The station manager opens our exchange by offering to buy my bike. I explain that without a bike my life wouldn’t actually function and that it wasn’t really just a bike but also my companion and friend. He looks at me searchingly and then nods, in apparent comprehension.

The inevitable question.

“Where are you from?”

When he learns I am, originally, from Australia the man bustles me into a air-conditioned room filled, unexpectedly, with brand new sleek black electronic equipment to watch a DVD about an environmental programme he is running which features images of Sydney, where a similar campaign took place. We settle in to watch the film but the previously unnoticed background rumble of a generator suddenly dies and a plaintive beeping starts up from the bank of electronic equipment. The man jumps up and glares balefully out the window at a man walking away from a ramshackle shed in a field across the road. He apologises and turns off the computer.

“This is the third time I’ve tried to watch it,” he says sadly.

We return to the room across the hallway and he shows me images of the local wildlife and asks me about my trip. When he learns that I have an interest in photography he guides me back into the other room to show me the framed photos he and his workmates have taken of the Peninsula’s fauna which adorn the walls. I question him about what kind of camera he uses.

“I had a Cannon. It was a gift… but I sold it.”

He sighs.

“Life is very expensive.”

We talk more about what the park offers and where I might be able to camp and how to organise meals. He invites me to take part in any walks or excursions with any other tourists that might organise a tour with a guide and then he questions me again about Australia.

“I would love to go to Australia.”

He pauses.

“I was invited to go to Queensland last year,” he tells me.

“Did you go?”

It is a question that I know I probably shouldn’t ask – that I already know the inevitable answer to.

He sighs, again.

“No… Life is difficult.”

We bid each other goodbye and I cycle the twenty kilometres or so to the end of the road towards the east of the bay and then backtrack to the most attractive camp site where, after a brief exploration of the limpid blue waters with my snorkel, I light a fire and cook a meal from the food stash in my panniers.

The Caribbean blues on the Gunahabibicanes Peninsula.

Close to my campsite, yet another Che memorial. It is hard not to love Che; studying a book of photos of him at the airport I discover the ubiquitous photo of his stern face is almost the only one of him that exists where he is not smiling or laughing.

In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast on the beach, I return to the ecological station to talk to my new friend. He tells me some tourists have booked a tour in the afternoon and I can join them if I want and directs me in the meantime on a short walk through the forest behind the Ecological Station.

Trees grow out of an astonishing jagged bed of rocks, inhabited by swarms of large brightly painted crabs. The day is grey and blustery and soon it starts to rain. I shelter under a tree lost in my thoughts when I hear a gentle croak above – glancing around a spy a blue bird, splashed with red and white, with a long ruffled tail, also sheltering from the rain. The bird rearranges its feathers and flaps its wings to display its bright red underside to me before flying to another branch a little further away. We examine each other at length before I turn back and return the way I came. As I walk along the path large brown birds thrash about the forest with unrestrained cries.

Cuba's most prolific wildlife is a multitude of land crabs.

Bird filled forest.

At the station, my friend jumps up from his work to greet me. He tells me the names of the birds I have seen – the Cuban trogon and the Great Lizard Mockingbird – and gives an astonishing accurate rendition of their cries. I examine his bird book and he apologises for not being able to give it to me.

The group, unfortunately, have cancelled their tour because of the rain, he informs me. A mini tropical storm is heading our way and so the weather is going to continue to deteriorate over the afternoon.

I am disappointed that my guided tour has suddenly evaporated – it is not permitted to walk in the park without a guide and I would feel bad to ignore the rules since this man has been so generous to me – but my friend tells me that groups of biology students are camped on various beach towards the west end of the cape conducting a survey of nesting turtles and I could, if I wished, camp with them and see their work.

As I set off on this venture, rain pours down accompanied by fierce winds but I find the conditions quite invigorating after days of intense humid heat and the weather suits the wild terrain of the coast.

Austere landscape...

... and wild coast goes well with wild, windy weather.

After a couple of hours, I come to a camp on the beach close to the road and wheel my bike across the sand to investigate. The two young men standing in an open sided thatched shelter are surprised by my appearance. A bundled form recumbent in a hammock suggests a third inhabitant of the camp.

I ask if I can stay but the boys are wary, muttering non-committal nothings and defer ultimate decision making to the sleeping form. I mention the man at the Ecological Station’s name but it seems to mean nothing to them. However, they invite me to sit down, referring to the inclement weather, and offer me a cracker adorned with the surprising combination of guava paste and mayonnaise. An old man, toothless and gnarled, who has lived on the beach for 15 years in a nearby small thatched shelter, comes by to examine the unexpected guest. Eventually, the girl in the hammock arises and again I ask if I can stay.

“If you would like to….,” she says uncertainly.

That’s good enough for me.

I put up my tent next to one that lies collapsed on the ground which the three young people then tend to. Accommodation sorted, we all return to the shelter where we pass the rest of the afternoon playing dominoes.

Biology students studying turtles pass the day sleeping and playing dominoes.

I am initiated into the game - the concept is simple but it helps to have a good memory, not something I am particularly blessed with. I have a surprising run of wins but I think I am aided more by good luck than skill.

As dusk falls I take a nap to prepare for a night of scouring the beach for turtles and wake to a meal of rice and canned meat waiting for me. My contribution of Quaker museli bars for desert is carefully perused and commented upon.

“Where did you buy these?”

“Mexico.”

They are impressed and their thanks are embarrassingly earnest.

After dinner the girl examines my hands and gets out a primitive first aid kit to scrub out my infected cuts with alcohol and dress them with ragged bits of gauze and tape. One of the boys wraps up some spare gauze in a scrap of paper and insists that I pack it in my pannier.

We sit talking by the light of a smokey kerosene lamp.

Towards midnight we take turns to walk the beach watching for the marks made by female turtles dragging themselves up the beach to make their nests. I sit with one of the boys on the damp sand under the unknown stars and he tells me the dreams he has for his future. We pace the beach again and again and finally, I go to my tent to sleep. The boy says he will wake me if any turtles appear on the beach.

I wake at dawn and return to the beach to investigate the nest sites.

The view from my tent.

The beach at dawn.

Turtle nests...

... are carefully marked. Sadly, no turtles visited the beach the night I camped here.

The turtle camp.

I pack up my belongings and when they emerge from their tent, bid a very fond farewells to the biology students and set off to reach the westernmost point of Cuba.

The marina on the western most point of Cuban - closer to Cancun than Havana.

Always hungry for fish, at the marina I sidle up to a fishing boat and am lucky enough to end up, before long, with freshly caught fish served up to me, fried crisp and brown. with a few wedges of lime.

Cleaning a fish, that minutes later is before me on a plate.

An impressive fish.

I backtrack to the hotel on the beach at Las Tumlas where a chat to a Dutch couple brings the very welcome gift of a tube of Bettadine ointment. I spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on a squatted lounge chair under the shady trees on the beach availing myself of the fresh water showers and other comforts.

It is four-thirty before I set off to cover the 55 odd kilometres back to La Bajada where I intend to get something to eat before finding another campsite on the beach. Favourable winds speed me along but iguanas soaking up the last of the sun’s rays and families of jutias, a large indigenous rat, playing by the road provide adequate distractions to slow my pace.

When I arrive in La Bajada the sun is already resting on the horizon and the lovely women who cook for me have little trouble in convincing me to stay for the night.

Casa! A welcome break from camping where I can wash myself and my clothes and generally make myself a little more socially acceptable.

Excellent interior decorating.

When I finally do get my hands on a map I find that, while there are indeed a few tracks wandering off the main thoroughfares, few of them link up. However, I nonetheless manage to spy out a route that might work – the only issue being a river around the halfway mark that is going to need crossing somehow. I am discussing these route options with an ex-pat American who is overall quite doubtful about my plan but gives me what turns out to be a lucky camping tip; down the highway towards the Belize Zoo are a couple of bar/restaurants that he feels sure will let me camp out the back.

The first of these establishments, which I approach at dusk, gives me a rapid brush off but the second, run by a Hungarian whose overarching philosophy is stated as ‘anyone can do whatever they want here’, is much more welcoming. So, after my tent is set up at the back of the Hungarian’s house, I find myself downing a couple of beers at the bar with an eclectic Caribbean crowd during an extended happy hour chatting to an US archeology PhD student doing some research at a local site. One of the men, clearly a regular, gets up to leave as the happy hour finally draws to a close and the girl I am talking to suggests that I ask him for advice about the roads.

After I explain my potential route to the man, he abandons his plans to leave the bar and spends the next hour making phone calls, trying to track down someone on the farm that the road passes through who can help me negotiate the problematic river crossing. After failing to get a definitive answer, Bruce gives me directions to his house and tells me to drop by in the morning, any time after 6AM, to follow up on the matter.

So the next day, I arrive at Bruce’s house at about 6.30 and, after he has fried me some eggs and made the coffee, the phone rings and the manager of Big Falls farm is on the line promising that someone will be waiting for me at the river to ferry me to the other side. You’ve got to love a small country!

Escaping the highway is not so easy in Belize. Most roads that aren't the three main highways of Belize are private roads. This one runs through a cattle ranch called Big Falls. A chance encounter in a bar gave me the contact I needed to negoitate the river at the end of the road and the right name to drop to the people who accousted me en route to tell me that I was on private land.

Three men are waiting at the river with a canoe help me to negotiate the crossing.

Once across the river, I am faced with having to navigate a confusing tangle of tracks aided only by a few place names: Rancho Dolares, Hill Bank, Indian Church, Lamanai. I am not helped by the fact that mostly I don’t actually know what any of these names is referring to – a village, a farm, a reserve, an archeological site… I have no idea.

The people I make enquiries to are clearly dismayed by the urge to travel. “That’s not in this area!,” they exclaim, while making vague serpentine gestures with their hands to describe the way. One woman tells me that I can’t go to Hillbank because it is a long way and there is nothing there but wild pigs but a group of old men sitting under a shady tree at an intersection tell me that Hillbank is a ‘big tourist place’ where, obviously, as an apparent gringa, I will be welcomed. However, neither of these snippets of information contains very much truth.

Hillbank, it transpires, is a privately owned, protected wildness area that borders the Rio Azul area in Guatemala – it is, in fact, where I would have ended up if I had managed to cross the border at Tres Banderas. Three rangers are hanging out at their post at the barrier which controls access to the area and they ask me if I am expected. I want to give them the right answer so I hedge a little.

“Should I be?”

“Well, yes…”

After I admit that I am not expected, the guy who appears to be in charge radios to some higher authority and then opens the gate. Once I am inside he is much more friendly: he sends me to the water tank to replenish my drinking water, gives me a handful of tiny yellow mangos and then invites me onto the verandah to rest a while. When he see me get out some fairly meagre rations from my food pannier he asks me if I would like to try some of the ranger’s lunch-time fare of chicken, beans and rice.

Three park rangers control access to Hillbank, a protected wilderness area that borders the Rio Azul protected area in Guatemala. I am close to Tres Banderas.

They introduce me to one of three endangered yellow-headed parrots rescued from poachers and now undergoing rehabilitation so that it can return to the wild.

And feed me a fine lunch of rice, beans and chicken.

Eventually, well-fed and rested, I set off again across the savannah, a hot sandy place under the mid-afternoon sun, and struggle towards Hillbank, still unsure exactly what I am going to find there but hoping that it will prove to be a place where I can camp and possibly eat.

Riding on the through the savannah - a hot and sandy business.

I have left the savannah behind me and have re-entered the jungle when I see a couple walking towards me dressed in khaki jungle gear, rubber boots and sensible hats. I guess they think I look kind of strange, too, on my bike. I stop and we exchange particulars – they are ornithologists stationed at Hillbank conducting a comparative study on different swallow species. The objects of their current interest are mangrove swallows.

I ask them if I can camp at Hillbank and they look unsure.

“Well, you can ask.”

They don’t sound very convinced.

I ride off and it is not long before I arrive at a clearing dotted with wooden buildings overlooking a lagoon and, after some dicey negotiation, receive rather grudging permission to stay a night.

Nat and Katy, the ornithologists, return from their walk and, with greater enthusiasm than the management evinced, invite me to the mess hall for an illicit dinner and, more excitingly, to accompany them the next day on their rounds of the swallow’s nests.

The lagoon at Hillbank... with the nesting boxes.

Nat and Katy checking out their babies.

Six day old mangrove swallow chicks.

The chicks are exhaustively measured...

...and even have their nails painted.

Then we stake out the box, having wired it to trap papa swallow...

...a wily bird...

...who nonetheless eventually falls victim to Nat and Katy's evil designs and has his blood taken...

...and vital statistics recorded.

A dragonfly freshly emerged from its shell - still damp and wrinkled, drying in the sun..

It is late in the season and so most of the birds have already flown the nest and the days work is over quite quickly. In the afternoon, after Nat has managed to secure me another night’s camping at Hillbank, we go for a walk which ends in a refreshing snorkelling adventure in a small mangrove lined stream.

Afternoon sees the three of us relaxing on the verandah... (Photo: Nat)

...before a walk which culminates in a swim in a crystal clear mangrove lined creek.

Cool water is heaven.

The next morning, early, before I completely wear out my dubious welcome with the authorities at Hillbank, I set off again.

Packed up and ready to leave at dawn.

Deep black water.

One of my reluctant hosts at Hillbank has drawn me a very detailed and beautiful map to speed me on my way to the border that sadly proves, at the very first intersection, to be utterly useless. I pass through Mennonite communities and ask for directions where I can always receiving elaborate instructions with a myriad of very specific references to local landmarks, accompanied by a fluid wave of a hand that indicates any number of potential twists and turns. All in all, it combines to form a overwhelming fog of hazy information and a number of times I have to resort to my compass to make a reasonably informed decision about the way.

Nat and Katy have informed me that I need $37.50 Belizian dollars to leave the country and this leaves me with exactly $2 Belizian dollars at my disposal unless I happen to find an ATM before I reach the border – which is pretty unlikely – so, with my almost empty food pannier, it’s looking like a hungry day. Things look even bleaker when I discover that I can’t cross the border at the customs post at Blue Creek and not only have I ridden 15 kilometres out of my way but I have to ride an extra sixty kilometres through Orange Walk and up to Santa Elena.

However, I am saved from starvation by a lovely girl called Ingrid in San Felipe. I have been told she sells tamales and when this turns out to be misinformation I clearly look very crestfallen. She tells me to wait, runs to the kitchen, and then returns asking if I would like fried chicken and beans.

I can’t refuse this offer even though it’s probably going to break my budget and leave me in trouble at the border.

She invites me into her house and sits me at the kitchen table where she serves me a generous helping of chicken and frijoles accompanied by a stack of tortillas and a big glass of watermelon juice. After I have polished off the first helping she refills the bowl with beans and then, when I have finished them, she opens a packet of sweet biscuits – an item she surely keeps for special occasions – and gives me a pile.

We chat about our lives as she continues with her domestic tasks, cutting vegetables at a bench with her 8 month old baby daughter scooting around her feet on a walker with wheels. Eventually I get up to leave, asking how much for the meal, but she waves any suggestion of payment aside dismissively and insists that I must come back to visit again the next time I pass through Belize.

Unless I come across an ATM, I have two Belizian dollars to see me to the border so abundant mangoes by the side of the road are very welcome.

The Belizians are not much into signage, it seems. This is one of about four road signs I saw passing through the country. I particularly like its sense of perspective.

And the sun goes down at the end of the day... cloud, mist and smoke making for an atmospheric scene.

I pass a rough building constructed of wide weathered grey wooden boards. The shack is set in a muddy yard in which chickens, turkeys, and dogs wander, each in their own fashion. A group of people are near the road, an old man standing, an old woman seated beside him, and two small children.

The man hails me as I pass and so I stop. “Where are you going?” I have no real answer to this question and so I gesture vaguely down the road. “Somewhere close?” he queries. He is clearly concerned by the approach of darkness.

I hesitate and then tell him I am looking for somewhere to camp. He, on the other hand doesn’t hesitate for a second.

“Would you like to stay here?”

I look at the bleak mud yard and the field behind the house and nod without much conviction. The man turns to his wife, who seems somewhat less sure that a impromptu visitor is a good idea. I explain that all I need is somewhere to put up my tent and that I have everything that I need with me but casting my eyes over the muddy animal infested yard again I also have my doubts. However, after a brief discussion it is agreed and I push my bike off the road and lean it against the shack. I stand uncertainly near the bike watching the couple who remain by the road.

The man I saw earlier in the field joins the group and the old man explains the situation. The younger man hawks and spits on the ground. He also seems nonplussed by the presence of a foreign visitor on a bicycle. I join them by the road and he questions me exhaustively about where I have come from. He particularly wants to know where I stayed last night and I cannot oblige him by telling him the exact location of the anonymous field I slept in.

Eventually we move closer to the house and the children fetch moulded plastic chairs for me and the two men to sit on in the middle of the yard in the gathering night. We are in the midst of a swarm of flying insects that slip and burrow under items of clothing, wiggling and tickling. The chickens run frantically under foot pecking at these insects while we all study my map; the men indignant at its inaccuracies and omissions.

As it gets even darker the children, a five year old girl and a six year old boy, are directed to put the chickens into their pen for the night and they run after them grabbing at a wing, a leg, a neck and flinging the squawking, protesting, birds carelessly over the fence.

I go to set up my tent but the old man leads me to the house and shows me inside. The door opens onto a dark windowless space, a pile of corn cobs occupies the dirt floor, sacks and implements for cultivation lean against the walls. I should sleep inside, they will hang up a hammock for me, they have a spare one. OK. I agree.

We move to the kitchen – an open thatched structure with a packed dirt floor. He shows me a pot of beans and presents me with two eggs. Cook them how you like them. He points out a basket containing a tomato and an onion. I accept the eggs – there seems to be plenty of chickens.

The boy attempts to stoke up the fire, adding a couple of bits of wood and blowing furiously but the it merely smokes and smoulders. The dogs and some chickens are still underfoot. A tiny kitten, too, mewing piteously.

After watching the boy struggling futilely with the fire for some time the old woman adds a couple of dry corn cobs, pours on some liquid from an unmarked bottle and flames leap up. I scramble the eggs by the light of my head lamp, heat some beans and toast a couple of tortillas and then sit at a table to eat. The woman stands at the other end of the kitchen grinding corn in the dark. The boy runs to and fro on errands with a torch.

I have finished eating when the men join me at the table. The woman brings a crude kerosene lamp to us – a single smoking uncovered flame that casts a small dull orange pool of light. The woman brings tamales and the old man offers me one – I refuse it embarrassed to be taking food out of his mouth. He breaks it in half and presses it on me. I eat.

Tamales finished, the woman brings plates of beans and eggs and tortillas to the men. They talk to me in Spanish – asking questions about my bicycle, about Australia, about my life – but the language they use amongst themselves is unintelligible to me. I do not see the children or the woman eat.

The men examine my head torch at length and I wish, desperately, that I had a spare one to leave with them.

Eating done, it is time to rest: they have decided that I will sleep in the same room as them – the second room in the shack – there are two hammock slung across the middle of the room and two double beds, one on either side of the door. Clothes hang from sticks suspended from the beams overhead that support the tin roof. A gap between the top of the wall and the roof provides ventilation.

The men insist I try both hammocks and the choose the one I find most comfortable. My choice made, I fetch my water bottle, head lamp and a cover and slide into the hammock. The younger man swings in the hammock beside me and asks me the names of various things in English: dog, sister, brother, cow, horse. The old people and the children bed down but the patter of rain on the tin roof has everyone leaping up again.

I remain in my hammock and the family eventually returns with a crate of young chicks which is placed under my hammock, where they peep and scrabble through the night. The young man slides back into his hammock next to me and hawks and spits onto the dirt floor.

The hammock is wide and comfortable and I sleep well enough, waking only once during the night when the old man leaps from his bed alert to the barking of one of the dogs.

It is still totally black when the rooster crows – loud enough for me to suspect that it is in the room with the rest of us. I try to sleep some more but the old man turns on the radio – spluttering and crackling – and the two men converse in the dark room. In the pitch black space they arise with only the occasional flash of torch light to assist them. The beam of light passes across my face from time to time. The two children get up also and then, finally, the old woman. The gap between the wall and the roof has still not lightened at all when I tumble out of my hammock and grope for my head torch.

Outside the men are saddling horses. Chickens and dogs are underfoot. The men bid me goodbye, gravely shaking my hand and insisting that their home is my home and I must, of course, stop by when I pass by that way again. Then they ride into the darkness.

The old man, his son and six year old grandson set off to work in the field before the sun has risen...

... while the old woman and the little girl stay behind to tend to the housework.

We woman are left alone and as the sun rises I also go to make my leave but the woman insists that I eat before I go. She lights the fire and is busy around it.

The little girl talks to me. She is shy but insistent – if my attention drifts at all she prods and pokes me and continues to test my grasp of Spanish with urgent whispered mutterings.

Lorena.

Lighting the kitchen fire.

Dogs, chickens and cats underfoot.

The old woman calls me to the table and the girl follows to study me eating. The plate is beans, eggs and tortillas again – and I couldn’t ask for a better breakfast.

..

There is a secret here, in this house, that eludes me, but I feel the need to understand.

Sun rising.

I get on my bike and ride away totally humbled by these people.

Orchids in the forest. One of the joys of an outside 'bathroom' is the opportunity it affords to study some of the details in nature.

Michoacan is a mountainous place and most of the next day is spent climbing before the terrain flattens out and I start to wind my way on a quiet road through a valley inhabited by numerous small indigenous communities. The locals – mostly groups of woman, in colourful skirts and full petticoats, seated on the ground outside their houses around piles of corn cobs – are nonplussed by my appearance. A couple of women that I ask for directions in a small shop ask me, somewhat indignantly, what I am looking for here.

I pass an elaborate road side shrine just before I round a sharp corner to be confronted by the aftermath of an apparently fatal car accident. I often wonder if the purpose of the ubiquitous roadside shrines is to implore the saints for safe passage on the chaotic Mexican roads.

After I rejoin the highway towards Toluca the population density increases dramatically and there is almost continuous settlement beside the road. With opportunities for wild camping non-existent, eventually, well after dark, I stop at a village shop to ask for permission to camp somewhere.

The shop keeper is not particularly helpful but a customer – a woman accompanied by her daughter – is quick to invite me to her house where she introduces me to her father and, after hesitating only long enough to confirm that I am alone, he welcomes me warmly into the family home where I am well-fed and cared for.

Ruth, my rescuer, proves, despite the lack of a formal education, to be an extremely intelligent and well-informed woman and we discuss Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels and the state of the world before retiring to a communal bedroom containing three giant beds. I am given a bed to myself, while Ruth and several children share another.

In the morning, Ruth prepares food for her son to take to school with him.

The family matriarch.

The view from the backyard towards the village.

I set off in the morning and Nevado de Toluca, an extinct volcano, which I have been glimpsing occasionally as I descended the mountain range, suddenly looms up unobstructed beside the highway. Before long I arrive in Toluca, a city of around half a million inhabitants, that is fast becoming little more than a satellite of the sprawling metropolis of Mexico City.

Nevado de Toluca, an extinct volcano, at 4700 metres, dominates the local landscape.

Mexico City is one of the biggest cities in the world and the idea of cycling into it is just a little daunting. In fact, most people have told me that I am insane to take my bike to Mexico City but since cycling is how I travel and Mexico City is where I am going it still seems like the most logical thing for me to do. However, I do feel this is an instance where some forethought won’t go astray and I intend to stay in Toluca for the night to finalise my plans for entering the city.

While still in Zitacuaro, I contacted a number of cycling activist groups in Mexico City in the hope that someone might be willing to meet me on the outskirts of the city and act as a guide and after a few last minute phone calls, the arrangements are finalised – I will meet Marco at La Marquesa, a park between Toluca and Mexico City, the following day at 3pm.

After a leisurely breakfast, I leave Toluca, and arrive at the meeting point not long after midday so I while a few hours away with my my computer. Marco appears at the appointed time and we are soon heading towards the centre of the metropolis. The ride is pretty uneventful but I am nonetheless very glad to have a guide so that I can concentrate on the traffic without having to worry about finding my way.

Approaching Mexico City: smog and volcanos.

Welcome to Mexico City.

As it turns out San Miguel has a huge expatiate community and is more commonly known as Gringolandia. It is a town that was popular with the beatniks in the 60s – William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey all frequented its bars and Neal Cassady died on the railway tracks between here and Celaya after a party – but now it is home to a large quantity of well-heeled foreign retirees.

San Miguel de Allende is UNESCO listed and is very pretty and well preserved.

The door to nowhere.

San Miguel is the favoured winter home of all sorts of retirees. They line up to soak up the sun in the plaza and are known to the Mexican locals as "The Mummies." (The reference is to a popular museum that houses a collection of preserved bodies in the neighbouring town of Guanajuato.)

My gracious host is an ex-BBC presenter and veteran globe trotter who lives at the very top of the very steep hill overlooking the town. I haul my bike up the narrow cobbled streets, getting lost despite detailed directions, and finally arriving as the sun is setting.

When Ray learns it is my birthday he generously treats to a dinner at a much classier fish restaurant than I am accustomed to where I meet a few of the ‘locals’ – among them a buxom Texan blonde in a hot pink velour track suit and matching pink hair ribbon and a middle-aged pig-tailed Shambala Buddhist who act like I am a superstar when they hear of my bicycle wanderings. The restaurant staff come to the party with a complimentary desert complete with a candle and birthday wishes dubiously spelt out in chocolate sauce.

The next day I explore the town a bit. The influence of the expatriate community is evident in cafes and food shops, many of which wouldn’t be at all out place on the coast of California. I lunch with Ray at an organic cafe that serves an excellent hummous plate and stock up on organic coffee and herbs, feeling like I have slipped through a rent in the time/space continuum and found myself back in San Francisco.

An organic cafe and food store which wouldn't be at all out of place on the Californian coast somewhere...

Organic veggies... certainly not a bad thing but I don't think many locals are shopping here.

More gringolandia style.

Ray is a a knowledgeable traveller who has seen most of the world and so we pass the day happily chatting about various adventures. After a sunset walk in the local botanic garden – a cactus wonderland where we spot a grey fox ducking into the spiny thickets – Ray cooks me another fine meal.

Sunset in the botanic gardens on the hill above San Miguel.

The following day, I set off to Queretaro, the capital city of the neighbouring state where I need to buy some more SCT maps for the next stage of my trip into Michoacan and the state of Mexico.

Bidding goodbye to Ray - my extremely gracious host in San Miguel.

I arrive at El Divisadero mid-afternoon chilled to the bone and extremely hungry. El Divisadero, at 2750 metres, is a famous lookout over the Copper Canyon complex. Copper Canyon, as it happens, is not one, but many, canyons which cover a huge area in the state of Chichuahua and three of the canyons meet at this point. The sight-seeing train stops at El Divisadero and at this time the place, no doubt, is hopping but when I arrive alone on my bike in the middle of a storm only a few miserable Tarahumara huddled under colourful blankets with their handcrafts in front of the posh hotel next to the lookout are in evidence. The taco stalls that surround the station seem all but abandoned.

I lean my bike against the wire fence of the lookout next to the hotel and try to find somewhere out of the driving wind and rain to study my map and take stock of the situation. A man coming out of the building stops to ask me how my trip has been. A terse “Cold and wet!,” is all that I have to the energy to muster but as he turns away I realise he could be a valuable source of information and I question him about the availability of food. The man directs me to a small store above the station which has a fine selection of sweet things and not much else. I stock up as best I can.

As I stand trying, ineffectually, to shelter from the wind next to the store, eating tortillas and candy bars and feeling rather sorry for myself, a group of six heavily armed uniformed security personnel walk up the steps from the station. Half of them stop to pose for me as I get out my camera.

Heavily armed security personnel - I don't know if these guys are police, army or private security but they look quite menacing to me. The state of Chihuahua currently contains some of the most violent places on the planet.

I wander back to the lookout and consider my options; continuing in the sleet and rain is an unappealing prospect and a cup of coffee seems called for. The hotel beside the lookout is a little intimidating but summoning up my courage, I step over the Tarahumara women still sheltering under their colourful blankets by the door and enter.

The man I spoke to earlier, who I took to be a tourist, walks out of the office and greets me. I ask him if there is somewhere I can sit for a while and he directs me to the lounge area which boasts gigantic windows with panoramic view of the canyons. I fall into a comfy armchair as close to the heater as I can manage and take off my sodden, unwaterproof raincoat. My down sweater is also soaked and, therefore, almost useless.

A woodpecker viewed from the comfortable lounge of an expensive hotel with panoramic views of El Divisadero.

A Christmas tree reminds me of the immediate proximity of Christmas.

A man approaches and asks me, in Spanish, if I would like a coffee. Of course, I would.

He brings me a polystyrene cup full of very welcome hot liquid. He returns again and offers a refill and then asks if I would like something to eat. I confess to not having the budget for eating in such a posh establisment but he shrugs and says it doesn’t matter.

Before long, he returns with a bowl of lentil soup. It is very good.

Next he brings me a bowl of chicken stew and sits in the armchair opposite me while I eat and so I tell him about as much of my journey as I can manage in Spanish. He is clearly impressed by the fact I have ridden around 10 000 kilometres from Alaska and points me out to the guests passing through the lounge. Various people, all Mexican tourists, come to question me about my trip and I answer as best I can in a mixture of Spanish and English. For a second or two I entertain the idea of asking how much it would cost to spend the night here but eventually I prise myself out of the warm and comfortable surroundings and head outside fortified by food and admiration.

The weather is slightly better and a few rainbow patches shimmer over the rocky vista in front of me. I get on my bike and return to the highway.

A little sunshine mixed in with rain...

... make for fragments of rainbow.

I ride forty kilometres to the dismal hamlet of San Rafael where, for the first time, I am refused water when I ask for it. People stare at me coldly and as dusk is approaching I want to put some distance between me and the town. The paved road ends here and I ride a couple of kilometres on slippery mud before pulling off the side of the road to find a place to camp.

Various trails run through the forest and litter is scattered carelessly on either side. I eventually find a reasonable clean spot and gather sodden ice encrusted wood with the hope of building fire big enough to warm me for the evening. Snow still dusts the ground and I am beginning to feel that it is possible that I may experience a white Christmas in Mexico. The fire is reluctant to start and I use almost all the fuel for my alcohol stove getting the wet wood to smoulder half-heartedly.

In the morning, I light another fire ad take some time to dry my tent and sleeping bag before setting off again.

A reluctant fire in the snowy woods. Somehow, this is not really how I envisaged Mexico.

Cold camp in the morning - sleeping bag hanging to thaw the ice crystal that form on it during the night.

My map, somewhat confusingly, indicates two possible approaches to Urique. One appears significantly shorter than the other but the turn-off seems to be close to San Rafael and I decide to back track a little to be sure I haven’t missed it. I stop to question people passing on the road but they have no idea what I am talking about and look bemusedly at my map. As far as they are concerned there is only one way to Urique so I give up and continue on the muddy road in the direction I have been travelling. I pass some road works and head downhill where the road surface degenerates into a muddy soupy mess which gathers on my wheels and clogs my mud-guards until forward motion is impossible.

Incapacitated, I wait to see what will happen next. Several vehicles pass but they don’t react to my predicament. Eventually I flag down a truck and explain my problem as best I can. The men lift my bike onto the back of the truck and drive me a kilometre or so to the top of the hill where the road divides and indicate the route to Urique while they continue on the other road. I get out my tools and remove my mud-guards but still can’t manage to push my bike through the mud.

Incapacitated by mud.

I stand by the road unsuccessfully trying to hitch a lift until the same truck unexpectedly returns. The men tell me they will drive me to where the road starts to descend into the canyon. They reload my bike on the tray and we drive a few kilometres over muddy road before stopping to unload my bike again. Thankfully, the road surface seems navigable here.

As I thank the men and remount my bike, one of them asks if I will marry him. I refuse this proposal as politely as I can before setting off down the hill.

My rescuers from the mud situation.

Luckily, I have been set up with the perfect contact. Josh runs an online business which supplies cyclists, and especially touring cyclists, with all sorts of things they need – trailers, panniers, lights, fastenings. Josh, and his girlfriend Melanie, have offered me a bed in their spare room and Josh has all sorts of bike related information and advice to sort out me and my bike.

Josh and Melanie treat me to dinner and make me very comfortable in their house.

On Josh’s recommendation, I go to AZ Bikes where Bryce, the owner, sells me the parts that I need to fix my bike and, very kindly, lets me use his workshop to do the work myself, under his expert supervision.

Replacing the rings. The middle one is worn and the smaller one bent.

My bike, on the stand at AZ Bikes.

The bit that hurts - paying for the parts - but Bryce very generously didn't charge anything for the time he spent helping me.

After a couple of very satisfactory days in Flagstaff, Josh and Melanie guide me out of town on their tandem, undeterred by the icy wind.

Josh and Melanie on their tandem.

It is still raining and icy cold. I have a huge hankering for pancakes and I need to restock my food pannier. Tusayan is big enough to fulfill both these needs and, on arrival, I head straight for the first café that I see to order a stack of pancakes. With wi-fi an added café bonus, I check the weather and discover that snow and night time temperatures of -9 to -12 Celsius are predicted over the next five days. I linger in the café for as long as I can and then move on to the general store.

The produce is limited and overpriced but I grab what I can. I have spread my purchases out on the ground to organise and pack them into my pannier when a girl passes by.

“Are you camping out in this weather?” she asks.

“Yes!” I reply.

“You can come and stay at my house,” she offers.

I look up from my packaging.

“I’ve got the day off and I’ve rented some videos – I’m going to spend the afternoon watching them. It’s 67 degrees (around 20 degrees Celsius) at home.”

I’m almost sold.

“We call it Casa de Cougar. It’s a trailer in the RV park – we all work as trail guides. Just turn right up there. You can’t miss it – it’s at the end of the road and ours is the only one with bikes.”

How can I refuse? I tell her I’ll be there as soon as I’m organised; a warm comfy house, within striking distance of the Grand Canyon, filled with people with an intimate knowledge of it seems like a stroke of good fortune that would be extremely foolish to refuse.

I soon join Jess on the couch and spend the afternoon watching videos. As dusk draws in Jess suddenly exclaims, “Have you seen the Canyon yet?”

I admit that I haven’t.

“Well, let’s go and see the sunset then!”

We jump in the car and effortlessly drive the seven miles to the edge of the Canyon. It is cold enough that there are only half a dozen people to be seen on one of the most visited points on the South Rim. I have forgotten my camera and so I watch the sun set without distraction.

My second glimpse of the Grand Canyon - the following morning.

We shop for food at the Grand Canyon Village store and head home to make dinner. Tank, another member of the household, arrives and we eat, drink and talk. Tank has maps and advice about day walks and I resolve to get up early and explore.

In the morning, as snow drifts gently down, I set off on my bike to ride fourteen miles to Hermit’s Rest at the west end of the South Rim for a eight mile return hike to Yuma Point.

A dusting of snow in forest on the way into the Grand Canyon National Park.

The road to Hermit’s Rest hugs the rim of the Canyon and I stop constantly to admire the views.

Grand Canyon views.

The wind is icy and I am glad to descend into the Canyon where it is sheltered and the temperatures are warmer. I met a few weary people on the Hermit Trail, making the ascent, but once I turn onto the Yuma Point there is not another soul to be seen all day.

Heading down into the Canyon.

It's big!

Walking in the Canyon is strenuous but very worthwhile.

I was particularly taken by these plants...

...from all angles.

Loads to see on a small, as well as grand, scale...

Lichen in every colour.

The Canyon is mesmerising and I walk further and further, glancing from time to time at my watch to check I have enough time to make the ascent before dark but pushing back my deadline, time after time.

The Colorado River runs far below - beckoning... but that's a walk for another day.

Eventually I turn back, motivated by the fact that if I get caught out after dark my new-found friends will have to come out and look for me.

I make the ascent as the sun sinks spreading golden light over the rock faces.

Golden light at the rim of the Canyon.

As I reach the rim of the Canyon I re-enter the icy gale and stand waiting in rapidly coagulating darkness for a shuttle bus to take me back to Grand Canyon Village. Once there I still have the seven miles to ride back to Tusayan and as I haven’t managed to replace my headlamp yet I realise that I will have to ride on the highway without lights. The bus driver drops me off at a strategic location in the village and gives me directions for a short cut to the highway.

The roads are totally unlit and I can’t see anything at all unless a car passes me from behind. Cars coming in the opposite direction blind me completely and the cars can’t see me at all. I stop when I reach the highway and decide to try my luck hitch-hiking. After several pick-ups speed by I get a lift with a some Native Americans and sit huddled with my bike in the tray of the truck freezing but safe for the seven miles ride to Tusayan. I reach the house at about 8pm, just about the time when people start to worry but before anybody was motivated to come looking for me.

Tank, a Canyon guide and resident of Casa de Cougar.

Tank pointing out the Jackalope.

Three days pass: walking, talking, eating and staying warm at night. Jess tells me I can ride to Flagstaff on forestry tracks and so I go to the Ranger’s Office in search of maps and information. The man whose job it is to sell me maps is enthusiastic about the idea and spends twenty minutes making photos copies to save me $10. He gives me a compass, as well.

I could happily stay at Casa de Cougar for a long time but eventually I manage to repack my belongings into my panniers and load my bike. Tank cooks a huge breakfast to send me on my way and and then I set off into the forest towards Flagstaff.

A mega breakfast to send me on my way - a big fry-up of eggs, potatoes, sausage. My first experience of Southern biscuits and apple butter. Yum! Good cycling food.

The appearance of pavement produces mixed feelings: I'm 20% happy, 80% sad to see it.

After passing through the small settlement of Goffs, where I spent the morning chatting to a volunteer at the East Mojave Desert Museum, who kindly lets me download my photos there, I find myself on the Route 66, a highway which actually no longer exists, heading towards Needles.

Route 66.

Needles has the desolate air of a town whose time, if it ever existed at all, has long since passed. Things are patched up, cobbled together, paint flaking, car bodies slowly rousting. People are unsmiling, hard eyes and closed faces. A group of wannabe punk kids sitting on a pile of tyres at a service station direct me to the sole grocery store on the other side to town. They tell me it’s long way. I tell them I’ve come from Alaska so it’s probably not too far and their eyes widen. The boy with a dyed blonde Mohawk, sporting a large U-bolt in one ear, tells me he jumps trains and has travelled all over the country. A man inside the garage calls out to me as I ride off, “What do you do when you get a flat tyre?” “Fix it,” I reply. He clearly doesn’t know how to respond to this unexpected piece of information.

Shopping done I ride out of town as the sun slips behind the hills. I have no plan and only a hazy idea of what lies ahead. The highway has no shoulder and the Saturday night traffic is busy. The Mag light is a poor replacement for my head lamp and I ride in darkness through a semi-urban area – a mixture of casinos, seedy bars, liquor stores, dollar shops, interspersed with fields. My camping prospects are not looking good.

I see a quiet looking area on the other side of the highway and go to investigate. It is a golf course – I case it for camping potential as the Saturday night traffic passes on the highway. A few factors tip the balance against bedding down on the Willow Springs Golf Course: tomorrow, being Sunday, could see some enthusiastic early morning golfer and it occurs to me that perhaps I am coming just a little bit too itinerant.

I contemplate my options. I am tired and filthy and have spent the last eight nights camping alone in the desert. I turn and ride the five miles back down the highway to Needles and check into the Needles Inn – a salmon-pink edifice that attracted my attention when I first entered the town, the first of a series of seedy motels on the west side of Needles. The fact that the heyday of this establishment has long since passed is evident in prominent advertising of its status as a historic Route 66 motel. Finally, I get to step into my real life road movie.

My expectation are not at all high but I quickly warm to the Needles Inn. The management consists of a woman and George, her middle aged son, an eccentric with firm religious convictions. Sadly, the woman’s husband has just died but she seems in reasonable spirits. The entire extended family is in Needles for the funeral and currently housed in the hotel which partly explains why it is so busy. The atmosphere despite the sad occasion is festive. Children run about and play with noisy radio operated toy vehicles in the parking lot. Doors open and shut constantly. People stand about in small groups chatting with relatives they clearly haven’t seen in a long time.

Needles Inn.

God mobile - the van, it transpires belongs to the hotel manager.

Nice number plate.

The hotel manager and her son.

I retire to my room and have a long shower. Hot water is very welcome. I bring my bicycle inside with me and spread my belongings all over the floor. The bed is vast and there is wi-fi internet. What more could a girl ask for? I fall into bed at 2AM and in the morning I turn on my computer again. As check-out time slips by I go to the office and negotiate a second nights stay at a bargain basement biker’s rate. George is happy to oblige and kindly does my laundry for me while I gratefully spend the day trying to get this blog up to date.

Towards evening George knocks on the door of my room and asks if I will talk to some of the children about my trip. I agree and a group of three or four hyperactive youngsters troop into my room to view my bike and then sit fidgeting on my bed while they ask me questions about Australia.

A bed the size of a football field.

Packed and ready to leave the Needles Inn - of which I grew very fond during my two night sojourn there. A hyperactive child, a relative of the management, rushes by.

The desert, as always contains surprises.

My first thought was that this sign had to be a joke but, apparently, it is not. An endangered species of desert tortoise is a resident of the Mojave Desert.

I ride to Kelso where, disappointingly, there is absolutely no food of any kind to be had – I’d fled Baker so quickly I neglected to restock my food pannier, which is on the bare side. One of the rangers at the information office gives me a couple of granola bars along with maps of the area and another man also takes pity on me and gives me a slice of cold pizza and an apple. Slightly fortified I go to strike out into the desert again only to discover that I have lost one of my four litre water bags somewhere en route.

Eventually, a little flustered, I set off to a campsite 35 miles away climbing high enough to enter Joshua tree forest again.

I love these trees!

Amazing!

This roadside plant caught my attention, too. Gold stars on a silver bush - beautiful.

I get caught out after dark before I reach my destination. This time there is no moon to help me and I discover that I’ve have also lost my brand new head-lamp. I ride five miles in utter darkness along a corrugated sandy track. As I skid and slide into unseen pits of deep gravel, I curse and swear. Five miles can seem a very long way. At one point I have the urge to cry and I even stop, not far from the unseen campground, to call for help but there is nobody there. I finally stumble my way into the pitch black campground and put up my tent automatically in the dark and then cook up a meal by the light of a cigarette lighter.

Another desert sunset. A mile or so down the road, I discover that my new head lamp is missing, possibly it fell unnoticed out of my handle-bar bag during this sunset photo stop.

In the morning, I return to the turn-off to the campsite where I stopped at sunset to take photos and I hope to find the missing head-lamp. As I am riding, my frayed gear cable gives way. I push on to the junction where I am disappointed by the absence of my light and address myself to the gear cable dilemma. I unpack my tools and spares by the side of the road.

Two cars pass without a glance as I work on my bike but a group of motor-cyclists stop. They offer me beer and cold pizza and hold my bike while I make adjustments. One of the men offers to ride all the way back to the main road to look for my head-lamp. He returns after an unsuccessful search but gives me small Mag light he has in his bag as a substitute.

These guys were gallant enough to stop to offer help when they saw me working on my bike. Two cars had already passed without a glance; I think that's very bad manners out in the desert.

With my bike back in order I continue through the desert. The Mojave Desert has much more diverse vegetation than Death Valley. As the elevation drops somewhat I discover more species of cactii exist than I ever could have imagined. I can camp where-ever I please here but pushing my bike off the road requires some care as I discovered to my cost after an incident which required me to get out my tool kit to find my needle-nosed pliers to extract two thorns deeply embedded in my foot following a moment of careless contact.

Don't mess with these plants - those spines are savage.

More spikiness...

... and yet more.

But these are my favourites.

Monumental!

I am fascinated by the internal structure of these plants.