21 June 2010
It
dawned on me, as I kept watch on Eric hooked up to an IV on a hard
hospital bed In Kourou, that June 6th marked four years on the road.
1,460 days spent cycling more than 75,000 kilometers through 75
countries on 5 continents. This milestone, it seemed, was worthy
of some sort of acknowledgment.But with Eric weak and drenched in a feverish sweat, I knew celebrating was out of the question. Not even a trip to the patisserie in his feeble state.
Dengue,
said the doctor. No cure. Just time. Gotta let the body
sweat it out of the system. A month, perhaps, and he could hop
back on the bike. A month? Stuck in French Guiana?
Resting up. Never, I vowed. The French, I've always believed, are strong on the melodrama when it comes to illness. The slightest sniffle and my in-laws are hinting that I ought to rush off to the emergency room.
the origins of our dengue troubles
I was pretty certain Eric had picked up his dengue fever at a place called Awala. Situated on the Atlantic coast, Awala's famous for the giant leatherback turtles that gather on its beaches to lay their eggs. The leatherback is the largest of all living sea turtles, sometimes measuring more than six feet in length and weighing up to 1,500 pounds.
We'd
hit the jackpot and arrived at just the right season to see these
amazing creatures trundling up on shore to lay their eggs.
Camping on the beach was obviously the best way to catch a look
at the leatherbacks in action, since they normally lay their eggs after
sunset. Sounds great in theory, but Awala must have the highest
concentration of mosquitoes outside of the Everglades. It was a
full-on assault as soon as the wind died down. Worst night of
camping we've EVER endured. Worse than getting flooded out in Oregon.
Worse than getting caught in a freak desert storm in Mauritania.
Worse than the freezing temperatures of the Sinai in January.For all our trouble--Eric catching dengue and all-- we thankfully couldn't have had a better sea turtle experience. Not only did we get to watch a giant leatherback laying her 90 odd eggs, we also witnessed a whole batch of tiny green sea turtles hatching and scampering across the beach to be washed out to sea. Best nature experience of the entire four years on the road. Even better than the lion who'd ingested half a zebra in Zambia.
a taste of asia on the atlantic coast
The
second best thing to see in French Guiana (well, maybe the third...the
space center's pretty amazing, too) is the Sunday market at
the Hmong village of Jahouwey. Wrinkled old women that look
like they're straight out of a village in the highlands of Laos sit
hawking their beautiful hand-woven textiles and old men sit hunched
over bowls of spicy noodle soup slurping loudly as they chat away in
their native tongue. There's sticky rice and papaya salad and
you'll be hard pressed to find a baguette or anything else that reminds
you you're on French soil. For us, it was a sentimental trip back
to 1996 when we met in Laos while backpacking through Asia. Sea turtles and charming market towns don't carry much weight when you're lying in a feverish dengue induced sweat. But slowly Eric regained his strength. The fever disappeared and after a mere 10 days my brave husband was back on the bike. So much for a month of rest.
What lay ahead, not long after we pedaled out of Cayenne and on to Brazil, was one of the worst roads in South America. It's 2010, but the Brazilians still haven't gotten around to entirely paving the 'highway' to French Guiana.
The roads was a mess. An especially muddy mess during the torrential June rains. And a hilly muddy mess at that. Perhaps it suffices to say that one day we did 25 kilometers before giving up exhausted. Three days to conqueur the longest 165 kilometers of mud and muck I've ever endured. You can check out all the fun on our latest Bicycle Touring Video: The Worst Road in Brazil
But we made it. To Macapa. An island of a place in remote northern Brazil literally cut off from the south by road. Now we're in for a ride on a riverboat. An Amazonian river boat.
on to the amazon
For all those who like statistics, the Amazon is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total river flow greater
than the next top
ten largest rivers flowing into the ocean combined. At no point is the Amazon
crossed by bridges because, for most of its length, the river flows through
tropical rainforest, where there are few cities and even fewer roads. The Amazon
basin, the largest drainage basin in the world, covers an area of some 6,915,000
square kilometers (2,670,000 sq mi) or some 40 percent of South America. We're in for a wild and amazing Amazon boat trip on the MV Coronel Jose Julio all the way to Belem. Time to stock up on some super strength mosquito repellent.
Please share your thoughts, comments or just say hello in the comments section below.
And if you liked this post, check out these posts and bicycle touring videos:
Tour Update
Cycling
Around the World: Biking Guyana
Bicycle Touring Video
Cycling South America: the worst road in Brazil
We'd love to hear from you, please share in the comments section below.
| Get World Biking Newsletter |
| Email: |
| |
check out more photos from our trip
contact us at: worldbiking@gmail.com
