THE

HUNGRY

CYCLIST

PEDALLING THE AMERICAS IN

SEARCH OF THE PERFECT MEAL

TOM KEVILL-DAVIES

Collins

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1 All the Gear and No Idea

Chapter 2 Rodeo Ga Ga

Chapter 3 A Rocky Road

Chapter 4 California Dreaming

Chapter 5 Cycling the Baja

Chapter 6 ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Aribba! ¡Aribba!

Chapter 7 Central America

Chapter 8 Cartagena to Quito

Chapter 9 The Amazon

Chapter 10 Brazil

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

For my parents with love and thanks.

‘Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys…’

Prologue

It seems only right that the seed of what was to become the Hungry Cyclist would be planted at the end of a fateful cycling holiday in France, a country the natives would argue, justifiably, is the centre of the gastronomic universe, and also the birthplace of the bicycle. But at the start of that journey, waiting in the darkness while the impatient growls of a hundred cars and trucks echoed off the metal walls of a cross-Channel ferry, I had no idea what lay ahead.

The air filled with the choking smell of diesel and combustion, and men in orange jumpsuits hurried to disconnect heavy chains. The jaws of the boat fell open, daylight cut through the darkness as if the stone had been rolled back on an ancient tomb, and our cycling holiday had begun. Squeezed into our finest Lycra, like a pair of badly stuffed sausages, we rolled our bicycles out of the fume-filled hulk of the ferry and into the fresh air of France’s hottest summer on record. We squinted into the bright sunshine.

It was summer and an old friend, Charlie Pyper, and I would use eighteen of our cherished twenty-five days of annual leave to cycle down through France. For ten days we would pedal our way through the back roads of the French countryside, and when the job was done enjoy a week of relaxing and pleasurable wound-licking. It would be a holiday of a little exercise, country roads, superb restaurants, good wine and lashings of cheese. That was the plan.

As a fierce heat-wave gripped the continent, old ladies perished without air-conditioning in Paris apartments and nursing homes, forest fires swept through the hills of Provence and the world’s media screamed headlines about global warming and climate change. Meanwhile, Charlie and I took to the hills and lanes that connected the small villages of Normandy. It quickly became clear that I was having a great time, but on each gentle incline I looked back at a wheezing, red-faced mess of a man, cursing, sweating and panting. An affable and chunky six-footer, Charlie dwarfed his slim racer like a cycling bear in a circus, and each slight hill was met with an onslaught of Essex’s finest abuse.

‘Bloody French hills. The fucking map said this bit was flat. I thought you said this was going to be a holiday.’

Exhausted at the end of a long first day, the small bed and breakfast we collapsed into could not have come soon enough for us both. But for Charlie it had come too late. He endured a sleepless night of cramps induced by dehydration, and nightmares about bicycles, derailleurs and hills. I woke from a good night’s sleep to find him at breakfast in the garden, his concentration focused on our map.

‘We can hire a car twenty kilometres from here,’ he said glumly without bringing his eyes up from the map. A buttery piece of croissant hung in my mouth as my jaw momentarily unhinged itself from the top of my face.

‘You what?’

Having endured his graphic complaints for most of the previous day, and been woken by his cramped agonies during the night, I knew he wasn’t happy. But this was Charlie. The toughest guy I knew; the football legend; the hard-hitting, fast-bowling cricket star; my well-needed back-up in school punch-ups; a hero. And he wanted to quit. I couldn’t understand it.

‘Come on, mate. It’ll get better today, I promise. We can stop for a long lunch. We can find a nice river for a swim.’

My optimistic words and false promises fell on deaf and sunburnt ears.

‘Sorry, mate, it’s just that I’m not really enjoying any of this. I guess I’m not a cyclist,’ he offered remorsefully before painfully pulling himself out of his seat and waddling back to our room with all the appearance of a man who had been violated by a rugby team.

‘Well, I’m going on!’

Back in our room, preparing to leave, I found Charlie awkwardly rubbing his undercarriage with a proprietary soothing cream, and we were soon both back in our unflattering Power Ranger costumes. We said our goodbyes, and arranged to meet for lunch. I headed south towards the Loire valley and the cathedral of Chartres. Charlie pedalled west in search of the nearest car rental office.

For the next week I spent each day cycling a hundred or so miles through the French countryside. Charlie spent his days driving the same distance, meeting me in the evenings and at pre-organised lunch stops.

‘Right. This little town here has a nice-looking brasserie and a stunning medieval monastery,’ Charlie would announce with all the authority of a general directing his troops, circling the relevant area of his map, laid out on the bonnet of his car, with a well-informed finger.

‘Medieval monastery! You’ve never even been to church. Are you feeling all right?’

‘It’s culture. And if you can make another sixty kilometres after lunch, this little town has a very comfortable-looking hotel with a great set menu and two knives and forks in the Michelin guide.’

‘Two knives and forks! I better get a move on.’

‘Good. I’ll see you for lunch in two hours.’

I had my orders, and I was on my own again and at my happiest. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the company, but out there on the back roads of France life was so peaceful, so calm and so far away from the fast world of advertising I had briefly left behind in London. Moving silently, apart from the spinning of my wheels and creaking of my saddle, I passed through vineyards and fields, small villages and quiet towns. My nostrils filled with the scent of newly fallen rain or the yeasty aromas from a local boulangerie, and I peered over fences into tidy vegetable patches and spied through windows at old ladies preparing their lunch behind heavy machine-laced curtains. Chartres, Bourges, Sancerre, Le Puy. Following the slow-moving waters of the Loire, I gradually made my way south and it became clear I was falling in love with a country that had previously only existed as a blur through the window of a cramped car on family holidays.

Showing the utmost respect for France’s sacred midday hour, when clanking metal shutters are pulled down over shop fronts, roundabouts become congested with hungry and impatient Frenchmen and the whole of France comes to a grinding halt for lunch, I did the same. Pulling into lively restaurants packed with feasting Frenchmen and bustling with the happy sounds of conversation and the clink of cutlery on china, I enjoyed plat du jour after plat du jour and formule after formule. Plates of hefty steak frites; fresh and gooey goat’s cheese salads; golden, oozing croque-mesdame; flavoursome slabs of hearty pâte, all washed down with glasses of cool, crisp rosé. Crêpes suzette, doused in Cointreau, and a small cup of espresso would jump-start my afternoon’s ride, and after working off my calorie-packed lunch I would cover enough miles to ensure that I arrived famished at my evening’s destination, primed to demolish the five-course extravaganza that awaited me.

Peeling off my Lycra, enjoying a necessary shower and putting on some less disturbingly noisome clothes, I would wander with Charlie into town for dinner. Chilled crayfish and cucumber soup; crispy frog’s legs; snails drowned in garlic butter; oak-smoked duck breast salad; rabbit in a mustard and white wine sauce; marbled tête de veau; garlic-infused pommes dauphinoise; lavender-scented crème brûlée, and cheese. Endless amounts of smoky, unctuous cheese that smelt of the farmyards of France.

Food had never tasted so good, and as my pedal-powered gastronomic holiday came to an end I realised I had cycled head-first into one of France’s greatest secrets. Cycling and food are one of the great French double acts.

Like seared foie gras and a good Sauternes; chateaubriand and Château Lafite; Napoleon and Josephine; Asterix and Obelix, and Sarko and Carla, food and cycling are the perfect partners. Because on a bicycle food is your fuel, your four-star, your essence, and if you don’t fill up, you aren’t going anywhere.

It is no coincidence that the most prestigious cycling race on earth, the Tour de France, originated in the land of gastronomy. In the early years of this great race, brave competitors’ minds, and indeed other parts of their anatomy, were never far from food. Before the days of multi-million-Euro sponsorship and luxury padded Lycra, hard-up riders would protect their assets by placing a tender cut of beef inside their shorts and between their legs. By the end of the day these choice cuts of meat had been tenderised and marinated and would be cooked and enjoyed, providing those hungry cyclists with the ultimate comfort food.

I know there are deluded pedallers out there who, for reasons unknown to me, are happy to survive on factory-made energy bars when out on the road. But unless you are trailing Lance Armstrong over the Alps, it beats me why anyone would want to put themselves through the jaw-aching misery of eating a synthetically flavoured hunk of Plasticine.

There is so much more to this magical marriage of gears and gastronomy than simply refuelling and it’s not just your taste buds that are exposed to flavours. From the seat of a bicycle you pedal with every one of your five senses. You feel the sun that ripens the wheat that will make your bread. You hear the shrill morning call of the cockerel that will end up steeped in red wine as your coq au vin. You whiz past hypnotic lines of grape-laden vines that provide a relaxing glass of wine at the end of the day, and you can’t escape the pungent whiff of contented cows, sheltering at midday under a tree, who will give you a stinking Epoisses as runny and pungent as a ripe cowpat. On a bicycle you work for your food, you get fit and you build an appetite, and you are totally exposed to the terrain, climate and culture that results in what you are eating. Shielded behind the window of a car or a high-speed train or with your head squashed inside a motorcycle helmet, you miss out on these vital sensual experiences that quite simply make food taste better.

A career in advertising, a girlfriend, a car, a stack of bills, a mobile phone, weekend weddings, savings and foolish ideas about getting on the property ladder. There were more than enough reasons not to go, but I couldn’t help giving it more thought. After my happy holiday in France I would come home from a hard day’s work and stare at the large map of the world Blu-tacked to my bedroom wall. I wanted more. I was a food lover with a newfound passion for cycling, and all I wanted to do now was cycle and eat my way around the world.

Africa looked a bit hot for a bike ride and Russia a bit too cold; Europe was too expensive, Australia was too far away and, never a competent linguist, I was scared by the languages of Asia. I was left contemplating the Americas. Two great continents that would allow me to pedal from the United States and Canada all the way to Brazil and Argentina.

I did a little research into cycle touring, and soon found that the popular choice was the route along the Pacific coast from the wilds of Alaska to Terra del Fuego at the tip of Argentina. But call me a bluff old hedonist, if I was going to cycle the best part of 15,000 miles by myself, the last thing I wanted to do was start and finish my trip in two of the coldest and most desolate places on earth. I’m sure the thought of cycling from the northernmost point to the southernmost point of the Americas leaves many adventurers salivating with excitement, but, for me, being surrounded by rocks, penguins and little else, while surviving on porridge and Kendal mint cake, was not what I had in mind as the climax to my continent-crossing labour of love. I wanted to start in the culinary Mecca of America, in a city that didn’t sleep, and I wanted to finish in the sunshine, surrounded by bronzed bottoms and bikinis, sipping caipirinhas on Ipanema beach. It was set. I would ride my bicycle from New York City to Rio de Janeiro in search of the perfect meal. Now all I needed was a bicycle. ‘Good bike for long cycle tour.’ Click!

God only knows how people prepared for a trip like this, or in fact did anything, before the advent of the internet. Comfortably ensconced at my computer I was able to live vicariously through the lives of other cycle tourists. I could read their websites, eye up their equipment lists and prepare my own, and it quickly became clear that neither of the two bicycles I owned would be coming with me to America. One was so old and weather-beaten it barely made it to the local pub, and the other, the beloved racer that had carried me through France, was too lightweight and flimsy to cope with heavy panniers and the rough terrain of the Americas.

It wasn’t cheap, but eventually I settled on a chunky, British racing-green touring bicycle, with a very smart and traditional leather saddle. I was promised that if I looked after the bike, it would look after me, and for a completely inexperienced wannabe cycle tourist, this was all I wanted: to ride my bicycle and not have to worry about broken spokes, loose bottom brackets, a bent derailleur and other such dilemmas. After Christmas I set a departure date, handed in my notice at work, explained to my girlfriend that this was a journey I had to make, and woke every morning to be greeted by the violent pink Post-it note that clung to my bathroom door.

14 MAY—LEAVING

Front and rear panniers, rainproof map holder, cycling shoes, a camping stove, lightweight knives and forks, a torch you can wrap around your head like a Davey lamp, waterproof jacket, windproof trousers, camping soap, inflatable mattress, multi-season sleeping bag, a tent. The list of equipment I apparently needed was endless, but as my departure date shrunk from months to weeks to days away, I gradually accumulated all the gear. Buying a one-way ticket to New York, arranging travel insurance, selling my car, cancelling my mobile phone contract, vaccines, injections, visas and maps, were all on a lengthy ‘to do’ list, along with getting into some kind of physical shape. Loading my panniers with heavy cookbooks, to mimic my load when away, I set off on half-hearted weekend cycling trips into the English countryside. It got dark early, it was cold, it rained, it snowed and it was miserable, but naively I assumed that in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, everything would be fine.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

John Pierpont Morgan

Chapter 1
All the Gear and No Idea LEAVING NEW YORK AND GOING THE WRONG WAY

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle, it’s not going to be satisfying.

Greg Lemond

‘Yo, bike boy, why you so hungry?’

The deep and demanding New York accent rose above the aggressive throb of hip-hop beat that shook the otherwise peaceful Nyack Forest, some twenty kilometres north of Manhattan.

Just keep cycling, Tom—try not to attract any attention, I told myself, forgetting that I was sitting atop an overloaded touring bicycle, flying a Union Jack, with an audacious, fluorescent-yellow sign hanging from my rear, announcing that I was:

Eating my way from NYC to Rio.
www.thehungrycyclist.com

‘Yeah, you! I don’t see no other brothers riding a bike, get over here!’ came another growl. Glancing over my shoulder through the leaves and branches, I was able to make out a gang of menacing Hispanics hidden in a clearing between the trees.

‘Me? Really? Yes,’ I muttered nervously, before dismounting my bicycle and pushing it awkwardly down the forest track towards this daunting group of bare-chested men.

In baggy trousers and with bulging muscles covered in the kind of tattoos that seemed to be inspired by particularly gruesome nightmares, this group of eight hoodlums stood before me, their silver chains, diamond-stud earrings, long knives and skewers glistening in the afternoon sunshine. My heart pounded and cold beads of sweat dribbled down my back.

I’m going to get gang-banged, I thought, and I haven’t even made it out of New Jersey.

‘So you gonna tell me about da Hungry Cyclist?’ said the largest and most fearsome of the giants through his thick goatee beard, which more than compensated for the lack of hair on his shaven head.

‘Yeah, well…Um, I’m going to ride my bicycle from New York City to Rio de Janeiro, in search of the perfect meal.’

And it had all seemed like such a good idea back at home. A grand tour, an escape, a well-overdue adventure. But standing here now, on day one of my ‘trip of a lifetime’, in front of this line-up of professional wrestlers, hit men and gangsters, I began to wonder what the hell I was doing.

‘Well, if yo’ one of those TV chef people,’ the leader scowled, ‘you ain’t leaving till you tasted my mama’s Puerto Rican rice.’

‘No, no, no…’ Before I could explain that I was anything but one of those TV chef people, and that in fact I was little more than an overexcited, underprepared, ex-advertising executive who liked food and riding his bike, the leading giant had uncrossed his thigh-sized arms, draped one of them over my shoulders and was leading me towards a little old lady sitting peacefully at a wooden picnic table, chopping away at a small pile of lipstick-red chillies.

The hulk of a man squatted before his mother and after exchanging a few quiet words, in what I assumed was Spanish, planted a tender kiss on her forehead and I was ordered to take a seat. A paper picnic plate was placed in front of me, I was armed with a plastic knife and fork (no good at all if I was going to have to fight my way out of this unnerving situation) and a piece of tinfoil covering a large dish was removed, revealing a mountain of spicy-looking rice that released a cloud of sweet-smelling steam into the afternoon.

‘Ahh…Puerto Rican rice, my favourite.’ Whatever that is, I pondered, while one of the men shovelled a large portion on to my plate with the grace of a bulldozer. I loaded my fork and nervously, under the watchful eyes of all present, passed it to my mouth. Everything fell silent. I could no longer hear the menacing thud of hip-hop music or the wind playing in the leaves of the trees overhead. I was only aware of the jury standing before me, waiting for my culinary verdict. These were the kind of dudes who shot you just for looking at them funny. Imagine what they were going to do to an inexperienced Englishman stupid enough to ‘diss’ their beloved mother’s cooking.

Please like this, Tom, and if you don’t, make sure you look like you do, I told myself firmly.

But there was no need.

‘This is good!’ I mumbled through my first mouthful. And it was good, really good. Soft rice full of flavour, cooked in a rich chicken stock, mingled with fresh cilantro, hearty pigeon peas, chunks of salty pork and all impeccably spiced with those finely chopped chillies.

‘Damn right it is! And now you gotta try my cousin Emilio’s ribs.’

One thing the films do get right. Gangsters sure know how to eat. I soon found myself perched on the side of the small wooden picnic table, sandwiched between two enormous, sweaty men efficiently shovelling food into their mouths. In front of me, plates heaped with Puerto Rican rice; Emilio’s perfectly marinated, sticky pork ribs; grilled New York strip steaks, rosy pink in the middle and oozing juices; long skewers of tightly packed grilled prawns, doused in fresh lime juice; a stack of fat, spicy sausages, bursting out of their skins; creamy potato salads and crunchy home-made slaw.

Now this is what I left home for.

I speared another sausage with my flimsy plastic fork.

This is culinary adventure.

As it turned out, my new friends were not ruthless gangsters. They were hard-working people with respectable jobs in construction and haulage. They were all family, all from Puerto Rico and had come to America to make enough money to return home and start their own businesses. Every Sunday in the summer they got together here in the woods to eat, talk, laugh, and it was an honour to join them.

I explained that my plans were to cycle to Rio de Janeiro, sampling the most delicious and authentic food I could find along the way. They were insistent that the perfect meal I was looking for would be found only in Puerto Rico, and their kind words and good wishes filled me with a new zest and optimism for the journey ahead. For the rest of the afternoon the sun broke through the trees in smoky shafts of light and the sweet smells of barbecue filled the forest. I was forced to take part in a post-lunch game of baseball, in which I performed uselessly, and as the charcoal embers gave off the last of their heat it was time to say farewell. A family-sized silver-wrapped parcel of leftovers was presented to me for eating later that evening, along with a crackly pillowcase of potato chips and a vast bottle of bright yellow fizzy liquid. Each of the men embraced me with a bone-crushing bear hug before going through a confusing collection of handshakes, knuckle taps and high-fives. Full of food and optimism, I waved goodbye, mounted my bicycle and made my way back on to the forest trail.

‘Yo, brother! You ever write a book about this trip of yours, you better put my mom’s rice recipe in there,’ came a call from behind me.

‘No problem,’ I hollered back in my best New Jersey accent.

‘And one more thing, if you’re goin ta’ Brazil, you goin’ da wrong way. Rio de Janeiro gotta be south a here.’

This was not the last time I would be told I was going the wrong way. Leaving New York, my plan was to cycle north for the Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes before turning west across the country towards the Rocky mountains, on what I decided was the scenic route to Rio, via Toronto and Vancouver.

‘I’m cycling to Brazil,’ I shouted into the empty forest, buoyed with Puerto Rican rice, cheap American beer and naive self-assurance. Enjoying a long New England afternoon I made good time towards Nyack and the ominously named Bear mountain. The wide, slow-moving water of the Hudson river shimmered benevolently in the late afternoon sunshine. The dark green forested banks were dotted with whitewashed, clinker-built colonial houses, once homes to the wealthy merchants who managed the flow of New World commodities, fur, maple syrup, coal and buffalo, into New York. They stood as a reminder of the river’s important role as an artery into the great city I had left behind earlier in the day. In the morning I had battled my way through the busy traffic, kamikaze cab drivers and beeping horns of Manhattan, but out here, cycling along the banks of this historic river, I could have been a thousand miles away from the energy and power of New York City. At last, I was on my way.

It didn’t take long for my confidence to be undermined. The flat roads of the morning ride, which had stretched out before me making comfortable cycling, began to curve round the steep sides of the growing hills that now flanked the valley. The gradients increased and to keep my overloaded, 60-kilo bicycle moving forward became a hard and painful struggle. After leaving the shade of the forest trail, the heat of the afternoon sapped my energy.

I had only planned to spend five nights sleeping on a friend’s couch in the Big Apple, but thanks to Natwest Bank’s complete lack of customer service, and the epicurean charms of the city that never sleeps, I did not leave for five weeks. Any fitness I had gained labouring around Richmond Park had vanished after a lengthy intake of hamburgers, knishes, bagels and street pizzas, combined with late nights and riotous living. Now I was paying for it, hunched over my handlebars, dripping with sweat, making miserably slow work of the short journey to my first night’s goal, Nyack State Park, where I hoped I might be able to pitch camp.

NYACK STATE PARK CLOSED STRICTLY NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING!

If a squadron of mosquitoes hadn’t been feasting on every bit of tasty skin that wasn’t wrapped in sweat-drenched clothing, and if the tired muscles in my legs had not been contracting in complaint at their unexpected new existence, I might have obeyed the friendly sign that greeted me at the gates of the state park. Yet as the last minutes of twilight began to give way to gathering darkness and a distant growl of thunder warned me of the weather to come, I decided to risk the wrath of an angry park ranger and wheeled my heavy load up the last hill of the day. Finding a little corner of grass hidden between a large rock and a malodorous public toilet, I set about pitching camp. Pre-trip daydreams had been buoyed with romantic ideas about camping in the moonlight on the banks of foreign rivers, grilling fish over an open fire, but being able to count my previous nights under canvas on one hand, I was about to find out how immature this boy’s own fantasy was.

‘Ultra light’ it declared on the bright label of my brand-new one-man tent as I pulled it from its tidy little nylon bag and rolled it out on the grass. Could have been a bit fucking lighter if you ask me, I muttered, while trying to decipher the complicated Swedish instruction manual.

‘Grattis, du är nu den stolte ägaren av ett nytt tält’

The annoyingly efficient-looking Swede in the pictures instructed me that my first job was to link up the two sausage-strings of shiny, metal poles. Once connected, they had to be slid into their relevant holes before the whole tent could be pegged down. This was not dissimilar to knitting with a pair of eight-foot needles, but I managed, with an adequate amount of swearing and loss of temper, while being perpetually pestered by the biting and high-pitched whine of every blood-sucking insect in New York State, to get the right bits in the right places. And, as if by magic, my new home rose miraculously out of the ground.

It hadn’t looked that small when I performed a dry-run erection on the living-room floor of the pokey, one-bedroom flat in London where I had lived for the last five years. But now, dwarfed by the immense trees and the public toilets of Nyack State Park, it looked pathetic. A London estate agent would have described it as ‘compact and with a clever use of space’, but as I climbed inside there was no escaping the fact that my accommodation for the next two years was inconveniently petite.

To rest my bones at the end of a hard day in the saddle, I had also invested in an expensive, ultra-light, self-inflating camping mattress. It too lived in an efficient nylon bag and, once removed, it unrolled itself like an asthmatic woodlouse, wheezing pathetically as it tried to ‘self-inflate’.

That’s it?

At that price, I had hoped that a plump and bouncy airbed would expand before my eyes, but instead a small, bright orange piece of foam that looked about as comfortable as a doormat materialised in front of me. ‘Tat-tat, tat-tat-tat.’ The sound of rain drumming away on the tightly-stretched nylon that now surrounded me didn’t help lift my sinking mood. I made a dash through the escalating downpour to rescue my panniers and other bits of equipment, before retreating back into my bunker, soaking wet, to begin making plans for supper. My first-night fantasies of an open fire were literally washed away, and instead I would have to fire-up the most exciting item hidden in my bags. The camp stove.

I have no doubt that if you find yourself stuck on a freezing mountain at high altitude, somewhere in the Himalayas, and you fancy a quick cuppa, a high-octane jet engine is just the job for melting a few litres of snow and getting a good brew on, but if all you want to do is reheat some Puerto Rican rice and a couple of sausages, the violent little object I was now unpacking is completely unsuitable. Faced with a confusing set-up of metal cables and a bright red fuel tank that looked as if they were part of a bomb-making kit worthy of Al Qaeda, I unpacked the new toy that would cook my supper. Carefully following the English instructions, I obediently tweaked the levers and pumped the pumps. My shiny lightweight aluminium pots and pans were loaded with leftovers. I struck a match.

Booom—whooooooooosh!

A yellow flame filled the entrance of my tent. My eyebrows sent out a smell of singed hair and, reeling back, I looked on in horror at the angry little object now roaring away with a ferocious blue flame in the tent porch. It seemed more suitable for stripping paint than cooking a light supper. Acrid black smoke invaded my living space. I plucked up enough courage to turn the thing off, then scraped away at the inedible burnt offerings welded to the bottom of my pans. I had to admit that the Hungry Cyclist’s first night in the great outdoors hadn’t quite gone to plan. I turned in, dirty, disheartened, dishevelled and hungry, wondering how and why I had given up a comfortable London life, an agreeable career in advertising and a beautiful girlfriend to be here alone, eating burnt sausages, camped next to a public toilet, in the pouring rain somewhere in New York State.

The following morning I awoke in the claustrophobic conditions of my nylon coffin, exhausted. I had all the gear but evidently I had no idea what I was doing. I climbed out of my tent, bleary-eyed, stiff and despondent. Strange calls and scratching had distracted me throughout the night and I had enjoyed little sleep. I needed coffee, and after rolling up my wet tent, gathering my belongings and getting back on the bike, I went in search of someone who might sell me one. Ten kilometres outside Nyack I found a busy café attached to a gas station. At just before six in the morning, it was full of dusty truck drivers and delivery men.

‘Sit wherever you can find a spot, darling,’ called a waitress busy filling coffee cups from a glass percolator jug.

But instead of taking a seat I headed straight for the rest room. I brushed my teeth, washed my face in the basin and took a sad look at the drained face that appeared in the mirror. I felt weak, demoralised and nauseous.

What am I doing?

The state I was in, I would have let somebody steal my bicycle, but I still found a booth next to the window where I could keep half an eye on my worldly possessions propped up in the parking lot. I ordered a tall stack of pancakes, which arrived dripping in maple syrup, and downed cup after cup of bitter coffee while I laid out my damp map on the table and made a plan for the day.

Now where am I? Nyack, Nyack, Nyack—here!

It took a few seconds to find the small red dot that signified where I was, and when I did, it was completely soul-destroying. In a day that had left me feeling physically and mentally drained, I had cycled no further than two-thirds of the width of my little finger. A pathetic thirty-seven miles. Looking north, the Canadian border and the Great Lakes were a stretched hand away. If I carried on at this pace Toronto would take two to three weeks and Rio de Janeiro was clearly impossible.

The next week was the stuff of nightmares. I was unfit, underprepared and it was very hot. The sun woke me from my tent every morning and soon became a merciless tormentor as I struggled further north into the Catskill mountains of Upstate New York. The rich landscape of pine-carpeted mountains and placid lakes should have been breathtaking but I had no breath to spare. As each day of hard labour came to an end, I was greeted with another uncomfortable broken night’s sleep in my reeking tent, before having to start all over again at sunrise.

More than seven years of a nine-to-five existence in London had left me completely unsuited to the hardships of life on the road. However I cut it, pushing a ridiculously heavy weight up a mountain in 30-plus degrees just wasn’t fun. I was meant to be revelling in a newfound freedom. This was about as far from freedom as I could imagine. Dragging an oversized ball and chain disguised as a bicycle and trapped within a strange alter ego that called himself the Hungry Cyclist, I was meant to be cycling the Americas in search of interesting food and digging up local recipes. Instead I was surviving on chocolate bars, fizzy drinks and whatever else I could get my hands on at the sporadic gas stations that lined my route. I barely had the energy or enthusiasm to open a tin of beans. The Hungry Cyclist and his dream were both falling apart.

‘Buy me; buy me,’ called rusty station wagons parked in driveways.

‘Take me, take me, look at my powerful motor,’ goaded shiny, chrome-covered motorcycles with their fluorescent ‘For Sale’ signs.

And how easy it would have been to quit. To cash in my bicycle, dump the panniers and go on a real road trip in the land of the motorcar. The raw chafing between my legs would be a thing of the past. I could kiss goodbye to my aching buttocks and throw away my dirty, sweat-stained clothes. Covering as little as thirty-five miles a day, against the hundred I had projected, no more than a soul-destroying centimetre on my tatty map, I was making slow, painful progress on my way to Ithaca and the Finger Lakes. But as the long days and short nights gradually ticked over, the hills slowly became easier. It was revealing to see how body and mind learnt to deal with life on a bicycle, and I came to terms with the fact that this journey would not happen in the way I had imagined it would. After an initial few weeks of pain and suffering, I arrived in the town of Buffalo, famed for its chicken wings and the Niagara Falls. It was here that I would cross into Canada. I had cycled some five hundred miles after leaving New York. I was feeling fit, I was sleeping, I could operate my camping stove and I was almost having fun.

I was a cowboy. My sister was an Indian, hiding at the bottom of the garden in her wigwam that smelt of wet socks, doing whatever seven-year-old East Anglian girl Indians did. I would creep stealthily through the unkempt grass, in my finest hat, with a six-shooter at the ready, primed for an ambush.

‘Yeeeeeeeeeeee ha!’ Pow! Snap! Pow! Snap! Bursting into her peaceful camp, guns blazing, I ruthlessly fired off reels of pink caps while she ran for the cover of home, slapping the palm of her hand against her mouth, doing her best to warn me off with an unconvincing war-cry.

But cap guns and cowboy hats were soon replaced by a Walkman and a mountain bike, and the only contact I had with Indians was limited to over-imaginative, lustful thoughts provoked by Disney’s buckskin-clad, leggy recreation of Pocahontas. As I matured a little, Daniel Day Lewis running bare-chested through the mountains of Upstate New York in his moccasins and Kevin Costner soulfully pursuing herds of buffalo across the Dakotas provided me with a little insight into the native tribes of the Americas. But shamefully, as I arrived on banks of the Great Lakes, apart from childhood and Hollywood fantasies I knew nothing about the great and tragic history of the land I was now cycling through.

Moving further into Ontario, surrounded by the waters of lakes Huron, Ontario and Michigan, it was clear I was in Indian country. Eagle feathers and dream catchers now hung from the rear-view mirrors of pick-up trucks, whose ‘Support our Troops’ bumper stickers also declared ‘Proud to be Indian’. The patriotic posters that portrayed dust-covered New York firemen emerging from falling rubble under a red, white and blue Stars and Stripes, declaring ‘These Colors Don’t Run’, no longer adorned the graffiti-covered doors of gas station toilets. Instead, dreamy, sepia-toned images of old men wrapped in blankets with feathers on their heads, gazing at the horizon, proclaimed you should ‘Do what you know to be right’. But instead of taking their advice, buying a car and racing to Vegas, I continued cycling up the Bruce Peninsula that bisects the shallow waters of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

A popular summer destination for those escaping the sweltering city heat of Toronto, the Bruce Peninsula’s picturesque towns were well prepared for this seasonal boom. Pretty clinker-built houses, once home to wealthy fur traders, were converted into twee bed and breakfasts. Organic cafés, decorated with wind-chimes and lesbians, sold overpriced cups of coffee, and the famous Great Lakes ‘white fish and chips’ seemed to be sold in every one of the restaurants. Holidaying Ontarian families, towing caravans in long convoys up the Peninsula main road, licked ice creams and stared into the backs of digital cameras, but on the side of the road, the vendors sitting in part-time stands next to the highway selling wood carvings of eagles, feather-decorated dream catchers, buckskin moccasins and bags of wild rice to the passing trade told of deeper tradition in this bountiful corner of eastern Canada. Arriving in the port town Tobermory, given its name by Scottish fur traders, I caught the last ferry to Manitoulin Island. With my bike tied up below deck of the Chi-Cheemaun (big canoe) with the motorhomes and caravans, I sat above in the cool evening air watching the wake of the boat rip open the glassy skin of Lake Huron and began to feel thoroughly ashamed of my historical ignorance. I decided to take the very first opportunity to swot up on the First Nation culture of the Great Lakes. The next morning, after camping on the banks of the lake and full of campfire coffee, I rode to the Manitoulin Island cultural visitor centre for an education.

An impressive building with heavy wooden beams and a triangular roof, the centre provided me with vital information about how to stretch a tribal drum and weave a fish trap, and also gave me a potted history of the area I was in. I was in Ojibwa country, the largest and most powerful of the Great Lakes tribes and considered by many to be the most powerful in the North American continent. Occupying the lands around the Great Lakes and stretching as far west as North Dakota, the Ojibwa lived far enough north to have avoided the early flow of migration from Europe, but by the late eighteenth century they found themselves too close to the rapidly expanding trading posts of the Hudson Bay Company, and they were soon engulfed in a fur trade that was turning the Great Lakes into a war zone between the English and the French.

Beaver skins were big money back in Europe, and as demand for this New World commodity grew, the old rivals fought heavily to control the rivers, lakes and ports of the region. As outstanding hunters and trappers, the Ojibwa were unwittingly caught up in the Fur Wars, which continued well into the nineteenth century. Treaties were signed, alliances formed, alliances broken, and tribes were pitted against each other to best feed the appetites of smart Londoners and Parisians, who could not live without their fashionable beaver top hats. The Ojibwa traded with their new European invaders and, although the weapons brought wealth and power, the Ojibwa soon became dependent on French and English goods. The introduction of gunpowder, alcohol and smallpox would change the Great Lakes for ever. Changes in fashion brought a welcome end to the fur trade, but it was only replaced by a new hunger for lumber, copper and white fish, which tempted more Europeans to the area, where they pursued a policy of deforestation and overfishing that emptied the ancient woodlands and lakes of their harvest.

Like after any good museum visit, I found myself in the shop browsing for postcards, novelty pens, key fobs, moccasins and dream catchers, but to my excitement I also discovered a traditional Ojibwa recipe book. Until now the only regional dish I had found that Ontarians were at all proud of was poutine, a clumsy bastardisation of a French dish, consisting of a heap of greasy chips, topped with lumpy gravy and some rubbery cheese curds, normally sold from the hatch of a converted ambulance and served on a flimsy polystyrene platter. It had all the charm and sophistication of a late-night kebab. So to browse recipes of such exotic treats as beaver tail soup, boiled moose nose, white fish livers and manoomin (wild rice) was an exhilarating experience. As I left, the kind woman who sold me the book called after me to tell me that the Sagamok Anishinabek annual traditional pow-wow was being held at the weekend, and if I was lucky I might well be able to taste some of this traditional native fare.

Following the north shore of Lake Huron, I cycled deeper into the barren landscape of Ontario. Small one-café towns, surviving on the logging industry, provided well-needed breaks from the never-ending tarmac of Highway 17, romantically known as the TransCanada Highway. After two days I turned off this noisy road, which flowed with fume-belching logging trucks and made happy time along the pothole-infested back roads that wound their way under towering russet rockfaces and along the banks of placid lakes. Riding in silence, apart from my heart beat and the whoosh of my spinning wheels, I was alone. My imagination, overfed on Spaghetti Westerns, began to work overtime. I peered up at the cliffs flanking the roads and squirmed at the haunted calls and ominous shapes of the patient turkey vultures circling overhead. Rocks tumbling down precipices were no doubt misplaced by the warring redskin scouts who crept up on their bellies, primed to puncture me with arrows, and I could see the angular features of ancient warrior chiefs in every shadow and rock formation that surrounded me.

An hour before sunset I was still thirty miles away from where I hoped I would find my pow-wow and so decided to call it a day and cover the rest of the distance in the morning. A couple of miles along a disused, rust-stained railway track I hit on a good spot to camp, perched above the steep, rocky banks of Silver Lake. Hot and dirty after a day in the saddle, I stripped off, scrambled naked to the lake’s edge and plunged into the cold clear water for a resurrecting swim. Before darkness fell I had failed to catch a fish for supper, but I had gathered enough wood for a small fire and prepared some lentils that had been soaking in one of my water bottles since the morning. The fire kept out the crisp chill of night and under a clear sky I lay back alone in this vast landscape. The mocking laughter of loons echoed across the calm waters shimmering in the moonlight. At long last my bicycle was giving me real freedom, allowing me to find this perfect place, but after a month on the road I felt alone. For the first but not the last time I began to wish I had someone to share it with. It seemed a waste having it all by myself.

At sunrise I restarted my fire, brewed some coffee and cooked some oats before packing up, clicking my panniers into place and returning to the road. I did my best to make good time, before it got too hot, on a twisty road that ran between jagged rockfaces and thickets of tall pine. It wasn’t until midday that I caught a glimpse of another human being. He was perched behind the wheel of a rusty old pick-up and wore a black felt hat that covered his long dark hair, which was stretched tight over his ears and gathered in a tidy ponytail behind. I offered a raised hand of acknowledgement, but the angular native features of the man did not flinch and he rolled slowly past until the mechanical clanking of his engine disappeared into the silence. Minutes later a beaten-up station wagon stuffed with several generations pulled alongside. Its occupants peered at me from the windows with blank, unwelcoming expressions.

SACRED GROUND OF THE OJIBWA SAGAMOK. STRICTLY NO DRUGS AND NO ALCOHOL.

Following the two vehicles I arrived at a clearing of dry, yellow grass on a small hill that looked out across the endless waters and small islands of Lake Huron. It may well have been sacred. It was certainly beautiful. A cool breeze swept off the lake and mingled in the leaves of the slender trees that cast long shadows towards the back of the clearing, where a line of twenty or so rusty vehicles was parked in the shade.

In the centre of this sacred ground a busy group of men and women were constructing some kind of circular shelter from felled trees. Their work filled the afternoon with the energetic sounds of hammering, chopping and sawing, but they stopped, one by one, and put down their tools to look at the English cyclist standing nervously under his Union Jack flag. I looked on, questioning whether I should be here. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, a large-framed man approached me. He was dressed in tired blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a wolf’s face peering out from the middle.

‘You’re here for the pow-wow?’ he asked in a deep and flat tone. ‘Camp over there. No drugs. No alcohol. The grand entry begins at seven.’

Still feeling the stares of a hundred pairs of eyes, I wheeled my bike clumsily towards a shady cluster of trees where a few more nylon domes had already been erected, and picked a good spot with a beautiful view across the waters of Lake Huron. I got my tent up quickly. I had become good at it, just like the little man in the instruction manual, and I got a strange sense of satisfaction out of being organised and efficient. By now it was the middle of the afternoon and, after making the most of a small picnic of two squashed bread rolls, a tomato and some uninspiring packaged ham, I lay back on the soft grass, rested my head on my rolled-up sleeping bag and shut my eyes. With the warmth of the sun on my face I began to enjoy my weekend.

‘If you need to wash I am going to the lake.’

A deep voice woke me from my blissful slumber. I opened my eyes to the vision of a large bare-chested Indian towering over me holding a towel and a bar of soap. Without his wolf T-shirt it took me a few moments of sleepy confusion to recognise the man casting a long shadow across my body. He turned and walked away. I gathered the pathetic piece of material that had been sold to me as a quick-dry camping towel and jogged to catch up.

‘My name’s Tom.’

‘John,’ he replied. I had half expected him to be called Jumping Salmon or Silver Wolf.

I followed him in silence along a dusty tree-lined track to a small beach on the reedy, marshy banks of the lake. Our arrival was announced by a pair of ducks that burst out of a cluster of wild rice and scrambled across the surface of the water before taking off and flying into the distance. John took off his jeans, his white trainers and untied his ponytail. Standing naked, his long dark hair, which had been pulled in a smooth dome over his head, fell around his thick neck and muscular back like a curtain. He waded into the water and, after muttering some form of blessing, quietly sank his large frame beneath the surface, sending out no more than a few soft ripples. I peeled off my clammy Lycra, got out of my whiffy T-shirt and, feeling shamefully naked, quickly scuttled into the shallows. We both swam a little and the cool water seemed to wash away not only the dust and sweat of the last week’s cycling, but also my tiredness and uncertainty. In an attempt to break the silence and show off the knowledge I had recently gained in the museum, I asked, ‘What does the word “ojibwa” mean?’

‘In the language of Ojibwa it means to pucker.’

John went on to tell me that the Ojibwa were given their name for the unique shape of their footwear, a buckskin moccasin whose edges ‘puckered up’ when sewn together. While I was wondering where I might be able to get my hands on a pair of these shoes, he went on with a second, more disturbing theory.

‘There are those who believe it originated from a torturing technique used by the Ojibwa warriors who roasted their captives over fires until their skin puckered up under the extreme heat. Catch!’

John tossed me the soap and disappeared beneath the surface.

We walked back to the sacred ground in silence until the stillness of the afternoon gradually filled with the happy noise of the camp: the hammering of tent pegs, the chopping of wood, the calls of children playing. We climbed the last small hill and I looked out across the scene before me. The conical forms of traditional wigwams as tall as trees, children chasing each other through the encampment, men and women admiring each other’s feathered headdresses, elders surrounded by eager listeners, a makeshift arena of planks and branches, and a busy group of women gathered around huge metal pots which hung above small fires filling the warm evening air with tidy plumes of smoke. I had to try and ignore the shiny chrome bumpers on the pick-up trucks, the unnatural forms of garish nylon tents, the baseball caps and the jeans, but looking out it was a scene from a childhood dream. I was looking at a real Indian camp and I was relieved that the fires being carefully tended and loaded with chopped wood were not puckering up captives. Instead they were heating cauldrons of bubbling chillied beef and wild rice.

Wild rice, also known as manoomin, which translates as the ‘good berry’ in Ojibwa, has played a major role in the lives of Ojibwa people for thousands of years. According to Ojibwa oral tradition, they were instructed to find the place where ‘the food grows on the water’ during their long migration from the east coast. This led them to the shores of the Great Lakes, where flowing fields of manoomin were found in abundance. Seen as a gift from the Creator, manoomin became a healthy staple in the Ojibwa diet. When harvested correctly, wild rice could be stored for long periods of time to be available when other foods were not. Besides being basic to the traditional diet, manoomin also developed cultural and spiritual resonance and remains an important element in many feasts and ceremonies today.

‘The Sagamok Ojibwa tribal council welcomes all nations to the annual traditional pow-wow. Please join us for the opening feast. The grand entry will begin at seven,’ screeched an announcement through the unsophisticated tannoy system. This triggered a scramble as people poured out of tents and rushed towards the small fires of the makeshift kitchen. Trestle tables laden with food were attacked by a growing swarm of women and children helping themselves to the food on offer. Paper plates were piled high with wild rice and deep ladles of steaming chilli on top of a golden hunk of Indian taco, a skillet-fried flat bread which was a staple among many of the Great Lakes tribes and given the name bannock bread by Scottish fur traders. It wasn’t the feast of plump beaver’s tail and boiling moose nose I had been hoping for, but I was hungry, I was happy and I was excited to be here at my first Native American pow-wow.

In the jargon-filled world of my previous existence in advertising, a pow-wow was an informal term for another dreary meeting, but its origins are deeply rooted in the Native American culture. Deriving from the Algonquin term ‘pau-wau’, which referred to a gathering of medicine men and spiritual leaders, it was anglicised to ‘pow-wow’ by the first European settlers. However, for the numerous plains tribes of North America and Canada, the Blackfoot, the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Ojibwa, pow-wows were an important opportunity to gather together, trade, dance, celebrate and continue their culture, and eat.

Today the pow-wow circuit is in good shape and throughout the summer months traditional and competition pow-wows are held all over the continent. Competition pow-wows provide an opportunity for dancers, drummers and singers to perform for prestigious awards and big prize money. But the pow-wow circuit has not always been so healthy. Unsatisfied that starvation, land clearance and the introduction of western epidemics such as smallpox had done enough to decimate the indigenous tribes of the Americas, the invading white man, in all his wisdom, decided to prohibit the gathering of more than five native men in any one place at any one time. Afraid that any such meeting would lead to some kind of uprising, the American and Canadian governments imposed the Potlatch Laws of 1851 and 1857, which all but ended the traditional ceremonies that were vital to the survival of Native American culture, and saw the beginning of a generation of cultural prohibition. Clandestine pow-wows still took place but it wasn’t until 1934 in the USA and 1951 in Canada that the respective governments were satisfied that Native American culture had been sufficiently weakened to no longer be a threat, and the Potlatch Laws were repealed.

I perched on a comfortable log on the edge of the arena, happily digesting my wild rice, chilli and Indian taco, as the dull thud of a large drum resonated in the air. The master of ceremonies announced the opening of the pow-wow across the tannoy system that crackled and squeaked from huge conical speakers hung in the trees. It was time for the ‘grand entry’, and the group of men seated around the large circular drum in the centre of the arena began to accompany the melodic beat with ululating tribal wailing.

The eerie noise grew in intensity, filling the sacred ground, and the crowd of about a hundred men, women and children seated around the makeshift arena took to their feet. In the falling dusk an opening prayer of single syllables was offered in Ojibwa, and those not wearing eagle feathers were asked to remove their head gear. My malodorous Boston Red Sox baseball cap had to come off. A line of dancers entered the sacred circle, led by elders and veterans proudly bearing flags and staffs: the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Canadian flag, signs of respect for Ojibwa braves who served their countries in Vietnam and the two world wars (where Canadian soldiers fought under the British flag). They were followed by the black, yellow, white and red inter-tribal Native flag, and then the mystical-looking eagle staffs adorned with feathers, eagle skulls and animal pelts, which represented a deeper allegiance, unknown to me.

Behind the elders came an energetic line of younger men dressed from head to toe in beads, pelts, buckskin and ornate displays of turkey fans and eagle feathers. They shook gourds and banged small drums. They shuffled forward, adding sporadic high kicks that threw dust into the air, while spinning deliriously in what looked like a pagan drug-induced haze. Dancers decorated in long grass dresses and fringes, which shook as if the wind was blowing through them, flowed behind, and every shell and every feather of the men’s traditional dress seemed to follow the leading beat of the drum that kept this mass of colour and energy moving.

Native women and children now entered the arena. Their turquoise tunics hung with leather thongs, shells and tin cones that rattled and jingled sweetly in time with their slow and graceful movements. They carried delicate fans of goose feathers that twisted and turned in their fingers as they moved around the arena, skipping lightly in their Ojibwa moccasins. The drum beat changed and new drum groups were introduced and new dances announced: the corn dance, the trot, the crow hop, the horse-stealing song and the round dance.

More and more people took to their feet, and the arena became a confusion of black turkey feathers, bear claws, eagle masks, black-and-white skunk pelts, beaver skins, immaculate woven headdresses and the natural earth colours painted on the faces. As darkness fell the moon rose out of the water of the great lake and the tribal drum was still being hit. My initial anxiety and my English inhibitions slowly evaporated with every beat. I took to my feet and I began to shuffle gently in a small circle, and as my confidence grew I began to spin. I turned faster and faster, the drum controlling my every move, and I swayed forwards and backwards, catching glimpses of other dancers and costumes that flashed out of the shadows and spurts of firelight. The primitive beat resonated and invaded my system and I spontaneously began to wail like a brave.

The singing, dancing and drumming continued. In the moonlight I walked back to my tent and, untroubled by the usual frenzy of mosquitoes, put my head back on my sleeping bag and enjoyed the cool breeze that washed through this sacred and ancient place. The distant melodic pounding of the central drum continued to swell into the night, but far from being a disturbance, it was as if I was listening to a deep and distant heartbeat, while the haunting wailing of the singers carried into the star-filled sky. No words, no apparent plan, just the natural calling of grown men transfixed, concentrated, and singing as one. Their feelings translated into one true sound that needed no words to describe the sentiments and insights being expressed. Beauty, pride, honour, bravery, respect and the tragedy of the mighty Ojibwa people. This strange, abstract, wordless noise that had so much more meaning, more depth than words could ever convey, lulled me and I slept.

In the morning the pow-wow would pack up. The magnificent wigwams would come down. The traditional costumes would be packed away and the arena dismantled. One hundred and fifty years ago the Ojibwa would have finished their harvest of wild rice and maple syrup and moved west towards the buffalo-filled plains of the Dakotas. In the morning I too would roll up my shiny wigwam, pack a bag of wild rice and begin my journey west towards the Dakotas, the Midwest and cowboy country.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

Black Crow

Puerto Rican Rice

Serves 4

200g dried pigeon peas (black-eyed peas will do) 100g salt pork (or bacon), chopped into small pieces small onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped small 1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped small 2 tom atoes, chopped 350ml chicken or ham stock 1 tablespoon annatto (achiote) oil 200g long-grain rice salt and freshly ground black pepper to garnish: cilantro (coriander), chopped chillies and limes

1 In a small pot, bring the pigeon peas and 700ml water to the boil. Cover, turn off the heat and allow to stand for 1 hour. Drain the peas,.

2 In a deep pan, sauté the salt pork, onion and garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes.

3 Add both bell peppers, cover and cook over a medium heat until the onion begins to turn transparent.

4 Add the tomato, drained pigeon peas and stock. Simmer, covered, over a low heat for 15 minutes until the peas are almost tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.

5 Stir in the annatto oil, rice, black pepper and 500ml cold water. Return to the boil then simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is soft and tender.

6 Add salt to taste and mix through a handful of chopped fresh cilantro, some diced chilli and a good squeeze of fresh lime.

Beaver Tail Soup

Serves 6

bones and tail from 1 beaver 2 large onions, sliced 3 bay leaves 2 large carrots, chopped 4 garlic cloves, chopped salt and freshly ground black pepper to garnish: sprigs of fresh mint

1 First you need to remove the tough skin from the beaver tail. This is done by toasting the tail over an open flame until the scaly skin peels off in one blistered sheet. This will reveal the tasty white meat underneath. Cut the tail meat into chunks.

2 Place the bones and pieces of tail in a large deep pan, cover with water (at least 2 litres), add a teaspoon of salt and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, keeping the surface clean with a large spoon.

3 Add the onions, bay leaves, carrots, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and keep simmering for a further 30 minutes.

4 With a large spoon, remove the chunks of beaver tail from the pan and leave to drain on a plate. Don’t worry: these will be added back to the soup later. Carefully strain the remaining soup through a sieve into another large pan, being sure to remove any bits of bone. Now continue to boil until the soup reduces to roughly half of its original volume.

5 While the soup is reducing, cut the tail meat into bite-size chunks and add to the soup. Serve hot, making sure everyone gets some chunky bits of beaver in their bowl, and garnish with a few sprigs of fresh mint.

Chapter 2
Rodeo Ga Ga COWBOYS, CRITTERS AND BEAUTY QUEENS IN AMERICA’S MIDWEST

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don’t let ’em pick guitars or drive them old trucks.

Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such.

‘Son, I drove cross-country once. The boredom near killed me.’

Plucking a couple of dollar bills from the pocket of his dishevelled checked shirt and tossing them on to the table as if placing a bet in a Vegas casino, the substantial man sitting in front of me then poured the remainder of his coffee into the mouth I had just witnessed demolish a breakfast large enough to feed a small nation for a month.

‘But good luck to you all the same and God bless.’

He began to leave the diner booth we were sharing. No mean feat for a man of his size, who had to lever himself up on both hands while sliding a few inches sideways. But following three strenuous manoeuvres he was on his feet. He picked up his foam-fronted trucker’s hat, pierced with the colourful feathers of prized fishing flies, and pulled it on to his round balding head.

‘Thank ya, darlin’.’

‘You enjoy your weekend, Pete.’

My eyes followed him through the rain-lashed windows as he did his best to hurry through the torrential downpour, dodging puddles on his way to a large brown and yellow pick-up truck. The engine rumbled into life, the windscreen wipers began their repetitive routine and he rolled out towards the highway. ‘Born to Fish. Forced to Work’ announced the sticker attached to his rear window. He waited for a juggernaut to thunder past, kicking up a violent swirling storm of surface water, rain and wind.

‘What can I get you, darling?’

‘A Hungry Trucker’s Breakfast, please.’

‘And how dy’a want your eggs?’

‘Over easy, please.’

‘Links or bacon?’

‘Bacon, please.’

‘Toast or muffins?’

‘Toast.’

‘What bread would you like?’

‘Rye.’

‘Home fries or regular fries?’

‘Home fries.’

‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Oh coffee, definitely.’

Since leaving the Canadian Great Lakes and following the southern beaches of Lake Superior through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, I had become good at these small-town American diner exams, and with another multiple choice successfully completed all I had to do was wait for the results, and I really needed a good score. Americans don’t like getting rid of their beloved gas-guzzling vehicles and the previous night, unable to find anywhere else to camp before nightfall, I had slept in a post-apocalyptic automotive graveyard, forced to pitch my tent amidst the rusty broken hulks of neglected station wagons, engine blocks, suspension shocks and other derelict metal innards.

Minnesota’s state bird, the mosquito, had plagued me from dusk until dawn, and it had pissed with rain from the early hours and had no intention of stopping. Soaked through after a soul-destroying ten-mile ride through the wind and rain to where I now sat, this small-town, family-run diner, like all the others that fed me as I moved west across America, was a gift from God. A warm, comfortable, friendly sanctuary where, for a fistful of dollars, a hungry cyclist could take in enough calories to burn for a week. Eggs sunny side up, over easy, poached, boiled or fried. Thick pancakes in tall stacks drenched in maple syrup. Chunky waffles smothered in whipped cream and blueberries. Golden slabs of French toast dusted with icing sugar. Rashers of crispy bacon, sticky cinnamon buns, home fries, French fries, hash browns, English muffins, links of sausages, oats and coffee. American diners know all about breakfast.

With a mountain of cholesterol sitting in front of me, I took an essential gulp of coffee, refilled my cup and with a jammy piece of toast in one hand began to peel through the pages of the Frazee Forum the previous occupant had left behind. The quality of regional Midwestern journalism was as reliable as my breakfast and I entertained myself with the headlines that jumped off the page.

NARROW ESCAPE WITH HAY STACKER FOR LUCKY FARMER GIANT QUILT KEEPS RESIDENTS BUSY FRAZEE TURKEY LURES MISS MINNESOTA

Drawn in by an alluring picture of Miss Minnesota in a floral bikini, I read on. This weekend the town of Frazee was holding some kind of turkey festival, and the article informed me there would be a demolition derby, a mystery gobbler competition, a hillbilly horseshoe contest, a Turkey Dayz parade, a Miss Frazee beauty pageant and, most excitingly, a street dance.

At this point in the trip my contact with the fairer sex had been somewhat limited. The myth that an English accent in America would result in more amorous advances than a man could handle was still, sadly, a myth. I was by no means an ugly cyclist, I didn’t think I smelt too bad, but, to date, the closest I had been to having anything to write home about was an over-eager, over-aged waitress who, bored with serving truck drivers for the majority of her life, cooed over my quaint English inflection.

I had barely seen a girl since leaving New York, but surely a weekend involving a street dance and a beauty parade would provide an opportunity. Farmers’ daughters, beauty queens, beer and line-dancing were on the menu and, who knows, even Miss Frazee herself might fall for my pedal-powered tales of derring-do.

‘More coffee, darling?’

The mental picture I had created was interrupted by the waitress hanging over me with two full percolator jugs of brewed coffee.

‘Sure, thanks. Do you know anything about the Frazee Turkey Dayz?’

The waitress looked blank.

‘Frazee Turkey Dayz?’

Nothing. I held up the article.

‘Fraaaazeeeee. Suuuuure, they’re good folk out that way. It’ll be a blast.’

Ripping the article from its page, I screwed Miss Minnesota into my pocket and was on my way.

WELCOME TO FRAZEE. TURKEY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND HOME TO THE WORLD’S LARGEST TURKEY

You could smell Frazee before its giant cut-out cartoon turkey welcomed you there. The sour stench of mass-farmed poultry was repulsive and clung to the back of my throat. Cycling on Highway 10, parallel to the train tracks that cut an immaculate line through this featureless grassy landscape, I passed the huge sheds and cooling trucks that left me in no doubt what Frazee produced. Turkeys on an industrial scale. The town’s distinctive water tower came into view and I followed signs for Main Street. Getting off my bike, I checked right and left and began lifting my load over the rusty railroad when a brown Willy’s Jeep skidded to a halt on the other side with a smiling young man behind the wheel.

‘Hey, I’m Paul, where you coming from?’

‘England. Is this the right place for the street dance tonight?’

‘That’s right, starts at nine.’

‘Is there anywhere I can camp in town?’

‘Sure, Town Park, with our giant turkey. Follow me.’

If it smelt anything like the battery sheds I passed on my way into town, I wasn’t sure I wanted to camp near the world’s largest turkey, but obeying orders I followed the jeep through the suburbs to the town park: a scrubby piece of land with a few picnic tables on the banks of a small river.

‘This is Big Tom—over twenty feet tall and weighing in at over five thousand pounds.’

I was staring in complete bewilderment at one of the ugliest things I had ever seen. An enormous fibreglass turkey, complete with snood and caruncles. ‘THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TURKEY’, announced a plaque. I wanted to point out that it wasn’t a real flesh-and-feathers bird, but this was the Turkey Capital of the World and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings of civic pride, especially as Paul had now kindly invited me to camp in his garden instead of in the shadow of this monstrosity.

Paul and his family lived under the town water tower, a vast white object that, if decorated correctly, would probably become the world’s largest upside-down onion. It towered above the town and ‘FRAZEE’ was proudly painted on its bowl, letting everyone know exactly where they were.

Paul’s family took me in as one of their own and, after leading me through a garage full of fishing gear, invited me to pitch my tent on the tidy lawn behind their bungalow. At a small table on the porch, Paul’s father, an elderly man in a grey T-shirt, denim dungarees and tidy white beard, patiently scaled and gutted recently caught sunfish that filled a plastic bucket. He dipped each one in a dish of milk and then flour before his wife ferried them into the kitchen where she was busy preparing for the invasion of her children and grandchildren, two of them, energetic twins, took great interest as I put up my tent, only to shriek in complaint at the fetid smell once they scrambled inside.

I was invited to join the family for supper, and ten of us crowded round their narrow kitchen table. After holding hands and saying grace, a feast of ‘pot stickers’, a type of Chinese dumpling filled with ground turkey and fried until they stuck to the pot, was served with heaps of rice salad and fried sunfish. After supper Paul and I wondered into town for the street dance. It was time for my ‘Frazee Turkey Dayz’ weekend to get under way.

In the centre of Frazee, under the orange glow of the town’s street lamps, hundreds of residents and outsiders were gathering for the much-anticipated annual street dance. Bunting drooped from telegraph poles decorated with spirals of fairy lights and canvas banners hung over the street welcoming everyone to the town. A pleasant July evening, the day’s earlier storms had cleared the air and under a star-filled sky a lively buzz of excitement resonated in this small Midwestern town. Frazee’s Main Street had been closed off at either end by two enormous turkey-transporting juggernauts, and the space in between was quickly filling up with lively revellers. Leather-clad bikers revved the engines of oversized chrome-decorated motorcycles, clusters of burly men in cowboy hats and blue jeans attracted the admiring glances of giggling blonde-haired Daisy Duke look-a-likes, and from a makeshift bar set up in front of the town’s magnificent fire engines, firemen clad in yellow trousers and tight-fitting Frazee Fire Department T-shirts handed out a constant stream of plastic cups brimming over with cold beer. Paul seemed to know everyone in Frazee, and as the drinks kept coming I was introduced as a continent-crossing cyclist on my way to Brazil. Turkey farmers and ranchers greeted me with roughened hands and ready smiles and impressed local girls asked to squeeze my prominent calves. It was going to be a good night.

The live music started and I looked out over an ocean of swirling, swinging, jiving Midwesterners. Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, The Eagles and Kenny Rogers—with a feeble knowledge of Country and Western music, I was only able to recognise a few of the classics that kept the crowd moving and my feet irresistibly tapping. But I’d soon had enough of standing on the sidelines. The beer had numbed my shyness and as a new song was greeted with a wild ‘Whoooop!’ from the crowd, I waded into the action, introducing myself to a wholesome-looking girl with the clear completion and bright smile of someone who had spent most of her life outdoors. A flattering checked shirt was tied in a knot above her toned midriff and her big eyes and all-American white-toothed smile sparkled under the rim of her cream Stetson.

‘I don’t have a clue how to dance to Country and Western,’ I called, trying to be heard above the music.

‘Everyone can dance Country and Western,’ she returned with a smile, and putting one hand round my rigid waist and clasping my unattractively sweaty palm in hers, she pulled me into the crowd.

The band played late into the night, interrupted only by the deafening clanking of the freight trains that rumbled through the town every hour, massive, mile-long mechanical serpents that passed so close you could see the driver ringing his bell in recognition of the jubilant mass of people below him. The crowd cheered. This was one hell of a Friday night. I had arrived in the Midwest, in a small town, and I was dancing under the stars with hundreds of happy people. The band kept playing. Travis Tritt was being covered by a group of seven elderly men performing on a trailer bed. They wore denim and Harley Davidson T-shirts, had bandanas and drooping moustaches and their paunches were supported by ornate belt buckles. With closed eyes and sweat-beaded faces they belted out the familiar chorus. The crowd loved it, roaring and twisting to the amplified metallic twang of the guitar and the whine of the harmonica. I had a beautiful cowgirl in my arms and at last life felt good.

I had never seen a snapping turtle. I didn’t even know they existed, but they were a local Minnesota delicacy and Paul insisted, the next day, that I track one down. With the sort of half-hearted hangover that can only be achieved by drinking litres of tasteless American beer, I made my way accompanied by Paul to the local butcher. Ketter’s Meat Market and Locker hadn’t changed for a hundred years. It had one of those false flat fronts I had only ever seen before in Westerns, and a wooden deck raised a few feet above the street. On the counter stood a huge old-fashioned set of scales and bundles of sausage strings were hung up on the back wall. The dusty shelves were lined with bags of various types of jerky—air-cured slivers of marinated meat, the favoured chews of cowboys and cyclists—and disturbing jars of pickled turkey gizzards that would have looked more at home in the laboratory of a mad biologist.

The proprietor was an unhappy fellow who seemed too skinny to be a butcher. A blood-stained apron hung around his neck and in his large rubber-gloved hands was a menacing meat hook.

‘Wal, this is a friend of mine. He wants to see your turtles.’

The butcher gave me an investigative look as if to establish I wasn’t an operative for the CIA.

‘Sure.’

Paul stayed back in the store while Wal led me behind the scenes into a cool concrete corridor lined with the mechanised heavy doors of refrigeration and lit by white fluorescent strips. At the end of the passage a set of damp concrete steps took us underground to another large metal refrigerator door, which opened into a dark, dank, musty cell. I began to recall a schoolboy production of Sweeney Todd and visualised the other unlucky tourists who had came down here to ‘see the turtles’ and who were now being sold upstairs as jerky and gizzards.

A single fluorescent strip hanging from the ceiling flickered to life like an injured insect and adjusting to the raw, unnatural light that now filled the small room I made out eight or ten monsters huddled on the floor around my feet.

‘Keep ’em down here cos the cold makes ’em sleepy. They can get pretty frisky when their blood’s up.’

I had expected to be shown a handful of terrapins paddling about in a dirty fish tank. These lifeless monsters were the size of coffee tables. Armoured horned heads with yellow eyes and ferocious pointed jaws peered out from thick, uneven, lichen-covered shells. Stiff, powerful arms with thick claws rested on the ground on either side of their grotesque faces. These things weren’t turtles, they were prehistoric beasts. Stupidly squatting down for a closer look and a possible photo, I reached out a hand for a stroke. Before I made contact two strong arms grabbed my shoulders and I was yanked backwards, my buttocks landing on the cold hard floor.

‘You wanna lose those little English fingers you’re going the right way about it.’

‘Sorry, it’s just that I thought….’

The butcher took an old broom from the corner of the room and cautiously began prodding the head of an especially large specimen. I can’t say I saw what happened next, it happened so fast, but after a powerful head movement on the part of the turtle the butcher’s broom was six inches shorter.

‘That’s why we call ’em snapping turtles.’

‘And these things live in the wild?’

‘Sure. They make great eating too—four different types of meat per turtle. Makes a fine stew.’

We handed over a few dollars in exchange for a kilo of ‘snapper meat’ and headed home. Paul’s mother was a snapper-stew aficionado and in her small kitchen, which was a confusion of pots and pans, recipe books and washing up, she went to work. The rubbery meat of different shades was cut into small chunks and browned on each side in a little butter before being added to a large pot. Thrown in with it were chopped vegetables—onions, potatoes, celery, carrots and tomatoes—cloves of garlic and plenty of seasoning. The contents were covered in water and left to stew over a gentle heat. Paul’s house quickly filled with the sweet aroma of snapper stew and soon enough his family gathered around the kitchen table. Steaming bowls of this hearty Minnesota classic were passed from place to place, and after grace was said, the slurping began. Chewing on the subtly flavoured meat and drinking up the warming broth, I realised the butcher was right. These strange-looking creatures that lived in the swampy waters and ditches of Minnesota made a great stew.

‘Leg or breast, Miss Minnesota?’

Taken in by the kind people of Frazee as something of a cycling celebrity, the next meeting on my Turkey Dayz agenda was to join none other than Miss Minnesota for a VIP turkey dinner before she crowned this year’s Miss Frazee. The bikini-clad beauty that had been screwed up in my pocket for two days was going to become a reality. This would be something to tell the folks back home about.

The dinner was held at the substantial mansion of a prominent Frazee real-estate dealer. A recently built home in a traditional style, it boasted a grand hallway that led up to a sweeping stairway lined with wooden balustrades. The bathroom was encased with dark marble and in the living room a vast television beamed a football game to the owner’s sons, who slouched in the expanse of an enormous leather sofa.

On a veranda that ran the length of the back of the house, a long table had been set up for the feast. Various journalists and people of local importance were there, and the finest Frazee spread was on display. Turkey soup, turkey fricassee, cold turkey breast, turkey Caesar salad, grilled turkey drummers and a large turkey hotpot. The people of Frazee were clearly proud of their town bird and loved eating it. I raced a couple of keen local dignitaries for the best seat in the house—next to Miss Minnesota herself. She ate as I expected, nibbling away daintily at a piece of turkey breast. I more than made up for her lack of appetite and as a result soon found myself in a strange, sweaty, post-turkey coma that left me completely unable to communicate with the Barbie doll beside me. Her teeth were whiter than white, her skin was free of any blemish, her hair perfectly blonde, and she said all the right things, mostly about her boyfriend, who came in the muscle-bound shape of the Minnesota state football team quarterback. We had an enjoyable evening. Miss Minnesota was pleasant on the eye and she never stopped smiling. She was kind enough to leave me with a signed photograph of herself to add to my collection. I was unable to return the favour. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways. Miss Minnesota was there to crown Miss Frazee and I was there to watch her at the greatest of American small-town events. The beauty pageant.

The Frazee high school gymnasium was packed. Neat rows of spectators ran the length of the hall, twittering with nervous anticipation. The question on everyone’s lips was: who will be crowned Miss Frazee?

Shortly after I took my seat, the lights went down. A synthesised dance beat throbbed off the concrete walls and spotlights chased each other around the room. The crowd erupted. Bursting from behind a pink curtain decorated with tinfoil stars, five girls of all shapes and sizes, dressed in leotards, white tights and top hats, hurled themselves on stage. High kicks, tucks, twists and spins were all attempted as each girl struggled unsuccessfully to stay in time.

The initial excitement was soon extinguished as the self-important organiser took the stage to make a rambling speech about the virtues of beauty pageants. Each girl was introduced to a judging panel of local dignitaries who sat impassively at a desk at the foot of the stage.

Apparently the opening gambit of wobbling and gyrating had not been enough for the judges, and the first test in this gruelling contest was to be Modern Dance and Singing.

Each contestant returned individually to sing a chosen song while performing a choreographed dance routine. One by one Celine Dion, Elton John, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston were all dishonoured, but it was contestant number five who got my vote. Dressed in fishnet tights, her ample proportions squeezed into a bustier, she performed a raunchy small-town rendition of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. Her puffing and panting was amplified around the hall by the microphone concealed in her corsage while she attempted a routine that managed to incorporate tripping, stumbling and belly dancing. She was greeted with proud applause by the enthusiastic audience.

The next round was designed to test that most important of female virtues: how to look good in a bikini. Eagerly anticipated by the male contingent in the room, who did their best to disguise their eager anticipation from their wives and girlfriends, the girls took to the stage in their finest beachwear to ripples of polite applause. Frazee is thousands of miles from the nearest beach and it was obvious the contestants had spent their winter evenings scanning home-shopping channels and catalogues in order to acquire the most alluring Californian beach swimsuits. Sashaying forward, each competitor attempted a pin-up pose, lowering their heads to smirk suggestively at the judges before turning with a final swing of their assets to leave the stage.

Each potential champion then re-emerged in a shiny evening dress made by their grandmothers for the battle of the ball gowns. More sauntering, more simpering, more posing, more cleavage, and more purposeful scribbling from the judges.

Last but not least the judges asked each of the contestants a series of taxing questions.

‘What are your hobbies?’

‘What do you think makes Frazee such a special place?’

‘What are your plans for the future?’

Each girl did her best to remember her scripted answers, telling us how much she enjoyed working with children and animals and wanted to save the world. The final question, ‘What are your views on America’s involvement in Iraq?’ was responded to in every case with patriotic fervour and roars of approval from the audience.

While the panel of judges discussed their decision in whispers, last year’s Miss Frazee, as pink and plump as one of the town’s prized turkeys, stood up. Predictably she burst into floods of tears, while trying to tell us through an onslaught of sniffling and blubbering how being a beauty queen had changed her life. She was followed by the sophisticated visiting Miss Minnesota, who drew astonished gasps from the crowd who had apparently never seen anything so beautiful.

Teasingly she peeled open the gold envelope holding the results while the five contestants and the whole of Frazee held their breath. In a slow Midwestern drawl, she announced:

‘This year’s Miss Frazee is…Anna Hanson.’

The stage erupted in a tumult of shrieks and tearful hugging. The crowd rose to its feet in applause. At last the ordeal was over.

Or so I thought. Sadly, this was not the case. My buttocks, anaesthetised by three hours on a hard plastic seat, and my hands, weary from perpetual applause, would have to endure another forty-five minutes of crying, crowning and acceptance speeches before I could escape. At long last it came to an end and, mentally exhausted, I staggered from the hall. I had survived the roller-coaster ride of my first small-town beauty pageant, and Frazee had a new Queen.

Paul’s family wouldn’t let me leave. After all, how could I possibly say goodbye to Frazee without enjoying the turkey luncheon and the Turkey Dayz parade? The previous night’s dinner had pushed my annual turkey intake dangerously close to maximum and the thought of Christmas almost brought on a panic attack, but in the name of gastronomic research I promised to push on.

Held in the sterile surroundings of the Frazee event centre, the annual turkey luncheon was another excessive, no-holds-barred celebration of the town’s bird. It took place shortly after the announcement of Frazee’s mystery gobbler, in which the public had to identify a local dignitary from his warbling imitation of a turkey played out over the tannoy. The doors were opened and the townspeople shunted forward in an orderly line. A hard-working team of blue-rinsed female elders bustled around industrial-sized ovens, from which abnormally sized golden turkeys were produced. Other teams of busy Frazee doyennes set about tearing birds to pieces with alarming enthusiasm, piling the steaming meat on to large metal serving trays. Turkeys were being cooked, carved and served on an epic scale. Waiting in line with my flimsy paper plate, I inched closer towards the panel of old ladies serving up this gargantuan meal. Two heavy dollops of potato salad. An eight-inch gherkin. A turkey leg the size of a small child’s arm. A ladle of gloopy gravy and a packet of crisps. My plate buckled under the weight of its load, my stomach gurgled in frightful anticipation of the suffering it was about to endure, and I tried to forget the rancid smell of the turkey sheds I had passed as I pedalled into town. I found a seat and did my best to dissect my genetically modified turkey leg with a plastic knife and fork.

The turkey luncheon was clearly a gathering of the Great and the Good of Frazee. On my table I was sharing conversation with none other than the deputy fire chief, the town sheriff and the local undertaker.

‘And you must be Taaarm.’

Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned round to be greeted by a friendly-faced man with a large gold chain around his neck.

‘I’m Mayor Daggett and people here tell me you’re riding your bicycle to Brazil.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Well, that’s just wonderful,’ he drawled. ‘The people of Frazee would be honoured if you would ride your bicycle in the Turkey Dayz parade.’

Filled with a mixture of pride, nervous anticipation and turkey nausea, I accepted. With my turkey luncheon slowly working its inexorable way through my system, I fetched my bicycle and hurried to where I was told the parade would begin. A clipboard-wielding woman in a blue tracksuit gave me my orders.

‘Taaarm, today you’re riding in position eight. You have candy?’

‘No.’

Rushing to the general store I grabbed two bags of synthetic lollipops and returned just in time. The Frazee marching band rolled their drums and crashed their cymbals, and the large trucks pulling the floats started their engines. At position eight in the parade I was riding behind none other than Miss Frazee, who was perched like a cake decoration atop a giant sequinned re-creation of a red stiletto-heeled shoe, being pulled by a tractor. In the position behind me was the Frazee Retirement Home float, a low-loader lorry with a few dazed octogenarians still in their beds, complete with swinging drips and catheter bags.

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

An immaculately polished fire engine let out a controlled blast on its siren and the parade began to inch forward through the backstreets of Frazee before turning on to the main street. Frazee may only have had a population of 1,500 but her main street was lined with cheering residents and visitors. I rode with no hands and cycled in circles like a circus performer, rang my bell and waved to the crowds. The streets were lined with families and children who swooped like seagulls to pick up the sweets I tossed to them from my handlebar bag, like all the characters on the other floats were doing.

It was a surreal experience. Police cars and fire engines let off their sirens. The marching band played perfectly, while silver batons were tossed high into the air. Scantily-clad cheerleaders with turkey-fattened thighs ducked and dived, shaking day-glo tinsel pompoms. Clowns on stilts mingled with dancing turkeys, a group of fez-wearing old men in go-karts swerved crazily. Cowboys and cowgirls trotted on horses, their harnesses jingling. Vintage cars beeped their horns, children rode on the back of plump pigs, and the Hungry Cyclist rang his bell and cycled amidst this hallucinatory procession. I had no doubt that I would see some weird and wonderful things on my way to Brazil, but my weekend in Frazee would take some beating.

In the last two days all my Christmases had come at once and, never wanting to see a turkey again, I left Frazee and moved west towards North Dakota and Fargo, a large Midwestern town made famous by the Cohen Brothers’ 1996 film of the same name. By all accounts the townspeople of Fargo could not have been more excited at having a feature film made about their beloved city, only to find that it portrayed them as group of backward, inbreeding maniacs who liked feeding people into industrial shredders. I didn’t find any maniacs in Fargo, just car dealerships, endless strip malls and organised traffic patterns that cleverly led you to the doors of Burger King or Starbucks.

Less than happy with my stay, I turned northward for Grand Forks and got my first taste of the scale and emptiness of this rarely documented heart of America. Gone were the winding roads and the meandering highways that connected the small towns of Michigan and Minnesota. Here in North Dakota getting from A to B was much more functional and the straight roads on my map now looked like the national grid, a system perhaps left behind by the German farmers who settled here in the nineteenth century. Riding Highway 200, I was now on a straight road that would be my home for two weeks and carry me five hundred miles across North Dakota, from small town to small town without deviation. Day after day I moved gently, silently through flat fields that stretched as far as the eye could see, unbroken in every direction. I was cycling across the floor of a giant room. Take a pedal-boat cruise across the Atlantic and you will have an idea what it’s like to move so slowly over such a vast distance. Gentle winds generated hypnotic waves through the corn, wheat and flax that surrounded me, as if an invisible giant was slowly dragging his hands over the tops of his crops. Perhaps it sounds monotonous, but this huge state, half the size of Europe with a population of no more than 650,000, held a unique peace and tranquillity all of its own, and as a tiny speck in this enormous landscape of land and sky I felt blissfully unimportant. I passed under herds of huge clouds moving gently across the deep blue sky, casting heavy shadows over the landscape like dark sprits. When I wasn’t deep in thought, thinking about why I was thinking about what I was thinking about, I found ways to entertain myself on the never-ending strip of tarmac that passed beneath me. Mystified truck drivers peered down from their air-conditioned cabins in bewilderment at the strange Englishman pedalling across the state with a good book propped up on his handlebars.

More often than not they would release long, deep blasts of greeting from their air horns. The deafening noise would startle me from my book, forcing me to swerve and wobble as twenty tons of fast-moving cargo rushed past me in a violent vortex of wind and dust. Unlike the dirty and impersonal lorries of England, these huge juggernauts were palaces of polished metal, boasting rows of chrome-capped wheels, bright fenders and cabs personalised with flames, crossed pistols and semi-naked women, like those found on World War Two fighter planes. Tall vertical aluminium exhausts protruded like proud animal horns and their personalised slogans—Got A Problem? Just Try JESUS! and Keep Honking I’m Reloading—were the last words of wisdom they offered me before vanishing into the distance. Following slowly in their wake with my own heavy load decorated with stickers, flags and lucky charms, I felt an affinity with these kings of the road.

A water tower would appear in the haze on the horizon. Or was it another figment of my imagination? No, definitely a water tower. A symbol of life out here in this empty space. The sign of another small town with shops, a gas station and perhaps a diner. Incentives to up the pace a little. These small towns off Highway 200 were few and far between and could be over a hundred miles apart. Two days of cycling if the wind was against you, and ten hours in the saddle if it was on your side. Either way I would roll into town hungry, exhausted, but triumphant to have made it to another oasis lush with fizzy drinks, conversation, rest rooms, running water, milkshakes and hamburgers.

One-street towns, they all had their own local eatery: Tina’s, the Prairie Rose, the Midwest Café. And in each one the décor didn’t seem to have changed since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John warbled at each other at the local drive-in. The daily specials, normally an item from the regular menu with 25 cents knocked off the price, were always a good bet, and the food was almost always fresh, home-made and served with a smile. Chunky home-made burgers topped with onions, mushrooms and any cheese you wanted as long as it was processed, turkey ruben sandwiches, well-stacked BLTs, plastic baskets of fries served on a red-and-white-checked napkin, malted milks, and always a home-made pie.

I do not normally have a sweet tooth, but riding an overloaded bike made my body crave sugar, and as I rode through North Dakota I got my daily fix from these pies, displayed in chrome and glass cabinets like prize exhibits in a museum. Peanut butter pie, apple pie, blueberry pie, Saskatoon pie, peach Melba pie, rhubarb and custard. These marvellous pastry-encrusted creations came with a dollop of vanilla ice cream as standard, and were washed down with a cup of coffee. The perfect post-lunch pit stop.

These small, friendly and cheap eateries that fed me every day determined my routine. Camping where I could—town squares, fields, farmyards and parking lots—I would grab a light supper at the local diner and then join the truck drivers and other men of the road sipping coffee while staring out of the windows at the sporadic traffic that flashed in the darkness like figures in an Edward Hopper painting.

‘What time are you open tomorrow morning?’

‘Five-thirty.’

‘See you then.’

In the comfort of my tent I would drift to sleep anticipating the breakfast that waited when the sun came up. And rising at day-break I would make my way back to the same diner, already abuzz with hungry local farmers. Worn-out jeans, frayed checked shirts and braces pulled tight over a large frame. This was standard dress for these leather-skinned men of the land who would fill the tables and booths of the small diners. Eating together, drinking gallons of coffee and talking, always talking. Initially it was all too easy to categorise them as simple-minded rednecks who let the wrong people get into power, but every morning as I sat and munched my way through cream-topped waffles, syrup-drenched pancakes, crunchy hash browns, cinnamon buns and French toast, I would tap into their conversations with fascination.

‘Flax seems to be coming through well this year.’

‘Need to get my barley in before it gets too cold.’

‘Could be an early frost this year, judging by the clouds.’

Farming in North Dakota is no easy task. Operating on such a grand scale means that changing crop prices, varied weather patterns, a wrong decision or simply some bad luck can make it hard to survive. These modest men had to be mechanics, meteorologists, botanists, gamblers, drivers and chemists, who worked tirelessly to feed America. Watching the harvests of wheat, flax and barley come in as I rode through their factory floor, I could only admire them.

Although the Midwest of America may host some of the most fertile land on the planet, after a week crossing the bread basket of America I began to wish that her farmers would grow some vegetables. Diner after diner in these small prairie towns pushed out endless carb-packed breakfasts, hefty daily specials and meaty evening meals, but the closest I got to any greenery was, in most cases, depicted in the pattern on my plate. Thus I became a skilled user of any all-you-can-eat salad bar I was lucky enough to come across. Not all diners offered such a luxury, and even if they did it was often hard to find anything genuinely nutritious among the mayo-dressed starchy offerings that prevailed. But if there was any vegetation, I would pounce, playing a precarious game of Crudités Jenga and making the most of the little ceramic real estate I was given on my one visit to the bar.

Feeling lighter and faster, I pushed deeper into North Dakota and the now-familiar crops of flax, wheat and barley began to be replaced by ranches dotted with cattle. I was getting to cowboy country.

This is looking good. This is looking really good.

I glanced down at my watch.

Could be a personal best.

A second time-check confirmed my excitement. Thirty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. I had sucked the same sour cherry drop for over half an hour, smashing any previous records, and I celebrated my proud achievement by popping another sweet in my mouth and continued pushing into a fierce headwind. Sapping every ounce of my strength, it howled in my ears and meant I had been crawling forward at no more than five miles an hour all day. My dry lips were peeling in large flakes, my knees complained with every turn of the pedals and the road sign for Stanton could not have come soon enough.

Stanton, North Dakota was another small one-street town that called itself a city. Three or four miles off Highway 200, it sat on the banks of the Knife river. Its dusty main street of flat-fronted rundown buildings was no different from all the other small towns I had passed through. The liquor store, the general store, the gun store and the diner. The place was deserted.

A guttural growl followed by a loud sound of spitting broke the silence of the afternoon. In a beaten-up blue Lincoln a man, apparently with nothing better to do, was busy topping up a puddle of brown tobacco-infused phlegm in the street. I cycled over to where he was parked.

A bald round-faced individual was slouched in the driver’s seat. His dome-shaped belly swelled under a dirty shirt and a pair of braces while Willie Nelson sang about a ‘Whiskey River’ from a radio set hidden among the dusty papers and coffee cups on the dashboard.

‘Good afternoon, sir. You don’t know anywhere a guy can camp in Stanton, do you?’

‘Heeeeeeech papuut! City Park, down by the river. Gonna get mighty busy though.’

‘Yeah, why’s that?’

‘Stanton Rodeo.’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘If you’re into that kinda thing. Heeeeeech papuuut!’

Another projectile flew from deep inside the man and landed perfectly in his puddle of spit. I thanked him for his information, steered wide of his phlegmy pond and rolled down the empty main street towards the river.

I unpacked and pitched camp in the shade of some large cottonwood trees with the muddy banks of the slow-moving Knife river only a few yards away. I slipped out of my sweat-stained T-shirt and my stand-alone padded Lycra, and waded into the river. The cool water washed away a week on the road and, after washing my clothes and hanging them up to dry, I put on clean jeans and a shirt and walked along the riverbank. The sun was setting in the west, painting the white bluffs of the distant Missouri river a soft orange. The silver leaves of the willow and cottonwood trees that lined its banks rolled gently in the wind. The town park provided basic brick grills, and once I had cleaned out the cigarette ends and incinerated beer cans from one, I set about collecting enough dry wood to see me through the night. With a small fire reduced to glowing embers, I unwrapped a large steak I had picked up in the general store and poured a tin of beans into my pan. I opened a can of Budweiser and lay back next to my fire to enjoy a peaceful North Dakotan Friday night.

The following morning I was woken from a deep sleep by the grumble of engines and the whining of generators. Peering from my tent I saw that the park was fast filling up with bulky pick-up trucks, trailers and oversized motor homes. Deckchairs were being spread out in designated camping spots and the park was abuzz with weekending Americans doing something weekending Americans do very well. Camp.

In the United Kingdom we don’t know how to camp. Our idea of a weekend’s camping involves hiking to a cold, wet and desolate corner of the country, cooking an inedible meal from a ration pack, then spending a sleepless night cramped inside a smelly nylon shell designed for a hobbit. Americans, being Americans, do it very differently.

Motor homes the size of central London flats are plugged and plumbed into specialist bays. Reclining deckchairs with beer holders and sun visors are unfolded. Cold boxes the size of industrial freezers are unloaded. Smokers and multi-grill BBQs are constructed while sun shelters and gazebos are erected. The vast array of specialist camping gear available on the market allows Americans to recreate the ambience and comfort of their living room anywhere on the continent. Here in Stanton with my tiny tent and lightweight equipment I felt completely out-gunned, but I was only too happy to enjoy the hospitality of my new neighbours. Music played, beers burst open and another Midwestern weekend got under way. I was hanging out with the rodeo crowd, a faithful group of nomads who spend their summers following, and competing in, the various rodeos that take place across the States.

Rodeos are an important part of American culture. In the early eighteenth century, when the Wild West opened up, its grassy plains provided perfect cattle-grazing country. To feed the soaring population of the cities of the eastern United States, huge herds of cattle needed to be moved from west to east. For the cattle barons to get their commodity across country, long cattle drives were organised, and the skills of roping, branding, herding, horse-breaking and bronco-riding were vital to the cowboys who made these remarkable journeys.

The expansion of the railways and the introduction of barbed wire in the late nineteenth century meant that these roaming cross-country cattle drives were no longer possible or economically viable, creating a dip in demand for the specialist skills cowboys provided. Entrepreneurial ex-cattle hands, such as the famous Buffalo Bill Cody, began to organise Wild West shows that did their best to glorify and preserve the traditions of the fast-disappearing American frontier culture, and many cowboys found work in these shows that toured the country in what became an entertainment phenomenon. Part theatre, part circus, part competition, they recreated famous battles of the American Civil War and victories over Indians, as well as providing opportunities for cowboys to compete against each other for cash. Today Wild West shows still exist and the rodeo circuit is still strong, commanding large crowds, big prize money and a wide television audience. Stanton Rodeo, my first, was a low-key team-roping event. I leaned on the rusty metal fence of the enclosure as it got under way.

Two young cowboys on horseback waited behind a gate on either side of a terrified-looking young bull. At the sound of a klaxon the bull was released, nudged forward with a kindly jab from an electric prodder. Running in blind panic, the bull was pursued into a dusty arena by the two cowboys, who worked in a team swirling lassos above their heads.

One cowboy, the header, aimed his lasso for the young bull’s head. His partner, known as the heeler, had to aim his lasso at the hind legs. Once head and legs were secured and the bull was immobilised, the clock would stop. Grown men on horseback chasing cows with long bits of rope may not sound like compelling viewing, but the whistling of rope lassos, the clatter of hooves kicking up dust and the hoarse cries of the men were enthralling. This team sport, which originated in the need to bring down cattle for branding, totally gripped the thirty or forty onlookers.

Team after team raced out of the gates. Heads were missed, cows escaped and horses bucked their riders as these highly skilled horsemen went to work. Involving amazing coordination and precise horse control, these immaculately dressed men in checked pop shirts and faded jeans charged across the arena, effortlessly manoeuvring their steeds into sharp turns and sudden skids. No helmets, no gum guards, no kneepads, no health and safety. Stetsons, a pair of boots, a Lone Star belt buckle, leather chaps and plenty of bottle were all that were needed here. These guys were real cowboys.

Surrounded by the smell of hot leather and hide, Marlborough men slept under large hats in the shade of trailers; others patched up bloody injuries and got on with the job. As these men strode between trailers, borrowing horses and testing lassos, I had no choice but to join the gaggle of giggling female rodeo groupies, local girls who had come to catch a glimpse of these rock stars of the rodeo circuit, men who were mad, bad and dangerous to know.

The contest came to an end and prizes were awarded. A few hundred dollars went to winners but most of the young men here didn’t practise this dangerous sport for financial gain. Sure if you made the big competitions there was big money to be made, but the majority of the men I spoke to didn’t have the funding. Most of them didn’t even own a horse and had to borrow a ride from other competitors. Medical insurance was a laughing matter.

‘Smashed four ribs, a pelvis and popped three shoulders. Still, no one wants to insure me.’

‘Been concussed since I was fifteen—wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘Drove three days flat to be here, and I ain’t got plans to go to bed yet.’

Surfers follow waves around the world in a never-ending search for that next adrenalin-exploding ride. Rodeo junkies spend their summers driving from small town to small town in search of their next fix, covering huge distances to ride horses, local girls and live the dream. Sure a few hundred dollars might help pay a few bills and a bar tab or two, but these guys were here because they couldn’t be anywhere else, they were addicted to this crazy way of life. And their energy was infectious. I wanted the hat and the confident swagger. I wanted the dirty old pick-up and a horse to ride. I wanted to chase women in smoky pool halls and ride out of town the next morning. I wanted to spend my days rumbling down prairie roads in a truck, kicking up a trail of dust and listening to Johnny Cash with a six-shooter under my seat. I wanted to wear the fitted checked shirts and the tight blue Wranglers with a huge buckle, I wanted a pair of lived-in cowboy boots, and I wanted to sit on my porch in a brim hat watching the sun set on the peaceful world around me. Cycling was suddenly very uncool. I wanted to be a cowboy.

Stanton’s only bar was as unimpressive as the town itself and from the outside it seemed to be no more than an industrial-sized shed. A small neon light, advertising America’s leading tasteless beer, blinked in the window of its only doorway but, excitedly, I followed my new cowboy buddies inside. The scene that greeted me was bathed in cigarette smoke and the faintly illicit red glow of neon advertising signs, while lively Country and Western music jumped out of a jukebox. A bar stretched the length of a room jam-packed with burly men in the usual faded jeans, cowboy hats and pop shirts. A busy gang of busty barmaids hurried from fridge to fridge, answering the demands of their rowdy customers.

I made my way to the bar and squeezed into a space between some Stetson-wearing ranchers. Behind the bar, surrounding the dusty bottles of Scotch and flavoured brandy, was a display of North Dakota memorabilia. A stuffed bear smoking a cigarette, sets of antlers, stuffed rodents, lost hubcaps, state flags, licence plates, worn-out saddles and prized Walleye fish. The rest of the room was decorated with the Stars and Stripes, posters of girls in hot pants draped over sports cars and flashing beer signs. Stern-faced men played cards at small round tables, players lent on cue sticks by a pool table, flashing video poker machines blinked erratically and a dated jukebox filled the space underneath a large screen showing men doing their best to hang on to crazy horses in a televised rodeo.

‘What’ll it be, sweetheart?’ cooed a barmaid.

‘I’ll get a beer please.’

An ice-covered glass tankard was pulled from a chest freezer and filled with pale fizzy beer. I swigged and took stock of where I was. The whole bar joined in with the chorus of the popular Country and Western classic that was being spun in the jukebox.

‘Save a horse. Ride a cowboy.’

I sat at a table with my rodeo friends, who drank in the same way they rode their horses. Fast, and with total disregard for human safety. Tall story followed tall story, beer followed beer and busty girls in tight jeans and T-shirts tied at their midriff were passed from lap to lap. Perhaps I needed a hat or my jeans weren’t tight enough but I kept getting missed out. It was clear that a cyclist, however far he had come, didn’t cut the mustard.

The evening wore on in a continuing blur. As each drink arrived my determination to quit cycling and ride out on a horse became stronger, and by the time the bottles of blackberry brandy were being shot back I had as good as sold my bike. The problem was that apart from a few salty handfuls of popcorn salvaged from the bar, I had eaten nothing since breakfast. The cowboys were drinking faster and faster and if I was going to make it through the night and become one of them, I needed some ballast. I staggered outside, where my first lungful of fresh air was pure luxury.

As with all good drinking dens, a savvy local had set up a small stand within falling distance of the bar. Under a red umbrella a deep-fat fryer was sending a cloud of steam into the night and a home-made cardboard sign read:

FLEISCHKUECHLE $2

I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of the unreadable word.

‘One flyschukehill, please.’

‘Flesh licker. It’s pronounced flesh licker.’

‘One flesh licker, please.’

On a bicycle, moving slowly across the country, I was able to see and taste first hand the culinary effects that migration from Europe had on this country. In the same way that the USA’s fast food favourite, the hamburger, began as the Hamburg sandwich, knocked together by a couple of wily Germans living in New York, here in the less glamorous surroundings of Stanton, North Dakota, I was enjoying a fleischkuechle, a relic left behind by the Black Sea Germans, who after fleeing oppression in Russia in the late nineteenth century began to look to the Americas, where some had already found freedom and land in the 1870s. Continuing through the 1890s and the early 1900s, the Black Sea Germans began to arrive in large numbers in the Dakotas, bringing their wheat-farming skills and culinary traditions to this fertile new land.

‘Fleisch’ meaning meat and ‘kuechle’ meaning little cake, this simple hearty snack was by no means a culinary masterpiece, but it did just the job after an evening of heavy drinking with cowboys, and it no doubt did the same after a hard day farming the fields in the bread basket of America. It turned out to be a folded pastry envelope the size of a pair of Y-fronts, filled with a well-seasoned beef patty. Deep-fried for four or five minutes in a large vat of oil until golden brown, they were left to cool just a little before being handed in a paper napkin to hungry customers. After two fleischkuechles, and suffering from first-degree burns to my mouth, I began to master the art of eating these napalm-filled pockets. One: carefully nibble away the top corner. Two: avoid the jet of hot steam that is blasted into your face. Three: gently squeeze your fleischkuechle a few times, drawing in some cool evening air. Four: nibble a little more from the corner. Five: insert a healthy squirt of tomato ketchup and a few scoops of sliced pickles. Six: devour. I don’t know how many I ate, but for the rest of the night I seemed to commute between the bar and the stand outside. With a little food inside me I was able to keep up with my new fast-living comrades in a frenzy of dancing and drinking until a very large girl bought me a ‘real cowboy’ drink called a rusty nail.

Peeling my face from the dried puddle of drool that had accumulated on the plastic groundsheet of my tent, I enjoyed those fleeting blissful moments of memory loss before the previous night’s excess came rushing home in a crashing headache and a violent wave of nausea. Still fully clothed, I had only made it halfway into my tent and pulling myself to my feet was embarrassed to find a damp patch around my groin. At the age of twenty-seven, I had wet my tent and now I knew I could never be a cowboy. With no other choice, I packed up my bicycle and rode out of town.

The party are in excellent health and spirits, zealously attached to the enterprise, and anxious to proceed.

Capt Meriwether Lewis, Fort Mandan, 7 April 1805

In August 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, under the orders of the President, Thomas Jefferson, set out on an expedition to explore the Missouri river and try to establish a river route across the continent. Leaving Pittsburgh, Lewis and Clark led a corps of thirty-three men across America, and by Christmas 1804 were camped in for the long winter at Fort Mandan, a few kilometres outside Stanton. Having to endure skirmishes with natives, starvation, harsh winters and disease Lewis and Clark pushed deeper into what was then Louisiana. At last, finding the navigable waters of the Missouri river, they constructed a fleet of small boats and with the help of local natives followed the Missouri upstream into the ominously named Badlands of North Dakota.

With a terrible hangover, and my spirits low, I left Stanton following in the famous footsteps of Lewis and Clark.

Until now the changes in the landscape of the Midwest had been subtle but, as I entered the dramatic surrounds of the Badlands of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the changes became more dramatic.

‘I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me,’ said President Theodore Roosevelt in 1883 and I could see why. For thousands of years the gentle flow of the Missouri river has carved out vast multicoloured canyons in the otherwise flat surroundings. Peculiar towering structures rise out of the ground as the sun highlights bright layers of sedimentary rocks built up over millions of years. I spent a wet and stormy night here, camped amongst the bison that roamed freely through the parkland. Staring up at the night sky, it was hard to imagine that these few hardy beasts once roamed the prairies in herds so big they would have been visible from space.

At the peak of their existence it is estimated that over sixty million bison, or buffalo as they are more commonly known, roamed the land between Mexico and Canada. As the great herds of buffalo migrated with the seasons, so too did the Native American tribes, such as the Lakota, the Sioux and the Cheyenne.

Considering their dependence on buffalo, it is not surprising that the Native Americans held the animal in the highest regard. Not only did the buffalo provide meat but almost every part of its body could be put to some use. Its hide for clothing and shelter. Its bones for tools and weapons. Its tough stomach as a vessel for carrying water. But the well-balanced relationship between the Native Americans and the buffalo would soon be lost for ever, changed by the introduction of white settlers. After Lewis and Clark, more and more white fortune-hunters began to head west in search of riches and glory. With horses and guns, buffalo were an easy target, and buffalo-hunting soon became directly associated with the adventures of life in the Wild West. Buffalo hides were used for leather while their tongues became an expensive delicacy, and white hunters left rotting carcasses strewn across the prairies.

The introduction of the railroads only added to the plight of the American buffalo. As railroads stretched into the western territories, buffalo provided meat for the hungry workforce, and once the railroads were complete the destruction became worse. Hunters could now take the train into the west on specific buffalo-hunting excursions, and locomotives would slow down so that passengers could take pot shots from the windows. The wholesale massacre of this proud animal only added to the demise of the Native American tribes who relied on the migration of the buffalo, and by the time the government prohibited hunting, the population in North America had dwindled from sixty million to eight hundred buffalo. The Midwest had been turned into a buffalo graveyard. Reports tell of piles of sun-bleached skeletons stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction, to be cleared up by ’bone pickers’, who found a value in the bones as fertiliser.

Leaving the Badlands and North Dakota in August, I took Highway 2 and cycled west into Montana, Big Sky Country. More than three months on the road without much of a break meant that riding had become a Herculean effort, mentally and physically. My legs were empty and constant glances at the speedometer only revealed bad news. I was going nowhere slowly. The air was muggy and infested with mosquitoes that showed no mercy. If I didn’t keep moving above a certain speed their sharp stings drew blood, forcing me to pedal faster as if stuck on some infernal exercise machine. Unable to shake off the permanent exhaustion that hung over me and with nowhere to stop and rest properly, my mood darkened.

I was also stuck in a culinary groundhog day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, day after day, I was eating alone at the same table in the same diner. The same waitress was taking the same order from the same clipart-decorated menu with the same false smile and around me the same old farmers were having the same conversation about the same crops. Arriving in the small town of Williston on the border with Montana, I threw up my tent in the town park and, just about mustering the effort to get undressed, I climbed inside and collapsed, exhausted.

Waking from a deep sleep and not quite knowing where you are or what’s going on can be a wonderful feeling. Waking like this to find a hard object growing into your back through the floor of your tent is a little confusing, and when this unknown growing object begins to gush water, you panic. Dazed and half asleep I scrambled about, trying to work out what was going on. Was it an animal, a giant insect, some alien being? After releasing a long, profane outburst, I began to piece together what was going on. This scene, a nasty cross between Alien and Titanic, had resulted from me pitching my tent on the town park’s sprinkler system.

Wet and despondent, I packed up my damaged tent and waited for the small diner to open its doors. Sitting with a jug of coffee I picked at a stack of pancakes as the sun came up on another day on the road. After breakfast I queued up with grey-haired farmers’ wives to use the dusty and slow computer in the town’s library. An email from home lifted my spirits momentarily but I left feeling homesick once my half-hour limit was up. I got back on the road. If I was going to get over the Rocky mountains before winter set in, I had no choice but to keep moving.

All around me, buildings and farm equipment were left to rot. Schools, banks and libraries were boarded up and there were almost no young people around. With no work and few opportunities, the temptations of life in the cities were too hard to resist. As I moved from town to town along Highway 2, this social evacuation became more and more disturbing. Falling crop and beef prices led by cheaper imports had left farmers under huge pressure to compete. Market forces and expanding free trade had taken over and profit was king. Seemingly forgotten by their government, all it took was one bad year or a breakdown in machinery and a bigger farm would be willing to step in. Amid mega-farms the small ones couldn’t survive. Family-owned farmsteads were being left in ruin or bulldozed down to make the most of the precious land on which they sat, and families were forced to move on. Just as the temptation of vast profit drove the buffalo to the edge of extinction, so it seemed the same was happening to the rural communities of America’s Midwest.

On a warm Thursday evening I pulled into the town of Bainville, Montana, population six, feeling tired and dejected. The last two days had been a painful struggle against a relentless headwind, and without so much as a gas station in which to refuel, my meagre rations of peanut butter and beef jerky had run dry. Approaching the city limits, exhausted and under-nourished, my imagination began to run wild envisaging the possible treats that might await me in this small town.

Half of Bainville was drinking in the small characterless shed they called the bar. It didn’t serve food. The town had no diner and no gas station, but the woman behind the bar, educating herself via the pages of the National Enquirer, pointed me in the direction of two dusty vending machines selling sweets. Appalled at the thought of dining on M&Ms and bubblegum balls, I pulled myself on to a stool at the bar and ordered a beer.

‘You aren’t from round here, are you, honey?’ asked the barwoman, peering over the headline, ‘Britney’s New Drug Shame’.

‘No, I’m from London,’ I replied, with little patience for conversation.

‘So what brings you to lil’ ol’ Bainville?’

‘I’m looking for the perfect meal on my bicycle.’ I popped a couple more M&Ms and washed them down with a second beer.

‘Well, we like our beef out here. Ain’t that right, Vance?’

She sent a glance to a solitary grey-haired figure in a black Stetson, sitting at the end of the bar. He didn’t respond but emptied his glass of beer, and then began on another. I had been hearing about the legendary quality of beef in Montana since the onset of my journey, and in my last week it had been impossible to ignore the countless heads of healthy cattle that happily grazed the lush plains and hillsides of the Big Sky State. So far I hadn’t found anywhere to eat this famous bovine treat.

Grabbing the barwoman’s attention with a raised hand, Vance called her over and they exchanged a few whispered words, looking in my direction. The barwoman filled two more icy mugs of beer and placed one in front of each of us.

‘Mr Anderson says he’s got some steaks and oysters at home if you’re interested. The drinks are on the house.’

I was bundled into the back of a pick-up truck with my bicycle and Mr Anderson’s large panting German shepherd dog, and we turned off the highway a few miles out of town. We rattled and bumped down a dusty track through smooth rolling hills dissected by the unnatural straight lines of fence posts, which stretched unbroken across this vast landscape speckled with grazing cattle. Dwarfed by the steady form of two large buttes, whose steep sides and stubborn craggy summits broke through the grass-carpeted surroundings, Vance Anderson’s ranch looked like a child’s model. An immaculate, white wooden house sat next to a tall red Dutch barn, surrounded by a series of tidy fences. Horses with necks bent to the ground chomped and pulled on the yellow grass, momentarily breaking their feeding to acknowledge our arrival and the swirling cloud of dust that trailed behind us.

I was handed a cold can of Budweiser and took a seat on the porch. Mr Anderson emptied the remains of a sack of charcoal into half an oil drum and got a small fire going. We talked a little but Vance Anderson was a man of few words.

He lived alone but told me of his family, his work running a cattle ranch and the problems facing ranchers in Montana. His large farmhouse needed a family in it, but he told me there was no work in the area for his children so they had moved to the city. They weren’t interested in cattle farming. With his grey handlebar moustache, deep weathered features, denim pop shirt and dusty boots, Vance seemed to represent the last of a diminishing breed. Perhaps the Midwest won’t have any real cowboys in it in a few years. Cattle farming will have become automated, and men won’t sit on porches shooting the breeze. The traditions I had seen at the rodeo and heard in the country music were fading away.

My protein-hungry muscles began twitching with excitement when Vance reappeared from the kitchen with a plate piled with two Flintstones-sized steaks, marbled with lines of yellow fat and smudged with the dark patches of aging, but I was mystified by the plastic bowl beneath the plate which was full of what appeared to be fleshy water balloons.

Splitting open a testicle brings tears to your eyes, even if it’s not one of your own. Vance gave me a sharp knife and instructed me on the finer arts of peeling and preparing a calf’s testicle, while he put a couple of potatoes in the oven. Otherwise known as Rocky mountain oysters, or prairie oysters, these tidy little bags were quite a bit bigger than my own pair but the whole process was still uncomfortably close to home. I had to make a delicate incision through the tough skin-like membrane that surrounded each ball before removing what lay inside from its pouch. Slicing the sac’s pink contents through the middle, I dipped them in a little egg yolk, coated them in flour and dropped my balls into a hot skillet of vegetable oil that was spitting on the grill.

Three and a half months before putting a testicle in my mouth, I had left home on a bicycle in search of the perfect meal. I had not wanted to take the easy option of eating on my own in smart restaurants. I began the trip because I wanted to eat what ordinary Americans were eating, and so far that was exactly what I had done, from sharing Puerto Rican rice with gangsters in New York to gorging on turkey cooked a hundred ways in Frazee. And now that I was sitting here on Mr Anderson’s porch eating Rocky mountain oysters, watching Montana’s big sky smoulder in a fiery kaleidoscope of red and orange while the coyotes called into the night, I believed I might have found what I was looking for.

May your horse never stumble, and may your cinch never break,

May your belly never grumble, and your heart never ache.

Cowboy poem

Snapping Turtle Stew

Serves 6

1kg snapping turtle meat 150g salted butter 1 tablespoon cooking oil 1 medium onion, chopped 3 celery sticks, chopped 120ml dry sherry 2 cloves of garlic 1 pinch of dried thyme leaves 1 pinch dried rosemary 1 400g can lima beans 3 medium potatoes, diced 3 carrots, chopped 1 400g can tomatoes 1 tablespoon lemon juice salt and freshly ground black pepper to serve: 1 bunch of fresh parsley and your favourite hot sauce

1 Cut the turtle meat into bite-size pieces and brown on all sides in the butter in a frying pan. Remove from the heat and set aside.

2 Heat the oil in a large pot and add the onion, celery, sherry, garlic, thyme, rosemary, lima beans and a pinch of salt and pepper. Once the contents begin to sizzle and your kitchen is full of aroma, cover with water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 1 hour.

3 Now add the browned snapper meat and melted butter to the pot, along with the potatoes, carrots and tomatoes and lemon juice, a little more salt and pepper to taste if necessary, and simmer for a further 45 minutes.

4 Serve in deep bowls with a little chopped parsley and a shake of your favourite hot sauce.

Rocky Mountain Oysters

(Although the oysters I ate in Montana weren’t soaked in beer I’ve learnt since that the process of soaking them tenderises the meat.)

Serves 6

1kg fresh calf’s testicles * 2 cans beer 150g flour salt, garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper 3 egg yolks 240ml vegetable oil chilli sauce or a little chopped chilli

1 Using a sharp knife, split the tough skin-like muscle that surrounds each ‘oyster’ and remove the testicle from within.

2 Place the testicles in a deep bowl and cover them with beer. Leave to sit for at least 2 hours.

3 Now combine the flour with a pinch of salt and garlic salt and some black pepper and mix through. Remove each testicle from the beer and while still damp, dip in a little egg yolk and roll in the flour until well covered.

4 Heat the oil in a deep skillet or frying pan, seasoned with a little hot sauce or some chopped chilli. Drop in the oysters and fry them for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown.

5 Leave them to cool on a bed of paper napkins and then enjoy them with a cold beer and a little chilli sauce for dipping.

* Be sure to ask your butcher for calf testicles, not bull testicles. Calf testicles are the size of a walnut and are much more tender than the larger bull testicles, which can be a bit of a mouthful.

Chapter 3
A Rocky Road MOOSE BURGERS, BEARS AND AN UPHILL STRUGGLE

Behind mountains, more mountains.

Haitian proverb

Along with having to wear Lycra, and the inevitable chafing, there are three major downsides to cycle touring. The rain, headwinds and going uphill. Crossing the American Midwest I had been exposed to my fair share of lip-chapping, energy-sapping headwinds. The ending of the summer meant I had already been well watered, but until now the topography of my route had been sympathetic. A few unfriendly grades in Upstate New York had tested my early resolve but since then my legs had remained almost completely unproven at riding a 50-kilo bicycle uphill. This was about to change. Leaving the United States I had made it to Calgary, in Canada’s oil-boom state of Alberta. Home to the annual cattle stampede, it stands where the Great Plains meet the Rockies. Examining my location on my soggy, worn-out map, the impending change in terrain was evident. To my east, the map’s clean expanse of even green ink represented the flat ground I had just covered. To my west, a confusion of grey shaded crags seemed to rise out of the page, promising a very different type of landscape.

Beyond Calgary’s silver skyscrapers the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky mountains shimmered against a cloudless blue sky. From the safe distance of the city’s coffee shops and busy streets they seemed calm, almost unreal, like the blue-screened scenery in an old movie. By all accounts I would need at least a month to get to Vancouver, and with the year moving on, if I was to make it ‘over the top’ before winter set in, I had to get going. Bike repaired, Lycra washed and bags packed, the weathermen gave me the green light, and on the first of September I rode off, excited and apprehensive, towards the Rockies.

Cycling through Calgary’s oil-rich manicured suburbs in the early morning I passed bleary-eyed commuters clutching briefcases and giant, insulated coffee beakers. They called their goodbyes to wives and children standing in the doorways of their prim cloned houses and climbed into shiny all-terrain vehicles parked in the tidy driveways. Row after row of identical houses sporting velvet lawns luxuriating under automatic sprinklers stretched in every direction, but as the houses stopped I began to ride uphill and the endless terrain of the Midwest closed in around me.

The wide-open spaces I had been used to became tight valleys with heavy, shadowed cliff-faces. Never-ending vistas shrank to dark dense forests. The water no longer meandered and gurgled in lazy riverbeds, it rushed and crashed in foaming streams. Within a day’s cycling of Calgary, I was enclosed by mountains.

But far from being intimidated in these new surroundings, I felt strong and healthy, the air was crisp and clean and the climate cool and refreshing.

Gone were the slow-moving, nonchalant cowboys of the Midwest. Up here everyone I encountered at gas stations and small mountain cafés looked like a model from a camping catalogue. Ruddy-cheeked, clad in lumberjack shirts, heavy boots and efficient clothing with dozens of pockets, they had an infectious energy gained from their healthy mountain living. The Rocky mountains were an outward-bound paradise and after almost four months on the road I couldn’t help but feel like the mountain alpha male, living rough and surviving on my wits. Under clear blue skies, surrounded by this dramatic new scenery, I rode confidently towards the mountain town of Banff.

Adding an uncomfortable coolness to my sweat-damp T-shirt, a chill wind whistled in my ears. As deep rumblings echoed in the distance, I looked ahead to the tops of the mountains that were enveloped in swirling white clouds. The sun was quickly obscured and without the picture-perfect backdrop of blue sky and bright sunshine the mountains took on a whole new character. The first few drops of rain fell on my arms and an explosion of lightning flashed behind the high ridges above me as I laboured up the last hill into Banff. I was losing a race against nature. From what I could hear, a storm was systematically moving from valley to valley, and as a blanket of black clouds unrolled above I knew I was next. I rode into one of Banff’s large campsites with the cold rain now pouring down my face and battled with the unpredictable gusts of wind to put my tent up quickly. Deafening claps of thunder clattered round the mountains and each time the lightning snapped every detail of the valley was illuminated in brilliant phosphorescent light. Frantic to unpack my bike, I threw my panniers inside my tent, hurled myself in behind them and pulled the zip.

Like the snug comfort of being beside a roaring fire in a small cottage on a winter’s day, rain beating against the windows, there is something strangely comforting about being in a tent during a storm. But this comfort soon turns to panic when your ‘cottage’ decides to blow away. My pathetic tent pegs put up no resistance to the gale-force winds that were now howling outside. My flysheet had torn away from the main body of the tent and, after transforming itself into an efficient mainsail, began dragging me around the campsite. Wrapped in a confusion of torn nylon, tent poles, sleeping bags, pots and pans and puncture repair kits, I tried desperately to locate the zip so that I could escape, but no sooner had I resigned myself to the storm’s power than I felt a strong hand grab at me through the wreckage.

‘You OK in there?’ came a cry from outside.

‘Not really,’ I bleated in distress.

I was pulled from the wreckage and, after salvaging what I could, was rushed by my rescuer into the nearby safety of a motor home, where the confused faces of a young family seated around a small table at a game of Pictionary looked me over.

‘We watched you come in. Didn’t think you’d make it through the storm with your tent pitched where it was. Done much camping, have you?’

‘Bits,’ I muttered, embarrassed that my camping show had provided some light entertainment. ‘I’ve cycled from New York,’ I added, in an attempt to improve my credentials.

‘Well, you’re welcome to dry up in here while this storm passes through. Some fudge?’

The mother offered me a plate of home-made peanut butter fudge from the middle of the table where the family were grouped around their game. The Wendlebows were a family from Vancouver Island on vacation in the Rockies. In the snug comfort of the motor home, Paul, Emily and Erik, the couple’s young children, eyed me up and down shyly.

Wrapped in a blanket, clutching a steaming cup of coffee and nibbling on a slab of fudge, I stared out of the steamed-up windows of the motor home and watched as the storm moved into the next valley. Suddenly downhearted in the midst of this comfortable family, I pondered my situation.

I had spent four months sleeping rough and cycling, and now the summer was coming to an end. I had almost crossed the continent but one last, seemingly insurmountable, hurdle remained, and after only a few days into the Rockies the weather had already got the better of me. My tent was in tatters and so was my morale. I imagined limping back into Heathrow and being met by a posse of friends and family offering polite congratulations.

‘You did so well to get so far.’

‘You should be really proud of yourself.’

‘What a shame about the weather.’

At this point it was very clear how totally under-prepared I was for my mountain crossing, and I had at least another month ahead of me until Vancouver. For the first time the thought of failure was very real. I felt a long way from the heroic continent-crossing cyclist I was claiming to be.

The sky cleared and before darkness fell I was able to recover what was left of my equipment, which had been liberally scattered around the campsite. My tent would need to be patched up, I had lost four tent pegs and my inflatable mattress no longer inflated. The Wendlebows kindly invited me to join them for supper and after a comforting evening of Pictionary, hot dogs and corn on the cob, I crawled back into my weather-beaten tent, curled up on my deflated mattress and slept.

In 1885 the completion of the Canadian-Pacific Railway finally linked the east and west coasts of Canada, allowing passengers to travel the 2,500 miles across the North American continent in relative comfort. Passing north of Lake Superior, the tracks traversed the Great Plains of Manitoba and Saskatchewan before snaking into and over the Rocky mountains. A remarkable feat of Victorian engineering, which cost the lives of countless Chinese labourers, the project was spearheaded by the charismatic William Cornelius Van Horne. A rising star of the new industrial age, Van Horne not only saw the railroad as fundamental to trade and commerce, he also saw the potential of the Rockies’ breathtaking scenery as a tourist attraction. ‘Since we can’t export the scenery—we shall have to import the tourists,’ was his entrepreneurial boast before starting work on a series of luxurious mountain resorts where the super-rich of this new industrial epoch could come and take in the clean air and enjoy the views. Van Horne’s vast chateau-style hotel, built on the convergence of the Spray and Bow rivers, was to be the jewel in the CPR’s crown. A towering testament to industrialism, the Banff Springs Hotel quickly became one of the world’s most prestigious getaways.

In bad weather, with its Gothic turrets and gables, it would have appeared like an impregnable cocktail of Psycho-meets-Colditz, but bathed in warm late-summer sunshine it was as reassuring as a Scottish baronial castle on the lid of a tin of Highland shortbread.

I pushed my bicycle up the long sweeping driveway, gazing at the towering façade with its backdrop of mountains. Then I walked into the imposing hotel lobby and, in my dirty shorts and worn-out shoes, I felt immediately and agonizingly under-dressed. Stone chimneypieces framed roaring fires, vast oil paintings of misty mountain scenery hung from the walls and the proud heads of deer and moose stared down at me with disdain. Colourful stained-glass windows lit up solid wood staircases and rich carpets, while busy staff scurried to attend to the well-to-do guests lucky enough to be staying here. I pulled off my bobble hat, revealing a shaggy head of unkempt hair, and approached the reception desk to enquire about brunch.

‘Certainly, sir. Do you have a reservation?’ drawled the concierge in a smooth Canadian accent.

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Well, I’m afraid you need a reservation, sir, and we do have a dress code in the dining room. Resort casual.’

‘Resort casual?’

‘Yes, sir. Will that be all?’

A short ride back into town I found the nearest phone box and popped in a couple of quarters.

‘I’d like to make a reservation for brunch please.’…‘Today.’…‘Just one, I’m afraid.’…‘Eleven thirty? Perfect.’…‘Tom.’…‘Thank you.’

Back at the hotel’s front door a polite porter offered to keep an eye on my wheels, and after I explained that I planned to be inside for quite some time he offered me the valet service.

‘For a bicycle?’

‘Don’t see why not, sir.’ Handing me a smart brass token, he wheeled away my overloaded bike.

I hurtled through the lobby, past well-dressed guests enjoying their Sunday, and made a beeline for the Gents.

It was an opulent room with yellow marble basins, golden taps, tall mirrors and, amid a baffling range of towels and scented toiletries, I went to work. I trimmed my wayward beard, added a few well-needed blasts of deodorant, put on a collared shirt and slipped into an almost clean pair of jeans.

The reflection that looked back at me may not have been wearing a pink Ralph Lauren shirt, chinos and a preppy blazer, but as I brushed my hair and eyed myself up in the large mirror I decided I was as close as I was ever going to get to ‘resort casual’. Stuffing my dirty clothes in the small cupboard under the sink, I made my way to the dining room, leaving a trail of stubble and my own distinctive fragrance in my wake.

Like another of life’s simple pleasures, eating is much more fun with other people. I gave my name to the maître d’ and felt a momentary pang of sadness as I was shown to a single table, laid for one, in the middle of the large dining room, which was filled with families, groups of friends and the lively sounds of animated conversation. Eating alone is one of the downsides to solo travel, but determined not to dwell on my solitude I began to plan my brunch and activate my gastric juices.

‘Do help yourself to the buffet, sir.’

Just hearing the word ‘buffet’ conjured up apparitions of metal trays filled with multicoloured gloop in cheap Chinese restaurants. It reminded me of cheapskate corporate functions with tables littered with cold cocktail sausages, plastic ham sandwiches, damp quiche, greying Scotch eggs and soggy sausage rolls. But as I stared at the galaxy of food laid out before me here, it was clear that they treat buffet very differently Stateside. This was buffet, but not as we know it.

Heaps of crushed ice were covered with pink lobsters, meaty crabs, fat shrimps and coral-coloured langoustines; there were sides of smoked salmon, trout and gravadlax; pepper-crusted pastrami, haunches of prosciutto, shiny maple-cured hams studded with cloves, salted hunks of beef, rolled pancetta, looped Spanish chorizo, slender salamis, chunky saucissons…

Busy men in tall chef’s hats and white jackets whisked eggs and made omelettes to order. Balls of pizza dough were thrown around like juggler’s balls, stretched like chest expanders before being sprinkled with savoury ingredients. Headband-wearing sushi chefs patiently constructed flawless nigiri and sashimi while others tossed ingredients into hissing woks. Sous chefs with knives that could remove a man’s arm at a single stroke dissected tender ribs with all the skill of a surgeon and racks of lamb and huge hams glazed with sticky honey were deftly sliced. Golden chickens rotated slowly on spits. There were salads of every colour and description. Baskets spilling over with fresh fruit and wild berries were next to towers of decadent pastries and puddings cemented with whipped cream and bejewelled with fresh fruit. It looked like the delirious fantasy feast of a starving man. After four months of living on the road, it was almost too much to take in. I wanted it all and yet seemed to be overcome with a strange sensual panic.

There is an art to eating a buffet of this calibre. I needed to be calm, disciplined. I needed a strategy. How many times you revisit a buffet on this scale is a private matter between you, the capacity of your stomach and your conscience, but the first rule of buffet is knowing where your enemy lies.

‘Would like some bread, sir?’

Don’t even think about it.

To gently ease my system into the impending feast, I began with a bowl of fresh Rocky mountain berries and natural yogurt, and sticking with the breakfast theme I then decided on eggs Benedict, an old favourite. I declined the offer of having it served on an English muffin and opted instead for a couple of rashers of grilled Canadian back bacon and a little wilted spinach.

My next stop was the sushi bar where a patient Itamae was practising his art. I briefly questioned whether I should be eating raw fish in the Rocky mountains, but the objection was overruled, and I returned to my table with a plate laden with beautiful nori, wrapped futomaki, uramaki made with Pacific salmon, nigiri zushi with shrimp and eel, and plenty of tender cuts of sashimi, all enjoyed with a little wasabi and pink ginger that rebooted my system perfectly for the next step.

Spoilt with cold sides of smoked Pacific salmon, sparkling gravadlax and fat prawns the size of giant’s fingers, I loaded up yet another fishy plate with poached Bow river trout with a dill and caper sauce, and enjoyed it with some fresh asparagus dripping with butter. Fish is filling and, teetering on the edge of consciousness, I was grateful that I had had the foresight to bring a good book with me. After a visit to Middlemarch I was soon raring to go again.

Ahhhhhhh!

Roast loin of pork with morels, the sculptural mushrooms I had noticed growing on damp tree stumps and logs in the woods, served with a couple of boiled Yukon Gold potatoes coated in a little butter and fresh mint, and a couple of grilled peppers on the side. My mission was almost complete.

Unfortunately the Hungry Cyclist was on a tight budget, and this luxurious food had to be washed down with jugs of iced water and the complimentary fruit juices on offer. With each new plateful the black-dressed sommelier would approach to proffer his extensive wine list; each time he would retreat with merely a twitch to the corner of his mouth to show his disappointment.

He had much more luck with neighbouring tables, whose occupants changed two or three times during the course of my long-drawn-out brunch. By now I had been eating for over two hours. My brain was signalling frantically to my stomach and waves of dizziness washed over me. I began to feel increasingly light-headed and in a state of semi-delirium I mopped up the last of the meat juices with a lonesome potato. I needed to go back to Middlemarch.

After another chapter, I enjoyed some sharp Canadian cheddar and a healthy slice of Saskatoon strudel that had been flirting with me throughout the afternoon. I had reached my elastic limit and, sipping at a small espresso, I checked my time. Three hours and twenty-two minutes. I screwed up my napkin and triumphantly threw in the towel. Staggering out of the dining room I waddled through the labyrinth of the hotel like a sedated minotaur. The beast had been tamed. Stumbling across a cosy room with an open fire and a sofa the size of a family car, I slipped off my shoes, plumped up the cushions, let out a reassuring fart and collapsed.

Waking from a series of deep, cheese-induced dreams, I reluctantly made plans to return to the washroom to get back into my cycling clothes. In the lobby, excited fresh-faced guests were returning from the mountains and checking in for the night. How I wished I could have joined them. Instead I pulled on my woolly hat and walked outside into the cold. Reluctantly, like Cinderella returning from the ball, I gave the doorman my valet token and soon a young porter was struggling to push my bike to the front door. I shook his hand, slipped him a dollar for his efforts and pedalled out into the biting late afternoon.

‘Thank you, sir. Enjoy your evening.’

As I left Banff, the sun disappeared behind the dark green spruce that covered the mountains, and the warmth of the afternoon went with it. In the sunlight this snow-capped landscape was enchanting, but when you took away the sun it became a different place all together. Cold and imposing, the long shadows of the dark cliff-faces hung over me as if I was entering a whole new menacing world. The air chilled my face and icy drops of rain began to fall and to drip from the boughs of the dark trees that hugged the roadside. Cold and alone in this suddenly intimidating environment, my thoughts returned to the comfort of the hotel. It would be dark in an hour and I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night.

‘Hey there, I’m Dave. Quite a load you have there, eh?’ A man on a bicycle pulled alongside. ‘I’m camping in the woods on the left, seven miles up the road. Come and join me. Can’t delay, this rain doesn’t look like quitting and I need to get a fire going, eh.’

Ending every sentence with the expression ‘eh’, it was clear Dave was Canadian, but other than his name and his nationality I knew nothing about him, and he and his old racing bicycle quickly disappeared over the crest of the next hill. Exactly seven miles from where Dave had raced past me, a narrow track, flanked on either side by tall trees and scattered with fallen pine needles, led into the woods. Away from the road the forest was densely packed and the thick evergreen branches almost completely blocked out what was left of the day’s light. Rain poured down and heavy beads of water fell through the needles and branches. A mile or so up the track the light blue rainsheet of a small tent stood out in the darkness and working away behind it with a small hatchet was Dave, already busy splitting logs for a small fire that was sending a billow of thick smoke into the gloomy surroundings.

‘Welcome, welcome,’ he cried. ‘Try and find a dry spot for your tent, eh.’

Fat drops of rain splashed from the high branches but the forest floor, a mix of old spruce needles and small twigs, was surprisingly soft and dry. I pitched my tent, prepared my sleeping bag and, still wrapped from head to toe in my claustrophobic waterproof carapace, joined Dave by the fire.

‘Feather sticks,’ he said, holding up a piece of split wood. ‘Only way to get a fire going when the heavens open, eh.’ He went back to working at the piece of kindling with his long hunting knife. ‘You wanna try?’ He offered me a piece of wood.

In a blue bobble hat that came down over his ears to the top of his well-kept beard, and wearing an old jumper and well-worn yellow waterproof jacket that would have been more suitable on a fishing boat, Dave was skinny and probably in his fifties, but the deep lines of his weathered features surrounded a pair of keen eyes that sparkled with the boundless energy of a teenager.

‘So where are you cycling to?’ I asked.

‘Oh I’m jus’ here on a little holiday.’

‘And where’s home?’

‘Calgary right now, eh. But I’m kind of homeless at the moment.’

‘But what do you do during the winter?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t get too cold any more. Perhaps minus thirty when there’s a snap, and as long as I have my peanut butter and my marg, I do just fine.’ Pulling a plastic tub from his bag, Dave proudly directed a heaped spoon of white margarine into his mouth.

‘You want some?’ he offered through a mouthful of margarine.

‘Not for me, thanks.’

‘Keeps out the cold, eh.’

I watched in disgust as the lump of margarine moved down his throat before Dave went on to repeat the process with his peanut butter. What little appetite I had after my gourmet lunch almost disappeared after witnessing this gastronomic monstrosity, but expecting a cold night ahead I offered to cook some supper and returned from my tent with my cooking staples—two ripe tomatoes, half an onion, a head of garlic, two bruised courgettes, a roll-up chopping board, a collection of herbs and spices stored in 35mm film cases, some chicken stock cubes, some brown rice, a little olive oil, two apples, a small bag of raisins and a plastic bear half full of honey, plus a couple of pans. The kindness of strangers and plenty of cheap Midwest diners meant I hadn’t used them for a while. Producing my supplies, Dave’s eyes almost fell out of his head.

‘You cycle with all that gear on your bike, eh?’

‘I like to eat.’

Placing a couple of flat and steady rocks around the fire, I sweated off some chopped onion with a little oil in one pan before adding chopped garlic and a couple of pinches of dried cumin. I added one cup of brown rice, which sizzled and cracked, and after a few minutes added two cups of water and a crumbled stock cube. Leaving the rice bubbling, I added the remains of the chopped onion and the rest of the garlic to the other pan and put in the courgettes, the rain hissing as it hit the bottom of the pan. The courgette began to colour and I added the tomatoes and some seasoning. The rice was ready. Dishing up a healthy portion on a plate, I added a little of what could almost be called Rocky mountain ratatouille and served it to Dave.

‘Voila.’

‘You sure like your food, eh.’ Dave began attacking his supper.

‘Oh, nothing special,’ I said, ashamed to admit that only a few hours before I had been stuffing myself in one of the world’s smartest hotels. For pudding I cored the two apples and filled the centres with a mixture of three damp digestive biscuits I found in a pocket, some honey, raisins and a pinch of cinnamon. I stewed them in a few inches of water and after a long wait while chatting over a strong cup of coffee they were ready, the piping-hot apples sticky and spicy-sweet.

We stayed up and talked a little about our respective lives on the road. A year before, Dave’s mother had had to go into a nursing home and in order to cover the costs Dave had been forced to sell their apartment. Without a job he had no alternative but to camp for the ensuing year in a park in Calgary, from where he was able to visit his mother every day. This trip to the Rockies was his holiday. Before long the bitter cold sent us into the relative warmth of our tents. I stretched my balaclava over my head, pulled on my woolly socks and gloves and wriggled about for a few minutes to generate a little heat. It was no five-star hotel, but after my evening with Dave I was beginning to understand that comfort and discomfort were no more than a state of mind.

The following morning I emerged wearily from my tent cursing the cold, frantically blowing into my hands and stamping my feet in an attempt to reboot my circulation. Dave was already up and about, chopping wood and successfully resurrecting the previous night’s fire. My water bottles had frozen solid and after filling a pan in a nearby stream we brewed coffee and cooked oats. Then we said our goodbyes, and I was on my way to Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway.

Fabled to be one of the world’s most beautiful roads and tracing the spine of the North American continental divide, the Icefields Parkway runs some 250 kilometres from the surreal turquoise waters of Lake Louise to Jasper National Park. Built by unemployed men as part of the ‘make work’ project during the Great Depression, it passes within viewing distance of seven upland glaciers. Dreamlike lakes the colour of scarab beetles sit peacefully below these vast fields of ice that cling precariously to the mountains, slowly dripping into the rivers that fill the air with the sound of rushing water and tumbling boulders. Cycling this road, where large trucks are thankfully prohibited, might be hard work but I have no doubt it is the best way to appreciate the outstanding natural beauty hidden in the heart of the Rocky mountains. Huge slabs of what was once the earth’s crust have been smashed and thrust in all directions by violent seismic upheavals, creating the vast sharp-edged limestone mountains and splintered cliff-faces that surround you. Millions of years of slow-moving ice and rushing melt-water have done their best to tidy up this violent mess, carving out smooth valley basins.

Two days later, as I sweated inside my restrictive waterproof shell on a morning of slow uphill cycling in indecisive rain, the sun eventually broke through the thick clouds and the dramatic beauty of the valley I was cycling through became visible. Finding a peaceful clearing some way from the road I stopped for lunch beside the ominously named Mosquito Creek. I had not passed a shop since Lake Louise and my meagre rations dictated another lacklustre banquet of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, two bruised apples and a chocolate bar. Unsatisfied with lunch I lay out my damp clothes on a series of large boulders to dry in the afternoon sun and, doing the same to myself, began drifting asleep to the peaceful tune of the icy waters rushing in the creek. The warmth of the afternoon vanished as the sun hid behind the mountains and it was replaced by a sharp coolness that quickly reminded me where I was. It seemed a perfect place to camp, and deciding to stay put for the night I spent the next hour crashing around in the bushes collecting the driest wood I could find.

Organising my findings into three tidy piles, small, medium and large, I split some of the smaller branches into ‘feather sticks’ (of which Dave would have been proud), cut a strip of rubber from an old inner tube, covered it with smaller twigs and struck a match. On all fours, I moved around my fire. A directed blast of breath here. Another well-positioned breath there. Just move this stick a little to let some more air in…

After ten minutes of concentrated tweaking, blowing and tinkering I was rewarded with the first comforting crackles and hisses of fire. I tenderly placed a few bigger sticks on the climbing flames and, swelling with primitive pride, I got to my feet and took in my surroundings. The wide creek ran away across the valley floor which was littered with sun-bleached tree trunks and heavy boulders, a reminder of its powerful potential. The broken peaks of the cold mountains rose hundreds of feet above the pointed tops of the densely packed trees that carpeted their slopes, and above it all the first star burst through the cloudless sky. It promised to be a bitterly cold night. In the gathering darkness my world was soon reduced to all that was illuminated by the dancing flames of my fire.

‘Hey, Hungry Cyclist, why don’t you come in here and take off my wrapper?’

‘I’m rationing. Go away.’

‘Oh come on. Come and wrap your lips around my sweet chocolate and caramel centre.’

‘I’m saving you for tomorrow. Leave me alone.’

‘But I’ll taste so much better tonight.’

There is only so long you can sit in the bitter cold knowing that an uneaten chocolate bar waits for you at the bottom of a bag. After falling for the advances of Babe Ruth, I prepared to turn in and set about hanging what remained of my food in a nearby tree. Not only would this prevent me from decimating my rations in a fit of night starvation, it would also thwart the efforts of another hungry predator.

Ever since US President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, the great conservationist, saved a baby bear from being shot on a hunting trip, humans have had a close affinity with these ursine creatures. We all cherish Teddy bears. We anthropomorphise them into likable characters, Paddington, Winnie, Balloo and Yogi, and a trip to the Rockies would not be complete without catching a glimpse of one of these majestic and lovable animals in the wild.

‘Seen any bears?’

‘Black or grizzly?’

‘Any cubs?’

These are customary questions amongst visitors to the Rockies, and the traffic jams and tailbacks of eager tourists leaning from car windows and motor homes to capture a piece of moving bush on their digital cameras are testament to the important role bears play in the tourist industry of the mountains. But here lies a problem. Man and bear aren’t the best roommates.

Every autumn, bears make the very sensible decision to get into a cave and sleep for four months, and before taking this long nap they go on a feeding frenzy to fatten up. As their normal food supply is depleted by the damming of rivers and deforestation, they have to look elsewhere, and thus they have developed a taste for easily found human food. Rubbish bins, local tips and campsites provide easy and delicious pickings. This means that bear attacks in the Rockies at this time of year are by no means unheard of. All visitors are advised to carry a bear bell, a pathetic little thing more suited for decorating a Christmas tree than scaring away a 600-pound ravenous beast, and park rangers, local people and road signs are full of advice on how to best avoid becoming a Teddy bear’s picnic.

‘Assess the situation you are dealing with. Are you dealing with a black or grizzly bear?’

‘Climb a tree if available.’

‘Don’t announce your presence if a bear has not seen you.’

‘Let the bear know you are of no threat.’

‘If you come into contact with a bear, keep a close eye on its whereabouts.’

‘Never look a bear in the eyes.’

‘If attacked by a grizzly bear play dead.’

‘If attacked by a black bear fight back.’

Startled from a sound sleep, this catalogue of conflicting advice scrambled in my brain. I could hear the rushing water of the creek but there was something else outside my tent too. I listened again. Perhaps it was just the breeze flapping the tent material. No, there it was again. Something big was in the bushes next to my camp. Bolt upright, motionless and hoping it was nothing more than a hungry racoon, I continued to tune into its movements, while my heartbeat pounded in my head.

That’s some fucking racoon.

It was so close now I could hear the breath being drawn into its large hollow chest as it sniffed and scratched around the perimeter of my tent, its heavy paws pounding the ground inches from where I sat. I grabbed my bear bell, but was too scared to ring it. I sat paralysed by fear, and then remembered. My peanut butter.

Taking Dave’s advice, I had taken a pot of the stuff to bed with me for those cold lonely moments.

The bear can smell my peanut butter…

Trying to stay as still as possible, I fished the tub from the bottom of my sleeping bag and held it in front of me. There was only one thing for it: a sacrifice would have to be made. Slowly unzipping the front of my tent, I rolled the jar into the darkness. Terrified, I lay awake, not drifting back to sleep until the sun began to rise. Plucking up enough courage to get out of my tent, I saw that an immaculate white frost covered everything. My breath filled the air in front of my face, and I nervously inspected the camp. There was no trace of my peanut butter.

As I gained altitude, metre by metre, the air thinned and the temperature dropped. On hot sweaty climbs I peeled off layer after layer of windproof, waterproof clothing, only to put it all back on as the icy mountain air chilled me to the bone and stung my face on the fast, exhilarating descents through this literally breathtaking landscape. Childhood memories of queuing endlessly for a thirty-second roller-coaster ride returned to me as I spent hours trudging up steep climbs for only a few seconds of ‘white-knuckle’ decline, but as I continued my journey on the Icefields Parkway I rode with renewed energy towards the Columbia Icefields and the continental divide. A psychological milestone of the journey, it represented the highest point I would climb in North America, and the very top of the Rockies.

After a gruelling climb in driving snow, what I had been waiting for became visible through the whiteout in the valley below. Amid the snow, wind and glare the Columbia Icefields visitor centre appeared like an Antarctic base camp, surrounded by snowmobiles, radio aerials and flashing lights. At 3,569 metres above sea level, I had crossed the continental divide. For months I had imagined this moment, standing tall on top of the world, blond hair and Union flag blowing in the wind as I surveyed the broken snowcapped peaks of the mountains spread out around me. Instead, wrapped up like a polar explorer, my snot-streaming red nose the only bit of skin exposed to the biting cold, I rode towards the visitor centre unable to see beyond the short distance of black tarmac that vanished into the whiteness only metres ahead.

As I waited outside the visitor centre, the snow blowing, a couple of young cagoule-clad hikers came and joined me.

‘Come a long way?’ they asked.

‘London. You?’

‘Devon. Sandwich?’

I took a damp triangle of bread and meat from a neat tinfoil parcel.

‘Thank you.’

‘We’ve been saving them just for this.’

And so, sitting on the continental divide of North America, I munched on a roast beef and horseradish sandwich. By no means the perfect meal, but as I huddled from the cold, the snow swirling in the white air, it tasted just great.

The melt-water from the vast Athabasca glacier rushes in three directions. To Alaska, to the Atlantic and west towards the Pacific. Having struggled in the opposite direction to the rushing waters that flowed east, I was now at last going with the flow and following the rushing rivers that poured west into British Columbia and the open waters of the Pacific.

Camped at the foot of Mount Robson in an area of deforested wasteland that resembled an abandoned battlefield, I was awakened at dawn by the all-too-familiar sound of rain on my tent. Looking at my map the Mount Robson visitor centre was close by and, if the other visitor centres were anything to go by, it would be open in a few hours and there would be some free over-brewed coffee there and possibly a rest room.

With my complimentary cup of stale yet reviving coffee, I sat on the steps of the visitor centre and waited for the rain to pass. Delving into my provisions I began preparing another peanut butter and honey sandwich.

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