inspired wanders: New Mexico!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

New Mexico!

Hello!!!!

Such a beautiful travel...

So After San Angelo, my road went still west, trough Midland where I was hosted by Tom, I met him a bit after Austin during my lunch time, he was coming back home and he invited me to come to see him and his family in Midland.

Little by little, the horizon gets full of oil drill, the smell is sometime really inconvenient, and the panels with written: poison gas are pretty common at the entries of the ranches.

This really the desert nothing grows higher than 2 feet, it gives an impression of nowhere.

From Midland, I join Eunice, my first step into the land of enchantment, New Mexico, first impression, lot of littering, Eunice isn't really the best part of New Mexico, it's an oil city, nothing to attract tourism here.
But I'm happy, I'm in a New state, it's always nice to change.

This night searching for a place to pitch my tent, I'm received by to very nice persons who invite me to eat the biggest steak I've ever eaten and let me pitch my tent behind their trailer.

The next day give me my first big impression of what a desert can be when it lets it fire expend, I've to ride with a temperature of 103F degres,
and I'm surprise how much my body is able to get used to it environment.
I support very good this extreme temperature, my water don't, it gets very warm, but as my body is warm, it matches very good.
I learn to drink really a lot of water, I learn not to spend any strength for no reason, I learn that my body is able of adaptation anywhere...

A day before, I had a phone call, Steve and Gail, two persons who welcomed me in Gay Hill, right before Austin, and who I met at a grocery store, decide to come to join me on my trip for a few days, they love riding bikes, and they have a week of holidays.

I arrive in Carlsbad, I meet Joey and Bianca, who decide to let me sleep on their couch, two very nice young perons, around my age.
I meet Sophie and Consuela, two retired women, their energy and their love for life lead us into long and interesting discussion, we so much enjoy sharing together that Sophie make me meet almost all her family on the afternoon.

Steve and Gail come to join me in Carlsbad,
we go exploring the Carlsbad caverns nat. park, then Steve wear his tighty short and come riding with me to Roswell, this is a really hot and windy day,
but the wind loves us today, he pushes us on the right way.
At a certain point, we put the bikes in the car and finish the last 20 miles with the AC.

Steve and Gail are in the fifties, they live in Houston and work in oil companies.
Every weekend, they go on their country house, riding their bikes, chilling out.
Their house is on a bicycle trail, that goes from Florida to California, they are used to invite bikers to rest in their house, have a drink, sharing.

This couple really is amazing, they are still young and full of energy, and their thought are sometime closer to revolutionaries, I enjoy being around them.

The next day, we drive to Ruidoso, and from the mountain, everyone goes his own way, I become a lonely bike rider, and they go back to their oil work.
I want to thank them for everything, they gave me a hotel room for the two days we were together, they feed me most of the time, Steve rided with me, we laught a lot, we shared, I want to thank them for opening their heart like they did to the stranger I was at the first time...

After a night in Carizozo, I end up in Corona, bad weather day, it's raining, and when I hit Corona, the altitude, around 6700 feet, makes the degres go down to the 40's, oooohhhh, big changement, in three days, I drop from the 100's to the 40's.
I meet a wonderful family who invite me to eat, let me use their shower, and provide me some food for the next day.

From Ruidoso, the surrounding land became wonderful, between yellow deserts, green mountains, red dirt, Antelopes, bunnies, rattle snakes, beautiful sunsets, this land makes riding become a constant pleasure, when admiring takes all my thoughts aways, contemplation becomes being.

The night, I end up in Moriarty, small town, right on the historic route 66.
I meet LaShandra and Jessica, and Jessica's kids Joshua and Mercedes, they let me pitch my tent on their yard.
Jessica cooked me a dinner, and I want to thank them also a lot, because they are both very funny and nice people, it's pretty uncommon for two girls to welcome a traveler like me, so I want to say that these two women gave me a lot of trust, and I thank them a lot for that.

The next day, direstion Madrid, this little village right before Santa Fe, that became a ghost town at the of the 1950's, and was adopted by a community of hippies and artists in the middle 1970's,
this village is full of colors, full of life, full of sharing, people walk..., lots of artists, and a lot of free spirit people,
we can feel the ambiance of a community...

The next day, direction Santa Fe, a few days before, through the website:
www.couchsurfing.com , I contacted Trevor, who live in town, and is able to provide a couch for the travelers like I am, so I knew that this night I didn't have to find a place to sleep, good point.

On my road I see some Yurts on my left, traditional houses of the people in Mongolia, after hesiting, I decide to go speaking with the people who live there, I would like to know more about these houses.
This is how I met Jessica, she helps the owner of the house, and she is currently creating her own path.
She is one of these people who sometime seems like you knew them before meeting them.

So I end up in Trevor house, very nice guy, he's in a massage school, 32 years old, he has lived in Antartica (see the video: Trevor... on youtube, key words:inspired wanders) where he worked on the fueling, at the same time, another couchsurfer, David, is hosted by Trevor, David is riding his motorcycle across the country, he left his job in a bank and decided to be as free as the wind (see video:David... on youtube account).

Santa Fe really is a wonderful city, with it own ambiance, lots of arts, typical houses, latin vibe, surrounded by high mountains,
people say that Santa Fe is located in a very special place, where energies of the earth would join and create this very creative ambiance...

So here I am,
still having a wonderful trip,
still trusting completely in life,
living the moment,
no regrets for the past,
no fear for tomorrow.

Thanks for the one who makes me live this marvelous experience...

Harmony
Silence
Love

Seb

No comments:

Post a Comment

Across the Atlantic

Now it's time to speak about the adventure itself.

The first idea was to hitchhike on a boat to go from France to Canada,
but we quickly understood that Canada isn't a common destination for a sailing boat leaving from France.
What we didn't know was that July is the middle of hurricane season, meaning that it's harder to find a boat crossing the atlantic, but we kept in mind that everything is possible.
We strongly believed that through will and talking, asking, exchanging with people, we will always find solutions.
We found this boat, a brand new one, sold to a Cuban marina. Its two skippers were searching for two crew members, lucky us!
We only had to pay for the food, it's one month of 3 meals a day, that's normal.
Our job, to stay on the deck and watch the boat's direction for three or four hours a night.
We left on the 15th of July with David, the captain, and Christophe, the other skipper. Our new home was a 75 foot catamaran, a Fountaine Pajot, destined for daily charter in the calm waters of the Caribbean sea.
A few days later, the ocean gave us a first and unforgettable gift:
a group of dolphins came to wish us luck, playing with the boat, swimming around the boat, we could see their eyes trying to look in our souls with each jump.
The wind was against us in the beginning as we pushed towards Porto Santo, our first call - a small island belonging to Madeira Island, Portugal, close to the Canary Islands. We arrived after one week of pitch and toss.
We used a lot of gas while we had the wind against us, so we stopped to fill up the tanks, and take some more ice.
This island was very interesting; a volcanic island, the sea level is completely dry, nothing grows excepted from man's hand, but if you climb a bit in the mountains, then it becomes green and florescent.
Then we left for two weeks of sea, clouds and sun, alone in the sea.
An eternity of water surrounded us as spent hours watching at the ocean, looking at each wave growing and disappearing, dreaming about each story that unfolded in the clouds...
Two weeks after leaving Porto Santo, we reached the shore of St Martin. It was nice to walk on solid ground, to have an open walking surface larger than 200 feet. It was even hard, our bodies rocking by themselves.
By the time we arrived on St Martin, Mr Dean, the big hurricane, began showing his power in the middle of the Atlantic. According to reports, he was projected to take the same road as us.
Captain Dave decided to head north to let Mr Dean run below us - a great decision, the hurricane didn't even bother us.
The sea gave us many more gifts: first her wonderful sunrises and sunsets. Then the sea seemed to explode, giving us two wonderful fishes, a big mahi-mahi, I think the best fish I've ever eaten, and a big red tuna. The sea gave us some of her children, we thank her for allowing us to share an unforgettable moment, a life experience...
A week later, we reached Cuba. Back to a walking life.
The elements gave us an incredible experience.
It was a great lesson to learn that nothing is empty, that happiness is as simple as enjoying every single second of life anytime, anywhere...

Cuba

We saw the Cuban coasts 39 days after leaving La Rochelle,
on the 22nd of august, we arrived in Fidel Castro's country.
For the walking liberty, we will have to wait a bit more, we arrive after the customs working hours, and our captain decided not to call them, to give them the surprise.
So we are not allowed to move from our boat till the day after, first alert to make us understand that the authority won't be there to help us...
The next day, after a complete search of our boat, and after having burned our food and confiscating everything that wasn't our personals things and didn't belong to the boat, such as pans, chairs, dishes,..., and that we wanted to give to the fishermen next to us, the customs gave us a visa of one month.
Happily for us, Aubin knew somebody who live in Cuba, she was able to welcome us for a period of time, we said to the custom that we were going to live in a Cuban's house, but instead of giving us a family visa, that is required for staying with a cuban family, we received a tourist visa, that only allows to stay in hotels, or in a rent-a-room, from the beginning something was wrong.
But anyway, we enjoyed our new open field, we landed on Varadero, a very touristic but wonderful place around 75 miles from La Havana, then we moved to Matanzas, where we spent some few days with Aubin's friend, and moved to with some people to La Havana and then Pinar del Rio, then Vinales, the region of the cigars.
Vinales really is an incredible land, the red dirt, the big palms tree, and the tobacco fields, all these surrounded by these semi-circulars green hills.
Then we went back to La Havana, where we spent the rest of our trip in Cuba, a friend of Aubin's friend welcoming us.
To move in Cuba, we used the very well organized hitch-hiking, ruled by the government, some people being employed to stop the cars and let the hitch-hikers go in. Hitch-hiking is reserved for Cubans and students, so we didn't speak loud and try not to get noticed and everything went good.
We spent most of our time trying to find a boat to leave Cuba, that's how we met Pascale, a french girl, captain of her boat, that helped us like a mum could do.
In Cuba there are two currency, the cuban peso and the peso convertible, the first one is for the Cubans and the second one for the tourists.
1 peso convertible is almost 25 cuban peso.
Meaning that for a tourist, life is 25 times more expensive, if only this money went to the Cuban directly, but it's to the government that this big money goes, and believe me, tourism brings a lot of money.
We learned how to use cuban money, wallet feels so good about it,
we learned as much as possible to live a Cuban do.
After one month we had to renew our visa for one more month,
problems arrived when cuban authority learned that we lived in a Cuban's house, without being under control of the government.
They took our passport and put us in kind of unstrict jail.
Fortunately our friend Pascale helped us, she said to the customs that we will stay on her boat, and she helped us finding a boat to leave the island.
We met this guy, an American, captain of a trimaran, he was going to Key West or to Mexico, of course everybody knows that it's illegal for an American to go to Cuba.
At this time our english wasn't as good as now, we misunderstand each other...
We left with him direction Key West.
Cuba was a great experience, it's really a country apart, unfortunately people suffer from the government decisions.
Some ideas are good, free medical care and free university are some of them, but people are trapped, they can't leave the country, they know only what tv and newspapers under government's control says.
Fidel claims everywhere the difference of Cuba compared to the rest of the World, but in his country, nobody has the right of difference...

Key West

When we understood that the captain was going to leave us without declaring us to the customs, we where hesitating about going back to Cuba while he was sleeping.
Finally we let the wind blow us away from Cuba.
We landed in Key West, the 3rd of October, the first thing we see is an American flag, right at the place our feet touched for the first time the American ground.
We are in front of our destiny, we don’t know anybody, we just have a contact, a friend of Pascale, in St Petersburg, 250 miles further from Key West.
The wind pushed us to Greggery, our angel, he’s a pedicab driver, and he offers to welcome us.
His wife is Cuban, and when he saw us with our big bags, and recognized our Cuban water bottles, he knew that we needed some help.
After one week of illegal staying in the USA, thinking about the best solutions for our situation, we decided to go say hello to the customs, and they received us nicely, they just let us pay 1100$ for illegal arrived in the USA, and gave us a six month visa.
After a while we lived in a trailer with Greggery.
We met both of us nice girls and began sweet relations,
We enjoyed our stay in this kind of paradise at the extreme south of the continental USA.
People living in Key West are mostly eternal dreamer, searching for a calm and funny way of life, with warmth and sunshine…
It’s so easy and so fast to feel like home on this small island of the Caribbean.
We just had peaceful life for months…

Across USA in bicycle (Seb)

After realizing that hitchhiking across the USA would be almost impossible, I (Sebastien) decided I would bike to Vancouver, Canada, where we might be able to hitchhike more easily.
Aubin decided to stay in Key West and later buy a car to meet me in Vancouver.
It was the first time I tried to ride so many miles, and I felt it was a great experience.
I left on the 10th of january 2008 with my new friend, a giant cypress hybrid bike, a trailer, a burley, my bag-pack, and supplies to fix the bike in case of problems.
Since it was winter, I decide to follow the Gulf of Mexico, the border of Mexico, and then the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
I reached New Orleans in 20 days - sleeping in free camping grounds, homes of very nice people, church yards, buddhist temples, even behind a bike shop...
I arrived in New Orleans just in time for the Mardi-Gras - a crazy event!
With all my heart, I want to thank the people who helped me on my journey, you're like my angels.

inspired wanders

Thursday, May 29, 2008

New Mexico!

No comments:

Our path.

Escape lover number:

in french

Who are we

Where our readers are

More energy

Inspiration

Some links to learn more about the magic New Orleans

Blog Archive

Across the Atlantic

Cuba

Key West

Across USA in bicycle (Seb)