20 years ago today – Day 6

March 9 – a wet ride to Sintra - 66 km

Our second unloaded day of riding. I am sneezing with a runny nose and sore throat, but I am not going to let that keep me in my room. I seem to have more energy than yesterday, but I’m afraid I am going to need it. Our plan is to cycle north and west to the hills of Sintra, where the kings and nobles of Portugal built their summer palaces to escape the heat of Lisbon. From there I want to follow the scenic
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route further west around the cluster of hills that stretch out to Cabo da Roca, and then back to join the coast route at Cascais that leads back east to Lisbon past the Torre de Belem that we visited yesterday. In Cascais, there is a chasm in the walls of the sea cliffs where the waves break through and churn violently, earning it the name la Boca do Inferno (Mouth of Hell). The round trip should be about 75 km.

The day isn’t too promising, but at least it is dry as we start out. I have learned that it is better to get wet coming home than not to see anything at all, especially when I may never get a chance to see it again.

Our first site is the famous Lisbon aqueduct built in the mid 1700s, just west of the Parque de Monsanto. We pass under its Gothic-styled arches in the Alcantara Valley not more than four km from our hotel. There is no reason to stop. Our route bends around the north end of the park and winds its way west.

Although Sintra is a small town visited mostly by tourists, there is basically only one direct route heading west. It is narrow and congested with buses and trucks belching carbon monoxide and smoke. This isn’t an enjoyable ride. The traffic is so close I must pay constant attention. We have climbed maybe seventy metres so far but there isn’t much to see anyway. As Lisbon thins out into patchy suburbs, all its quaintness evaporates. Grungy high rise slums on unlandscaped lots are scattered over the rolling fields. Garbage and abandoned debris litter the scenery.

It gets less congested and more agricultural the further west we go. It is still dry where we are but ahead, as the road climbs approaches the hills of Sintra, it disappears into a bank of dark, foreboding clouds. We press on, Mike several hundred metres in front of me. Sure enough, as we crank steadily up the hill, it begins to rain. I hopes for seeing Capo da Roca and la Boca do Inferno fade.

By the time we reach Sintra it is raining heavily. The cloud ceiling is less than 50m above us. It seems like the place nobles went to avoid the sunshine of Lisbon. None of the castles or palaces higher in the hills are visible. We lock our bikes together and go into am inviting tea house for something warm to drink – a tea perhaps. It’s a zoo inside, packed with bus loads of blue-rinse tourists, queued up at a cafeteria-styled service bar and ready to claw our eyes out if we get in the way of their bus schedule. Nothing relaxing about this place. The windows are fogged from the crush of humanity, but I suspect the bus tourists are used to this type of “break”.

I thought I’d have a chore convincing Mike to continue further on if it was wet, but by this point even I have given up. We have only done 36 km of our planned route. For a moderate price, we buy a ticket back to Lisbon and throw our bikes in the storage hold of a bus. As soon as we leave the hills the rain stops. I just pray my head cold doesn’t turn into pneumonia.

A hot shower and dry clothes can do wonders. I feel somewhat refreshed. We arrive at the Elevador de Santa Justa five minutes late. The Australians aren’t there. I worry that we’ve missed them but it seems unlikely they would not have waited five minutes. We linger another half hour, marveling over the dramatically lit elevator, built 90 years ago by a French architect named Ponsard, a student of Gustave Eiffel’s, that lifts one up to the top of the hill above where Sao Jorge Castle is. We use the time to discuss our departure from Lisbon tomorrow. Weather reports show a wall of rain north of Lisbon so south seems to be the direction to go. If the weather is fine in Setubal, the next district south of Lisbon, then we’ll head east across the broad plain of southern Portugal, the Alentego.

After another half hour, Terry and Darren have not shown up. I am more disappointed than Mike as I enjoy meeting travelers. We eat at a downtown Chinese restaurant recommended in Michelin’s Let’s Go Guide, and afterwards return to Bar 106 to see if the Australians have gone there. They haven’t. It’s fairly quiet when we arrive but it gradually fills up with the Saturday night crowd. We leave by 10 and walk back to our room. We meet Johnny Solbratten in the lobby and talk with him a while. He’s a real sweetheart when he’s sober.


PHOTO 1: Lisbon aqueduct
PHOTO 2: Sintra, in the rain
PHOTO 3: Elevador de Santa Justa

20 years ago today – Day 5

March 8 – a short ride to Torre de Belem - 30 km

I have been wet and cold so often since I have arrived that I have taken to wearing a T-shirt and socks to bed to keep warm. Mike and I wake up late as the last vestiges of jet lag linger on. At least for him. My lethargy has more to do with my new head cold, which for now is mainly a sore throat.

We are itching to get beyond downtown Lisbon, to do a little riding on foreign turf. But first we buy more groceries – cheese, Portuguese bread and fruit – to make our lunch. I select my loaf and carry it to the check out. The sales clerk has a total fit because I am touching the loaf with my bare hands. “What does she care? I was buying it anyway,” I say to Mike as we leave. “What do you expect from a country that exports 50% of the world’s cleaning ladies?” he replies. We eat lunch in our room and then head out on our first unloaded ride since arriving.

We head west along the north side of the harbour, under the Ponte 25e de Abril, which arches high above us, and beyond. It reminds me of Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge, or better still, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. The main street along the waterfront is paved and free of potholes to this point but we start to hit stretches past the bridge that make Toronto’s Spadina Ave feel smooth. I am as slow and unhurried as ever and Mike patiently waits for me. There’s a stiff headwind coming from the Atlantic and I am cautious about straining my knees this early in the trip when they have not toughened up yet.


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Our first stop is the mandatory Heironymite Monastery, a sprawling palace of an abbey with a most regal facade. It is a United Nations Heritage Site. We lock our bikes and go inside to check out
the amazing stonework, cloisters and the tomb of explorer Vasco da Gama. I half expect his epitaph to read, “I’d rather be in Mozambique.”

We continue on to the Torre de Belem, another heritage site, which marks the entrance to the harbour. It is also known and the White Tower. Apparently, it used to sit on an island until the great 9.0 Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 shoved up the land and joined it to the mainland. It juts out slightly into the harbour and is an ornate architectural gem, a cross between medieval and Moorish.

The headwind becomes a tailwind for our return, making it easier, or at least the parts without cobblestones or potholes. We follow the harbour access road until we are forced to join the main road. Mike wants to return to the hotel but I am not yet ready to call it a day. In spite of my head cold, we push on to see the Se Cathedral near the Alfama before returning.

Mike and I go to Bar 106, a gay dance bar, in the evening. We meet Terry and Darren there, two friendly Australian travelers. We can’t stay out long though. I still have my sore throat, and we both need our rest for our longer ride we’ve planned for tomorrow. We arrange to meet the Australians at 7:30 tomorrow evening downtown in front of the Santa Justa Elevator near Place Rossio.

PHOTO 1: Heironymites Monastery
PHOTO 2: cloisters of the monastery
PHOTO 3: Mike at the entrance to the monastery
PHOTO 4: tomb of explorer Vasco de Gama
PHOTO 5: Mike at the Torre de Belem
PHOTO 6: Se Cathedral

20 years ago today – Day 4

March 7 – Mike arrives, visiting Alfama

I am up and out early, waiting in Place Rossio and the south end of Av. da Liberdade for Mike to arrive from the airport. Sure enough, I see him circling around the square on his loaded bicycle and I wave him down. What a thrill it is to see him, and a relief too! If he hadn’t shown up I would have been at a loss of what to do next. So much can do wrong with long distance plans and I began to worry on the way here because we had no back up plans.

For his part, he seems relieved to see me too. He flashes a row of white teeth my way, his large brown eyes hidden behind his orange-tinted, pink-framed sunglasses. “Well, it looks like we’ve made it this far,” he muses softly in response to my more-boisterous greeting. He’s not a man of many words, unlike me.

Mike is eight years younger than me. I was interested in him when we first met a couple years ago, when I saw his doleful brown eyes, his sweet face and his strong arms and chest. There was nothing showy about him, nothing machismo. He is not the gym-bunny type. He got his build from swimming competitively for years. I’ve always been attracted to silent types like him, perhaps because without much communication to go by I imagine them to be anything I want them to be. But I am a Gemini and I thrive on communication, so as lovers silent men never make a suitable matches for me.

I have learned over time that Mike has a quick mind and lots of opinions, but he gives everything he says careful thought first, if he speaks at all. His habit of keeping things to himself hasn’t helped his relationship record either. I met him in the Out & Out cycling group when I was still with Seph, so I never pursued him, but I have met others who have tried to date him and gave up in frustration.

A few months after we met, Mike met John, his present lover, who lives in Washington, DC. He has flown down to see John as often as he can this past year, but still they have spent most of their time apart. He says this is his best relationship ever. Perhaps not having dialogue with John every day gives Mike time to think about what to say. And distance seems to make his love grow stronger, so I suppose I am helping out in a big way by dragging him off to Europe for a year.

I lead him up to the north end of the Bairro Alto, as I had noticed a nice looking pension last night on my way back from Xeque-Mate. It proves to be too expensive for our tastes so we walk to where I have stayed the past two nights, la Pension 25e de Abril. We pay for a room with two beds and I move my bags into it.

We nap there for two hours and then have lunch, sandwiches made from supplies we picked up on the way down from the Barrio Alto. The afternoon is spent hiking up the high bluff to the east of Av. da Liberdade to the ancient fortifications of Castelo Sao Jorge, which has great vistas look south over the Tagus River estuary, which serves as the harbour, and the huge suspension bridge that crosses the mouth of the harbour, the Ponte 25e de Abril.




We make our way down the south side of the hill towards the harbour through one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city, the Alfama. It has great character with its steep, narrow streets and lane ways decorated with many clotheslines. We eat dinner at a restaurant near the waterfront, and walk back to the hotel slowly.



Back in our room, we spread our guide books out over our beds and discussed what to do next. Just talking about it is exciting, no matter where we finally go. I had hoped to push north to cities like Coimbra, but Mike isn’t keen on going anywhere beyond Sintra, half a day’s ride from here.

PHOTO 1: Mike
PHOTO 2: vista of lower Alfama and harbour
PHOTO 3: vista of upper Alfama & monastery from west
PHOTO 4: Alfama & St Mary's Church
PHOTO 5: Alfama, narrow street
PHOTO 6: Alfama, back lanes with laundry
PHOTO 7: Alfama, more back lanes, laundry
PHOTO 8: Alfama & Sao Jorge Castillo, looking up from harbour

20 years ago today - Day 3

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March 6 – Xeque-Mate

The joy of waking up in a new country, an exciting new place I have never known before, is compromised by total blackness and only the vaguest recollection of the layout of the room. My watch is ticking somewhere nearby but my fingers can’t find it. I push myself out of bed and fumble across the room. I trip over my bags and step on my clothing, still wet from last night, as I try to reach the door.

Outside the hallways are as noisy as a bustling bath house with the comings and goings of men on my floor. I'm still naked but I have to leave the door open to see where my bags are, half-covering myself with my panniers while I figure out which one contains my dry underwear. I get dressed and locate my watch. It's 10:30 already.

Downstairs, the hotel manager is staffing the front desk. I ask to move to a room with a window and he says one will be available after 11. He will let me know when it's ready. I pick up a business card with the hotel address on it. It is called Pension 25e de Abril.

There is no point sitting in the blackness of my room. Down the end of the hall past the washroom there is a common area with a sink, a table, chairs and a sofa. Several weathered-looking men in their 40s and 50s are playing cards and smoking cigarettes. The ashtrays on the table are full. "Ola!" one of them greets me in Portuguese, but he switches to English to ask where I am from. I recognize him from the night before. His introduces himself as Johnny Solbratten, and the friend he is playing cards with, Kjell Olsen.

They invite me to sit down and they chat me up for half an hour in their drunken English. They offer me a whisky but I decline. It seems the men staying here are mostly unemployed Norwegians and Swedes who used to be merchant sailors. They remind me of the smoky, rough-edged men who inhabited the logging camps in the rain forests of British Columbia where I grew up. They are uncouth and uncultured – their conversation consisting mostly of drinking and finding whores – but they are generous with their food and drink.


The manager interrupts us to tell me my new room is ready. It is across the hall and down a couple doors. I gather my debris and move it over. The new room has a large window and plenty of light. It overlooks a busy street, filled with traffic and streetcars. I determine from the hotel business card that it must be rua Sao Paulo. On the far side of the street, a wall of coloured buildings four to six floors high are streaked with blackish mold, fed by the winter rains. Behind them rises the Barrio Alto covered with non-descript beige-coloured buildings. To the east, the street curves towards to the waterfront.

I open the window, lay out my wet clothes to dry and head out for a walk. I run into Johnny Solbratten in the lobby. He brings me with him down the street to his bank. The skies open up in a heavy shower just as we leave the bank. We dash into a local bar in the business district and order a drink to wait out the rain. When it stops he returns to the hotel and I go to the tourist information office to get a new map, the central post office to buy stamps for sending postcards to Canada. I have a coffee in a touristy café, and then return to the hotel along different streets to get a better understanding of the lay of the land.

After dinner I take another walk through the Bairro Alto to look for some of the gay bars that are supposed to be located a bit further north but I am getting the impression that the Spartacus Guide is sadly out of date. Most of the bars listed (Bric-a-bar, Memorial and Surf Bar) and some restaurants listed no longer exist, if they ever did.

However, I did find Xeque-Mate (pronounced “Check Mate”). It has a subtle facade with a doorbell and with the chess piece of a knight as its logo. Inside it was tiny and simply decorated. There’s a 3m square dance floor and a bar at the far end, surrounded by carpeted nooks with a few chairs and tables, all of them presently occupied.

It's a mixed crowd of men considerably older and younger than myself. At the bar, I chat with Peter, the proprietor, an older Englishman who moved to Portugal about 13 years ago. He tells me that this was the most ‘international’ gay bar in Lisbon, saying it as though it was some kind of code word. I look around to see what he meant – the clientele look like they might come from various countries. One of the younger ones smiles at me and I try to strike up a conversation but he only speaks Portuguese. I am able to get from him that his name is Luis and he is 22, but beyond that he becomes to shy to speak.

Harry, a retired man from Rotterdam, comes over to help me out. His Portuguese is broken but good enough to interpret my questions. Harry tells me he likes Luis but usually prefers much younger boys. I am a little taken aback by this, since Luis seems barely old enough to be seen in public with. After a short chat, I excuse myself by going to the bar to buy a drink.

I order my drink from Ricardo, out-going server at the bar who seems bored on this quiet Tuesday evening. His English is good and we chat for sometime. For a change of pace, I ask him if he’s like to dance. His demeanor changes completely and he looks over towards Peter nervously to see if he is watching us. Suddenly the penny drops and I get that he’s Peter’s property, his kept boy. Then it occurs to me that every couple in the bar is comprised of an older Dutch, English or German man and a young Portuguese boy in his late teens or slightly older. That’s what Peter meant by ‘international’ – a place where older, wealthier northern Europeans came to find poor, inexperienced Portuguese rent boys who wanted to be kept. I clearly don’t fit in here.

I excuse myself again, so not to bring heat on Ricardo, and I walk back towards Harry and Luis on my way to the door. When I stop to say good night, Luis grabs the bolo tie I am wearing and insists I give it to him, pleading, threatening and cajoling me alternately, all the while saying I can buy another one. I stop his hands from undressing me and I give Harry a puzzled look, hoping for an explanation. He just shrugs and turns away. Then Luis tries in the same way to have me give him my watch. I turn to Harry and ask outright what is going on. “He just wants to go home with you,” he tells me. Obviously, Luis has never gone home with a man without being paid in some way. “Tell him I want a man, not a monkey,” I say to Harry, but he has the decency not to translate. Luis is pouting fiercely.

I waste no more time in leaving. Luis makes one last attempt, grabbing the sleeve of my jacket at the door and saying, “Buy me beer!” “No,” I say, shaking my head slowly. His eyes are brimming with tears. I want to hug him but I don't dare.

Going home another route I pass a gay dance bar with men in their 20s and 30s lined up to get in. It looks like a regular club, not a pedophile-hustler bar, but I am getting tired and I’m in no mood to line up for half an hour.

PHOTO 1: Rua da Boavista, looking west from my window
PHOTO 2: Rua de Sao Paulo, looking NE, Bairro Alto behind
PHOTO 3: Lisbon streetcar, with stranger waving

20 years ago today – Day 2

March 5, arriving in Lisbon, 11 km

I’m here. That was relatively easy.

My duffel bag appears on the baggage carousel unharmed and unopened. I drag it to the special baggage area where I waited for my bike to appear. And it does appear, to my relief. It seems to be unscathed.

Lisbon airport is all on one level and in a single terminal, so homey after the hustle and confusion of Heathrow. It is easy to find a space off to the side to set up my bike. I tear off the tape and foam packaging and used my precious Allen key to reset the handlebars and reattach the pedals. I pump up the tires, load on the panniers and handlebar bag and bungee the sleeping roll and pad to the top of the rear rack. I stuff the packing debris into the duffel bag and drop it into the nearest garbage receptacle. Then I take out my Michelin Guide of Portugal to find the map of Lisbon.

Lisbon airport must have been built long ago because it is located only 8 km from the core. I walk out the front entrance like it is a hotel and there is the city of Lisbon stretched out in front of me. This is nothing like Toronto International. So this is how the magic begins…. I swing my right leg over my bike and push off into the traffic. Yes, they drive on the right side.

I follow the Av. Gago Coutinho, which maintains a fairly direct route right into the heart of downtown. On either side there are rocky outcroppings and bluffs with stately buildings here and there but the road itself stays quite flat. I want to look at everything around me but I have to keep an eye on the traffic. I am aiming for the tourist information office on Av. da Liberdade, where I will meet Mike at 9am Wednesday morning.

Av. da Liberdade is beautiful and is lined with tall palms – right on! The tourist office there has maps and I help myself to one. I find a nearby sidewalk café where I can watch my bike and I order a cappuccino. I am feeling so alive at the moment. It is so exciting to just sit back and soak in the street life and the blue sky and sunshine that has started to break through. The men here are generally handsome and well dressed.

I dig out my gay accommodation notes that I photocopied from the Spartacus Guide. There is apparently a gay B&B in the Bairro Alto, a district not far from here. When I finish my drink I head off in that direction as the daylight is starting to dim.

The streets on the map end before entering the Bairro Alto. I soon see why. It is on top of a steep bluff. Ah right, “alto” means “high”. I walk further south where the bluff is lower to find a street that climbs up the hill. It is too steep to ride up the uneven cobblestones so I walk, pushing my heavy bike and resting every few metres. A streetcar clamours up the narrow street so close to the building I am walking beside that it almost it almost rubs me out. My heart is pounding from exertion and the fright.

I am in the Bairro Alto now, but I am totally lost. The streets are narrow and close together, and there are no street signs on the corners. Apparently, they are only posted at either end of each street, several blocks apart. I try to ask directions from other pedestrians that I occasionally see but they don’t speak English. I go back and forth along the streets where I think the B&B should be, but there are no commercial signs anywhere.

It is dark now. It starts to spit rain, and then to rain harder. The houses which are built right next to the sidewalks have no eaves troughs and I cannot find any shelter. My map is soon soaked through and falling to pieces as I try to read it. I am frustrated and discouraged. I am willing to take any place now but I have no idea where to turn. By now I am soaked too. The rain has driven other pedestrians inside. It seems everyone has a place to go except me. I curse myself for having waited too close to dark to find a place for the night.

Suddenly out of nowhere there is an explosive crash, a sound so sharp and powerful that it leaves my ears ringing. My whole body is shaking. It takes me a few seconds to figure out that lightning has struck the roof of a three storey building across the street. That was the last straw. I want to get out of here.

I am rolling my bike down a street, hopefully leading out of the Bairro Alto. The rain has eased and I cross paths with a few more pedestrians, but again none of them are able to speak English or willing to hesitate in the rain long enough to help me. Finally I meet two young men in their early-to-mid 20s who seem concerned. They don’t speak English but one, a distractingly cute 23 year old named Stevres (SHTEV-rez), speaks French as pathetically as I do. I learn that they are police cadets, as fresh and eager as boy scouts. I tell them I need to find a cheap hotel and they lead me in a new direction to where I might find one.

They find one a couple blocks further along. Stevres stays with me as his partner runs upstairs. No luck. We try another one, and then another. My lack of sleep has caught up with me and I am ready to collapse. Finally they find a cheap, run-down eight floor hotel that has a room. I thank Stevres and his partner for their much appreciated help. I only wish I could keep Stevres with me instead of saying goodbye. They too are pleased that they have been able to help me and wish me well as they disappear into the night.

I have lost my sense of direction and have no idea where I am, but I don’t really care at this point. I lock my bike in the lobby and I follow the night clerk, struggling with my seven pieces of baggage, up three flights of stairs. The carpet is worn and I smell mold and cigarette smoke in the hallways. I am given a windowless internal room on the fourth floor, the only room available.

At the end of the hall I see a small group of middle aged men laughing noisily and playing cards. They are distracted from their game by my appearance briefly. They make a signal for me to come join them. I consider saying hello now that I am safe and indoors, but I am exhausted. There’s a small pool of rain water on the carpet where I have been standing, waiting while the clerk tries several keys. He finally opens the door and reaches for the light. It doesn’t work. He shrugs apologetically and hands me the key.

I peer inside and try the light switch again without success. There is a small table and a bed in the far corner, but no lamp. I leave the door open long enough to scatter my wet clothes and bags around the room in the hopes they might dry somewhat by morning. I close the door, feel my way over to the bed. I collapse gratefully, strip off the last of my wet clothes and work my way under the covers.


PHOTO 1: Av. da Liberdade
PHOTO 2: deserted street in the Bairro Alto at night

20 years ago today – Day 1

March 4 -Toronto to Lisbon

It has been a long flight from Toronto but I am holding up well. I am sitting with my carry on bag in a lounge in Heathrow airport waiting for my connection to Lisbon in two hours.

Yesterday I rode my bicycle to my parents place in Malton, which is next to Lester B Pearson (formerly Toronto International Airport), to test out how all the bags felt. Everything was fine. The weather was just above freezing and the roads were clear again. It took about an hour and a half from my house near Dundas and Broadview to reach Malton.

I spent last night and the following morning with my parents. Dad went to bed early, like he usually does on Sunday nights, and he was off to work shortly after I got up. Mom fawned over me the whole time I was there, asking if I was hungry, if I wanted food for the flight or if she could run to the store for any last minute item. If anything, she made me more anxious than less.

I called Mike too last night. Everything is ready on his end. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you in three days,” he surmised in an understated, optimistically cheery voice, his usual substitute for enthusiasm.

In the late afternoon, before it grew dark, I packed up the bike and rode to the airport to wait for my 9 pm flight to London. The access route into the airport was never intended to accommodate bicycles. Mom was worried about that and wanted to drive me there, but if I was going to criss-cross Europe I was prepared to cycle these first six km on my own. The traffic was a bit dicey but I made it safely to the departure level.

Inside I took my bags off, stuffed my handlebar bag into one of my front panniers for my carry on. My other rear pannier, both front panniers, my sleeping roll and pad went into a disposable cotton duffel bag, which comprised one of the two items I was allowed to check in. I checked it in first, then returned for my bike which I had locked up nearby. It was my second item.

Before I checked it into special baggage, I taped foam tubes meant for pipe insulation around the main parts of the frame, let half the air out of the tires so they wouldn’t explode in the de-pressurized baggage compartment, loosened the curl-down handlebars, turned them sideways and curled them around the cross-tube so that the front wheel could not turn more than a couple inches, taped the pump to the frame, removed the pedals and reattached them on the opposite side of the crank shanks so they extended inward towards the frame instead of away from it. These are the basic airport requirements I have had practice doing on previous trips.

In the past they have also asked me to put my bike into a box, but my touring bike is a few inches too long for a regular bike box and I had no way of carrying a box to the airport. As I have done in the past, I feigned irritation and told them the travel agent had said boxes would be available at the airport. Miscommunication on this issue is common and they eventually accepted my bike as it was.

On the flight, I was seated in the middle seat on one side. On my left was a young American woman, about 30, on her way to Moscow. She seemed intelligent and caring, but more interested in catching some sleep than chatting. On the other side was Ken, formerly university professor of business administration at McMaster University in Hamilton. He is retired at 52 now, enjoying life at his home near Long Point on Lake Erie bird watching and carving wood.

He talked for a while about lifestyles and life choices and came around to talking about his marriages. His second wife was his greatest relationship. His emotions were close to the surface as he shared that she died of cancer ten years ago. His doctor and best friend helped end her suffering sooner by giving her an overdose of morphine, which at the time he knew would be best but which he has always regretted for shortening his time with her. He admitted he hadn’t gotten over her and hoped he never would.

He shares his house and life with a new partner now, a woman ten years younger. She knows she is sharing the house with his wife’s ghost but she doesn’t mind, and he needs the companionship even if their relationship never reaches the same level of commitment. So, only a couple hours into my trip I have met my first really interesting person.

Ken’s stories haunted me for the rest of the flight. I half dozed for the last couple hours, waking from time to time, each time surprised that being on an airplane was not part of my dream. When I was awake I kept my eyes closed. It was still dark and I didn’t want to talk. I folded my arms across my lap and, with the fingers of my right hand, felt the hardness of the Allen key in my left pocket, the tool I needed to reassemble my bike. I traced its outline with my right forefinger like a religious ritual, as it was the key to my future.

I am really in London now, surreal as that seems since I can’t see any of it. I expected I would need to collect my duffel bag and bike here in Heathrow and carry them over to another terminal but I have been assured that the airline will do it for me. I am a little uneasy about that. From last experience I have learned that special baggage is sometimes forgotten or loaded on the wrong flight. I have had to wait a couple days for my bike on other trips so I am hoping it will work right this time. If not, I have a day and a half to wait before Mike arrives anyway. That should be enough.


PHOTO: Me, March 3, 1991

20 years ago to day - the launch

It occurred to me six weeks ago that the 20th anniversary of the start of my 49-week bicycle trip from Portugal to India through 24 countries, March 1991 to Feb 1992, began 20 years ago tomorrow. It also occurs to me that very few of my current friends knew me before I became disabled with muscular dystrophy, when I was much more of a jock than most of my friends, though a rather scrawny one at that.

Since my return to Canada on Valentine's Day 1992, I have never opened and read my diary I wrote during the trip, but the memories of the events of that trip still fill my mind. So many things happened that challenged my world view and threatened my life that it boggles my mind when I think of it. If I tried to compile a list of the 10 most incredible things that have happened to me in my life, at am sure seven or eight of them happened on this trip. Fortunately I knew nothing of what would unfold or I am sure I would not have gone. Even my muscular dystrophy, which now defines how most people see me, really got going as a result of this trip, although I believe it would have happened eventually anyway. My journal entries trigger more memories and show me how much I have changed, both for the better and worse, in the past 20 years.

For the past 6 weeks I have pored over my journals and notebooks and scanned in the pictures I took along the way. It has been a very exciting exercise. I have already written the first 55 days that will be posted over the next eight weeks, and will continue to write ahead of time as I go. I have never shared so much of myself publicly before, always believing that what happened to me would be if no relevance to others. Perhaps that is still so, but I am doing this more for me than anyone else, to honour what I once was and what I accomplished.

I hope to follow along through its many twists and turns. I hope you enjoy it. Please post comments if you feel so inclined. See you tomorrow.....