Hola with Diarrhoea, (best friend of the budget traveller)

Hi everyone,

Andy G has Diarrhoea - well it had to happen - and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Right from the start of this trip I have been kind of expecting it - not really in a good way - more like in the way that you are expecting death - you know its around you just hope that it won't happen to you :-).

But despite the last day or so, we have been having an unexpectedly good time , we met up with Marco a local to the city of Monterrey and he let us stay at his apartment he took us to dinner we went to the movies and Walmart and generally had a good time and when it came time to leave he rang has parents in the next city and we biked to their house and spent a few more days in the bosom of mexican hospitality - before reluntantly moving on.

For the past few days we have been biking in the Northern desert of Mexico with about 50 types of cactus and not much else - but it has in fact been really beautiful camping in the desert and waking up with mouth -fulls of dirt -- humm

My spanish is coming along and I can now conjugate the verb "to be" but still don't know why I would want to?? but i'm told it will be useful. I can also wirte a accurate description of myself on Mexican dating websites - Soy un (I am a) guapo ( hansome) , calvo (bald) chico ( boy) de Nueva Zealanda ( from NZ).

Hopefully Andy will be over the bum squirts in a few days and we will continue cycling - of course whose turn will it be next ??


Adios

Andy

p.s I have a video of a Tumbleweed chasing me down the highway in mexico ( yes, fairdinkum, a real, honest to god, tumbleweed like out of a John Wayne movie - when I next get the chance I will upload it)

Hola from Mexico

Hola fromMexico,

Hi everyone, well this trip has just become international!!, 3 days ago we crossed the boarder and entered Mexico.

Just a brief recap, we spent several days in Austin staying with Walt a retired airforce pilot, he showed us around Austin and genrally made us welcome, we then headed to San Antonio to see the Alamo where Davy Crockett ( the guy with the coon skin hat - he actually existed) met his end and then we headed to the boarder town of Laredo through probably the hottest part of our trip so far, essentally a desert and the combination of no water , no food and no shelter for 60 km stretches made for hard riding but we did make it and wei ling also coined a new phase of " andy you smell worse than 3 day old texas road kill" it turns out that this not a completment - for some reason the mix of humidity and heat makes the roadkill worse than any i've expereanced before............... you cuold quite literally smell these things from 200 metres.

Anyway we entered mexico and evrything changed really dramaically - no-one spoke english the roads became narrow and the cars/ trucks and buildings all all became old and tattered I really had not expected such a change so quickly but i immedialtey felt at home here, thinking this trip is really going to get interesting.

We are on our way to the city of Monterrey to spend a night or two with Marco a fellow biker we contacted through warmshowers.org and from there will head into the mountains and go to a spanish school to really get good at the language - exciting time ahead

anyway I hope everyone is well. i have never been better - believe me - true happiness is not knowing what day of the week it is and not caring either.

Andy, Andrew and Weiling ( and of course Allant)

oh yeah all those people who emailed back their congratulations about myself and allant should maybe read their emails a bit more carefully and perhaps look at the photos of allant - ( unless you were playing my game back at me - then Bravo well played )

New Love and second chances

Howdy everyone ,

well where to start really, probably best to give you the background ,
about 7 years ago when I was living in China quite by accident I met
the love of my life - she was a American who had also found herself in
China - anyway it was kind of love at first sight and we were pretty
much inseparable as we traveled through China, and central Asia and
turkey and Europe over 6 months - we had this fantastic time but
inexplicably when we got to Rome we went our separate ways and in
truth we have never seen each other since .........i guess I have kind
of tortured myself for the past 7 years wondering why I would give up
such a good thing and occasionally even my Dad tells me I should have
bought her home ...

Anyway , most people don't even get one chance at true love, however
once again really when i wasn't looking for it I'm in love again --
Funnily enough when met on the Internet when i was doing research for
my bike trip - she is from china but her parents are American - she
lives in NYC so we decided to meet up while i was there, --- and of
course my first impression was wow!!! she is a bit younger than me--
but - I really wanted to spend more time with her so with nothing to
lose invited her on our cycle trip - And she said YES, so with any
fledgling love i asked Andy and Wei Ling to not mention anything on
their blogs cause I just wanted to see how things would go , we said
that we would go to Austin ( Texas) together and reevaluate things
from there....

So of course things are going great- everyday from NYC I have felt
like I am flying on a little soft cloud, and you just know it is love
when you can't get the Karen Carpenter song " close to you" out of
your head for the past 2000 miles.

So anyway the big news-- we are going the whole way to Rio de janero
together and this time I promise I am older and wiser and will bring
her back home . Both Andy and Wei Ling have seen the change in me and
of course they really like Allant as well so they wouldn't have it
any other way. I've attached some photos as well and of course Allant
is in her favorite leather and rubber outfit ( wow!!) come to think of
it maybe the married men shouldn't be looking at these photos.- and i
just want to encourage anyone who hasn't found that special someone
yet to not lose hope and to take chances- you never know what could
happen. Even though I gave up my GT slipstream ( probably the best
bike I ever owned) in Rome i never gave up hope of finding another.


Andy and Allant

Top photo:, me and allant

bottom: Allant all loaded down