Hi,

this page is for all my English speaking friends and family.
First of all I would like to apologise for the webpage being mainly in German. Not quite sure how that happened
I do not want you to feel you are missing out, so I have decided to write a diary in English,too and keep you updated on our travels.
Just in case you are not sure what this webpage is actually about:
Jochen and I are currently cycling together with our dog Tarmo in South America. We started from the south-west of Germany, cycled through Switzerland, France, Spain and Portugal. Well, the dog isnt cycling, he never got the hang of it. So he is either sitting in the trailer or trotting alongside. Since he is half husky, he should enjoy the trotting. The only problem is, he is  concentrating more on being half a labrador than he is on being half a husky.
Anway, from Madrid we flew to Buenos Aires in Argentinia, cycled down the east coast to Patagonia and over to the west, we are now heading for Chile.
Bolivia and Peru are also on our agenda, and so is Canada.
We are just not quite sure how to get from Peru to Canada, as there a quite a few pretty warm countries in between and I am sure Tarmo will have discovered his husky side by then.
But I am sure we will figure something out

 

1st week:

Greetings from France! We are about 60km south of Lyon and are heading for Marseilles. We changed the route from diagonally across France to first straight down south and then over west, after we encountered the first bit of mountains. We are not interested in cycling across all of the French mountains now

After the first few very rainy days we have had three days of hot sunshine.

We are enjoying ourselves, the people love Tarmo, the bikes are still rolling on and my bum is getting used to the saddle.

My French is improving by the day, unfortunately we haven't had the energy to start on our Spanish, yet.

Most nights we have asked at farm houses if we could pitch our tent in their fields and all have been really friendly, even a bit surprised that we ask and not just pitch our tent. We spent one night on a little campsite and made good use of their hot showers.

 We happened to cycle through Bourg en Bresse just an hour before the Tour de France had its evening-stop there. So of course we had a look and enjoyed a bit of attention for our dogonwheels team.

2nd week:

We are now in Nîmes, heading for the coast. Yesterday midday we spent in Avignon, what a beautiful town! We took turns in exploring the city with its famous bridge, the city walls and the ancient buildings. As it was too hot to continue, we spent another hour relaxing on the banks of the river Rhône. Even so, when we continued our journey we were sweating buckets full. I really envy Tarmo lying in his shady box enjoying the slight breeze. Pity we cannot swap from time to time, although I guess Jochen having to pull Tarmo around is off worse

We spent last night next to a massive aquaduct. What great scenery! In front of us the river, just two metres away, next to us the aquaduct and above us the stars!

Behind us a stage was being built for a concert the next day. So we had some nice soundcheck music sending us to sleep.

3rd week:

In the meantime we have spent a couple of days at the Mediterranean sea, Tarmo has tried to drink the salt water and was not very impressed. We had a day of rest, in which we cycled 50km without baggage. Not really what we had planned, but the route was alongside the sea, which was pleasant.

We have visited Carcassonne, a small medieval town with a huge wall around it. Very impressive.

We then headed further inland alongside the Canal du Midi, which connects the Mediterranean and the Atlantic sea.

Tomorrow we should arrive in Lourdes, before heading further west to San Sebastian.

The weather is getting hotter again, after a couple of days of temperatures below 30 degrees. Yesterday we had 39 degrees.

3rd week part 2:

Before we arrived in Lourdes we received a very nice invitation from a French family to stay in their house. Bed, shower, evening meal and breakfast. Wow!

Lourdes was pretty touristic, but it was nice to see how much the town caters for the elderly and handicapped.

After Lourdes we headed straight to the Atlantik coast and over to Spain. We are now in Spain, hòla!

We found a nice sleeping place above a small town last night. It was a strenuous climb up, but we had a nice view of a firework display.

Today we are taking it a bit easy in San Sebastian.

France summary: We really enjoyed France and were surprised at how friendly the people are. The landscape was nice and we nearly always managed to rest by riversides. The people love dogs and cyclists, we were cheered on loads of times.

4th week:

Talk about hilly coastline! We have been following the coastline, but it has been a bit more strenuous than France. One hill after another. But beautiful scenery!

We are heading inwards, now, direction Burgos.

We had our first encounter with the Spanish attitude towards dogs, when we tried to take the bus from the campsite near San Sebastion into the town. No dogs allowed on buses -anywhere in Spain. No dogs on beaches (which is a bit more understandable). Unfortunately when there is an access to the sea there is also a beach. So no swimming in the Atlantic for us. Surprisingly loads of people here have dogs and in general seem to love them. We have seen no stray dogs here in the North.

13th August:

We are now in Ponferrada, heading towards Acoruna on the coast.

We spent my birthday in Burgos, an interesting city with a huge cathedral. We found a nice campsite in the middle of  a big park.

And finally we have found some flat countryside. Two days without any hills! As we are currently following the Camino Santiago de Compostella since Burgos, we are acompanied by a flow of pilgrims.

Two nights ago we had quite a thunderstorm. Constant lightning with long thunder, strong rain and wind. This time our tent didn`t leak. Tarmo kept quiet in his little hut, he also stayed dry.

Yesterday we had a long haul up to a pass, 1224m high. On the other side 20km downhill!

The next pass is waiting for us, we might give it a try tomorrow

16th August:

We are now in A Coruña. The last few days were a bit more strenuous, we had to cross one of the many mountain regions in Spain. No one told me Spain had so many mountains

We were looking forward to a couple of relaxing days in A Coruña, but the next camp site is 15 km away. Since we cannot take the bus in Spain with Tarmo and cycling around cities with the trailer is a bit stressful.

But I am sure we will find a nice spot somewhere along the north-west coast to relax for a few days.

We found a nice bike shop and were able to stock up on a few things and made a small improvement to the axle of Tarmos trailer.

2.450 km and no puncture!

20th August:

We found our small holiday place. A beautiful sandy beach surrounded by hills with beautiful walks. The next small town is only 2km away (Laxe), so we can always stock up on food and drinks.

Since there are only a few surfers (mainly Swiss) besides us, there is no problem with Tarmo being on the nearly empty beach.  We can camp for free, there is no official campsite.

So we will stay here for a week or so and relax

31st August:

We are still at our little beach. Jochen has backproblems, so our one week stay has been extended to two weeks. Monday we will most likely head off again.

It is a great place to stay a while, though. Beautiful hikes all around. Lighthouses, small beaches, view points with great panoramic views, old villages, megalith stones and of course the little fishing harbour. We spend quite a bit of time watching the fishermen.

Tarmo has also been lucky with some friendly dogs. The last one that left this morning was a nice Akita Inu, unfortunately for us, on heat. Tarmo of course was completly mad about her and we let them play together quite often (under strict surveillance ).

8th September:

We have arrived in Santiago de Compostella, the end of the pilgrim path. The city is full of very happy pilgrims, singing and dancing. 
We had a few very nice days cycling down the death coast (costa da morte). We had our first (and hopefully only) crash, when Jochen tried to avoid a pot hole. One wheel of the trailer hit it and the whole trailer tumbled over, including poor Tarmo.  Fortunately he wasn´t hurt and the trailer was only damaged slightly. 
We enjoyed this region Galicia a lot, great countryside, rough winds, cool temperatures. The wind was once so strong at a lighthouse, it toppled over Tarmo´s box, this time without him inside.
We have now had our first 4 punctures, after a night on thorny forest ground.

13th September:

We are now in Vigo, after spending two days in Santiago and two days on a hill on a peninsula. It took us three hours to get up the hill, it was so steep we had to push the bikes half the time. But it was worth it. Panoramic views over the peninsula, a lake, forest and a small cafe.
Santiago was nice, as well, especially the old part of the city with its little streets.
Vigo is the biggest city of Galicia, but has a beautiful long sandy beach with about 5 free swimmingpools. Great. Looking at them you forget that the sea is only 20 metres away. 
We are close to the portuguese border, but as we have far too much time, we will cycle along every little bend of the coast.

24th September:
After spending the last week in a national park, in the north-east of Portugal, we are back in civilisation. 
After spending the first night in a thunderstorm on the top of a mountain in a very damp tent, the following days were magnificent! We swam in turquoise pools in the hot afternoons, in the cold mornings we relaxed in hot thermal pools. We  followed beautiful hiking trails past old mills and roman roads. And the whole time great views over the mountains, valleys and reservoirs. We even visited a village that used the existing rocks as house walls. Very bizarre looking houses...
Now we are slowly making our way to Braga and Porto, before crossing over to Madrid. We have changed our flight to Buenos Aires to the 31st October.

12th October (Salamanca):
Autumn in Spain! The mornings are cold, it takes a couple of hours of sun before we can warm up. The last few nights we slept without a tent, and the sleeping bags were quite wet in the mornings from the dew. The campsites are nearly all closed now unless they are on tourist routes. A couple of nights ago we found another closed campsite in the evening. Tired and a bit frustrated we went to the next cafe. When the bar tender found out that we were going to sleep on the next river bank, he invited us to sleep in his party cellar and fed us with melon and wine. What a great ending to a long day!
Even Tarmo got his share from the daughter who couldn`t stop feeding him. After a while the whole village knew about us and we ended up being in the centre of attention for the evening. Mainly due to Tarmo. A dog that can sit and lie down on command is not known here. 
The route over to Spain was beautiful. The road was quite high up and we kept having nice views. 
Two days agon we crossed over to Spain and are now in Salamanca, a town well worth visiting. Unfortunately it is a national holiday today so our plan to start renewing a few parts on our bikes has not quite worked out. 
Maybe in Avila...
In a few days we will be in Madrid, where we will spend the last days before our flight on the 31st October. We need some extra documents for Tarmo for Chile and of course some spare parts for the bikes. We have been having trouble with our cooker, so we need to fix that. 
So the last days in Spain will be a bit stressful. But soon we will be in the Argentinian sun! And we will hit the 4000 km mark in a couple of days.

Portugal summary:
Outside the cities we have met really friendly people and so far it has been the cheapest country. On the other hand the roads have so far been the worst, especially the cobble stones in the villages and town centres. 

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