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I guess that I have not written or updated the site in
some time. We have had a bit of a vacation during the past couple
months. Well, at least I have not been writing. I will briefly
try to catch you up. We finally arrived in
Panama City, Panama and spent a week there visiting the canal and other
sites. After that we used every last one of our frequent flyer miles
to get a round trip ticket to the USA and back. We had been saving up those
frequent flyer miles for several years planning for this exact flight.
We flew to the States and went on a whirlwind tour visiting both of our
families. When we got back to Panama City we bought another ticket to
Ecuador. After an exhausting five airport flight including an
interesting layover in Bogota, Colombia, here we are in Quito, Ecuador.
CULTURE SHOCK
Returning to the USA after being in Latin America for
a year took us some time to readjust. You could even call it culture
shock. It started when I walked outside the Cincinnati Airport to
check to see if our ride was there yet. I asked a man looking for a
cab "what time is it" - in Spanish. He returned a blank expression that
let me know that I was speaking the wrong language. I had to re-ask the
question in English. Everyone was speaking English. Back in the
airport I overheard two high school girls talking about how one of them did
not like the color of her cell phone because it did not match the color of
her new car. The other girl complained how her dad was to cheap to
buy her a new car and that she had to settle for a used one. It went on and on. I understood every word of it
without exerting any effort in translating. I had also forgot how much
the wants of kids in this country differed from the wants of the kids in the less
developed countries we had been traveling through. I wish I could bring
those girls with us and show them another reality. A reality where
some things are actually worth complaining about.
On the drive to my sister Terrie's house my brother-in-law Jerry asked us "is there anything that you want that
you have been missing while you have been out of the country." We both
answered "Salad" I do not think that this was the answer he
expected. I went on to explain that we can not eat salads
because they are washed in unpurified tap water and that would make us sick.
We get plenty of beef, chicken, rice, beans, eggs, and tortillas but not a
regular safe bowl of salad with dressing is almost impossible to find on our
budget.
Everyone on the road drove calmly and there was an absents of honking,
black smoke, and blaring Spanish Rap music. Public bathrooms were
clean and smelled of air freshener and sanitizer. They even included
such clever conveniences as hot water in the sink, soap, toilet seats, paper,
and the ability to flush your paper instead of putting it in a smelly trash
can on the floor. It was the first time in a year that I saw Cindie
return from the women's room without a troubled look on her face.
It was also bizarre that there was no old American school
buses turned into public buses whizzing
around. In fact, it dawned on me that without the ride from Jerry
there was no way to get to my sisters house without a private vehicle.
There is no public transportation to speak of in this country.
Wow, not everything in the USA is more modern or even better. It seems
like in the USA a car is just under food, water, shelter, and love in the
hierarchy of human needs.
On the way home we stopped by a small home furnishings
store. Once we walked in Jerry took off to pick up a mattress pad for
our future bed. Cindie and I froze and just stared at all the stuff
for sale. The wide selection and recognizable brand names took some
time to absorb. All of the things you need for supplying an American
household were starring at two people who live in a tent. It was really
just to much stimulus. Jerry, seeing our reaction, asked if we wanted to go to a near by
Wal-Mart to look around. We told him no. The thought of walking
around a super store actually scared us. At that time it would have
overloaded the circuits.
Terri showed us the room we would be staying in. It
had the biggest King size bed we had ever seen. Well, at least in a
long time. My ankles would not be hanging over the edge during our
stay there. This room had a private bathroom to boot. That
usually doubles the cost of a room and pushes it out of our meager budget.
I asked her out of habit (first in Spanish) if the shower had hot water.
This must have sounded strange to her especially since Jerry is an eye
surgeon. When she told me there was hot water my first reaction was
not to believe her and to test it for myself. The shower ran so hard
and hot you could have made coffee with the steaming water. Terri was
starting to realize just how far from home we had traveled. It was
going to take a couple days to get used to everything.
Once we had some time to adjust we were shopping and
driving like the best of them. We are, after all, as American as
anybody else in the USA.
UNCLE TIM
Once we got settled into my sisters house we received that
unconditional love that only family can give. I entered the world of
being "Uncle Tim". Terri and Jerry have three great kids and they were
eager to play with their traveling uncle Tim and Aunt Cindie. They all
spoke English as well.
We also visited my Brother (Tom) and his family and be
Uncle Tim to his three great kids as well. More unconditional love.
Tom owns an ISP (dialup Internet Service Provider) and host (stores) our web
site. He has very good prices for web hosting and excellent email
accounts that ingeniously filters out most spam. You can check him out
at www.surf-ici.com. Without him
our web site could not exist. Where else could I host over 400 Mb of
pictures and movies for such a great price - nothing. THANKS Tom!
Tom took me to his office and showed me where DownTheRoad.org lives on his
servers. I took a couple pictures of it that I will some day find a
place on the site to post.
My brother Tom was also generous enough to loan us his van.
So, after well over a year of hardly being in a motor vehicle and never
actually driving one, we were living the American dream and driving
everywhere. It was even a mini-van that made us blend in better.
We drove to Louisville, Kentucky for the
Kentucky Derby with my Uncle Curt and family, Fifteen hours across the
country and back to visit Cindie's whole family in Connecticut, to my
brothers house in Mooresville, Indiana a couple times, and to my parents
house to just hang out. As you can see it was a very busy vacation.
Another amazing thing that happened while we were in the
States was that we both had Lasik surgery done to correct our vision so that
we would no longer need to wear glasses or contacts. The surgery was
performed by my brother-in-law Dr. Jerry Roper. Jerry takes extra care in
examining the correction factor needed to achieve 20/20 vision.
After surgery both Cindie and I can see 20/20. We have since donated
our glasses and contacts and thrown away our very heavy saline solution.
This will make life on the road a bit easier. THANK Jerry.
BACK DOWN THE ROAD
We are finally in South America. It seems weird to
be here after reading about South America and loosely planning this leg of
the trip three years ago. We landed in
Quito, Ecuador a few days ago and are eager to start riding south. We
plan on traveling in South America a total of about 18 months. This
differs from the original plan of being in South America for a year but it
is a big continent and do not like rushing through. Quito, Ecuador is
a very interesting place. It is the second highest capital in Latin
America at about 9,300 feet (2850 meters). The highest being La Paz,
Bolivia at some 12,000ft. (4,000 meters) We will be there in a few
months. We are spending a few days hanging around town, seeing some
sites, and getting used to the altitude. We flew in with our backpack
and boots that were stored at my parents house. We plan on stashing
the bikes and going on a week long backpacking trip (trek) in the famous
Ecuadorian Andes. When we are done we will mail our backpacks and
boots back to my parents and be cyclist again.
MAYBE A BOOK
I am still working on the Costa Rica and Panama
newsletters. I got behind in the hot lowlands of Costa Rica and never
felt like catching up. I am now working on getting the website
together so I have a place to put our pictures and Cindie's Journal.
Anytime left over will be spent writing the new Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and
the rest of South America newsletters. In a couple of weeks I will
have our South American web site up with Cindie's Journal and the pictures
of Quito and our backpack trip posted. I will send out a brief note to
everyone when I have got everything posted and tested.
I will catch up on the Costa Rica and Panama newsletters
in time but they will probably be sent out of sequence. I even hope to
start from the beginning and write the newsletters that describe how we came
upon the idea for such a trip, what it took to actually leave, and the
Arizona and Northern Mexico sections of our trip. Those parts will be
sent out months from now as I find time to write them.
The reason that I am so determined in writing all of the
newsletters, even after the fact, is that there has been some serious talk
about taking my newsletters and turning them into a book. We recruited
my father, Pete, to figure out all of the ins and outs of book publishing.
If you have any suggestions of what kinds of information, about our story,
would be interesting to readers please let me know. We are still
trying to think of a title for our book. If you know anything about
the book publishing business or have useful contacts please let me know.
I am sure that South America will be a big crazy fun
adventure and we will share every bit of it with you in my newsletters,
pictures, and Cindie's Journals.
Tim's Past Newsletters Index Adventure Story, Novel, Book, Writings
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