linville gorge
I’ll share a few pics from a gorgeous spring weekend backpacking Linville Gorge. We went ahead with the planned trip despite a predicted 90% chance of rain, and we really couldn’t have asked for better weather. Other than a brief (but intense) thunderstorm at 4AM Friday night and some drizzle on Saturday, the rain held off. The cold front that pushed the rain on by brought some colder temperatures for Saturday night and Sunday.
Hawksbill, as seen from Babel Towers.
Classic Linville Gorge — the boulders below are bigger than Chevy Tahoes. And cooler too.
In 2000, Linville Gorge suffered a pretty extensive forest fire, the remainder of which is still obvious. Much of the steepest parts of the western rim were affected. Approximately 5,500 (of the Gorge’s total 12,000) acres burned. The fire cleared out both the underbrush and many of the taller trees. As the affected plants’ and trees’ root systems died and loosened the soil, there’s also been a lot of erosion.
By Sunday morning, nothing but clear blue skies.
estoy esperando
Una bicicleta en calle Subercaseaux, circa de Cerro Santa Lucia.
Santiago de Chile
Andrew in Argentina
My brother Andrew is spending this year in Argentina working as a Young Adult Volunteer with the Presbyterian Church. His placement is in a homeless shelter for boys, El Hogar La Casita, in greater Buenos Aires.
Andrew has more than a big heart… he also has a talent for writing. A few of his thoughts on where he is –
After dinner tonight, I went with the older boys to collect old bread from the local bread shops. They lumber down the street as only teenage boys lumber, like a graceful stumble that says, I’m too cool to look like I’m actually trying to walk. The boys whistle at girls. ?Por favor, [expletive deleted].? They bum cigarettes from the people on the main drag. One picks through the trash looking for anything of use. One leans close to my ear and says, ?After tonight, you won’t eat the bread at the Hogar.? Some bread shops give us a lot, one gives us none. We finish and I head home for the night.
You can read more of his insights (and find information on how to support him) on his website, AndrewinArgentina.blogspot.com.
Andrew’s being there is a good reason to visit Argentina. So, over his January summer vacation, my folks and I flew down to visit.
From Atlanta to Buenos Aires is a 10 hour, overnight flight. Jack Daniels and Miles Davis help the night go by faster. Three hours into the flight, I could see the lights of Cuba below. It’s puzzling to think that 35,000 ft above the ground may be as close as I’ll ever get to Cuba. For most of the flight, we flew at 37,000ft (a Boeing 767) with 39,000ft the highest point of the trip — over Paraguay. At that altitude, the temperature outside the cabin was -68 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought skiing in Quebec was cold.
We crossed the Equator (to no fanfare or even notice) sometime between 2 and 3AM Argentina time. The sun rose while we were over Bolivia.
Buenos Aires, the Paris of the southern hemisphere, is a cosmopolitan city like I never knew existed in South America. Truly defined by its eclectic European influences, life in the porte?o city is a beautiful collection of French architecture and wide boulevards, Italian street caf? culture, German beer, and the Spanish language.
And as usual, traveling gave me the opportunity to take pictures of (and ride) some bicycles.
La Bicicleta Naranja, a bike rental place in barrio San Telmo, provides great bicycle maps of Buenos Aires. They rent bikes for 6 pesos (about 2 dollars) an hour.
La ciclista, by Oscar Manuel Dom?nguez. A painting in el Museo Bellas Artes.
I will be writing more about Buenos Aires later, but for now, enjoy the rest of the pictures.
satélite
Satélite, by Chilean artist Iván Navarro, was the entrance piece for the exhibition Fantasmatic, in Santiago’s Museo Artes Visuales.
Based on this and the February 15th entry, velodromo, you have two guesses where I’ve been recently.
velodromo
Argentina’s national velodrome, in Palermo Park, Buenos Aires
ski chantecler
New Year’s weekend in St. Adele, Quebec is cold. Just plain old cold. The slopes at Ski Chantecler were covered in a fine ice unlike anything I’ve skied on before.
At night, the temperature at the bottom of the slopes was 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The windchill at the top was in the negative teens. First your face burns from the cold; then your finger tips throb, then you realize you can’t feel your toes. And if you haven’t gone inside yet, you get to a point where you know you’re not going to get any colder or any more numb. The days weren’t a whole lot warmer.
It took two days for feeling to fully return to my toes.
I hear Mt. Tremblant (a half-hour’s drive northwest of St. Adele) has some great mountain biking in the summer. I thought about biking, but without skis to attached to the wheels or studded tires there wouldn’t be any point. I couldn’t come up with either.
fishing for something
Fishing boats return to the shore in the afternoon.
Cape Coast, Ghana (ca. September 1997)
bikes around the world
One of the things I love about bicycles is their near universal use in transportation. Bikes are available in just about every country, they are used by people of all income levels, and they take on a variety of shapes, designs, and purposes.
Sure, there are some brand names of bikes and components that are sold here in the U.S. and are not readily available in other places. And when I’ve traveled to other countries, I’ve come across brand names I don’t recognize. But the bicycle itself is a constant around the world.
The bicycle is, after all, the greatest invention in history.
(Oxford, England — My mom studied at Oxford last summer. Just outside her college was this endless line of bikes leaning against the wall.)
(Puerto Escondido, Mexico — Vendors use these three-wheeled pedal-carts to sell everything from snacks to souvenirs, from ice to fresh fish, from T-shirts to jewelry.)
(Durham, North Carolina — A 1970s Fuji leans against the mural outside the historic Durham Bulls ballpark.)
(Cape Coast, Ghana — Mark, pictured here in his school uniform, shares my love of bicycles. He insisted that I take his picture while he was pedaling.)
Four days off, four days of riding
I don’t very often have consecutive days of absolutely no obligations, so months ago I committed to spend four days in July on some classic Southeastern singletrack. My plan was to drop off a friend in Atlanta, then meander my way back to Durham.
In the days leading up to the trip, Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on the Gulf of Mexico. About the time I left Atlanta, Dennis hit the panhandle of Florida, heading due north. I knew I had to be flexible, so I was prepared to check out trails in northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina. I planned to outrun the rain and bike where I could.
Column: Cycling through Mexican streets is enjoyable
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Phillip Barron OAXACA, MEXICO — After asking at a taller de bicicletas (a bike shop) |
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 (Bicicletas Pedro Martinez) |
His office is small, just big enough for a counter, ten bikes to hang tightly against the wall, and shelves for helmets and cycling shoes. A collection of cycling jerseys hangs overhead, and inside the glass case that forms the counter are cassettes, pedals, hubs, and derailleurs. What available wall space is left is covered in poster-sized photographs of Martinez himself competing in races. |
| While Sr. Martinez is busy arranging a hiking tour with customers, his nephew Roberto invites me in. In the best Spanish I can muster, we joke about the pain of a long climb, about reaching down to click into the next easiest gear only to realize that you’re already in it, and about the white-knuckles and big eyes of a sketchy descent. He tells me there is a 50 mile endurance mountain bike race on Sunday and invites me to race on a rented bike. I’m tempted but decline in favor of a ride through the streets of Oaxaca. |
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Sunday
morning, I arrange to take a bike for two hours and ask about the local mountain bike scene. Roberto charges me 50 pesos (about $5.00) for a nice bike (a Giant Rincon), a pump and spare tube, tire levers, a lock, and a helmet. |
 (Rincon in the Zócalo) |
| Leaving the shop, I ride down la calle Aldama and turn south on JP Garcia. Although the sidewalks are crowded, traffic flows swiftly in the streets. Oaxaca is, like most developed areas, an auto-centric place. But bicycles fit right in with traffic here, and I never feel threatened by the buses, trucks, and taxis swirling around me. In fact, as I get more comfortable with the new traffic patterns, I realize that drivers around me seem to be more aware and respectful of bicyclists than I am used to. |
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I decide to ride the road up Monte Alban, a tight, steep road that leads to Zapotec ruins dating back to 100 AD. It’s a grueling climb, but the views alone from the roadside make it worthwhile. Halfway up the road, I can see all of Oaxaca to the east. I snap a photograph in my mind and turn around. |
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Next I head
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| My two hours are coming to an end, so I turn back and begin riding southwest. On a bike, it’s easy to navigate a city laid out in perfect square blocks, and I make my way to the Zócalo and the adjacent Alameda de León. |
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The Zócalo
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Roberto welcomes Out of curiosity, I ask whether he rents |
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See the rest of my pictures from Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido here.
CHANGE
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