showers, all for free! (Thanks Chase Sapphire Reserve!) It was only 9:30am, but it seemed like a good opportunity to take advantage of a free pisco sour. By 1pm, we had arrived in Trujillo and were taking a taxi to the small nearby beach town of Huanchaco.
Continue reading “Relaxing in a Northern Peru Beach Town”
Excursions to the Peruvian rainforest are pretty expensive – we’re talking $520 per person for a four-day, three-night excursion, which is over double our daily budget. However, we had heard about Nils’ and Laura’s Brazilian rainforest adventure and we wanted a similar experience. After much searching, we found an obscure reference to a work/travel option in a Tripadvisor forum. Jess did a little more digging and found some positive feedback on the owners of the company and a link to their website. They offered a five-day, four-night work/travel adventure for $260 per person. We would have to sleep in a tent, and we would be expected to work a bit on conservation projects, i.e. planting trees, in the mornings, but that seemed like a reasonable trade for an experience that was now only slightly over budget.
Continue reading “Adventures in the Peruvian Rainforest”