The Interesting People You Meet While Riding
the Mosers

(This story was passed  along by some of our HaveFunBiking readers who now live in the Tucson Area of Arizona)

 Our Cliffhanger hiking group was favored with an amazing companion this morning. Swinde, a young German girl, bicycling from the tip of South America to the far reaches of Alaska, alone, is spending two days, en route, with the Mosers (Cliffhangers).

Bicycling, thus far, through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador,Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico and now Southern Arizona the journey has taken her a year and a half, because she takes many side trips.

One month a tour of Bolivia, then a
weeklong hike in Ecuador and several days bicycling in the vicinity of Lake Nicaragua and even around Ometepe (the island in its center).

When she moves on her adventures will take her along the Arizona Trail, to the Grand
Canyon, then into Utah, over to Colorado, up into Wyoming, before crossing Montana. Into Canada.  (where she will winter). She will then head for Anchorage and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska by the end of the third year. You can follow her adventures at: http://www.swinde.de/route.htm

Swinde has stayed off main highways the entire distance, preferring gravel and dirt roads through small villages where she has encountered only friendly people who have treated her like a "miracle traveler."

Her off-road-bike was designed to be sturdy and has no shock absorbers because they would be nearly impossible to repair in remote regions of South and Central America. She has, however, fixed many flat tires.

Her web site photos are a delight! If you can read German, I am sure you will find her commentary equally delightful. It should be noted that, when she is not spending the night along a wilderness roadside (about 80% of the time), she is being hosted by a family she might
meet in a tiny village grocery store, who then might have a relative or friend on up ahead who can be notified of Swinde's pending arrival.

The Mosers have, on several occasions, traveled to Manta Ortiz, Mexico
for pottery purchases; thus, a family they stay with there notified them that Swinde would be coming through Tucson. Swinde said, that she
almost never knows where she will be spending the next night and spending it in a home or a small expensive-hotel, although only once or twice in a month, is a welcomed change.

From time to time Swinde reports she will encounter other bicyclers, but only about 12-15 bicyclers travel the entire distance from the tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay each year so traveling companions are usually only for a short distance and almost never from one country to another.

Hopefully, while in the U.S., she will see more from one state to the next.

Article Published: 07-19-2012