The House of the Cyclist/La Casa del Ciclista

With the New Year the next chapter of our adventure has started - Mexico; since we crossed the border on the 30th of December a whole new world was opened in front of us. This country seems to be more alife than any other place we had pedal through,( it smells, it is noisy, it talks, it dances, it's dusty, it's colorful) We love it!  The New Year was in Tijuana and now we are climbing toward the desert; in the meantime in Ensenada we found this place.

The House of the Cyclist was a dream of Valdo who was a former priest from Brazil who decided to pedal across the World for the Peace. Unfortunately when he was in Baja California he got a fetal heart attack. One of the Valdo’s dream was to set up a house where touring cyclist could have a place to rest, have shower, cook and stay as long as they need. A place where you can feel at home and not just a guest. After he passed away this place was set up not far away from Valdo’s last ride, in Ensenada. La Casa del Ciclista is a wonderful small house outside of town where everybody is welcome as long as you are a cyclist traveling. We have spent 3 nights over there while we were getting things ready before heading down south to the desert; I’ve been day dreaming about a link of Casas del Ciclista all over the world where cyclist travelers are welcome. It would be a great way to promote a more environmentally friendly way of traveling overall nowadays when the global warming subject is everywhere, wouldn’t be?

With this few lines I would like to share this new idea and maybe in a short future this dream that Valdo had will start to happen in more places.

If you want to know more about Casa del Ciclista, google it!

For all you who are members of Warmshower.org look it up in Ensenada Mexico

See ya on the road!

Burger in the finest american style

I'm not a beef, fan, neither burgers, but I couldn't pass through States without trying 'local couisine'. That was another of my 'american dreams' - to try a geniune american burger:) A burger that would be pretty much my first burger (I ate maybe 2 burgers in my life before, both in McDonalds, when I was young and naive and don't consider them the right burger experience:))
I've been looking for the right place for the last 3 months, and 2 days before crossing the border I started to loose my hope; I wanted one of those places by the road, with these red shiny sofas that have shared back, a place with coffe and coke refill, where they have only burgers and chips in the menu, something in my opinion 'American'.
We passed this place a day before arriving to San Diego, I haven't noticed it, but Raul did and when he shouted 'Have you seen it?' and told me what he has just seen I knew that was the place! :) A burger from '40! :) And it turned to be the right timing - we found it just when we were looking for a special place to have our good-bye-America meal. We couldn't found better place! :)

Thank you our Angels!

Why you should always go to bike co-ops


We often pop to bike shops to ask for small favor - a question, advice, some screws, tightening here and there. We normally go to a community bike shops and so far we always had great experience there. |For example in Portland a guy spent half an hour or more adjusting the breaks with Raul and checking other stuff and when we wanted to pay he said 'it's OK., you are on a long trip, save your money'. Recently in Santa Cruz we spent like 4 hours working on our bikes in the local bike co-op and for all the time spent, some small parts and help (lots of help!) we were charged $5 only!
Today, a day before living US, we realized that Marta's head set wobbles, so we popped to the nearest bike shop; 5 min, and the head set was tightened - they asked us for $10!!!!
Support bike co-ops!

We just wanted to wish you all

Merry Christmas

Wesołych Świąt

Feliz Navidad

from California :)

hey,
do you want to know how did it happened that our supposed-to-be-uneventful ride to San Francisco turned into day after day surprise? Check the journal!

Heaven, we are in heaven...


Hey! We've just realized that that what California is - paradise on Earth!
The weather is perfect, it is beautiful here, there is wine, there is plenty of food (you can farm fruit and vegetables all year long) and all Saints live here (San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Santa Monica, San Jose, San Rafael, San Diego etc. etc.)!!!
Do you want a taste of the Afterlife? Come along! ;)

Cirque du Solei

Yes! We were so lucky to see Cirque du Solei Live! This was definitely the highlight of our stay in San Francisco, however beautiful and interesting this city is!
The show was amazing! Probably the best show we've ever seen. Whoever knows Cirque du Solei, can understand what we are talking about; whoever doesn't - hight time to check them out :)
Thank you Santa! ;)


That's just a taste of what we saw