She arrived a day after she thought she was going to so we ventured to the hostel together excited to begin our journey. We quickly discovered that her ATM card didn’t work in any ATM and that there must be a lot of dangerous scams in Rio because everyone warns you about everything all the time.

Ipanema is gorgeous, just like the inspiring girl in the song. It’s is a lovely posh neighborhood on the beach full of gorgeous homes, highrises, stylish boutiques and amazing clothes, jewelry and leather handbags. People are uber-stylish and wear nearly nothing all the time – with havaianas flip flops, stilettos or platform sandals. The girls start wearing bikinis and dancing at age 1 and the men seem to have a permanent distaste for wearing shirts. On Sundays, the beachfront road is closed and everyone rollerblades, walks, plays music, sports, and hangs out on the beach. The beach path continues past Ipanema to the dodgier and more (in)famous Copacabana beach. Another brilliant song. There is so much to sing about in Brazil!

It’s easy to understand why Brazil, their neighborhoods and Brazilians themselves inspire so many songs. The country is a cacophony of sounds, sultry songs and beats accompanied by the and irresistible sway hips, fast moving feet, smiles and skin every shade of brown imaginable from cocoa to golden to ebony. According to the lonely planet, Brazil is 39% mixed race, but Rio seems much higher. A history of open immigration and intermingling has created one of the most beautiful and interesting populations I’ve ever seen. I imagine that America will one day have such a mix of cultures and skin tones.

Given my love of accents and diversity, I suppose I’ll eventually contribute to my own melting pot children.

And the end of my trip will be complete freedom like I am used to. I’ll be free to move about the continent in any crazy manner I want.

“Packing” is a whirlwind. While everyone else is out celebrating political victories and warm weather, I’m delivering my car to treasure island, deciding which tank top to bring and searching for nylon pants that didn’t make my crotch look miles long. I think I need to start producing attractive women’s travel-hiking pants. There is a huge gap in the market waiting to be filled.

Rucksack on my back, cell phone in hand, i board BART for SFO and my flight to Rio. Orla and i have spoken a few times and we have loose plans. There might be a driver form the hostel waiting for me, or Orla might be there, or I might take a cab. I like loose plans. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

After the frenzy of good byes, shopping, and packing, I’m looking forward to a long relaxing plane journey. Whatever i forgot is forgotten. Whatever i have i have and will hopefully have for the next 6 months. I will soon forget stress and worries and sink into my alter ego – dana, the American traveler from sf. actually dana will be dropped and i will soon become ‘that tall American girl ‘. Travelers meet too many people to remember names. we generally don’t even bother to ask them. we simply label people by their country of origin and an easily recognized trait like hairstyle, height, or weight. The short funny Frenchman, the bald American, the Canadian with dark curly hair, the dutch girl with pink shirt on. Life on the road is complicated so we have to simplify whatever we can. eliminating names is a clear win in simplifying interactions with strangers.

Booking the TAM pass reiterated why I never plan. What a royal pain in the arse. I spent about 24 hours on the phone with TAM with no success. TAM was impossible to work with. In typical third world fashion they said NO when I asked for a certain route on a certain day instead of suggesting a slightly different day or route. The means I had to ask about every possible combination specifically to get to an answer.

Finally I was able to book tickets through our saviors the BROL travel agency. BROL was much more organized and finally we ended up with 5 tickets within Brazil. Our overall plan is to hit Rio, Jericoacoara, Fernando de Noronha, Natal, Salvador, Foz de Iguazu, and Pantanal. Almost time to go to Brazil!

When the opportunity for travel presented itself, I jumped. I have a history of working, traveling, repeat. I left my first job after 3 years to travel for 2. I got laid off from other jobs which made traveling an easy choice. I am young (in my opinion at least), carefree (despite my neurotic mind sometimes), and without major responsibility (no mouths to feed or mortgage to pay). I have, to many people, an enviable life of passion and freedom. To others, my life is a disjointed chaos, without meaning or significance. I guess they are both right.

Either way, I can travel now and who knows what tomorrow brings? I may have a partner or baby, I might start the next Google, I might die on my bicycle. Who knows? So I’d better live while I can. And for me living and traveling are synonymous.

But I digress, South America is my choice by default. I have already spent significant time in Asia, Africa, Central America, Australia, New Zealand, and the middle east. I have dabbled in Europe and plan to explore it much more when I’m older since it is more tourism than travel. SO the big holes in my travels are India and South America. Trouble in Sri Lanka steered me away from Sri Lanka and Southern India and I found myself planning a trip to South America. With mountains, cold weather, and landlocked non-tropical countries, I’ll be trading bikinis for parkas.

But alas, SF has kept my attention and loyal devotion for 13 years. Sometimes I leave and travel the world for years at a time but I am always happy to see the pop-up city revealed as the plane comes in for a foggy landing at SFO.

Within minutes of landing I see SF in her bright and shiny in full regalia – flash cars everywhere, headsets, silicon valley money, hair of every color, punk, prissy, and grungy fashion and everything in between. I take a walk downtown and let myself go weak in the knees, wooed by her glittery sidewalks. I open my blinds in the mission and see tropical palm trees (if it’s not too foggy) and unique Victorians, sitting side by side like lifetime friends supporting each other. I hop on my Mary Poppins bike and power up a hill, rewarding my huffs and puffs with post card views and rock hard legs.

As if the city is not enough, the nature around is neverending – the sea, the mountains, the biking, the hiking, the water sports and the tiny towns to discover and explore. And the most important virtue of SF, its inhabitants. There are many other in love with san Francisco too. She attracts energy, brilliance, naturelovers, adventurers, travelers, liberals, gays, lesbians, bikers, homeless people, and immigrants. I could do without some of the mix but overall the people are magical and enthusiastic and eager to make the most out of the price of admission in SF (which isn’t cheap).

thank you again for all your support.  i love you all and i know emily thanks you too.

so back to the raffle.  here’s a shot of the ticket filled yogurt container.  

and the WINNER is (drumroll) ………….

Congratulations JD.  your generous donation of 50$ earned you 8 tickets and the 315$ prize! JD is a great guy who lives in sf and is always ready to leand a helping hand and dollar.  we’re happy he moved here from boston so we could hang out with him and so his old roomate could move in with my old roomate odessa and get married.  congrats JD.

in raffle donations, i have received $420 (wed am) which means the drawing is up to 210$.  the other half will be donated to the ride.  i will accept donations until friday 9/12 and then i will draw the winner on monday 9/15.  i have tickets here and i am writing your name on the back of your tickets.

good luck and call me if you need help deciphering how to donate.

Dear Donor,

Thank you so much for the money you donated to the 2007 AidsLifeCycle in support of my 545 mile ride from SF to LA! The magic you enabled is beyond words. You contributed to the 11 million dollars raised by 2,333 riders and 500 roadies (volunteer support staff) in support of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. It was the most successful AidsLifeCycle to date and an amazing experience!! You got some extra miles for your money because I had to do the ‘quad buster’ hill twice when I left my sunglasses at the bottom and backtrack 10 miles to lunch one day when I missed a turn. All in all I logged over 36 hours in the saddle. That explains the saddle sores.

For me, the AidsLifeCycle was my biggest physical challenge, the culmination of endless training hours, and the unique opportunity to be around people who share the passion of cycling and helping others.

On Saturday, June 2, Orientation day at the Cow Palace in SF began with a longer than necessary bike journey to the wrongly named Palace with many confusing turns. The journey was followed by an introduction to a week of waiting in lines, the first opportunity to meet my fellow riders, and a bit of separation anxiety leaving my bike in the corral.

What an amazing crew of participants! Riders represented 43 states and 12 countries. We spanned every walk of life, from corporate CEOs, to actors, to coffee barristers, to professional bike racers, to overweight homebodies. We were gay, straight, old, young, fat, and fit. We were hipsters, yuppies, divas, boisterous, and shy. We had high end racing bikes, heavy mountain bikes, single speed messenger bikes, recumbents, and beach cruisers rebuilt from discarded parts. But we all came together to form a mobile community full of love, patience, and humility. We joined the AIDSLifeCycle for a variety of reasons – from a challenge to honoring a dead father to a week away from work. But we united as one; each of us raised at least $2,500 for HIV, and we would all ride 545 miles from SF to LA. We would share tears, laughs, hugs, butt butt’r, porta pottie lines, more Gatorade than any human should drink (resulting in blistery mouths and tongues), and a rare sense of camaraderie and responsibility. We literally affected change with every pedal stroke.

The ride began on June 3, day one, as we rolled out of freezing and foggy SF at 6 AM. I was suddenly immersed in bike culture of yelling “stopping, slowing, rolling, car back, glass”. I was in a foreign country of extremely polite and happy bikers who all wore red and white helmet covers.

Supporters lined the streets. Partners, parents and friends cheered, clapped, and cried. The emotion was overwhelming. I had a few tears behind my glasses – signs of my anxiety, excitement and pride. I was finally doing ‘the ride’. I felt like I was in the beginning of a Hollywood movie- I was setting off the break a world record. I envisioned day 4 would be quite different. They would be no supporters, no drums, no smiling riders; just tired folks riding with sore butts and no fanfare. The movie in my mind sped through the grueling days and jumped to the triumphant ending. What I found the next 6 days seems too unrealistic for even Hollywood. The support never waned and we relished every minute of the ride.

The support from random folks with no association with the AidsLifeCycle was astonishing. The cheering spectators littered even the most remote spots of the route. They dressed up, tailgated, played music, and offered us homemade cookies, strawberries, and words of encouragement. Some folks, like the M&M guy, followed the ride offering riders M&Ms every day. “Mom and Dad” sat in their hatchback with treats and signs reminding us to ‘drink and pee’. Surrogate children for the week, we all yelled “Thanks Mom and Dad!” as we passed them. Any time we were disheartened, there was another supporter smiling, thanking us for riding, and boosting our carbs. On the first day, in the middle of a 5 mile traffic-y climb on route 92 some angel on the side of the road held out a homemade chocolate–peanut butter bar. I grabbed it like a marathon runner grabs water and for the first time I understood then the importance of this ride to so many people. I understood why I had trained and raised money. I began to understand the life changing depth of ‘the ride’.

In addition to supporters on the street, the ride was supported by over 500 roadies. The volunteer roadies took a week out of their lives to clear the route of road kill at 4 am, stand in the sun telling us where to turn, pick up stragglers in the sag wagons, serve food and clean up camp. My job, riding, was a cake walk.

We rode through some of the most beautiful landscape in the world – fields of strawberries and artichokes, forests of redwood and eucalyptus, desserts, coasts of palm trees and the shimmering Pacific Ocean. We climbed hills like the ‘the evil twins’, raced down them triumphantly, and fought with cars (and sometimes lost).

We did it all with selfless support for complete strangers- the HIV infected patient we would never meet, the kids we hoped to protect, and riders who shared our journey. We stopped at the top of hills to cheer on riders behind us. We rode back down to do it again. We literally pushed people up the hills with hands on their backs and clapped for walkers with tears streaming down their pained faces. We cried with them and hugged them. Our quads burned and our knees throbbed. One inspiring rider get people over the humps of earth by playing “eye of the tiger” from her cell phone into a megaphone she carried. We were a caring family of 2,666.

We talked to everyone and swarmed ‘riders down’ to help change their tires or share a Cliff bar. We groaned collectively for the ambulances that passed with fellow riders with broken bones, head traumas, and road rash.

The volunteer roadies created oasises of entertainment and refreshment scattered every 20 miles throughout the route. More than just places to refuel, the themed entertainment stations refreshed our minds and hearts. Each of the four rest stop crews strived to make their rest stop THE rest stop of the day – the one to talk about at dinner. They had full costumes, props, decorations and photo backdrops. I sang with the Dreamgirls in drag under a willow tree with disco balls hanging from it.

I sat on Santa’s lap,

danced with sailors,

ran into the flying monkeys from OZ

and waited endlessly in lines at the DMW stop . Even if I wasn’t tired or thirsty, I stopped for fun.

There were around 200 HIV positive riders participating in the ride. They proudly flew orange flags from their bikes and sported ‘positive peddlers’ jerseys.

In SF, I know only one person infected with HIV and I have never been amongst a group of people so clearly identified as HIV positive. It’s a powerful experience and effective in raising awareness and beginning to erode the stigma associated with the disease. Every inquiry from farm workers, other bikers, passing motorists, and townies was an opportunity to transform HIV into the face of a bicyclist. I feared hate scenes like the painted bus in Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, but this ride evoked only positive responses – even in small towns filled with cowboy hats. I know the responses would be very different in many parts of the world.

In Africa, seemingly everyone is affected by HIV. It does take a village to raise a child when parents die at incredibly fast rates. Every local I met in Africa has watched many loved ones wither into a breathless heap of skin and bones, yet they argued that HIV is a fictitious disease propagated by the whites to keep the black population down. The lack of education, disbelief, and tribal practices all perpetuate infection and guarantee this disease will not end without western intervention. This ride helped me understand that a cure will only come from the western world and my efforts here will trickle down into the international community that captured my heart long ago.

We held a silent candlelight vigil on the beaches of Ventura radiating silent hope and peace. I thought of all the orphans I met in Africa. I heard the Ugandan children singing “We are happy for our visitor”. I saw their toothy smiles and bald heads, their old American t-shirts full of holes and African red earth. They are infected with HIV or destined to become so. They have no parents and no family. Entire generations pass away before their children reach adulthood. How can a nation of children hope for a better future? I hoped for them.

Before the vigil, an older roadie serving food tried to express through tears how much it meant to her to be around people with whom she could express her grief and love for her dead son. In her small town in Missouri, she could not talk about his lifestyle, his disease, or his death. 15 years later she has 3,000 people with whom to grieve. I was honored to celebrate the life of her son and help her heal.

On day 5, a short 44 mile day from Santa Maria to Lompoc, we ‘dressed in red’ or more accurately, wore red dresses. The string of riders in red dresses brought the red ribbon of AIDS to life. One rider, a doctor from SF wore shiny red lace up platform stiletto boots to go with his red PVC dress. The bike shop installed clips on his stiletto boots and marked his bike with setting for his seat and handlebars.

Other costumes ranged from ruffled panties to red cone Madonna boobs to flowing glittery headdresses. Besides red dress day, people had costume helmets and festive bikes every day. I was totally unprepared. People had painted their bikes, put license tags with their names and home state and transformed their helmets into curlers, wigs, bonnets, headdresses, and everyone’s favorite – a scene with 3 Barbie dolls waiting in line for a miniature porta pottie. If you ever do the AIDSLifeCycle ride, make sure you dress up your helmet and put your name on your bike so your new friends remember it.

Life on the road was challenging, grueling, and exhilarating. We woke up sore and stiff before the sun, donning moist smelly spandex and trying not to touch the freezing wet sides of our tents. We ate breakfast and starting pedaling. By rest stop one it was warm enough to stuff all our warm gear into our shirt pockets. (I LOVE bike shirts and their back pockets). We usually put in 20 miles before 8 am. Every night I stretched my aching muscles, took a hot shower in a truck (yes a truck), ate, listened to the days announcements, reports from the road, safety and health report cards, and fell to my thermarest already asleep. This is probably the only time in my life it was good to be a girl in the shower line; the men outnumbered the women at least 3 to 1.

The logistics and facilities were top notch. They included sports medicine, massage, and chiropractor (although the lines were too long to actually use these most of the time). Every campsite was gridded out so we knew exactly where to set up our tent. The gear trucks opened at 5 am to haul our gear and start our day with a smile.

On the road, we quickly fell into single file lines with passing on the left. It felt like driving on the German autobahn. Riders of similar speed and skills joined together and yelled conversation over miles of pavement. Bay area riders led the pack on the hills. Mountainous training in the bay area gave us accelerated abilities to pace the climbs and scream down at 45 MPH without losing control. I saw a number of accidents on the downhills and I saw a rider a few people in front of me hit by a car who turned through us all into a car park with no notice of 1000’s of bikers. My tent mate got hit by a car the day we got back to SF. Please watch out for bikers when you drive. We are everywhere!

The ride ended with closing ceremonies in LA on June 8. I looked around the crowd recognizing friends, both new and old. As an adult, I rarely get the opportunity to meet so many new people. It’s a great opportunity to open up and learn from others – their culture, their experiences and outlooks. I treasure lifetime friendships that begin with shared experiences from the road (backpacking and biking).

The intensity of the week, emotionally and physically, made it very difficult to come back to my normal life. Sitting in a chair for 10 hours as the sun crosses the sky is a challenge. An hour a day is not enough exercise for the biking machine that replaced my body. I crave extensive conversations about life, dreams, and experiences; the things that make us who we are. Luckily the life I returned to is stellar. I have a job I really enjoy, a city that takes my breath away daily, a network of deep friendships, a supportive family, a boyfriend who astonishes me with patience, and most importantly, my health. I do not have an orange HIV flag on my bike or any other scarlet letters or handicaps; I am healthy and able bodied.

Thank you donors, for enabling a life changing week of biking and contributed to finding a cure for aids. Your generosity is humbling. I look forward to riding with you all! If you don’t bike, you should start!

Sincere wishes for health, happiness, and tailwinds

Dana