We’re in Costa Rica. Yeah, life’s tough.
Many of you have heard of or have been to Costa Rica. The name evokes tropical rainforests full of monkeys and parrots, gorgeous beaches and amazing coffee. Yes, it’s all true. Costa Rica is a very nice country.
Costa Rica hasn’t had an army since the 40’s. We haven’t seen a machine gun or shotgun for over 5 days – a record since crossing into Mexico in late December. The quality of life for most Costa Ricans (or Ticos/Ticas) is considerably higher than in other parts of Latin America we’ve been through. It’s odd – the palpable tension and near-desperation of grinding poverty had become a constant for me, much like the smell of burning garbage, especially through El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. (There’s no trash collection in most areas, so people burn what they throw out, usually right by the side of the road.) For the first time in a long while, I’m just soaking up scenery on the bike. It’s relaxing. One guy we met on the road yesterday said “Welcome – I hope you enjoy our tranquilo country.” Tranquilo has no equivalent in English as far as I know – it means relaxed, safe, hassle-free. And that’s exactly what Costa Rica is shaping up to be thus far.
People here seem very into what Lucie and I are doing. We’re getting far more honks of encouragement than we have in months – probably since the Yukon. People have stopped their cars on the busy Pan-American Highway to ask us about our trip and see if we need any help. On the way into Heredia (near the capital of San Jose), a woman thrust her hand out the passenger window and insisted on giving us 2000 colones – about $4! This was our first anonymous drive-by donation, and it made an impression.
Cyclists we’ve seen have been on stylish cruisers or nice mountain bikes, many wearing helmets. There’s a law requiring cyclists to ride with reflectors at night. This is huge. Safety laws are non-existent in countries north of here, where we’ve seen real live people getting from A to B by riding on top of semi trailers at 80 km/h like they were in the frickn’ Matrix or something. Although Nicaragua’s EcoSouth gives helmets away, we didn’t see a single brain bucket in use from El Salvador to the Costa Rican border.
We’re staying with erudite, easy-going and bilingual environmentalist Eduardo and partner Natalie in Heredia. He’s our first official warm showers host since Baja California! He did a tour from Ecuador to Buenos Aires, Argentina a couple of years back, and it took him… 6 months! We now have less than 4 months to go and are finally realizing we’re a little behind. Lucie’s little sister’s wedding at the end of August and the absolute certainty (!) of my landing a teaching position for the Fall mean that we need to fly home around August 15. We want to believe it’s possible to finish our mission, but the clock – and the Andes – would seem to be against us. Even though we’ve come away with strong impressions of every place we’ve been to, we already feel we’re skimming over parts of our route. To be in a hurry on a bike tour sort of defeats the purpose of pedal-powered travel. Our plan, therefore, is to carry on as we have been and hope that everyone is lying about the size of South America. We’ll let you know how that goes.
Tags: Costa Rica · Countries
(English follows)
Nous prenons pour acquis que très peu d’entre vous sont de millionnaires philanthropes. (Si vous lisez ces lignes et que vous en êtes un, s’il vous plaît, allez directement au dernier paragraphe.) Nous savons par contre que vous êtes assez nombreux à nous lire – les statistiques le prouvent!
Si chacun de vous donnez, disons 10$, nous serions beaucoup plus près de notre objectif de levée de fonds. Et si cela vous rassure, selon notre entente avec Cyclo Nord-Sud, nous recevons la moitié du montant des donations; cela nous aide à se rendre d’un partenaire à l’autre en couvrant les frais du riz, des haricots noirs, et parfois même, des tortillas!
Recevoir une donation nous motive également à continuer de partager la bonne nouvelle sur la façon dont les vélos sont utilisés dans les communautés que nous visitons. Un vélo, ici, aide véritablement; nous avons tout vu, du restaurant trois-roues au vélo aiguiseurs de couteaux sans oublier tous les autres qui l’utilisent quotidiennement pour se déplacer plus rapidement au travail, à l’école ou au marché.
Nous aimerions leur envoyer plus de vélos.
Alors prenez vote carte et téléphonez Cyclo Nord-Sud! 1 888 843-0077. Dites-leur que Pedaling South vous envoie. Ou encore, remplissez le formulaire en ligne – choisissez le «Projet Pedaling South» dans le menu déroulant sous la rubrique Affectation des fonds (3e sur la liste). Vous pouvez aussi simplement envoyer un chèque par la poste à l’attention de Pedaling South/ Cyclo Nord-Sud au 6356 Alma, Montréal, Québec, H2S 2W3.
Si vous êtes un millionnaire philanthrope, allez sur la page de DONATION. Donnez généreusement et le monde sera plus roulant!
Nous espérons que vous continuez à apprécier le contenu de notre blogue, car nous, nous trippons à poursuivre cette folle aventure.
ENGLISH VERSION
A Message to Our Esteemed Readers
We assume that very few of our readers, if any, are philanthropic millionaires. (If you are reading this and are a philanthropic millionaire, please skip to the end). We do know, however, that there are quite a few of you – we have the stats to prove it!
If each of you donated, say, $10, we’d be a lot further ahead with our fundraising goal. If it makes you feel any better, according to our agreement with Cyclo Nord Sud, we get ½ of the donated amount to help us get from partner to partner and to keep us in rice, beans, and sometimes even tortillas!
Getting the odd donation also helps motivate us in our quest to spread the word about the role of bikes in the communities we’re passing through. A bike here is a real step up; we’ve seen everything from 3-wheeled rolling restaurants to bici-taxis to pedal-powered knife sharpeners, and of course tons of ordinary people using bikes to go places they couldn’t otherwise get to, be it work, school or to market.
We want to send ‘em more bikes.
So grab your card and phone Cyclo Nord Sud! 1 888-843-0077. Tell them Pedaling South sent you.
Or fill out that online donation form – choose “Projet Pedaling South” under Fund/Designation (#3 on the list after Membership and Claire Morissette Memorial Fund). Or put a check in the mail made out to Pedaling South/ Cyclo-Sud – send it to 6356 Alma in Montreal, Quebec, H2S 2W3.
Unless you’re a philanthropic millionaire. In which case you may direct your people to our DONATE page. Give generously, and the world will ride a little smoother.
We hope you continue to enjoy reading, cause we’re sure enjoying this beautiful and insane adventure.
Tags: About · Nicaragua
Une rue au nord d’où était le restaurant La Plancha. Voilà l’adresse officielle d’Éco Sud, le tout nouveau partenaire de Cyclo Nord-Sud. Regina et Livio nous ont pris sous leurs ailes dès notre arrivée. C’est en face d’une tasse de café instantanné noir trop sucré qu’ils nous ont demandé quels étaient nos plans. Ils était tard, et après une journée à rouler dans les montagnes, nous étions épuisés. «Eh bien… nous aimerions nous reposer ce soir, et demain, découvrir l’organisme, tout simplement!», lui laisse-t-on savoir. Ils se regardent, marmonnent quelques mots et organisent aussitôt notre journée du lendemain.
- Bon. D’abord, rendez-vous dans mon bureau à la première heure pour une présentation générale. Puis, avec l’architecte Marco, nous irons sur le terrain rencontrer les jeunes apprentis à l’école de construction et voir les projets d’habitation. En après-midi, Regina vous expliquera tout ce que vous voulez savoir sur le département vélo. Ça vous va?
Bien sûr que ca nous va!
Nous lançons la tente dans la spacieuse place centrale d’Éco Sud, maintenant désertée. L’endroit est paisible, l’air est frais. Le seul son que nous entendons est celui du vent fouettant les feuilles des arbres. Nous avons accès à tout: électricité, cuisine, table de travail, douche et Internet haute-vitesse. Tout un luxe!
Le lendemain, Livio et l’équipe de la direction nous fait une présentation PowerPoint d’Éco Sud depuis ses touts premiers débuts il y a environ 30 ans. Historique impressionnante! (lisez le post de Torrey!) Depuis, les projets d’aide locale et internationale se sont multipliés partout où le besoin s’en est fait sentir. C’est du concret! Voilà de l’énergie bien investie! La réunion est soudainement interrompue: rafraichissements de Coca et des biscuits Oreo pour tout le monde.
Aussitôt la présentation terminée, nous sautons dans un véhicule. Nous n’avons pas une seconde à perdre. Nous devons faire le tour de Jinotepe et des villages environnants afin de visiter toutes les constructions passées et les projets en cours. Il y a beaucoup a voir!
Après un repas copieux au restaurant La Sardina, nous reprenons en après-midi avec le département vélo. Les entrepôts sont presque vides. «Ce sont des répercussions de la crise économique américaine», nous explique Regina. Le nouveau partenariat avec Cyclo Nord-Sud s’est scellé juste à temps! (Plus de donations = plus de vélos. Regardez aussi les dates de collectes de vélos à venir dans votre régions!)
Nous avons passé la journée à cumuler de l’information, à se rendre d’un endroit à un autre, à écouter ce que tous et chacun avaient à nous partager. Peut-être devrions nous rester une journée de plus?! Cela nous permettrait de faire un peu de travail…
Les yeux de Marco s’illument alors. «Si vous restez une journee de plus, nous irons visiter Granada et ses ruines (la capitale touristique du Nicaragua), voir l’église où William Walker s’est autodéclaré président en 1856 (?!!!). Puis, nous filerons au volcan actif de Masaya observer le cratère enfumé. De là, nous nous rendrons au belvedère de Catarina regarder le couche du soleil en écouter les mariachis.» Et c’est ce que nous avons fait en un après-midi seulement en trouvant le temps de s’arrêter manger les meilleurs vigarónes du pays, la poutine nicaraguayenne: sur un lit de yuca, déposez quelques chicharróne (genre d’oreille de Christ en plus gros et plus gras) et arrosez d’une salade de choux. Enveloppez le tout dans deux feuilles de bananier et le tour est joué. Délicieux, mais probablement pas très bon pour le coeur!
L’image que j’avais du Nicaragua était principalement construite à travers les nouvelles mediatiques peu reluisantes qui se résument à des scènes de désastres naturels (l’ouragan Mitch de 1998), de pauvreté et conflits géopolitiques. Maintenant, je vois des gens énergiques et proactifs, capables de rebâtir un beau pays – tierra de lagos y volcanes – , malheureusement endommagé.
Au moment où vous lisez ces lignes, nous sommes en route vers le Costa Rica… l’aventure se poursuit!
Tags: Countries · Nicaragua
Jinotepe, Nicaragua
EcoSouth, an environmental group and recently-signed Cyclo Nord-Sud partner, has roots dating back to the early days of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution, when the Sandinista uprising successfully overthrew the Somoza dictatorship.
The multi-faceted organization focuses primarily on the staggering problem of inadequate and insufficient housing in the developing world. What began as an initiative to design better roofing tiles has grown into an international knowledge-sharing network between countries facing similar challenges such as natural disasters, widespread poverty and lack of skilled local labour.
Over the past 30 years, EcoSouth has built hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals and countless social housing projects that have made owners out of renters. They also currently design, build and share expertise on pre-fab permanent disaster-relief shelters, and are actively involved in helping the people of Haiti recover from the recent catastrophic earthquake.
Through EcoSouth’s two-year youth training program, young people facing limited career options learn advanced construction techniques. Students, often from troubled backgrounds, earn a wage working and learning in the field four days a week. They spend one day a week in the classroom focusing on theory. After graduating with a diploma recognized by Nicaragua’s National Technical Institute, they take their new knowledge with them into their communities, helping to grow local expertise throughout the country.
Whereas the organization once depended on donations from partners in industrialized nations, it has since become self-sustaining through the creation of an affiliate corporation, EcoNic, that uses the group’s wealth of architectural and construction knowledge to design and build high-end ecological and disaster-resistant housing.
(Con’t below…)
Bicycles!
EcoSouth has been running a bicycle project for the last 25 years.
With inadequate public transportation and limited means, most people, especially in rural Nicaragua, have no option but to walk several kilometers every day to and from work, school or market. EcoSouth’s bike project’s mission, as pertinent today as ever, is to provide bicycles as an accessible, environmentally-friendly means of transportation for the masses. Over the years, they’ve found owners for tens of thousands of recycled bikes.
Originally, EcoSouth purchased ‘raw’ bikes from India and assembled and sold them in Nicaragua. For well over a decade now, they’ve nurtured partnerships with organizations in the North to receive shipping containers full of used, functioning bikes. This has the benefit of offering a variety (road, BMX and mountain bikes) of high-quality machines at affordable prices. The social and economic benefits are measurable, whether the new cyclists be vendors, students, professionals or labourers. The widespread use of bikes helps increase environmental awareness, education and economic opportunities for Nicaraguans.
Recycling bikes from the North also keeps valuable assets from ending up in our landfills, helps build a just model of international cooperation and frees up space in your garage!
The current challenge EcoSouth’s bike program faces is one of sheer quantity; with one container per year, the program barely supports itself, paying administrators, storage, shipping and maintenance. It means that over 400 people have decent bikes who didn’t have them before. With three or four containers a year, however, the bike program generates enough revenue to be completely sustainable and contributes surplus funds to EcoSouth’s social housing and disaster relief projects. In short, the more bikes EcoSouth receives the better. There’s no shortage of customers. If you live in Quebec, please take a minute to check out when Cyclo Nord-Sud is holding its next bike drive in your area. Dust off that old Norco, throw it in the trunk and pass it on to someone who will truly appreciate it. If you live in Quebec or elsewhere (and that pretty much includes everyone), please donate to the noble, cash-strapped charitable organization that is Cyclo Nord-Sud.
Stay tuned for more tales of adventure from Central America and (gasp!)… BEYOND!
Tags: Countries · Nicaragua
April 10th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Après plus de 200 jours à vélo, quand on trouve un endroit où l’on se sent chez soi, on aime bien y rester une journée ou deux. Parfois même trois.
Nous avons décidé de nous ‘arrêter à León et de jouer les touristes. Torrey profite de chaque moment libre pour postuler dans les cégeps et collèges partout au Canada. Septembre revient vite. Et moi? Je révise mes verbes en espagnol et je lis sur l’histoire de la région et la culture locale entre deux siestes dans un hamac.
León est grande et vibrante, sécuritaire et attrayante. Les églises construites à l’époque coloniale charment autant que les marchés de fruits et de légumes. Elle est peut-être la plus belle métropole du Nicaragua –ou deuxième après Granada. Le débat est toujours ouvert! Ces deux villes ont longtemps été rivales sur plusieurs plans. Politiquement, Léon a toujours eu une tendance sandiniste (socialiste-communiste). Granada, quant à elle, était plutôt conservatrice.
Demain, nous reprenons la route. Pour vrai! Nous contournerons Managua – jusqu’à Jinotepe, là où un nouveau partanaire Cyclo Nord-Sud prend racine. On vous donnera des nouvelles une fois là-bas!
Tags: Countries · Nicaragua
Tags: Countries · Mexique · Mexique · Photos
Nicaragua! Already! Past the halfway-mark of Central America!
Honduras was dry and friendly and mostly closed for la Semana Santa (Holy Week), a 10-day vacation leading up to Easter observed by most of Latin America. We blew through the country like a fell wind and crossed into Nicaragua just the day after yesterday.
The border was uncomplicated. We changed our lempiras into cordobas with a jovial money changer and paid our $7 entry fee to customs. A border guard dropped the white rope tied across the highway and we pedaled on into the tiny town of El Espino. Within a kilometer, the road was completely deserted. Okay, it was Easter Sunday, but even so we were surprised to see chickens pecking around in the middle of the Pan-American Highway.
There are few automobiles here and a lot of people cycling. It’s very common to see two or even three people on a single bike – one seated, pedaling, the other sitting sideways on the top tube, steering. We saw a middle aged mom (steering) chatting casually with her teenage son (pedaling) careening down a hill at over 50 km/h! I suppose that now Lucie and I have no excuse to carry on if either of our bikes suffers a fatal breakdown. “Hey, let me steer!”
After a night sleeping in a pasture near Somoto, we made Esteli yesterday in the early afternoon. It’s a bustling town of about 120 000 surrounded mostly by tobacco fields and cigar manufacturers.
We looked up our Cyclo Nord-Sud partner here, the Nicaraguan Association for the Blind (Asociación Nicaragüense de No Videntes or ANNV) and stopped in to say hello and see where the bikes go.
“Wait a minute,” you stammer, “why send used bikes to the Association for the Blind?”
Excellent question. Momentito, por favor.
The 20-year old ANNV provides elementary education for visually impaired children. They learn to use Braile and then follow a standard curriculum. Afterwards, they’re integrated into mainstream high schools. The Association offers room and board for students, who come from various regions of Nicaragua. Their mission is to help integrate visually impaired Nicaraguans into society, and they rely on their own fundraising initiatives to operate.
That’s where the bikes come in. The ANNV runs a shop in downtown Esteli where the donated Cyclo Nord-Sud bicycles are fixed up and sold to locals at a decent price. A lot of people here work in the fields or factories outside of town and use bicycles to get to and from. Canadian bikes and parts are considered to be of high quality and draw a large customer base. Most come to the shop hoping to get their hands on a coveted mountain bike, which is ideally suited to the area’s rough and hilly roads.
Lucie and I slept in the shop to get a real feel for the place. We pitched our tent in the showroom, surrounded by piles of bikes that travelled almost as far as we have to get here. We chatted and watched awesome Nicaraguan TV with Juan, the friendly night watchman. This morning, fresh and rested, we stopped by the school down the street to talk to the students, teachers and administrators.
The head teacher introduced us. Each student then stood and introduced him or herself and said where they were from. They demonstrated their mastery of their portable Braile writing machines. They wished us safe travels as we rode off. It was pretty touching.
Tonight we’re staying in Esteli to soak up the place. We’ve opted for a hostel in order to grab a hot shower, ditch our bikes and catch up on internet stuff. We may even watch a movie!
I for one am feeling the need to tune out. As we ride further south, things are becoming more and more stripped down and basic, from housing (sometimes just mud and sticks) to available food. Nicaragua is technically the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti, and you can feel it in the air. Signs everywhere denote various foreign aid projects. Huge numbers of Nicaraguans seeking work emigrate every year to more industrialized El Salvador or Costa Rica or beyond. Even though we’ve been outside of Canada’s sanitized, convenience-oriented middle-class reality for several months, every once in a while the total lack of familiarity kind of creeps up on me. It’s a good night to watch Titanic or something. Tomorrow I’ll be a totally well-adapted Pan Am cyclist. Tonight, I eat popcorn.
Tags: Countries · Nicaragua
Tags: Countries · Mexique · Mexique · Photos
Tags: Countries · Honduras
At last!
The last few days in El Salvador were challenging for us, and apparently for a lot of Salvadorans who didn’t seem too happy that we were riding our bikes through their country (and didn’t seem to mind letting us know it).
After 24 hours in Honduras, all the scowls and insults seem in the distant past. People are once again open and friendly – we would have been happy with civil or even indifferent! Lucie got a sweet high-five from a kid on the highway today – a first for team Pedaling South! We asked for water at a house last night and were offered coffee, cake, showers, supper and a place to sleep! Lucie and I are still a bit sick, so we appreciated it all the more.
Everyone is on holiday here for Semana Santa. There’s a festive yet relaxed atmosphere permeating the entire country.
We’ll cross into Nicaragua in just a couple of days, where we’ll meet with two more Cyclo Nord-Sud partners – one in Esteli and one in Jinotepe. Stay tuned!
Tags: Countries · Honduras
