Team Inquinceable bikes to Salta

Conocer

By: Kether

We biked away from Bariloche the other day, my heart heavy with the weight of new people to know and miss and wonder about.

For the first time, conocer makes sense to me.

Conocer, the verb to know people or places or things; but it’s more than that. Conocer is recognition and familiarity and the knowledge that his eyes are blue and she prefers a crisp apple. It’s the bits of information you compile in your head to be able to say, yes, I know her, or yes, I know that place.

When I learned the verb, reconocer and learned the English translation, to recognize, I broke the word down and I wondered what it could mean, to cognize. I thought about cognizant. Based solely on the context in which I have heard it, I assume it means to have the ability to process information. People wonder when babies become cognizant, when they can take information and use it again in the future.

A while ago, I saw something in English, written by a young man who didn’t speak perfect English. He wrote that he had traveled to visit his family and to know his new baby nephew. It was clear to me that he had made a direct translation from Spanish to English because when you meet someone for the first time in Spanish, and then speak of it later, you might say, “Conocí mí sabrino nuevo.” The same way he translated directly, I would do the same and assume that “conocí,” means, “I met.” In fact, it means much more. Not only did he meet his new nephew, he learned the color of his eyes, the feel of his hair, the shape of his full belly. It’s possible that he actually meant, “conocía mí sabrino nuevo” which would make the story less final. Conocía is the imperfect form meaning that something happened in the past but it was more than once and for a long time. For example, “cuando era niña,” “When I was a young girl,” something that didn’t happen just once, it spanned a period of time but is not the current moment. This fellow met his baby cousin and spent time getting to know him.

I had a boyfriend once who told me that you never stop loving the people you once knew and held in your heart, your heart simply grows larger: larger to accommodate new folks and places and things. I hated that he said that, but it makes sense to me now. How can you forget the things you learn about people that make you love them or hate them or simply recognize them on the street?
I see now that knowing people, places, and things is so much more than simple knowledge. It’s knowledge you compile in your head and in your heart in order to be able to say, “Sí, yo conozco.”

It’s not the pieces; it’s the combination; knowing where to get the freshest most beautiful fruits; the tastiest, tenderest, least expensive churrasco; where to find the most delicious chocolate ice cream; the sandiest, least populated beach. Conocer is being recognized on the street and preparing yourself in advance for the same dirty look from the girl at the chocolate store; it’s knowing the route home and away without the map.

Early on in this trip I got an email discussing what it’s like to unpack your bags, stay for a while, and know a place. This is conocer.

Viajo para conocer, pero me quedo para reconocer y para estar conocida.

Team Inquinceable

By: Rayna, the Quinced

You might be wondering what in the world is “inquinceable?” Well, Ill tell you. The word comes from “quince,” which is a fruit. People describe it as a mix in between an apple and a pear. Sounds delicious and juicy, right? Unfortunately, that is a misconception. They are often very dry and bitter and if you are working on an organic farm, worm infested.
Maud´s farm, Finca Utama, has about 40 quince trees. This season has been so rainy that she has more fruit than she knows what to do with. A team of WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunites on Organic Farms) have been harvesting these quince. It´s harder than it sounds. Maud, being a sustainable thinker like us, does not want to see a single fruit rot. So what can we do with all of them? No one will eat them and they are quickly rotting as they fall in hundreds onto the ground. Well, we make delicious jams, jellies, juices, and a thick paste that we call “quince bread,”or “dulce de mebrillos.” Haha, simple. Wrong again!
These processes are several 12-hour days of chopping, drying, stirring, sifting, squeezing, sugaring and straining. For example, to make quince bread one must collect the ripest quince (the yellow ones) and cut hundreds of them into half. While chopping, it is important to get the rot out. After that, one must boil the halves in a pot the size of Rhode Island over a fire for about 2 hours. The quince are then soft enough to push through a sift (with really small holes) to make a sort of pulpy goo. Soon after, one adds half the amount in sugar and mixes it up.

Then comes more boiling. In another large pot with a large wooden spoon, that looks more like hockey stick, Team Inquinceable will take turns stirring the mixture over an open fire for about 7 hours. Once the paste is the right consistency and color, one pours the mixture into a wooden structure that creates blocks of quince bread. They dry for about a week and then one must cut the jam blocks out of the form and allow them to dry for a couple more days. When they are dry, you can wrap them up and give them to family and friends. Although this process is exhausting and long, it is reliving to know that no quince goes to waste. Even the parts that do not get used in the quince bread get boiled up and used to make jelly. Oh ya, and then the seeds get boiled again for jam. And of course we drink the extra juice. And then there is the dry quince for tea. And the rest goes to compost to make more beautiful and healthy quince trees for next year! What a great model of sustainability!

Good folks

I appreciate the things in life that remind me to be a better person.

Summiting the pass from Chile, I wanted to cry. My legs were tired, the sweat stung my eyes, and demon bugs swarmed. I reminded myself to stay calm and take deep breaths.

I was sort of panicking.

Johanna was walking toward me, also clearly uncomfortable.

We decided to take a quick picture, skip lunch for the time and begin our descent.

A woman was standing nearby and we asked her to take our picture.

“Of course.”

She took our photo and chatted with us for just a bit.

She and her husband had each retired and decided to travel the world, opting for a slightly less physically demanding adventure, a rented motor-home rather than a couple of bicycles.

As the clouds gathered, she offered us a cup of coffee.

Johanna hesitated.

“I’d love a cup of coffee.”

So, she invited us inside her home on wheels, offered us a seat, put a tea kettle on to boil, poured some cookies into a bowl and sat down to chat.

When the water boiled, she pulled from the cupboard four mugs, two for us and two for she and her husband.

She pulled out the instant coffee, the powdered milk, and the sugar packets collected at rest stops.

I stirred my coffee, sipped and smiled.

We made small talk as my confidence in the day and good people was slowly restored.

I appreciate the Hollanders that welcomed us into their tiny home.

Manjar

It wasn’t early; we were running late by our current standards.

The other girls biked off into the distance.

My chest squeezed a bit with the thought of being without them and their decision-making skills. I questioned briefly if I was actually prepared to travel without them. Five months with very little separation has left me a bit dependent.

The remaining two sat down to breakfast.

I drank my tea and chewed my bread slowly, contemplating the prospects of the coming week or two. I thought about the road ahead, the increase in probability of getting my way and the things I’d like to accomplish in our time apart.

We loaded our trailers and paniers and started our way down the road.

It was a chilly, overcast morning; I started the day in pants and wool.

Slowly the sky cleared and the last remnants of fluff melted away with the afternoon sun.

An apiary on our right beckoned. We stopped for honey and our now traditional lunch of bread, cheese, cucumber, mustard and for me, ½ palta, sandwich.

Extra energy afforded by spoonfuls of ulmo honey propelled us the remainder of the way around the corner of Lago Llanquihue.

As we arrived in Las Cascadas, we stopped at the first camping spot we saw.

$5000 (Chilean pesos, that is) por las dos. Done.

We set up our tent and made our way down the main street where we found a verdulería and a panadería.

The first was a plain white house with three small signs alerting us that we had in fact found frutas, verduras and mermeladas. We bought the items for dinner. La dueña (owner) insisted we try her frambuesa mermelada.

I opted instead for the frutilla kuchen prepared in her wood fired oven.

The cake baked only so long that golden barely graced the creamy top.

I didn’t wait for dinner to enjoy my dessert.

I may have finished it before we paid for our vegetables.

Over dinner we concluded we were staying an extra day. The town was small, the people were friendly and the sun shone bright in the afternoons.

The following day we made our way to the waterfall for which I assume Las Cascadas was named.

The waterfall was beautiful but what made it worth the trip was the woman on the right side of the little dirt road with a small kiosk full of galletas, mermeladas and licores. Without thought, we had left our money behind, but I told her I’d return.

We made our way to the cascadas and then back home. I picked up my bike and rode right back down that dirt road. She saw me coming and met me in the kiosk.

“Has regresado!”

(You've returned!)

I purchased galletas surtidas, chocolate alfajores, and classic alfajores like the ones I described before.

These were rolled in coconut, a note I failed to mention the first time around.

I ate one of each as I walked away.

I saved the alfajor for last, hoping I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Alas, it was perfect.

I stood there with my bike in my hand. I knew she was still there. I turned around and walked back.

“Permiso? Quisiera saber como preparar alfajores. Usted puede decirme?”

(Excuse me? I would like to know how to make alfajores, could you tell me?)

I wish I could tell you I had a pen and paper on hand to take down the recipe.

“Ah! Y, la manjar? Usted compra la manjar?"

(Ah! And the dulce de leche? You buy the dulce de leche?)

“No!”

“O, usted hace la manjar de leche condensada?”

(O, you make the dulce de leche from condensed milk?)

“O, no!”

I’m sure she say my confusion.

“Es possible que usted puede decirme comó preparar manjar?”

(Is it possible that you could tell me how to make manjar?)

Warm 1 L of milk until nearly boiling

Add 1 Tbs of cream

Reduce heat significantly and add 400 grams of sugar, stir continuously until dissolved.

Add 1 TBS butter

Stir frequently for six hours [or until you have the consistency of something like nutella]

I haven't tried it myself, but I'll let you know when I do.

Se Fue

An Excellent Adventure By: Kether and Johanna

Click this link to view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn1EM2LDffU

Isla Lemuy

By: Emily

For the last 3 days, I have have been traveling on my own. I have not only enjoyed myself on the island of Chiloé in this time, but also ventured onto an island, Lemuy, to the east of the city Chochi. During my isle exploration, I had the pleasure of encountering beautiful views, rugged roads, an amazing park named Yayanes, and a wonderful couple who run a hostel named La Guarida del Trauco (the home of the Trauco...a mythological creature from Lemuy). Please view my video and have a good laugh at my journey...solo!

Where Geologists Go to Heaven!

By: La Geologa Reyna (Emily;-)

What does the number five-hundred million mean to you? Probably something you can’t even imagine right? 500 million M&Ms would fill about 35 average-sized bedrooms. 500 million dollars would buy you 500 thousand 2012 Porsche 911s. And the rocks you observe in the Peruvian Andes are more than 500 million years old.

Mountain building, rock ages, and the geologic history of the Earth are hard concepts to wrap our minds around. When I think of human history and ancient cultures like the Egyptians, Polynesians, or Incas, it is hard for me to imagine what life was like so long ago. It is hard for me to even fathom these peoples’ existence, and they lived a mere 5,000-600 years ago. So how is it possible that I can understand, like a video playing in my mind, the entire geologic history of the Andes mountains that have been building for 500,000,000 years?! I don’t know.

All I can say is that I am obsessed with rocks! Since we arrived in Ecuador, I have been completely taken by the igneous intrusions, structural geology, stratigraphy, and volcanoes of the Andes. So to let you all in on some little facts about what I am seeing, here goes:

1) Background: 500-240 million years ago the supercontinent of Gondwana began to break apart, and the Nazca and Antarctic Plates (crust of the Earth that float, essentially, in separate pieces called plates, on the surface of the planet) began subducting under the South American Plate.

a. Supercontinent:

b. Subduction:

2) The rocks we see in the Andes today were once sand at the bottom of an ocean. I know this because I see rocks here that look like they were once sand or mud.

a. In this picture below you see fine-grained, dark-colored rock layers that would come from deep-ocean. You also see layers of lighter rocks that are larger-grained, which would have come from shallower oceans. This means you see layers from an ocean that receded and regressed over and over again:

3) The mountains came about when the plates (described above) ran into one another and began to squish and fold the sand and mudstones you see in the picture above. The Andes were formed in three different orogenic (mountain building) events.

a. 360 million years ago: Eo-Hercynian Orogeny- rifting and river conglomerates. Also random igneous intrusions like this:

b. 300 million years ago: Jurua Orogeny- folds and faulting like this:

c. 200 million years ago: Nevadan Orogeny- high planes uplifted to 14,500ft like this-

4) And through all of this some of the worlds largest, most impressive, and most visited volcanoes were formed.

a. How? When one plate subducts under another, it melts and magma rises to the surface. Then, exploding like a zit, lava and ash flow over the surface of the Earth:

b. Now we see peaks like these:

c) c. And beautiful layers of white ash that cover the uplifted valleys that surround the volcanoes:

5) The final result of these extraordinary geologic events is the incredible landscape we have been biking through for the last four and a half months. However, we were all particularly taken by the scenery we rode through from Juliaca to Arequipa—the beautiful mountains, high altitude deserts, massive volcanic peaks, and strange sand formations.

I knew there was something particularly special about our surroundings when I saw my friends, friends who constantly laugh at my enthusiasm for a boulder, finally appreciate the geology lessons I often voluntarily provide. This must be where I will go to heaven!

The Neighborhood Bike Gang

Like most young women, my biking career began on a bright pink and purple tricycle in the cul-de-sac above my house. When I was quite young, around three, I decided to ride down the steep winding Fish Creek Falls road on my tricycle. A lady in a minivan picked me up and drove me home explaining how dangerous it was to ride down that road. Once she arrived to my house, she scolded my mother for being so lackadaisical while I adventured out by myself. She explained in sharp words that I could have easily lost control and got hit by a car. My mother smiled and nodded as the woman scolded her, but knew in her heart that I was born to be an adventurer. She understood the risks of having a daughter like me, but came to the conclusion that I was going to ride down that hill by myself with or without her permission. And thus, the biking career began.

As I grew older, I was eventually introduced to the neighborhood bike gang. My brother and his friends were the bullies of the gang, and rode around the cul-de-sac like Hells Angels. My childhood friend, Brian, and I found refuge in the drainages on the sides of the roads. At first, we were just trying to escape my brother and his evil cronies, but then we realized the joy of riding through the water that flowed past our ankles. The children of my neighborhood would ride until they were beckoned by their families for dinner. Riding around the neighborhood became an afternoon tradition.

This morning, we biked 45 kilometers to a small Peruvian community, Checacupe, where we encountered the neighborhood bike gang. About 10 kids were riding around the main plaza of the town, quite similar to my cul-de-sac given the smallness of the town. They were playing the same bike games we played and had the same sibling bullies.

The bikes were a bit different. There were mountain bikes, old fixed gear bikes, cruisers, and bikes I would classify as only two wheels and a chain. The bikes were in bad condition but it did not matter to the kids. As long as the bikes moved forward as the kids pedaled, the laughter and fun continued.

The most wonderful image I saw was the smallest kid riding the largest bike. The little boy could not even reach the pedals if he sat on the seat properly, in fact he had to rotate his hips side to side in order to get enough length in the leg to reach the pedals.

Although we are far from home, and many things are different here in Peru, that bike gang brought me back to my childhood. I realized that kids all over the world get the same pleasure out of the simple things in life. Maybe one day, these kids will grow up to cycle around the world or maybe just continue to bike around their small village. Hopefully, their love of biking will continue to grow and will be an influence on their adult lives.


By: Rayna (Queen)