THE CYCLIST

I�ll start by repeating myself, since I have engaged in this hundreds of times before. My name in Nathan David Coates (Da-beed Co-at-ehz). I am from Edmonton Canada (yes it is cold, a big country and hay plata ahia). My family is also from and living in Edmonton. I sucked up money �roughnecking� on the rigs so I could slowly exhale on a two plus year bicycling trip in the Americas. I am 23 years old, starting when I was 21. I don�t have a girlfriend here and even more embarrassing, I was raised a Protestant.

At the moment I am in the apartment of Bill Ibbitson, who kindly let me stay an indefinite amount of time. Bill and my father, Jim, studied engineering in the University of Calgary together and remain good friends to this day. I fully intend to get some juicy stories about my fathers collage days but sadly as of yet Bill won�t rat. The goal of this excursion has evolved to cycling down to Tierra de Fuego from Rio de Janeiro and then flip around and bike home. This started from buying a sale plane ticket to Sao Paulo, a city I had never heard of and a continent that, before leaving Canada, I could list the name of maybe 3 counties. I did this mostly because I wanted to get away for a while, ride my bike, Latin America, totally foreign but a single land mass attached to North America seemed the logical choice. I would apparently never have to travel without the need of turning cranks.

This is a tranquil style of travel, although at daybreak I immediately embark on the greatest struggle of the day. Getting up, willing myself out of my perfectly warm sleeping bag and off my heavenly soft 5mm sleeping pad. Feeling as if, after a full day of cycling, my body has been scooped out and filled with drying cement. With this over I engage in the mundane chore of preparing 1L of coffee, a pot of porridge, with bananas, (apples, milk or sugar) eating, lingering, gazing at maps, books, horizons, dirt, packing up, washing my chain, and doing any minor repairs. This takes from 1 to 2 hours. The first hour of biking is hard, with stiff legs, heavy food and most of the hidden kinks in my bike being revealed. After it is effortless, body in rhythm and my mind free of bounds.

A Story: La Paz-El Alto and Revolution in Bolivia!

I was finally ready to leave La Paz for the road and countryside. I have disregarded 2 months of the 3-month healing time need for my shoulder that was fractured, separated and possibly further damaged when the first year doctor in the Sorata unsuccessfully attempted to reinsert my -----femur-----. I had smashed the poor thing landing from a huge jump during an (failed) attempt to bike down a 73km single track that descends 2800m. Most of my down time was spent studying Spanish from borrowed textbooks and seeing the sights. But my focus waned and studying was sidelined my watching TV, pleasure reading, smoking and haunting a nearby club. It was time to go. I cleaned the bike, tightened the bolts, restocked the fridge, bought a gift for Stacy (the proprietor) cut all the read pages out of my books, mended my clothes, and jammed against bodies into a strangely rare micro to El Alto.

I was storing my camping equipment in a �Casa de Cyclista�. These kind people, scattered all over the world, permit dirty, lanky cycle tourists stay in their house.

Walking down Avineda Antofagasta, a usually unobservant person such as myself couldn�t help but noticed the street was just short of abandoned. This was the principle street of the city and normally it was packed with taxis, micros, busses, children, commuters, street vendors and more. I must have gotten one of the last vans making the barricaded glass, cement, solder and protester gauntlet that was the single highway connecting the 2 cities. The Ramez family, soon to be my guardians, informed me on what has been happening. The Aymara Indians have been demonstrating to force the government to step down. The government in turn strafes citizens with their helicopter, rolls tanks through the streets, and rounds people up.

One police officer shot a teen and the demonstrators (at this point the majority of the inhabitants) swore vengeance so the police officers went home and stayed there. The demonstrators completely sealed off the city. Garbage littered the streets, I was told, to stop tanks. With stores boarded down, and the bon fires, and the baseball bats of anti-vandalism sprang up in the streets. I am told that a few thieves swung from light posts (I only saw the example making hanging manikins).

I watched these developments for 6 days; with each one I promised I would go tomorrow. But it dragged to 6 days, because I was constantly warned that if I stepped out I would putting myself in danger (�gringo go home� was a very popular street chant). Taking a bike ride through one end of the town to the other along the barricaded road was very unwise. But itching to go was great so I finally announced I was leaving, they said it was stupid, but I did. Taking their advices I entered the dark street at 3 in the morning with a balaclava on. I raced through the streets praying that the glass wouldn�t puncture my tire.

The 30 km route through the primary (arguably the only) highway access to La Paz and El Alto was a nightmare. It was an obstacle course of trenches, burning tires, burnt tires that leave a skeleton of spooled tangled wire, gutted, flipped trucks and concrete barriers. The thing that alarmed me the most was the deranged looking people pushing, pulling and rolling propane cylinders, and army of them at 4-5 in the morning. This mania slowed down and stopped at a 6 km long line, which at its end was the single source of the fuel that heats and cooks in El Alto. I continued to ride as fast as I could.

As the sprawl of the city faded the sun came up and the road became easer with only rocks and bushes blocked the path. It was a strange sight, possibly Bolivia�s most important road taken over by the surrounding rocky land and suffering campesinos threading their bikes (many with yellow propane cylinders) along in the chilly reddish dawn light. Around eleven I encountered the first of the miners. They were trekking from Oruro and Tupiza to La Paz in an expression of solidarity. The line, for me was 8 hours long, the majority was in high spirits. I was tiring of constantly waving a saying hello and apologizing for going the wrong way. The last chunk was nasty though, lots of rocks and water, people swinging themselves, their arms or sticks at me. I only wished to get through the last of this bunch.

I arrived at ?????? where 2 days before the army killed 4 miners. The main crossing was still stuffed with dozens of solders that, thank God, just waved me through.

The next morning the chola that sold me bread told me that the president �Goni� had snuck out of the country to Miami on a 11 o�clock plane, and I was 110 km away from Oruro.