See our Strava here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic See our Google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA *I had trouble loading photos onto this post, so check out the link above for all our most recent photos!* After hours of WhatsApping bike shop owners and searching online for weeks, Mark found a bike shop that was willing to order us tires. We are expecting to show up to the shop well before the tires, so we’re taking it easy on our way to Huaraz, Peru. Our first few days in Peru were challenging: getting eaten by flies, I caught another stomach bug, and we found READ MORE
Category: Bike packing
Funny stories
We are unfortunately sick again. We are very unclear what the culprit is, but some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning took me out for the count last night. I slept only two hours in between the stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Mark too has been hit with some gastrointestinal distress this morning, and with nothing but a big day of climbing ahead of us on our route, it was an easy decision to take the day off. We stayed at a cyclist specific accommodation last night: a spare room in a housing complex with a clean bathroom, shower, READ MORE
All the way through Ecuador
We crossed through Ecuador in just 8 days, but enjoyed our time there greatly. After an overload of fried food in Colombia, we were happy to find the markets in Ecuador well stocked with delicious fruits and vegetables. We stayed in several hostels with well equipped kitchens, which we took advantage of to cook ourselves some much needed nutritious meals. On top of that, we found the restaurant food, although similar to much of what we have eaten in all of Latin America, to be higher quality than we had seen for the past few months. Rice, beans/lentils, eggs and READ MORE
Code Brown
Despite our best efforts to “really get up and after ‘em, tomorrow,” we have found many more reasons to keep our slow pace as we meander through Colombia. In the last 5 days we probably visited 12 bike shops as we searched for the perfect replacement tire. We have not found our dream tire, and instead decided to carry a spare (an added weight that we are not taking lightly, ha). It’s not exactly inline with our usual packing routine, but it does provide significant peace of mind. Beyond our hunt for tires, we have chosen to trade in some READ MORE
Big Slow Down in Colombia
Our usual pace has taken a serious change here in the northern portion of Columbia. A combination of national holidays, mechanical issues, route choices and sickness, has forced us to change up our normal schedule. We are certainly enjoying ourselves however! The riding has been fun, the food has been great and we have met so many kind and friendly people in the last week! January 1st, Necocli, Columbia: Kilometers ridden: 0 We rung in the new year in the touristy town, lazily drinking coffee while we waited for the bike shops to open the next day. We enjoyed rich READ MORE
Happy New Year from the Other Side of the Darien!
Mark’s Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic Google Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA Mark and I are in Columbia! We made it from Puerto Carti, Panamá to Necoclí, Columbia by boat over the course of two days. We need to make some repairs to our bike, so we’ll be taking today off while we wait for the bike shops to open. In this post, I’ll write a normal update first and then below share our experience in detail of taking lanchas for other cyclists who might be taking the same trip. Y a la termina es mi esfuerzo cumpurtir esta información en español. We left Puerte READ MORE
amanaPlanacanalPanama
We’re sitting on the beach, only a day away from Columbia. Our bike is broken, essentially unrideable. And for the next three days or so we’ll be taking a series of lanchas (motorized boats) in order to circumnavigate the Darien gap. It’s not exactly peak experience for us; as a reminder for those who don’t know we’re not big fans of the ocean or beach. However, we are feeling super grateful for the kindness we’ve received and confident in our ability to find a solution for our bike in Columbia, and overall actually pretty at peace with where we’re at READ MORE
In the Rain and on the River
Cognitively, we knew that at some point on this trip we would have to deal with some real rain, but now that we are actually dealing with it, we are reminded of just how luxurious the dry weather we’ve encountered on most of this trip is. We are now in Panama, and have caught in a low pressure system that spans the majority of the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and Panama. Our first night in Costa Rica we paid for a room in a hotel, enjoying the opportunity to make veggie sandwiches and get a shower after a long READ MORE
Fast and Flat in Nicaragua
After pedaling our 100 lb bike up and over impossibly steep hills in Guatemala and El Salvador, we have found ourselves enjoying the break in the mountains more than usual. At my last blog post, I wrote about getting over a bout of food poisoning as we continued from Guatemala into El Salvador. While it was true we were over the vomiting and diarrhea, I was not quite back to 100% when we got back on the bike. I was still getting over the cold I had gotten the week prior, and had not fully recovered my appetite either. The READ MORE
Sick Days in Guatemala
A heads up: now that we’re out of Mexico our regular cell service isn’t working like it used to. The easiest way to contact us is on WhatsApp. You can look up our phone number to contact us there. We had taken a day off in San Cristobal when Mark came down with a little cold. We were glad I hadn’t gotten sick as we rode into Guatemala, but simultaneously worried that he might have gotten dengue since it didn’t seem to be contagious. We rode into Guatemala with two other touring cyclists who we met that morning and then READ MORE