Merry Christmas!

In case you didn't know, Christmas is celebrated a little differently in Argentina. The celebration began with a lovely dinner provided for us by Fernando's family at around 10pm on the 24th, and continued until 6am Christmas day.

Most of the fireworks set off that night were smaller, and children continued lighting them well into the next day. We couldn't miss out on the opportunity to unnecessarily endanger ourselves to participate in the cross-cultural celebration...
Christmas Launch

Ground Magic

After all the food, fireworks, toasts, food, friends, walking and food, we were ready to sleep.

Love, and Merry Christmas,
-W.T.F.

Iguazu Photos

Dear Friends,
We just had the opportunity to visit one of the most astonishing places on earth. It was a gift beyond imagining. I'm almost reluctant to post pictures. However, I shall, because that's what I do.
May you enjoy them, may they encourage you to explore and adventure more.

Iguazu!

-William

Unbelievable Sights

We spent all day yesterday in the Iguazú Falls park, and saw waterfalls that defy description. It seems unreal in my memory, as though these falls couldn´t really exist. On top of all that, we got to watch hundreds of birds circle and play in the updraft created by the pounding water in the Devil´s Throat section of the falls. I am, quite simply, grateful to have gotten to see this place with my own eyes.

A Friendly Visitor

Megan, Trev's girlfriend, is here to visit and adventure with us in North Eastern Argentina for a few weeks. I'm glad to see Meg, but Trev is glad to see her times 5,000.

Tucuman: Part Deux

Trev and Will left Tucuman on Monday on a bus headed for Buenos Aires. They bid fun farewells to their favorite Tucumano family, and are now getting aquainted with the massively sprawling city of Buenos Aires. Before they left, however, they had a few more adventures they wanted to tell you about...
Enjoy!

Our Visit to the Farm, and a Little More

Hot Mud Wrestling Action

In an attempt to generate more web traffic and boost ad revenues, we´re adding some new content to the blog.

You must be six years or older (or have parental consent) to view the following images.

Hot Mud Wrestling Action

Our Time in Tucuman

With over two weeks in Tucuman under our belts, Trevor and I are feeling rather well acquainted with the city. Check out the photos and comments of our time here!

Time in Tucuman

Enjoy!
W.T....:(

Santiago to Tucuman: The Tale of Three City Boys

It´s been almost five weeks since we left home, and there´s been as much adventure packed into that time as we could handle. Now that we´re in South America, the fun continues.
We´ve put together another photo album for you, and though the captions are a little long, I´ve done my best to tell what I could of this amazing saga.

Please enjoy!

Crossing the Andes

Love,
W.T.F.

Faithful God

We´ve made it to Tucuman! Through all the adventure we could handle along the way, through windy nights and scorching days, through tumbling bikes and strange snow spikes, through truckers cab and so many flats, through hunger, pain, and relational strain, we´ve made it to the next part of this grand adventure.

God has been faithful to bless us with the full measure of adventure that we are able to handle, more than we thought we could.

We´ll post more with amazing pictures and stories soon.
Love,
W.T.F.

Santiago!

On Nov. 1 we left San Francisco and the amazing hospitality of my Dad and May Evelyn headed for Atlanta.

Last night we boarded a flight for Santiago, Chile.


This morning, after much airline food and little sleep, we reached our destination. At 8:00am we made our way out of customs (they didn´t bother to inspect our bike boxes at all) and found a quiet corner of a parking lot to begin the reconstruction or our bicycles. Many, many people have been interested in us and our bicycles, and wanted to talk with or simply cheer us on as we rode the highways of Chile.
Tonight, we´re amazed again by the hospitality of a wonderful family that I contacted through the website www.couchsurfing.com.

Now, we head over the Andes to Mendoza!
-W.T.F. (team bike)

We're finally in...Atlanta?

That's right folks, we failed to catch our connecting flight from Atlanta to Santiago last night. However, we were (there seems to be a theme here) completely cared for. We'll be flying out of Miami now, and arriving 23 hours later than expected. That's all fine and good, as it gives us one less day to cross the Andes into Mendoza...which is exciting. Flexibility friends, it takes a good deal of flexibility, forgiveness, fortitude, and grace to live together in unity. Nudity helps. Analogical nudity, anyway. Unity and nudity are two of our favorite cheers.
Thank you for the prayers and encouragement, we would be sorely lacking without them.
-W.T.F. (team bike)

P.S. No, Dad did not give me a bowl cut. It's nice and short all around, ready for warm weather and infrequent showers.

Today, San Francisco...Tomorrow, South America

Our gear is boxed up and ready to go. In less than twelve hours we'll leave for the airport. Our time in San Francisco has been everything we needed, far more than what we wanted. Sometimes it's overwhelming generosity that challenges us and our priorities. It's difficult, at times, to accept that one is in such a place of need...
I'm not going to ramble any more here and now :)

So, what have I done? I've uploaded almost 150 photos for your enjoyment, and tried to tell a bit of our story through the captions. Please enjoy them!

Argentina Pictures

San Francisco!

We Made It!

That's right, folks, on Friday, October 26th, around 5pm we rolled onto the Golden Gate bridge and into San Francisco, ending the first leg of our adventure. There are many tales to be told, including how we were offered and accepted being driven for approximately 200 miles of the journey, and hopefully that will follow soon. As for now, we're looking forward to spending a couple of days off our bicycles, and exploring this city!

Fortuna, CA, an Appropriate Name

We've camped in Fortuna for the night, on Ken's lawn. We enjoyed many stories and a few beers with this seasoned bicycle tourer. Good weather has us making great progress, and our hopes of being able to ride all the way to SF are alive again. I took my stitches out this evening (a mostly painless process, besides the one stitch that went through a nerve), and we made a most ghetto phad-thai out of angle-hair pasta, ginger root, and peanut butter (with whatever spices we could scrounge from the mostly bare cupboards). Again, we are ridiculously well cared for.

We've gotten to delve into a lot more relational difficulty the last few days, and at this moment, I can look back on it and say that it's been good. Pretty fast turn-around, and I'm grateful for it.

Note from Fer-
Sleep is glorious, food is magnificient, and it's time for bed.

Here are a few pics:

Riding along glorious coast




Time to frolick at the beach


Making our way into California, better late than never.

Thank you so much, to you who are praying for us, and have encouraged us to do this. We are very much running on reserves of encouragement at times.

Love!
-Team Bike

Lions and Spaghetti

We never expected to encounter so many lions in Oregon. The most ferocious of them, Jean, has whisked us away to her lair and is holding and slowly roasting us around her wood-burning stove. Her friend, Loretta, made some biker soup. We managed to convince her that it would still taste wonderfully if she left the biker out, and it did.
All this has happened because we followed our stomachs past a sign advertising a spaghetti feed. Well...I suppose a causal link would actually be quite difficult to draw. Ridiculous trust and generosity are probably closer to the core of things, and an astoundingly generous God even closer yet.

We do well. We are wonderfully cared for. While many of you probably wouldn't imagine that two Emergency Room visits for two different members of our team would be on the schedule for a team that's being wonderfully cared for, they have been. I was told it's horribly immature to mention ER visits with no explanation. Be that as it may, rest assured that mothers have been fully informed in both occurrences.

Sometime soon we shall update with photos and explanations galore. Soon being before the New Year.
Please continue to pray for us. We do not want to take this time for granted.

Thank you for reading!



P.S. If you want more significant updates, pray that the Oregon coast is hit with a wave of broadband.

Newport, OR: The Unexpected

We have encountered the unexpected many times during our first week of travel. An extra day to re-pack, a visit to the ER, closed yet welcoming campgrounds, and, quite simply, the incredible difficulty of biking with 50lbs-70lbs of extra gear.
I must say, though, that by the grace and provision of God, we've handled these unexpecteds exceptionally well. Never, however, did it cross any of our minds that we'd have to cope with a hot-tub. The warmth, the jets, the relaxation.
As I'm sure you can imagine, it's quite an ordeal.
Pity that I am without the transfer cable for my camera, for it would be great fun to share some pictures with you all, alas, it is not to be.
Goodnight, I doubt many of you will sleep as well as I shall this night, and I doubt any of you were as wet as I was this morning.
-William

Seaside, OR in Cindy's Mother's House

We're safely in Seaside, moving along at a much slower pace than expected, but with only one hospital visit so far!
We have been amazingly provided for thus far, much support of friends and loved ones is helping us ease into this whole bicycle traveling.
We are, right now, warm, well fed, and CLEAN! It's really amazing, friends and family have been generous beyond imagining. Thank you all!

P.S. When I get some time and a good internet connection, I plan on putting up a "Thank You" section of the website for thanking the amazing and generous people that we know, and those we encounter along the way.

Bye, Moms

During our fantastic, amazing, and divinely orchestrated going-away party (in which our dear friend Kelsey rolled out 19 pizza crusts, and all but two pieces were consumed), we took a moment to get the traveling men and their mothers together for a heart wrenching, tear jerking, group photo of wailing.
Ok, so they look happy. Happy to see their strange looking sons and, perhaps, ready for us to go? Well, if nothing else, I do believe they're ready for a release of all the anticipation and ready for us to actually hit the road.
And so are we!
Thank you to all you who made the going away party a smashing success, particularly Chris, Susannah, and Kelsey. Thank you for throwing such a wonderful send-off party for us!

Resolution!

Yes, we have a plan. We shall depart as scheduled, biking to SF, fly to Santiago, and bike over the Andes. We will go to either Mendoza, or San Juan, and from one of those places, Fernando will fly back in mid-November. Trevor and I, now burdened with an extra bicycle and more gear, will probably bus to Tucuman (where Fernando's family lives). What will we do in Tucuman besides intensive Spanish study? That's a good question. Fernando Ulyses Isley will take the LSAT on Dec. 1, and return to Tucuman around the 15th of December. From there, we will resume our scheduled travels, busing to Ushuaia after New Years, and begin five months of northerly riding.
Praise the Lord!

Edit- Fernando may decide not to take the LSAT Dec. 1. He may decide to wait until after we return. That decision remains to be finalized.

But...we leave! We leave!
Give us a kiss, love.

10-1-07

Our scheduled departure date, 10-10-07 has made it on to the 10-day forecast. They say it will be cloudy with a 20% chance of rain. The record, yes, record high for that day is 73 degrees.
Whether or not we will actually leave on that date, is still not certain.
It seems slightly more likely that we shall leave as planned than push the trip back, but we shall not know until tomorrow. Fernando has decided to go with the recommendation of his mentors, and they, after speaking with his parents, are going to discuss it and give a recommendation tomorrow.
As for us, this is not an easy time. It's probably most difficult for Fernando right now, but we're still smiling.

Mini-Crisis

Today was to be the day; Fernando was to take the LSAT. Was to be? Yes, for it did not happen. Oh my, you may say to yourself, Fernando must have overslept. Perhaps he was very sick, or even injured. Did a car hit him on the way to take the test? Is he okay?
Short answer, yes with a but. Long answer, well, long answer to follow.
You must understand something before I get in to the explanation. Fernando has a very cool name. Yes, Fernando is a cool name all on its own, but there's more. His full name is Fernando Ulysses Ruiz-Isley, making his initials FURI (pronounced, fury).
There is no substitute for this name in its full length and glory, and it would not be acceptable to have any less on a diploma or other credential, so Fernando registered for school and things school related with his full name. Now, brevity being a great virtue, and I suspect nearly making the Beatitudes (blessed are the brief, for they will be listened to), Fernando figured he could truncate his name for small pieces of identification like a driver's license.
That plan had served him well, up to this point. The woman helping register people for the LSAT this morning, amidst the checking in and fingerprinting, noticed the difference in name between the registration sheet, and Fernando's ID. One said, Fernando Ulysses Ruiz-Isley, and the other, Fernando U. Isley. After calling someone to verify that Fernando U. Isley could not, indeed, take the test for Fernando Ulysses Ruiz-Isley, there was nothing more to do...except, of course, cry.
Tears. Why tears? This is not how we expected things to go. You see, Fernando was planning to turn in his law school applications and be accepted for the fall of 2008. He can not turn in his applications without an LSAT score, and the test is not offered again until December 1. That means that Fernando must be in the US on Dec. 1 to take the LSAT, or wait and apply for fall 2009. That doesn't seem like a great option. Alternatively, we could push back our departure date, but that would completely change the trip, and be difficult for Trevor and myself as we were planning to leave in 11 days for a nine month trip.
Options are currently being discussed, and I'll update when we know more. As for now, we know we want to stick together. Our unity is a wonderful gift from God, and so we shall move forward together.

Switchbacks. Serious switchbacks. The team will be going up and down several such series on their first Andes crossing. They'll be traveling from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina across the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) pass which winds all the way up to 12,500ft.

There we are. The happy, hopeful, and hopefully not hapless trio pausing for a picture after our bike-trip meeting of June 25th, 2007.

Inaugural Post!

Hooray!
I'm setting up this blog as a beginning for the bike trip website!