February

2/2/2000

I've spoken to Randal several times in the past few days as we've tried to solve his international internet access snafu. Finally, yesterday Randal spoke to a very helpful person named Megan in the business division of AT&T Worldnet and she was able to help him select an option that should work. Unfortunately it won't be until 2/12 in Argentina that he'll have a hotel room with phone access to try to download the new software. Possibly going to an internet café in Concepcion will work out. Worldnet does have an access number there.

I have received 2 boxes from Randal. The first, from La Paz, Mexico contained 1 pair of jeans, 1 belt, a spare pair of heavy bike shoes, a lock with 3 keys, 2 too small Odyssey bike shirts and an old Peanut Ride bike shirt and a beautiful Mexican shawl. (Randal knows that I like shawls.) On February 1^st a second package arrived this time from Panama!….good thing that I had shoveled the front walk for the FedEx carrier. It contained a beautiful brightly woven Panamanian poncho, a wooden bead necklace, a t-shirt from the Panama Canal, a brochure about the Panama Canal, a post- card dated 1/28, and lots of route maps. I wore the poncho to work!  The postcard shows a picture of a gigantic vessel going through the canal under a huge suspension bridge. It reads, "Hi Ruthie We rode across this bridge with a police escort coming into Panama City. I went on a bus tour of the city this morning that included the canal lock here. Having a great time. Will fly to Santiago, Chile tomorrow. ………….+……………Randal.   The..... ….+……were just for me, sorry.  Something I will share is the info on the Panama Canal brochure about the Bridge of the Americas. "Soaring 384 feet above the ocean at average tide and measuring 5,425 feet from end to end, the Bridge of the Americas reaches across Panama Bay at the Pacific Canal entrance, reuniting the land divided during construction of the Canal…". A pretty amazing ride across it I would say.

Well faithful readers, Randal did fly to Santiago; but it wasn't pretty. On the 29^th they were to be up at 4am to load their gear on the Odyssey trucks, eat breakfast and ride to the airport to catch their morning flight to Chile. Unfortunately their chartered jet was still in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with a mechanical problem. Twice their departure time was pushed back. About 5pm they all road to the airport to wait there until their plane arrived. Randal finished the book he had brought and bought The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough. I think that he said they finally left about 1 am and arrived in Santiago about 5 am and then spent forever in customs. AND YET AGAIN his bike and 73 other bikes and some Odyssey stuff and staff didn't fit on the GIGANTIC JUMBO JET and were left behind in Panama. That meant Randal with 73 others had to wait for a bus to be found to drive them to their hotel. By the time he called me he had been in the same clothes for close to 2 days!

The group hoteled (my word) in Santiago, but the room wasn't exactly deluxe. If I hadn't explained it before, Randal has 2 really cool roommates so there are always 3 of them sharing the hotel room. Two thirds of the time they camp (in their own individual tents); one third of the time they hotel, and sometimes for an extra fee they can put their names in the room drawing for limited hotel space on a camping night. The room in Santiago was tiny, not air conditioned, and on the 9^th floor. Sometimes the elevator worked and sometimes it didn't. Because they had to wait for the plane's crew to rest and fly back to Panama for the second load, the tour spent an extra day in Santiago. This gave Randal a free afternoon to spend 2 hours on the telephone with Worldnet trying to pick a business service to add global access. The problem will be that he has to download the software to his computer from the Worldnet site he can't dial up to, definitely doable when he gets to the U.S. in May, and maybe even easily available in Europe before then; but problematic in the countries in-between

On February 3^rd Randal called at 6:30am to tell me about one of the best days of his life. (I said "Oh yeah? What about our wedding day just 9 months ago?!" Actually I just thought it, but he read my thoughts and it put just the tiniest little damper on the conversation.) Anyway, with the newly arrived bikes, they left early on the morning of the 2nd from Santiago for the 95+ miles to San Fernando. Not only did they have a police escort, but television cameras and cheering fans to wave them on. The ride was perfect with crisp weather and good riding. Randal got to camp at about 3pm, showered, had beer with the gang. Dinner that night was a meal of chicken, pork chops like in Iowa, and steak and it was so wonderful that it was given a 10 minute standing ovation by all of the riders. A Chilean dance group came in to entertain that night. Randal said that he hated to go off to bed at 10pm because the day had been so wonderful. He said that Odyssey had added a Chilean born doctor from New York to the staff and perhaps that would make things go more smoothly. I, of course, said all of the right things, but we both knew, for the first, last, and ONLY time I was feeling bad that he was having all of that fun WITHOUT ME! We said good-bye and I felt awful all day. 6:20pm Randal called again and it was all fixed because I could tell him what I had been thinking and he could tell me that he knew, but it was ok. We had a great talk. Jen, one of the riders I had met at a meeting in May walked by so he put her on to talk a bit. I was soooo glad that he had called back and I can't wait to talk again. I also really hope his internet connection gets working soon because hearing from Randal directly will be much better and you can e-mail him questions about the trip. 2/5 Randal called from a square in Concepcion. Apparently he was surrounded by the entire population of 250,000 and the thousands of Chileans visiting the Lake District. Since my friends Becky and Mike Heller were over helping me concoct a Chilean shell fish dinner, Randal was on the only phone for miles and we had another circular internet access discussion, it was a short call. Concepcion was supposed to have been a layover day, but because a day had been lost in Santiago waiting for bikes, the tour moves on 2/6. The day from Cauquenes to Concepcion had been mostly rainy. They took down their tents in the rain, ate breakfast in the rain, and road in the rain. 2/3 of the bikers took the bus, taxis, anything to avoid it, but Randal and Larry road every mile. And it seems that I didn't get the right information from Worldnet so I will try again on Monday to talk to Megan and see if I can get the right information. As I've said earlier, if the solution is that Randal just has to download then it isn't a solution . 2/6 Randal just called even as I am typing this. Today is beautiful and they ride the second 95+ mile day in a row. Because they were behind schedule the large soccer field they were to camp in last night was being used for a soccer game so they camped in a smaller field, but there were fire works for the game ( the real kind not the spontaneous fan kind.) Yesterday's rain had been the first rain in 6 months! By the end of today they will just be 1 day behind on the tour and will spend tonight in Angol famous for its apple juice and ceramics. It was founded in 1553 but had to be rebuilt 5 times because of Mapuche raids. I think that having Larry for a roommate was really good luck because it seems to be his goal , also, to ride every mile and it would appear that one needs to be very motivated to do that. … Ruth at home. PS Our Chilean dinner was really good, except that the oysters wouldn't open right and the clams were a tad too chewy but the mussels were great.

More factlets about Chile:  Convenience stores along the road charge 10 cents to use the rest room. Population of Chile is about 12 million.  Santiago, the Capital of Chile, has 4.5 million people in the 32 county, 911 square mile greater metro area.

The metro is very good and very clean.

Many Chileans vacation at the same time, now, and passed Randal as he pedaled and they drove south to the lake area of Chile.

Famous Chileans you've heard of: Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet.

Famous Chileans you've not heard of (unless your child did a school report): Mapuche, originally known as Araucanian, are an Indian tribe native to Chile. They stopped the early Inca invasion into southern Chile and the Spanish until late into the 19^th century. According to the Insight Guide, in 1541 the Spanish conqueror Valdivia was captured, bound to a tree and beheaded. They add that legend has it that the executioner then ate Valdivia's heart!

The things one learns while one's husband is biking around the world!

Another web site with trip pictures  www.worldriders.com