Recurrent hills the approach to Amman, misty chill descents, overheating on the twenty minute climbs. I’m wobbly struggling to unzip and remove a sleeve on a heavy pitch, a pickup truck coughs alongside, the elderly […]
Cycling adventurist, bikepacker, travel writer, photographer, speaker, professor of philosophy. Route designer of the VTXL, the Green Mountain Gravel Growler beer tour, the Silk Road Mountain Race course 1st edition, and many more.
Category: Middle East
Syria postcard
Wonderful Syria. Not a place to visit for landscapes — the grueling yellow stony kilometers in between gain no purchase on my affection — but the people, the cities, the history, the archeological sites. Kindness and openness…
Syria postcard
My knife, acquired three years ago in Nepal in trade for a down jacket, now dull and stupid. I queue at the sharpener stall in the souk, five men working scissors, blades of all shapes, […]
Syria postcard
Off-white gravel horizon with tan peaks far away, the fall rise fall of the road, never dramatic, presaged by a sentinel line of power line poles. The main highway, two lanes no shoulder buses heavy […]
Syria sounds
Call to prayer: Maronite Church choir practice: * * * Copper metalwork in the Aleppo souk:
Syria postcard
Aleppo. Unable fluently to read the social divisions any more than the Arabic script, so only superficialities: the Christian neighborhoods, fewer veils, shops closed on Sunday, more jeans. Seamless transition to Muslim streets, but now […]
Syria postcard
This part so much the same the world over, arrive in darkness to queue in the foreigners passport control line, taking chancy glances around to glean others’ nations of origin, then change a bit of […]
Gear for Middle East Trip
For six weeks in winter. Left to right (more or less) from top: Tent poles, tent, sleeping bag/pad, riding/hiking shoes, sandals, Patagonia Puff pullover, merino gloves Digital SLR, fleece sleeping bag liner, headlamp/knife/spork, passport/novel/eticket, goretex socks, […]
Syria-Jordan-Egypt cycling route
PLAN: Fly NYC to Aleppo December 16th and Cairo to back home January 31st. Along the way see Damascus, Palmyra, Amman, Petra, Mt. Sinai, Giza, Luxor. 900k in Syria, 650k in Jordan, 315k on the Sinai […]