Adventures of a Sun Seeker: Day 19: The goodness of people

For today's ride, Day 19, my dear bicycle was relegated to a third of her available gears. Something had come out of adjustment with the front derailer, and sheepishly I do not have sufficient knowledge of limit screws, so after fixing it until it was fully broken, I decided it was best to ride on just the middle cog until I could reach a proper bike shop.

Which meant that any climbing would require great and explosive knee effort. Thus we modified our planned route to be a longer distance to skirt mountains. We did have a medium sized climb nonetheless, and I was standing in my pedals and rowing with all my might. I gained inspiration from thinking about my interval training workouts at the Cornell gyms; how you can do anything for 45 seconds, right! And it was only probably 45 more seconds to the top. Heave ho.

These sticky-outy-haired cacti evoked Dr. Seuss beings. With the sun beginning to reach into the hills and make them glow, and this stunning other-worldly land, it was truly magnificent to pedal myself through here. I couldn't stop craning around and exclaiming.

My hair looks not unlike this when freshly washed.

This type of cacti reminded me of little stick figures.

The landscape was cacti and scrub and dust as we passed through towns getting progressively smaller. Then the road, leading out of the smallest town yet, disintegrated from pavement to dust and cobbles and stones. This was the one road headed to Rioverde this far west, and we didn't know if it would be this horrendous the whole way. It would take us endless hours to reach the city on it if so. We decided to go as far as the next little town to enquire after the road.

Our bikes clanked and our wheels jittered as stones skittered out from underneath us. Horrible, maddening conditions. We can only go about 5 or 6 mph on a road like this. The landscape was absolutely devoid of human life. No houses, no farms, not even fences. Just this horrible road stretching ad nauseum and dust and scrubby scrappy plants.

The horrendous road.

But the view was incredible.

Yea, behold! Unto us approached a chariot of juice vending. The chariot window did roll down, and spake an angel man unto us: "dost thou need water to drink?" We enquired unto him the conditions of the road, and he spake unto us the truth that the road doth be made of untoward stone for the entirety of the length. He bade us heed his advice that there may be people beset of evil spirits and to not traverse alone this damned path. He bade us turn back. And yet, he quickened our hopes when he spake these words of hope and goodwill: "I will offer unto you a ride in my chariot, however, behold, it is full of juice."

Can you just picture us, in this immense dusty landscape of cacti, two dusty cyclists and a little decorated juice truck? Raoul was his name, and we could see the kindness in his eyes. He spoke English well and said that he used to work and live in Dallas, and the American people he knew there were so helpful to him, and he wanted to help us. We planned to meet in the next town back after he had sold his juice and had space to fit our bikes in his truck.

We sat in the grey powder at the edge of town, watched chickens bobble around the street, and waited.

In the grey dusty town waiting for our angel chariot.

When his truck finally rolled over I jumped up and waved with such happiness. We rolled our bikes into the back of the truck next to the leftover boxes of orange juice, and crammed ourselves into the little cab. We all talked and laughed together and listened to him talk about his life. The little truck ground and jumbled over the rocks, but went much faster and more comfortably than we ever could. How grateful I felt to be buzzing along over this treacherous road in safety, taken up in safety by a kind human.

Juice and bikes!

Not only did Angel Raoul drive us to the city of Rioverde, he also recommended a bicycle shop of his friend conveniently near the center square. More goodness and kindness of humanity continued at the shop: the tall and attractive mechanic not only was able to fix my shifting, he didn't even charge me for it. In addition, he gave us some grease for our chains, and meanwhile a girl came through the shop carrying a tray of hot empanadas. The mechanic insisted she share some with us, and with a huge bashful smile she did. Ellie made a hilarious show of fainting dead away over how good the tasted, and everyone in the shop was enormously pleased by this. While I was trying to express my enormous gratitude to the mechanic for returning to me my flying legs via my gears, the girl came out with another pile of empanadas, in a little bag. It was tied with a yellow bow. "For your journey."

How KIND and GOOD people have been to us, especially on this day of terrible road and broken bike. My heart is huge and I am feeling so blessed and cared for.

We are ecstatic to be in this city of Rioverde, with men playing guitars walking the streets, children and teens on good bikes, palm trees with Christmas lights, multiple icecream shops, fancy dress stores, and little girls dressed as butterflies doing a dance performance in the town square. What a change from the dusty barren towns we were in earlier today, from where we returned covered in grey.