Author Archives: Bob Rogers

How Soon We Forget: Tibetans Still Die
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First-Pass-of-Kahm

As each week passes word comes of another self-emulation in Tibetan lands of China. Many are young monks, and more and more are women. The grief they must feel for the slow loss of their culture is unimaginable to me. In our tandem travels across Tibet, we saw the government’s attempts at subjugating the Tibetan culture by smothering their lands with emigrants from the Han majority: Read the rest of this article…

Along the Rio Santa in Peru on a bicycle tour in South America
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Canyon road beside the Rio Santa in Peru

Our narrow tandem tires cut into the dust and bounce and slide from one auto-tire slickened rock to another. We hope to avoid the shattered and sharpened hidden ones, capable of ruining our day, and one of our tires. We have one spare, and wonder if we should not have brought two. A few times a particularly viscous rock (by the second day I was attributing evil intent to certain rocks) would throw the front wheel toward the abyss, necessitating a dual bail out. Read the rest of this article…

Hotel Miami International Airport
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In case you missed Claire amid our luggage and Zippy

Sleeping in airports is all part of the experience these days if, like us, you go for the cheap ticket, no matter what. But lots of people get stuck for reasons of weather or airline screw-ups, so if you travel much, your day will come. Don’t worry. Just go with the flow and enjoy the experience. You’ll be surprised how comfortable you can get on your own little corner of carpet. We both slept for a few hours. We almost didn’t wake up in time for our required 5am check in time. Read the rest of this article…

Hit By A Car in Brazil? Don’t Call The Police
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Motorcycle police officer

There have been a very few times in my life when time seemed to slow, if not stand still, and this was one. I could see the car headed for us broad side, in slow motion, too late to brake, to late for our acceleration to help. Neither the driver or us even considered involving the police: He because he was Brazilian and has known all his life to distrust them, and we because we had been warned not to involve police in anything, not even an injury accident. Read the rest of this article…

Guyana and the Conundrum that is Georgetown
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Woman selling newspapers in Georgetown

I hurried Bob along, holding my oversized chocolate cookie, as the stranger called out “I won’t hurt you!” Suddenly, Bob turned sharply and defensively and soon learned the man was just asking for food. He gave over some of his cookie and the man thanked him. Now I know why we haven’t understood people who we thought were asking for money. I’ve been trying to figure out how people can afford to eat here and now I feel really bad that we’ve been ignoring them. Read the rest of this article…

Northern Brazil Savannah to Bom Fin
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Savannah in northern Brazil

We finally had a great day on the bike, from Boa Vista to Bom Fin on the border with Guyana. I’d always thought all of Amazonian Brazil was jungle, or rather cut down jungle, second growth, but the north is wet savannah, much like the Gulf Country of Queensland, Australia. We saw more birds in one day of 130 kilometers here than we have seen in the entire trip so far, all but one or two new to our “life list.” There were stops every 30 to 40 kilometers with roadhouses, also much like Australia but closer, where we got much needed cold drinks to add to our load of water. It is very hot and humid here just north of the Equator, and we were soaking wet most of the time. Our final stop was nearly an hour so we could cool down to a reasonable level before going on. Read the rest of this article…

Manic Manaus, Brazil
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Claire dancing the Samba in Manaus

The Amazon River here is deep enough to accommodate ocean going ships, and they crowd the port along with the upriver barcos (many sizes and configurations) that we traveled on. We’re not exactly sure of the source of all this economic activity in the mid-Amazon, but it is no longer virgin rainforest; rather, it’s small farms and second growth timber. There is oil exploration, but it is not visible from the river Read the rest of this article…

Yurimaguas to Iquitos on Rio Maranon and Rio Amazon
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our neighbors

Passengers are an afterthought on these life-lines to Iquitos and many small villages along the Amazon’s banks. You buy space, bring a hammock to hang crossways above the deck, vying politely for some personal space. The hammock is where you sleep, and sit during the day. We became very familiar with our hammocks over the 48, mas o menos, hours it took to Iquitos. We also met and “talked” to our close (very) neighbors and crew. One family was returning to Iquitos with a new baby, either four weeks old, or four months, we couldn’t discern, Read the rest of this article…