From: Vienna, Austria (May 10, 2013)

Spring has finally arrived. I set out to paddle and pedal my way across Europe in the winter in the name of slow human-powered travel, but I’ve gone so slow Spring herself as overtook me. The winter was a challenge; I am rueful to see it go. Oh, selective amnesia, you put that rosy nostalgic glow on even the miserable times.

Drying my belongings in the wonderful spring breeze

There are a few drawbacks to winter’s departure:

1. Bugs

   Insects and spiders have arrived. The joy of camping is undermined by the creepy scrambling of spiders over the forest floor where you’d like to roll out your bed.

2. Food Spoilage

   This caught me unaware. Turns out I was using the winter outdoors as a limitless, carbon-neutral refrigerator. All foods would remain tasty for days in my food sack stored outside my tent or strapped onto my bike/raft.

   Come spring time and now I can no longer carry much meat (love them campfire steaks!). Also, sticks of butter now have a nasty habit of going soft and gooing everywhere.

3. Bugs - did I mention spiders? shudder

Florent, Chloe, Colin, and Felice

Outside Vienna I met an amazing French couple cycling from France to the Black Sea with their two young boys, a journey of over four months. I encountered them on the Danube bike path while biking around a lock. We said a few nice words, Florent helped me with a bag that had come loose, then we parted ways. Curiosity go the better of me however, so I turned back and asked if I could follow them to the campground they were aiming for.

“Why?”, I asked, “How did you choose such a trip?”. Their response was simple, “we wanted to go on a family trip that was fun and cheap”.

We shared dinner near at the campground in Klosterneuburg, it was a lovely evening that I’m lucky to have shared with this sincerely awesome family.

Florent, Felice, Colin, and Chloe - Visit their blog

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From: Straubing, Germany (March 26, 2013)

Rough day. A strong icy cross wind blew most of the day. Water dripping down from my paddle froze. Froze everywhere.

Faced my first lock in this frigid weather. A mere 400m, no distance at all when riding a bicycle, but a herculean feat when with a raft laden with nearly 80 pounds of gear. Boats on land are quite cumbersome things.

Luckily there was a push cart for kayaks available. My raft didn’t fit gracefully, but I managed.

Portaging over a lock using the handy kayak cart.

While slowly trudging the 400m (200m uphill then 200m downhill), my thoughts drifted to the early polar explorers. My slight inconvenience here in the middle of Europe couldn’t compare to their accounts of the fierce blizzards and dark winters huddled in huts sucking seal blubber but slowly starving.

Either the cold numbed my brain or the daydreaming about advancing upon the South Pole distracted me, regardless, I did something incredibly stupid.

I pulled my raft over a sharp rock and tore a hole in her bottom. Of course I didn’t realize this as I loaded the raft, nor as I paddled out into the river.

Oh sure, there was this nagging concern that floated to the surface of awareness: why the hell are my feet so cold? I pushed the thought away, “of course my feet are cold. My hands are cold, my face is cold. I’m covered in ice, everything is cold.”

It wasn’t until the creeping chill reached my ankles that the realization pierced my stupor like an icicle lobotomy.

Holy shit, there’s a fuckton of water in here!

The subsequent moments were followed by such a fierce flurry of paddling, I likely broke some packraft landspeed records. I did a harsh 180 degree turn and made for the portage embankment.

Sure enough, after unloading everything and flipping her over, there was a quarter sized rip in the bottom. A substantial repair would be required.

Fighting feelings of defeat and inadequacy, I solemnly rolled up the raft, assembled the bike and rolled on to find a hide-away where I could build a fire, get warm, and regroup.

Later, curled up in my sleeping bag next to the glowing embers of a dying fire I pulled up Scott’s Last Expedition on my Kindle where I encountered this gem:

Every day some new fact comes to light - some new obstacle which threatens the gravest obstruction. I suppose this is the reason which makes the game so well worth playing.”
— Robert Falcon Scott, Antarctic Explorer (1868 - 1912)

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From: Main-Danube Canal, Germany (23 March, 2013)

Finding a camping spot last night was tough. Rode past beautiful forests and fields all day, but when dusk came the land was either all tilled earth (sure sign spring is coming if the farmers are out ripping up my tenting sites), thickets of prickly brambles, or soft comfy grass but all angled at a gut-wrenching 45 degrees!

Over an hour I rolled on through the dark, jerking over every moon-shadowed pothole in the uneven dirt path until it dead ended in a cul-de-sac surrounded by water. I had taken a wrong turn into a tiny peninsula jutting into the canal. But what a dead end it was, anything but dead to my tired eyes, the first flat stretch of even earth I’d seen for miles. The moonlight bathed it in an enchanting glow and I half expected fairies to jump out and proclaim me their king, or lull me into a sleep from which I’d awake their captive.

I laid out my ground cloth and sleeping bag dispensing with the tent entirely. Consumed with that singular sensation of bliss earned through great exhaustion I unfolded tired limbs onto my pad and stared bleary eyed into the infinite depths of the Milky Way. Whatever thoughts were trickling through my head are long gone, whisked into the heavens by a wintry zephyr and the deep soulful rumblings of the river barges as they trundled past.

This gentle patch of earth might not look like much, but it was home for a night.

Today I made it to Regensberg! Significant, because it means I’ve joined the Danube. I’ll paddle this river until it empties into the Black Sea, some 1500 miles and 8 countries from here. I embark on my raft Monday.

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From: Mainz, Germany (February 29, 2013)

Today I say farewell to the river Rhine as I take a turn onto the river Main. Over 500 kilometers I cycled along her banks, yet it was nought but a drop in the voluminous mass of history and mystery that flows through her. Her journey and my journey were intertwined shortly, yet the Rhine’s journey is one thousands of years in progress. She knew nothing of my presence. Nonetheless, I am better off for it.

My stretch along the Main will be even shorter, a mere interlude before the great affair that will be the Danube.

The past few hundred kilometers were spectacular. Castles suddenly looming out of the mist and snow so often I became immune to their archaic charm. Today alone I must have passed half a dozen.

Fixing a flat tire in the middle of Cologne, Germany

A gorgeous house on gated grounds tucked away in a little village between Koblenz and Main, Germany.

A light snow had begun to dust the path with a slippery powder. Suddenly I had evidence of where I had come from. If there had been snow the whole journey you could trace the thin black line all the way back to the North Sea. (Nearing Main, Germany)

This camping site in Sankt Goar, Germany was closed, presumably for the winter. I helped myself to a few square meters of snow covered grass the night. edit.

A castle on a hill and a castle in the middle of the river Rhine.

Nescafe Factory. This is where the evil comes from. (Mainz, Germany)

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From: Kleve, Germany (January 9, 2012)

We’re a bit more than a week into 2013 and I’m a week into my self-powered amphibious journey across Europe.

On January 1 I began. Right proper on the beach of Holland’s North Sea coast, where, best I could figure, some majority of the silted water molecules flowing out into the grey expanse once went by the name River Rhine.

Tracking down the end of a river isn’t a straightforward task, you see, for the great pulsing artery of life, trade, and history that is the river Rhine was rent open some 200 km away by the scalpel of some prehistoric geographic surgeon millennia ago. As with any artery, there’s no such thing as a clean incision. Yes, a river’s end is a messy affair. It squirts and gushes in branching streams that spill through the landscape.

Delta – what a benign word for such a lurid end

Having seemingly located my estuary I strolled across the brown sand on that brisk winter morning and sought the profound. That’s something we do, us wandering dreamers, the mad ones… in our crazed pursuit of the euphoric we squeeze the moment tight like a wet piece of laundry. We want to suck up every last bit of serenity, inhale it, steep ourselves in the ecstasy of the extemporaneous.

The salty chill biting my flushing face, the gentle give of the sand underfoot, firm grip of bike in hand, the road, that glorious symbol of freedom and life, stretching ahead into the unknown, breathing in the spirit of the open… with these fragments of experience I had the makings of quite a traveler’s high.

Alas, the momentousness of it all conspired against me. Moments can’t be wrung for joy the way you wring water from a towel.

Robbed of the rapturous opening I had expected (darn expectations) I snapped a selfy and turned my back to the Sea. River on my right. I peddled upstream.

Cycling in the Netherlands is unique experience. There are no hills, unless you count the little ramps up the dikes, and dedicated cycling paths criss cross the entire country. It’s almost boring frankly. I did have some antics to keep me entertained.

Several times I encountered water crossings that required boarding a free ferry to a cross 100 meter stretch of water. It didn’t really occur to me until I was wheeling my load up the on ramp of the first ferry, I’m on a human powered journey, crossing a bit of river on a ferry, no matter how short, is definitely cheating. Plus, this is why I have a raft, right? Hell yes! I frantically scrambled back down the on ramp like a madman with a profound ship-deck phobia.

Every time I peddled up to a ferry crossing and proceeded to conjure a massive raft out of seemingly nowhere, then miraculously fit all my crap into it, including my bike, there were many a stunned onlooker gaping incredulously as I paddled towards the opposite shore.

The weather has been great so far. Too great actually. Temperatures haven’t even dipped below freezing, and I’ve sun on my face more often than not. My photos can attest to this decidedly gorgeous weather.

Where is winter? The things worth doing are miserable. Bring on the misery.

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From: Somewhere over the Atlantic

I’m currently some 30,000+ feet (9,000+ m) in the air on my 22nd plane in 4 months.

Now, in this post I’m going to come off as a spoiled brat, but, after all, it is my journal. I reserve the right to rant occasionally.

I’m sick of airplanes. Moving about in an airplane is not travel.

Airplanes are a distortion of time and space. And you get frisked.

—Paul Theroux

…except in our great nation we prefer molestation. Straight up, full on.

When it’s my turn for the hallowed ritual (and it’s always my turn), I choose to assert my right to receive my back-handed fondle in public, rather then slink away to the private room.

It’s just my modest contribution to the absurdity of our security theater: making the polite TSA agent cup my balls in public. Yes, that’s right everyone! Look over here, this fellow’s job is to give me a firm rubdown in front of your kids.

Checking for crotch bombs

Ahem.

State sponsored groping is not what I set about to journal when I began with the title “Flying is not travel,” but the flight attendants are serving dinner and I have become quite worked up over a little friskiness.

Going to tuck the pen and notebook into the seat-back pocket and return to the thought of “flying as travel” later.

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My Quechua language study project was abruptly cut short in May when a fantastic job opportunity presented itself. I abruptly packed up my little life in Cusco and headed north to the USA for the summer.

While I’ve no regrets about leaving South America, I’ve left some loose ends down there. First, I had a personal goal of crossing the continent on my bike, but I only completed, perhaps, 25% before getting distracted by the Quechua language and great friends in Cusco.

Second, during the course of my Quechua study I started a project to document stories with recordings and transcripts online. I’ve tons of recorded material to process and upload.

I’m not done with South America or Quechua. I’m comfortable with lettings experiences come and, but this isn’t one of them. One of these days I’ll finish my cycling tour, and continue my study of the language.

Since my return stateside I’ve been visiting a bit of the USA. Kayaking in Alaska, cycling in Colorado, and consulting work all over the country.

Having refilled the coffers, so to speak, I’ll be headed back to Egypt in a few weeks to brush up on my Arabic before beginning a Middle Eastern bike tour.

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