Biking Bornholm: Is hard fun?

Anne in front of Hammershus

Anne in front of Hammershus

For the past four days we have been biking on the Danish island of Bornholm: a tear-dropped shaped land mass in the Baltic, south of Sweden and smack in the middle of the main shipping lanes in and out of Stockholm, Helsinki, Gdansk and Saint Petersburg. Its rugged coast is unusual for pancake-flat Denmark with cliffs, craggy outcroppings and stone beaches of tide-ground rocks ranging in size from marbles to melons. Smoked herring and granite quarries were once the island’s main industries, but the fish have moved and granite is cheaper elsewhere. Barnholm is now a garden of beautifully tended farms, rolling hills, quaint villages, thousand year-old round churches and Hammershus, the ruins of a medieval castle. Tourists have replaced fishermen and the smokeries (used for smoking herring) have been converted to restaurants, gift shops and art galleries.
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In Denmark

We arrived in Denmark this morning about 9:00 am. Our friend Lise Hansen picked us up a bit later.

It is overcast/sunny/occasional showers here in Birkerod, a suburb of Copenhagen.

I have nothing new or deep to say. We are both tired because of the time change. The fight left Boston around 4:00 pm. and we got here about 3 am body clock time, both with an hour or two of sleep total.

Tonight is Saint Hans Evening when the Danes celebrate midsummer. We will be going to one of the many bonfires throughout Denmark. Lise says that they will be burning a witch (a doll) as part of the celebration. Fun.

Saint Hans Evening bonfire at Lise and Vincent's boat club

Saint Hans Evening bonfire at Lise and Vincent’s boat club

There was a pretty big crowd when Vincent and I arrived. We got there late thinking that they wouldn’t start the fire until after dark. Well at 10:30 pm the fire had pretty much burned down and it still was light out. Daylight goes from about 4:30 am to 10:00 pm at midsummer.

Traveling

Anne and I will be heading to Denmark tomorrow. Total travel time will be 24 hours or so. We won’t be making any new posts until we get settled with our friends Lise and Vincent.

Cadillac Mountain X 5

On top of Cadillac Mountain

On top of Cadillac Mountain

I just finished riding my bike up Cadillac mountain five times in a row. Cadillac Mountain, the tallest hill in Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, is a 1000 foot climb over the course of 3.5 miles. It took three hours and a fair bit of sweat. But I am in training. The weather was perfect and the views were beautiful.

We got back from Kenya on Monday for a brief stay in Maine before we head out for our next adventure. On Saturday we are going to Denmark until July 4th. We will be biking and kayaking with Lisa and Vincent. On the 4th we head down to Annecy, France to take part in the Etape Du Tour De France.

Tim Quigley and I will be riding a stage of the Tour de France. It is 81 miles long and climbs 9,000 feet in three hills. The actual tour riders will do this stage on July 20th, the last stage before the ride into Paris. It has the longest climb in this years tour and one of the steepest sections. This year is special because it is the 100th riding of the tour. The 100th anniversary was about 10 years ago, but because of a couple of world wars the 100th riding is this year.

Tim and I decided to ride the Etape a year ago and I have been training whenever possible since then but with the Kenya trip, where Anne and I got Zero exercise, I have been worried about being ready. After today, I think I am.

Rites of Passage

Samburu women

Samburu women

“Our bead program gives these women dignity and hope,” Celina said, eyes blazing as we discussed NRT Trading’s bead and micro-finance program over a cup of coffee in a Meru café. “Once they reach maturity, the girls are circumcised and married off by their fathers in exchange for cows and goats. They enter homes that are ruled by the men. They are powerless. When they join the bead program we teach them about household finances, about business disciplines and about the outside world. We give them a way to get together with other women to make money and to gossip. What they earn they use to buy food, to help pay the education fees for their children and to earn respect from their husbands.”

OK, hold on a minute, back up: Circumcised? Female genital mutilation (FGM)? I thought that was illegal in Kenya.

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Orphaned Baby Black Rhinos

John petting Nicky, an orphaned 13 month old Black Rhino.

John petting Nicky, an orphaned 13 month old Black Rhino.

There are 3 orphaned black rhinos on Lewa. Anne and I met two of them, Nicky and Hope. Nicky is 13 months old and blind. He is an orphan because in the wild he couldn’t see to find his mother. Hope’s mother was poached when she was a week old. Her mother’s horn was worth $35,000 USD to the poacher who killed her and had a street value of $120,000 in places like Vietnam. The third was born to a blind mother and was being picked up by the rangers the day we met Nicky and Hope but hadn’t arrived yet.

The orphans at Lewa are not kept in a cage during the day. They have two full time nannies who follow them everywhere. At night they sleep in a Boma to protect them from predators.

Nicky is the larger rhino and Hope the smaller one on the bottom left.

Nicky is the larger rhino and Hope the smaller one on the bottom left.

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An Apology to Boston

When we flew to Kenya, getting to the airport in Boston via public transportation almost made us miss our flight. Well, not to be dissuaded by our experience, we once again opted for subway and bus upon our return from Kenya to get from the airport to Pam’s house.

The harrowing tale:

Exiting the plane, Anne and I found ourselves near the front of the customs line. After a 5 minute wait and 2 minutes with the agent we headed down to baggage claim to collect our checked luggage. Baggage claim took a grueling 5 minutes. Well, somebody has to have their bags come off the carousel first, ours were third. We went to find ground transportation.

Anne, “I’m willing to get a cab.” John, “Let’s try the subway one more time.” “Okay.”

We walked through the airport to the Silver line bus stop. As we approached, the bus drove up. Boarding we were surprised to find that there was no charge to board at the airport. Leaving, the bus efficiently cruised to South Station for our switch to the subway. There we transferred, still no charge, to the Red Line. The sign read, “next train 4 min.” Six stops later we exited at Harvard Station to catch the 73 bus. The clearly marked sign directed us straight to the bus stop where the bus arrived less than 5 minutes later. Hopping on, we took the short ride to Cushing square. There we were charged the outrageous 🙂 price of $2 each. Then a short 2 block walk later we were at Pam’s house.

It was, maybe, a total of 1:15 from departing the plane, going through customs, getting our bags and traveling to Pam’s house. 45 minutes or so was the transport part. Awesome.

So, Boston, about your public transportation, when it works, as it did yesterday, it works well.

Thanks

M-Pesa, Safaricom, Equity Bank and Cows

Mon to Thur 020 (2)
On most of the planet, it is money that makes the world go round. In the pastoralist communities in northern Kenya, it is cows. The region’s future — it’s community health, peace, land conservation and wildlife preservation — depends on bringing these two systems together.

You can’t drive in Kenya without being aware of Safaricom or M-Pesa. Buildings everywhere are painted bright Safaricom or M-Pesa green and emblazoned with the companies’ logos. We quickly figured out that Safaricom is Kenya’s version of AT&T; we now have Safaricom phones and local phone numbers. But M-Pesa? That remained a mystery until we attended a community livestock sale.
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A Walk Anyone

I love to walk and here I am in a beautiful, open grass land with miles and miles of red dirt road stretching before me. It looks perfectly peaceful, beckoning even.

“Can’t I just walk the kilometer from Ngiri House to Lewa Headquarters?” I ask Lydia, our server, at breakfast,

She looks puzzled, like I asked a question she didn’t understand. “Walk?”
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Posting Pictures

We are going to try to add more pictures to the blog from here on out. We have added a Pictures page so we can post pictures that are not necessarily associated with a specific blog post. They won’t include a lot of text or explanation but hopefully some of you might enjoy them. The link is “Pictures” in the header.