Simul-blogging Part 2 - With bonus update!

My friend Tom says that Shangri La is the Milky Lakes in the Wind River Mountains. I haven´t been to the Milkies so I can´t argue with him, but from what we´ve seen of it, the small, hilly town of Santa Marta, must be in the running. Ty and I spent yesterday there, looking at the ocean (no boards to rent or waves for that matter), playing on the rocks below the towns´ lighthouse, taunting the seagulls, eating fresh fish and papaya and feeling the kind of peace only the ocean can give you.

Okay folks, hold it right there. I wrote that a few days ago before we got to the island of Santa Catarina. I wasn´t lying, or even exagerating. Santa Marta is great. But this island is spectacular. The water is that impossibly beautiful blue green. Schools of small silver fish--maybe sardines?--surf the waves along side you. The beaches are sandy and clean. The other surfers aren´t too territorial. We are so content to be spending our last few weeks in South America here. We found a little balconied apartment to rent and are savoring the luxury of living within walking distance of two great surf breaks without having to rob a bank. We also have a spare bedroom. As of right now, only our surf boards sleep there, so if you feel like taking a spontaneous vacation to a piece Shangri La we would love to have you.


Hope to see you soon north of the equator if not down here.


Rose

PS Here´s what I wrote a few days ago about part of our ride up here:

We came down from the sierra over a week ago--a spectacular 20 km decent--and stopped over a day in the town of Torres to surf. Since then we´ve been spending our days biking north, up the coast. After a day of riding the coastal highway along side a steady stream of truck traffic, we decided to head for the backroads rumored to hug the coast, although we didn´t have much of a map. We undertstood that we needed to go north in general, and not too far west or we´d hit the highway again. East wasn´t a good option for obvious reasons.

Our first day of riding on these backroads took us through numerous beach towns, abonded by their spectral owners for the winter months--how strange those places felt. Whole towns occupied by nothing but sand and sea birds. We rode through a lush, warm landscahpe of agricultural fields and eucaplyptus groves, and then it came time to camp. After being in the idylic land of patagonian gaucho hospitality for so long I just started to assume the whole world could be a big free camp ground. When it was getting dark and we´d still had no luck finding a place to stay I went up to a house with a burly looking fence and spikes on the end of the posts and asked the owner, sitting on his front porch, if we could camp there for the night. And he said no! I´d cearly failed to read the writing on his--fence, in this case--and was shocked. No, we can´t camp on your perfectly manicured lawn? But we´re nice, good people, I thought, and we´re tired; I missed gauchos and their pampa hospitality. We ended up camping down the road in a eucalyptus grove.