Categoria / Category Cycling tour

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Spain, Europe, Cycling & Diving in Catalonia 2003 On  06/04/2003  No comments

We left Barcelona on a two hour trip to Cervera where we met other people and Lluis, who was organizing the tour. We started visiting the town, its interesting center with some narrow streets. I really liked the street of the
witches where there is a tunnel through the houses.

From Cervera we continued to Bellpuig through a former trail from Sant Jaume de Montserrat to Santiago. It was a pleasant trip because the whole itinerary was flat and we could go relaxed appreciating the landscape. We passed through some small towns and stopped for picnic by some irrigation water canals. They were beautiful because they looked like small rivers.

In Bellpuig we slept in a hostel from the municipal district (it was clean and organized). Dinner time I end up trying the snail, typical food from the region. The feeling was horrible. The idea of getting a stick and digging out the nasty animal from its shell and eating didn’t attract me. I tried one, the taste wasn’t that bad...

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Europe, Cycling & Diving in Catalonia 2003 On  23/03/2003  One comment

I decided to go on a bike tour organized by Carles from amics de la bici. We left Barcelona on a Saturday morning. We took the train to Ripoll where we started the journey. By the arrival at the train station in Ripoll, Albert was waiting for us with some white cloth meant to do flags for peace. We did the flags and placed them on the bikes.
The trail was constructed on some old train tracks. After about 10km we stopped at the old train station from Sant Joan de les Abadesses in order to keep the group together. We went in town to visit the historic center and have some coca (sweet bread typical from the region). A few kilometers later we stopped for lunch. Picnic on the grass. Awesome!

After lunch we continue to Olot stopping a few times in order to keep the group together. There was some way up, way down and flat paths. Sometimes there was no effort, it was only to sit on the bike and observe the landscape. By arrival at Olot we stopped to visit an area of an old volcano...

In America, Adventure, Chile, Cycling tour On  13/08/2001  2 comments

The small town of San Pedro Atacama looks like it is Sunday everyday. Early in the morning there is nobody on the streets, they are waking up slowly. The electricity is only during the day. It starts at 8am and goes to 1am. On Sundays and holidays it stared at 10am. On my first 2 days in town, there was no electricity because the generator was broken. For sure it is not a good place to have an ice-cream.

An interesting point of the city is Licancabur volcano, it can be seen from almost everywhere in San Pedro Atacama. It worked as a magnet for me, anywhere I had been, I was always searching for it on my landscape view.

I visited Pukara de Quitor, 3kms from town. I waked there to see the surroundings. It is a ruin, maybe it used to be a fort, constructed on the wall of a hill. Next day I rented a bicycle to go a little further, Tulor, about 11km from town. The way there it was already a good part of the trip. I went through a small unpaved road...

In America, Adventure, Bolivia 2001, Cycling tour On  15/07/2001  No comments

I had seen on tv as well as met people who had done this tour before. So I decided to do a bike tour in the “most dangerous road in the world”, it is from La Paz to Coroico.

We left La Paz at 8:30am and went by a bus van to the highest point called La Cumbre. There we got our bikes to go down. In the first kilometers the road has pavement and it was not too busy. We could reach hight speed. Some say it can be 70km/hour, for sure I was not one of those.

After a short period of time we stopped to see the landscape and have a chocolate, after all, it was really cold. At La Cumbre it was snowing and with the cold wind of the speed, I had the feeling of freezing. We went up a little bit to reach the end of the pavement. There were many tractors and trucks on the road and then it started the unpaved road. Here it began the very dangerous part of the tour. From there on, we had to go down by the left side of the road, that means, the side of the precipice...

In America, Adventure, Cycling tour, Ecuador 2001, Diving & Snorkeling On  11/05/2001  No comments

A week in Santa Cruz Island was enough to everybody knows me there. Beyond the fact that Puerto Ayora city is so small, there was also not many tourists around, it was low season and the airport was closed. The island has good attraction; one that I liked was bird watching sitting by the dock, especially watching pelicans and herons feeding themselves. Another activity was to see the enormous turtles in Charles Darwin Station.

The Tortuga Bay, about 3 km walking distance from the city center, is one of the most beautiful places in the region. It is a white sand beach, waves in the sea and some natural pools. I also rented a bike to visit the countryside of the island, to see small towns like Bela Vista.

I was there because i wanted to go diving. I stayed inland and got a boat every day to the dive site. As there was not so many tourists on the island,  there was not many options of diving tours. I end up doing 6 great dives. The first two dives were in a place called Gordon Rocks...