Guasipati, Venezuela

Friends: The only air conditioning I've experienced since leaving Sandy's trailer has been in a couple of Cyber outlets, as Internet cafes are known here. They are a most welcome oasis. It makes a considerable difference in my body temperature and comfort to spend an hour out of the 90-degree heat.

I had an added reason to find an Internet cafe today. I needed to know how much iodine it takes to purify water, as my Katadyn filter, that has faithfully served me for nearly twenty years, stopped pumping this morning, and at a moment when I was out of water out in the middle of nowhere. The water here has been so cloudy it has taken much extra effort to pump the water and it may have worn down the crucial washer. I thought I had a spare, but I can't find it.

When my filter stopped functioning I had five bottles of tap water to purify. If need be I could have risked drinking them. I´ve already picked up some a microbe or two that has disrupted my digestive track, so what difference would a few more make. I had no idea how far it was to the next town and safe drink, as the last one marked on my map two miles back no longer existed. Fortunately, there was cloud cover and it was early enough in the day that the temperature had not climbed into the 90s yet.

The next significant town was 35 miles away. I had come 18 miles already since my 7 a.m. start. I resumed riding at a slightly slower pace so I wouldn't have to breathe so much through my mouth, drying my throat. Still I could feel the dessication setting in. After five miles I came upon a couple of guys digging fence posts. I was hoping they’d have water to spare, but they had none.  They said there was a restaurant about three kilometers up the road. It was a miracle little oasis, a recently opened stand by a young husband and wife with their two year old toddler on hand. They didn't even have a table, just two plastic chairs and a five gallon bucket to sit upon under their little awning. They had some home made juice and tamales and bananas and bottled water. So I survived this catastrophe.

My filter is literally my most valuable possession. With the towns fewer and fewer I need it more than ever. The pharmacy in this town didn't have iodine, only chlorine tablets. The local hardware store had a variety of washers, but not a precise match. I was willing to try the most similar. I also stopped at a car repair garage to see if they might have a washer. A clever mechanic wrapped some thread around my old washer, making the fit tighter. That could well work. But I need 100% confidence. I'll just have to carry a lot more purified water in my panniers to go along with the three on my frame.

Chavez ought to devote some of his billions in oil money to improving the country's water. Both Costa Rica and Panama have drinkable tap water. Even Sandy thought it ridiculous that a liter of water cost thirty times as much as a liter of gas. Not having to pump a gallon or more of water a day will save me a lot of effort and time and maybe even some money. Rather than buying a cold soda or juice, I'll buy a large bottle of cold water and do without the flavor. I had been resorting to Tang to make the lukewarm water in my water bottles more palatable. A pack of Tang good for one liter cost thirty cents. The flavoring was a treat, as besides the standard orange were a whole variety of exotic flavors unknown back home--various combinations of papaya and mango and strawberry and lemon and others.

Later, George

Upata, Venezuela

Friends: It remains hot in the 90s, but not so humid in the arid interior. I had a pleasant ride for much of yesterday through cattle country to the Orinco River, the third largest in South America. I'm adapting, and not as preoccupied with the next refuge from the searing sun and ovenish temps. Rather than desperately seeking shelter every hour, I've been able to extend my time in the sun to a couple of hours if need be.

The previous three days had been survival-cycling, wringing out the miles in paltry handfuls just trying to get down the road.  It was a matter of surviving insufferable heat one day, battering winds another and low energy levels the third, thanks to the hard efforts of the previous two days, compounded by not sleeping or eating enough my evening with Sandy. I realize not every hour on the bike can be blissful and sublime, so even when I'm suffering, I am not regretting in the least my chosen means of transportation.

That I was looking forward to my breaks more than my time on the bike, was okay, as the more frequent breaks allowed me more opportunity to spread the gospel of the bike. At each stop I have inquisitors and possible converts. I welcome the opportunity to open eyes to what one can accomplish on the bicycle. When people react with disbelief that I have bicycled all the way from Caracas, 500 miles away now, I tell them that is hardly anything. Twenty years ago I biked the entire length of South America, 7,000 miles from Colombia to the Straits of Magellan. That is totally inconceivable to them, but also a great revelation. If someone can do that, anything is possible, even putting a man on the moon.

I have been in energy debt for days now going back to a 107-mile effort to reach Barcelona on my third day, a little early in the trip to be doing so many miles. I hadn't intended on such an effort. Barcelona had been my day's destination for my first hotel and shower and Internet in four nights. According to the mileage signs it should have been only an 85-mile day, but I've quickly learned that the road signs here are very inadequate--in short supply and not always accurate.

By mid-afternoon when I realized I was in for a 100-mile day if I wanted to reach Barcelona, I just cut back on my rest stops. It still turned out to be further than anticipated as the later distance signs to Barcelona weren't to the town center, but from the turn off from the highway, another four or five miles. I arrived just as dark was settling in. It took a while to find a hotel with a vacancy, as the town was packed with Carnival revelers. It was a wild scene featuring hundreds of scantily and spectacularly dressed bright-smiling young women from pre-teens to post-teens all with aspiration to the crown of Miss World one day. Its hard to rest too much when there is so much to be seen.

Very frequently I am asked a question in a new country that I have never been asked before and it becomes a recurring question. In Japan the question was, "What other countries have you traveled in," expressing the Japanese longing to leave their island and see the world. In Eastern Europe last summer the question was, "Did you cross the ocean by boat?" In Bolivia people wanted to know how much my airline ticket cost, thinking it would be something astronomical beyond their wildest imaginings. The question here I am asked that I have never been asked before is, "Are you on an around the world trip?" Venezuelans are surprised that I'd come specifically to see their country, since so few do. Still, they are proud of their tepuis in the Gran Sabana and smile that I've come to visit them. And the people are very vibrant and not downtrodden in the least, as in some Latin American countries. However, they assume I'm just passing through on my way to Brazil, as the road through the tepuis leads to Brazil. I've been assumed to be Brazilian as much as any other nationality.

Each province I have crossed into has been marked by a different Chavez billboard. It frequently features the broad-smiling President embracing the governor of that province. I passed dozens of such billboards as I drove around with Sandy. He is no fan of the President. He says life is no better than it was eight years ago when he was elected president.

As we drove around, Sandy suggested it might be safer for me to ride my bicycle on the opposite side of the road into traffic. That is, unfortunately, the custom of the majority, though not all, of the few cyclists I have encountered. Venezuelans aren't entirely bicycle illiterate, as it hosts a week-long race in January that draws racers from around the world. There was also a Venezuelan in this past year's Tour de France--the smallest rider in the field. He competed for a Belgian team and was considered a threat for the King of the Mountains competition, as he nearly won the Tour of Italy in 2005 with some spectacular climbing efforts. But the fast pace of the Tour de France wore him out and he was not a factor. He lives over in the Andes, on the border with Colombia, where bicycling is king. If the Super Bowl Bears hadn't been keeping me in Chicago through January, I would have liked to have been here a month earlier and started these travels with that bike race.

Later, George

Maturin, Venezuela

Friends: Empanadas and arepas are the two foods of ubiquity here, available at stands along the road and in plazas and in restaurants. They are both made from corn meal. The empanadas are fried in oil and stuffed with meat or cheese. The arepas are a hard baked bun that are slit and stuffed with all varieties of sandwich makings.

Last night I received a lesson in baking arepas from a 32-year old guy who flagged me down along the road to offer me a bottle of water and then invited me to crash at his place. He lived in a two-bedroom trailer similar to those he services for oil workers. It was bare bones rustic, but air-conditioned. Sandy wasn't the first to stop to have a chat with me, but he was the first with any fluency in English. Five years ago he took a three-month submersion course in Trinidad, a five-hour ferry trip from the eastern tip of Venezuela, the very point that Columbus touched ground in 1498 on his third voyage to the New World and his only landing on the continent.

Sandy and I talked for about 15 minutes along the road shortly after I`d had lunch. It wasn't until several hours later though, when he passed me again on his way home from work and I was within a few miles of his home that he invited me to visit. He lived on the outskirts of Maturin, a city of 300,000, that was my Internet destination for the day. I had no hesitancy in accepting his invitation. It was clear that he was a most sincere, good-hearted fellow. After our first conversation before I could be on my way he said he`d like to give me a gift. He rummaged around in his car for something but couldn't find anything other than a flashlight, which he rightly guessed I had no need of.

An evening with a local was a glorious end to a brutally hard day, fighting a ferocious headwind that had me reduced to eight to eleven mph for most of the day. I would ride an hour and then take an hour to recover from the heat and the wind. I had 70 miles of it. I was lucky there were cafes with some regularity on this stretch through a large oil field. The day before I had stretches of 27 and 25 miles between places of refuge. It had been a day of intense heat, rather than wind. At least the wind brought some cloud cover, so I wasn't being baked as severely as the day before. But I needed a lot more to eat with the effort the wind was requiring. It was strong enough to blow over my loaded bike outside one cafe.

Sandy had no idea how hungry a touring cyclist could be. He offered me drink, but we did not eat dinner until nine pm, well past my bed time of late. I arrived at his trailer in a locked
compound that was his company's base of operations, shortly before five. I sat and drank glass after glass of cold water before taking a cold shower.  I began to nibble on my supply of nuts to stave off my hunger. Sandy had no interest in food at that point, so we drove around the city looking for the Internet and doing some shopping and visiting friends. We tried nearly a dozen Internet outlets, but they were either closed or jam-packed with teenagers. Sandy did not want to go into the heart of the city, where we would have had better luck, as it was the final night of Carnaval and he said it would be too raucous and crazy. I'd experienced some of that two nights before in Barcelona, another city of 300,000. All the costumed people was quite a spectacle. The Venezuelan women are renowned for their beauty, having won more Miss World and Miss Universe contests than any other country. Beauty pageants are a national passion. There are schools to train woman for beauty contests. The women participating in the parades were all strutting with great flair in their skimpy and gaudy outfits as if trying to win a contest. I wouldn't have minded seeing Maturin`s version, but was also happy to be off my feet, being chauffeured around, allowing me to recover from another hard day on the bike.

It was almost as challenging to find a store selling eggs as finding the Internet. At least we suceeded
in the eggs. We also stocked up on cheese and ham and bread, so Sandy could send me off with some sandwiches.

Sandy had a bag of corn meal flour to make arepas in his refrigerator and a four-holder apparatus to bake them in, similar to a waffle-maker. He tossed the flour and water and some spices and a dab of sugar into a bowl and after stirring, molded four flour balls that he plopped into the heated up arepa-maker. In less than five minutes we had hard rolls that were easy to slit open. We stuffed them with cheese and fried eggs. Arepas are Sandy's favorite food. Trinidad did not have arepas. He lost 35 pounds during his three months of English-study there. Also to blame was the spiciness of the food. Sandy invited his boss over to join us, well after I was ready to pass out. He only spoke a minimum of English, so didn't linger too long.

Today I turn south, away from the severe easterly wind gusting across the Atlantic extremity of the country. Sandy recently visited the tepuis and was gushing over their magnificence and beauty. I will eventually be climbing, so hopefully the temperatures will moderate. There isn't enough of a moon at this point for night riding, but with the minimum of traffic in the hinterlands, I could attempt it if necessary.

Later, George

Barcelona, Venezuela

Friends: With gas priced at twelve cents a gallon and bus fares similarly nominal, there is no great economic necessity for the bike here in Venezuela. There are, of course, other equally attractive imperatives for the bike that a microscopic few Venezuelans embrace--those with a bent to the practical or a sensitivity to the environment or maintaining their fitness or simply lofting the soul.

A significant number, however, do recognize the bicycle as a means to adventure. No where else have I encountered such continued excitement and exuberance with waves and friendly toots from passing vehicles. Not only am I a curiosity as a touring cyclist, but also as a gringo. I have yet to encounter either since I touched down in Caracas four days ago. I was the lone discernible Anglo on my sparsely filled flight, nor did I notice another Anglo amongst the other flights filtering through customs as I lingered reassembling my bike.

Why Venezuela is overlooked as a travel destination is a mystery, as it boasts loads of
beaches and superlative, one-of-a-kind, attractions, including the world´s longest waterfall and a unique geographical formation called tepuis--table-top sandstone mountains whose plateaus can extend for miles, each boasting flora and fauna not known elsewhere that would have had Darwin more excited than the Galapagos. There are a hundred or more of these off in the southeast corner of the country near Brazil and Guyana. That is where I am headed. A two hundred mile road through this Avenue of Tepuis ought to be a trip unlike any other.

On the opposite side of the country are the Andes. There is a region there that has continual lightning strikes without any thunder, an unexplained phenomenon that is also other-worldly. There is an ice cream shop over there with more than 900 varieties of ice cream, including shrimp, more than any place in the world, according to Guinness. Its not likely I will have time to cover it all, as Venezuela is twice the size of California and I´ve only allowed myself a month.Venezuela also boasts scores of beaches along its 1,750 mile Caribbean coastline. I've followed it for 250 miles heading east from Caracas, the extent of my coastal miles. I'm ready to head inland to the tepuis, 400 miles away.

Nearly half of Venezuela´s 26 million people live within a hundred mile radius of Caracas. It didn't take me long to escape the population density as after 30 miles, the road hugging the coast turned into rugged cliffs with 15% grades and pavement giving way to dirt. Back in 1999 heavy rains created mudslides that killed over 50,000 people less than 20 miles up the coast from Caracus. Caracus is 15 miles inland from the Caribbean at a higher elevation. Rather than climbing up to the city upon arrival, I will save that til the end of my trip.

My eleven hours of transit from Chicago, two hours to Dallas, a four hour lay over, then five hours more to Caracas, didn't get me here until well after dark. It was 11:30 pm when I slipped out of the airport and was immediately pounced upon by a pack of mongrel dogs, who only gave a half-hearted chase. I biked until one a.m. before finding an overgrown vacant lot to disappear into. I had been warned about beach camping this close to the city. Even at the late hour there were guys lingering about seeking some cool from the heat, that would have discouraged me even if I hadn't been warned.

The terrain has ranged from junglish to semi-desert, but the temperatures have been
unrelentingly hot in the 90s. It was a challenge to find camping in the lush jungle, but I chanced upon a mini-clearing among some banana trees one night and also a rare orange orchard on another. There are military checkpoints every ten or fifteen miles. They are more ceremonial than anything. Only once have I even been ordered to stop. It was such a nice experience I wish it happened more often, as the pair of jovial, big-bellied soldiers presented me with a bottle of cold water. They asked where I was from, but didn't demand my passport. Rather than USA, I say I'm from Chicago, home to a couple of a prominent Venezuelan baseball players. Both guys had cellular phones. They immediately started calling friends or officials, I don´t know which, to tell them about a cyclist from Chicago.

With gas so cheap none of the gas stations bother to advertise its price. Its a wonder they charge at all. From 1914, when oil was first discovered here, until 1970, Venezuela was the world's leading oil producer. It has slipped to number four. Its production has wavered from time to time, requiring toll booths on the roads at one point. The toll booths are still there, but unstaffed.

Billboards of President Chavez are even more frequent than the military checkpoints, even more than the Che and Viva la Revolution billboards of Cuba. Many of them have a play on the letter V, combining it with Chavez´s name and Victoria de Venezuela.

Later, George

Narika, Japan

Friends: I began my assault on Tokyo at 6:15 yesterday morning, setting out 32 miles from the Imperial Palace in the heart of the city. Even at that distance I was already deeply ingested into its dense sprawl. I felt fortunate to have found a place to camp, and, in fact, seized a spot at three in the afternoon, two hours before dark, the earliest I had curtailed my cycling other than to attend the kiernan racing back on Hokkaido. I wasn't sure if I was being a coward to quit so early or if I was wisely listening to my instincts. My instincts were right again.

I hadn't seen any likely camping for miles, as I was swallowed up by the sprawl much sooner than I anticipated. It was only looking bleaker and bleaker as I closed in on Yokahama, population three-and-a-half million and 20 miles from the Imperial Palace. I was tempted to keep going to Yokahama with the possibility of free Internet in the lobby of the Landmark Skyscraper, the tallest in Japan. It was only ten miles further, but if I succeeded in finding the Internet, it would most likely be dark when I resumed my riding. Once previously I jumped on a surprise Internet outlet an hour before dark in a good-sized city and still found a place to pitch my tent in the dark alongside a golf driving range, but I didn't care to put my angels under pressure in this urban environment. I know cats have nine lives, but I'm not sure how many miracle camp sites a touring cyclist can count on.

My campsite this night was one of the more marginal of this trip. It was on a wooded hilltop in suburbia beside a fenced in power station tower. It was just above a children's playground. It was a bit cool for children to be out playing. It was a steep push to reach the top of the hill. It wasn't totally secluded so I waited until dark to pitch my tent on the less than flat nook that amounted to the summit. But it served its purpose. I had a good sleep, interrupted only a couple of times before and after midnight by hard-working salarymen returning home.

I was awoken at daybreak by squawking crows on the power lines above, provoking me into the early early start I wanted. There was considerably less than the bumper-to-bumper traffic that I was engulfed in the afternoon before. I was only slowed by a couple of train crossings, one of multiple tracks. The nearby platform even before seven a.m. was packed with hundreds of people, all wearing the same black suits. It was the most horrifying site of the day. I had to wait several minutes for three trains to pass.

The traffic gradually thickened. That didn't concern me so much. My biggest worry was that the four-lane highway I was on would turn into a superhighway with no bikes allowed, forcing me to find side streets. That could turn my route into a nerve-racking maze. There was a nearby superhighway, so this one maintained its bike-access, though it wasn't the most optimum of biking. It had a sidewalk/bikeway that 99% of the bike commuters and school children were on. There was just an occasional crazed bike messenger-type who joined me on the road. The cars and trucks maintained a tolerably safe speed and only rarely squeezed into my sliver of a shoulder. I just had to get used to the speeding motorcyclists who would come out of nowhere brushing past me and even occasionally turning sharply behind me coming from the opposite direction counting on me to maintain my speed. It was as if it were karma payback-time for some of the pedestrians I have startled as a messenger.

I clicked off the miles one by one, celebrating each as I closed in on the Imperial Palace. It was a relief that I could stay on this nicely-marked highway leading into the heart of the world's largest metropolis. My throat and nostrils cringed at the air--the foulest I had breathed in Japan. I'd had occasional whiffs and gulps of noxious fumes before when a poorly-tuned truck or bus passed. I could simply hold my breath for a moment or two till it had passed. When I resumed breathing the air had improved. When I tried that here the air was no fresher.

As I penetrated deeper and deeper into this morass with less and less concerns that it was going to be the nightmare I feared, I could let my mind wander to other rides in great metropolises and almost shrug this one off. Bangkok was miles and miles of gridlock. The streets of Bombay and Calcutta, other cities of more than ten million, were obstacle courses of refuse and ruts, while this was perfectly smooth-going. Mexico City and Rio de Janerio were chaos, while this was perfectly predictable. Manhattan is always intense and super-charged with speeding taxis.

I could gauge my progress by the train stations I passed, as they were all marked on my map. I was putting off breakfast as long as I could, happy to knock off as many miles as I could before the traffic thickened too much, but it actually seemed to lessen the closer I got to downtown Tokyo, as most Japanese commuters wisely take the train rather than drive. I had gone 25 miles before I stopped at a convenience store for my customary chocolate milk and packaged pancake breakfast.

By nine most people were at work. There was a significant lull in the traffic. I was able to stray a few blocks at a time from my main artery to do a little exploring, though I didn't want to be too brave about it. I did take a couple mile detour to meander around Ueno Park, where several hundred homeless have an encampment and buskers flourish. I spent a couple hours relaxing there and was mildly tempted to put up my tent for the night alongside one of their semi-permanent, heavy-burlap tents.

My next celebration came when I came upon a road sign for Chiba, a city 25 miles away on the northern outskirts of Tokyo. If I could follow those signs my escape from Tokyo would be complete. It, however, turned into a dreaded "no-bikes allowed" superhighway. By that time I was already well out of the heart of Tokyo, though I still had miles and miles of urban mayhem to negotiate. I happened upon a straight roadway that kept going and going for another 30 miles and got me out. Those 30 miles led to patches of agriculture. Beside an apple orchard, I found a small bamboo forest I could disappear into.

Tomorrow I am homeward bound, arriving just in time for the end of the Bears game. Japan has been enough of a pleasure I may just have to return next month and make a circuit of the warmer southern half of the country and island hop down through Okinawa into the tropics.

I am already looking forward to any Japanese film that will be playing at Cannes, so I can be reminded of how much I have enjoyed this country and its people, and learn what lurks behind their calm and considerate and seemingly content demeanor. I know that to a degree they have adopted a Buddhist resignation to their fates, repressing their longings and despairs. But that doesn't prevent them from being incessantly helpful and polite and diligent in all they do. They behave as if they were in a make-believe ideal world. It has been heartening to be among such people.

Later, George

Kamakura, Japan

Friends: For three days I hovered around and on Mount Fuji waiting to see if it would reveal itself. On the third day I awoke to blue skies, but still the upper three-fourths of the mountain remained cloaked in cloud, as if it were a work in progress whose artist wanted no one to see what he was creating. Fuji has it own weather system, so though it was bright and sunny surrounding it, those on the mountain could be engulfed in clouds or rain.

As I descended it the day before on my bike, I plunged through a range of weather over the 5,000 feet of my descent. There were stretches of dry pavement, but mostly it was wet. I feared a most perilous descent, as there were wet and slimy leaves on the road that threatened to send me flying. Fortunately, there had been enough traffic to have cleared a path through them and with only a six per cent grade and not too much moisture on the road I could control my speed and tightrope through the fallen foliage.

I did suffer one terrifying stretch when there was an excess of water on the road and my brakes weren't responding. I unclipped from the pedals and was ready to start dragging my feet, though at over twenty mph it wouldn't have made much of a difference. But then after what seemed like a couple of minutes, but was probably only five or six seconds, the brakes took hold and I made it through the bend and steered clear of the leaves. The biggest peril was my plunging body temperature. I wasn't generating any body heat on the eighteen miles of descent and I had just barely warmed up from my hike in the wet and cold.

If the road had been dry I would have flown down in forty minutes or so, but with the wet it was taking me closer to an hour. The cold air and the wind chill my speed was generating were knifing at me, even though six layers covered my torso, all that I had. As my core temperature fell, it encouraged me to take greater risks and brake less to get this over with. I tried to ward the cold off my hands by periodically putting one hand behind my back for a few moments out of the cold wind when I felt safe enough not to have both hands on the brakes.

The surest way of warming up was by riding hard. There was a good climb after I'd completed the descent around the base of the mountain that was just what I needed. Ordinarily I would have shed all layers except one after several minutes of all out effort, but not this time. I needed the next day's sun to dry out my gear, which hadn't seen any sun for a couple of days. As I circled around Fuji to its east under clear skies, heading towards Tokyo, I would give it a glance whenever there was a break in the trees to see if those clouds were lifting. They were inching their way up. I wondered if there might be an alarm or sirens or loud music to herald its unveiling. Many of the towns I have passed through have sound systems that make announcements or play music or sound a wake-up call at 6:30, so it was fully plausible.

The clouds began to break up and Fuji revealed more and more in staggered segments almost like a stripper teasing those of us watching. It would reveal one shoulder and then another and then cover one and reveal its peak then hide it again. The road was narrow and windy and up and down. I was lucky to be on my bike, able to stop at any time for a photograph on the narrow road. I got a shot with a golfer in the foreground, another with a military base, and then with myself taken by a cab driver who had stopped for his passengers. It was much more exciting to have seen Fuji like this, after all the suspense and anticipation, than if it had been clear upon my arrival.

It was nice to return to sea level and camp along the ocean once again. For the second time in a week I awoke to the sound of golf balls being shot. I was hidden in some bushes in a park. Some guy had shown up at six a.m. to hit a few balls. One went astray and actually rolled under my tent. I no doubt gave him a surprise when I rolled it back out towards him.  A few days earlier I had camped near a driving range. I went to sleep with the ping of balls being shot and awoke to them as well.

My calves were tight from my hike up Fuji, exercise they haven't had. They've had a bit of a rest here in Kamakura, as I spent a day wandering among various complexes of temples in this former capital city of Japan forty miles south of Tokyo. There were hoards of tourists and pilgrims and school children, mostly Japanese, but now that I'm closing in on Tokyo there were a few foreigners sprinkled in, the most I have seen. I was getting a small taste of Kyoto and its 2,000 temples. One thing Kyoto doesn't have that Kamakura does, is the Daibutsu--a 45-foot high, 121-ton bronze Buddha from 1252. For a small fee, one can climb up into its head. It was enclosed for 250 years, until a tsunami swept away its enclosure.

And for my final act, I will attempt to ride through Tokyo. It took the British cyclist and writer Josie Dew three days to navigate her way through the urban mayhem starting over twenty miles away in Yokahama, Japan's second largest city with three-and-a-half million people. I'm not sure if there is a main road I can stick to or if I will have to pick and choose my way, as evidently Josie opted to do. But she fancies herself a humorist and may have exaggerated.

Later, George

Mount Fuji

Friends: For thirty minutes or so I had the snow-doffed summit of Fuji in my sights, some 3,000 vertical feet nearly straight up. It finally came into view after I had been hiking for an hour, finally emerging from a bank of clouds that had been smothering me and my view.

I hadn't anticipated hiking all the way to its 12,000 foot summit when I set out at 8:15 this morning, but now I began to consider this seeming window of opportunity. But by the time I had gained another thousand feet the clouds began swooping up towards me, bringing at first a mist, then a drizzle, then sleet and finally snow. The sun wasn't going to burn this off. I had been pulling myself up Fuji's rugged volcanic rock side with the aid of a chain hand rail.

I knew my descent would be more treacherous than climbing it, especially when wet. I was well beyond the accepted climbing season.  Only one of the dozen or so rest houses along the way had been open and that a while back. I huddled against a closed one for a few minutes to protect myself from the wind and blowing snow hoping it might pass, but I couldn't dally long, as I started rapidly cooling off. There was no one to consult. I hadn't seen another hiker all day, just the foot prints of some gaijin who passed me in a cab as I was finishing off the last three miles of the climb to road's end on my bike. As the sleet showed no sign of relenting, I knew I had to turn back.

I had camped three miles short of the trail head the night before. I knew camping was prohibited on the mountain, so I didn't want to push on too close to the cluster of businesses at road's end, where I might have been spotted. There hadn't been a great many viable camp sites as the road wound upwards through a thick forest. But as always, a near perfect campsite emerged just when I needed it--a slight flat space behind a small shed and a solar panel and some bushes, providing shelter from what little traffic might pass on the road. The toll road closed at seven, so it was going to be a quiet night. I was happy to quit biking a little early anyway, 800 feet below road's end and trail head at 7,800 feet. It was going to be a cold night, but a degree or two warmer at this lower elevation. It rained off and on all night. If the rain 

persisted I had enough food and water and reading material to spend the day in my tent. I wouldn't have objected, as I could use a rest day. But there was a break in the rain shortly before seven allowing me to hup to it.

There was a large parking lot when the road ended and a cluster of restaurants and souvenir stores and a Buddhist temple. At the start of the trail a sign warned, "Attention. Yoshidaguchi Mountain trail is closed from Sept. 5, 2006 to June 30, 2007. During the season this trail is not safety (sic). So we are not responsible for your life and what you do." Another sign said it was 6.3 kilometers to the summit. That wasn't much really, but more than 1,000 feet of altitude gain per mile, a fair amount. The paved road gained a steady 300 feet per mile, a six per cent grade, similar to a Category One Tour de France climb. It went on for eighteen miles, three miles more than I had been forewarned. Its length might have qualified it for Beyond Category status. It will most definitely rank as one of my most memorable climbs.

Puddles and wet leaves littered the trail. For a long stretch it was a twenty-foot wide thoroughfare with switchback after switchback held in place by retaining walls. I began seeing patches of snow at 9,000 feet when the trail suddenly shot straight up and turned from volcanic sand and gravel to volcanic rock. I continued onward, drawn by the site of wooden huts clinging to the mountain side, though I knew it was most likely I would soon have to turn back.

As I descended, I alternated between clinging to the icy cold chain and crouching crab style seeking safe foot holds amongst the slick, pocked volcanic rock. It rained all the way down. My Gore Tex jacket kept my upper body warm but my cycling tights were soaked. As I neared the trails end I encountered a couple of Japanese tourists under umbrellas and a dozen or so businessmen in suits and clear ponchos, all obviously just going for a little stroll.

At first I thought I'd hop right on my bike and get off the mountain while I still had some body warmth, but when I paused to jot a note I discovered my hand couldn't curl around my pen. I was much colder than I realized. It was a little past noon. I ducked into the nearest restaurant and ordered a couple of rice balls. I was their first customer of the day. Someone came out and turned on the heater in the middle of a room of picnic tables. I moved a bench in front of it and sat there for an hour trying to warm up. I stuck my hands alternately under my armpits. Even after half an hour my hands failed to warm up. At least my tights dried quickly with the heat blasting on me.

After 45 minutes I was joined by a group of jovial thirty year-old men and women. As has happened previously, they wanted to take their picture with me. Time up at the computer.

Later, George