On the one year anniversary of my journey — a year of bicycling from California — I took a train to see the ruins of Machu Pichu, the famous Incan ruins that were never destroyed by the Spanish (they weren’t found).

   It is difficult to believe everything that I have seen in this year — this trip has exceeded all of my expectations, from my ability to meet people to my ability to talk to schools to the quality of scenery that I have pedaled by. I do miss friends and family from home, but I am usually simply overwhelmed by this journey. I have 5 months left and a few thousand miles of biking left, and I can only hope that the last 5 months will be as enjoyable and productive as the past 12.

   I also spent time in the city of Cusco, the former capital of the Incan empire. Here, in addition to marveling at old Incan walls, I visited La Salle school in Cusco, talking both to the morning assembly and a class of seniors (and was then interviewed for a local television program). I also gave a talk to the South American Explorer’s club, one of my sponsors, and also a great place to get information and spent time.

   Leaving Cusco, I met another cyclist also heading south. Wouter, a former bartender from Belgium and roughly my age, arrived ten months ago in Mexico City with a 100 dollar bicycle, two home made panniers, some savings, and not much of plan as to where he was going to bike. Having never bike toured before, he rode to Panama with some other cyclists, and then decided he might as well also ride to Patagonia (he purchased a trailer in Ecuador, which is what you see him riding with in these photos).

   While I do enjoy traveling alone, it was great to have a riding partner for the first time in many months, and we shared stories of biking Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Peru as we biked the week from Cusco to Bolivia along a road that looped around the giant Lake Titicaca. We are now in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.

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