by Paul Howard
For 15 minutes the hail came and went, turning us into caricatures of plague victims with red weals on exposed flesh. Eventually we rode through the storm into clear skies.
‘That was nice,’ said Trevor.
‘I hate New Mexico,’ said Per enthusiastically, almost seeming to relish the disaffection.
Next came what we had anticipated would be one of the highlights of the trip. We were about to cycle through the location of this year’s Rainbow Gathering, a peripatetic annual reunion of ‘The Rainbow Family of Living Light’ or the ‘Rainbow Tribe’ – otherwise known as hippies.
The first inkling of its proximity was the presence of an abandoned car with Connecticut licence plates lying at a jaunty angle across the road in the middle of the forest. On the back seat was a motley selection of beer and foodstuffs as well as that classic hippie giveaway: tie-dyed clothing.
‘Gone for gas,’ read a hand-scrawled sign in the windscreen.
Then came two guitar-toting teenagers who, in between a bewildering intensity of expressions like ‘wow, man’ and ‘cool, man’, asked if they were heading the right way to find the brothers. We assumed they meant the Gathering, rather than an unlikely offshoot of a religious order, and said that as we’d not yet passed them we assumed they were still ahead.
‘Wow, man. Cool, man.’
Then they remembered their manners.
‘Thanks, man.’
A couple of miles further on it became apparent the Gathering, a kind of Woodstock without the music, was near at hand. Instead of music, the focal point was a prayer for peace and a variety of activities designed to engender such hippy ideals as peace, love, freedom and harmony. It sounded great. Even better, a very encouraging report of an earlier Tour Divide encounter with the event had been posted on the race website.
‘Expect to see somewhere around 15–20 THOUSAND naked hippies jammin’ out in drum circles. Family members suggest that you should bring some “shiny rocks” for bartering items such as food, drinks, etc . . .’
Alas, reality did not match expectation. Such nourishment as was on offer held less appeal than yesterday’s Spam, and nudity was noticeable only by its absence. This was probably a good thing. It was far from certain our sense of purpose could have resisted such siren charms. Indeed, there were few people at all, scantily clad or otherwise.
All we got instead was cars. And more cars. In fact, there were thousands of them, parked gaily on the verges. Those parked with gayest abandon were those you might most typically associate with hippies: ageing Volvos, bashed up VWs, converted school buses in psychedelic colours. Some gave the distinct impression they had found their final resting place in this particular patch of New Mexico forest.
Yet those parked with more circumspection betrayed the presence of a new breed of hippie. In fact, the roadside car park was dominated by an eye-watering fleet of expensive pick-ups and 4×4s that would not have looked out of place at a reunion of accountants. Or of ‘hockey-moms’. Or both.
‘Hippies just aren’t the same as they used to be,’ sighed Trevor.
The theme of vehicular excess continued once we were past the main concentration of the hippy camp. While all around me were celebrating freedom, the freedom I had experienced over the past three and a half weeks to cycle happily, day after day, without encountering a car, had been sorely curtailed. I began to feel a most unhippy-like rage coming to the boil. The pleasure of an undulating descent was being denied me by a trail of cars and pick-ups.
Eventually, I could stand the cloud of dust and exhaust fumes being belched in front of me no longer. Ahead was a queue of four vehicles behind a clapped-out saloon pulling a caravan far bigger than its engine capacity could manage. I resorted to the guerrilla tactics of an erstwhile London cycling commuter. Building my momentum nicely, I capitalised on one short descent to make it past the first two cars. Then I despatched the next two in similar fashion. The mask of determination I was now wearing did little to endear me to the chilled-out dudes in the back of each pick-up. But all that remained was the caravan. Suddenly I felt like Jeremy Clarkson, the only other person who could possibly suffer road rage in such an ostensibly tranquil setting.
‘Get this heap of junk off the road,’ I muttered.
Then I saw my chance. Throwing caution to the wind, I dived down the inside of a corner, narrowly avoided becoming the meat in a caravan-and-tree sandwich, and surged triumphant into the lead.
‘Yeeha!’ I hollered, to no one in particular. ‘Take your stinking, cumbersome icons of consumerism and stick ’em up your peace pipe. I’m freeeeeee!’
Then I came to a hill. And another. And another. After three desperate attempts to retain my hard-won liberty I was compelled to accept the reality of a pyrrhic victory. Topography was against me. No amount of bravado and belligerence could compensate for a lack of horsepower. Even the spluttering, puttering, caravan-towing saloon soon overtook me, followed by a succession of pick-ups with noisome V8 engines. My freedom to obstruct and weave was as nothing compared to their freedom to accelerate uphill.
In the end I found inner peace by stopping for a chocolate bar. I sat and made unreciprocated peace signs at passing motorists.
The traffic thinned and Trevor and Per arrived. At the edge of the forest we enjoyed a rip-roaring, 10-mile, paved descent into the town of Cuba. In homage to Stephen’s phenomenal downhill skills, I used Per’s considerable frame as a windshield, then sling-shotted past him in an attempt to establish a new Tour Divide speed record. I passed a ‘40 mph’ sign at 41.5 mph, still some way short of Stephen’s best of 46 mph. I redoubled my efforts. Then I rounded a bend to find myself staring into the barrel of a policeman’s gun. Fortunately it was a speed gun. Unfortunately, it was too late to slow down. I smiled instead. It had worked with the receptionist at the Abiquiu Inn. The police officer didn’t move. I continued on my merry way. A couple of minutes passed. There were no sirens or flashing lights. I began to breathe more easily. The prospect of being hauled over by the local version of Sheriff J.D. Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard was not something to be entertained lightly.
Like Rawlins, Cuba – pronounced ‘Cooba’ – was a town with a reputation. The guidebook said that as recently as the early 1900s, travellers were advised against being caught overnight there. The sign by the gas station door suggested it had not reformed quite as much as might have been hoped.
FREE!
Ride in a SHERIFF’S CAR if you shoplift from this store.
Compliments of:
Sheriff John Paul Trujillo and Undersheriff Tim Lucero Sandoval County Sheriff ’s Office.
I wondered if the local shoplifters knew the sheriffs were out catching speeding hippies.
It was only 6 p.m. but, in spite of Cuba’s questionable charms, we decided to stop. We found the last room in a scruffy motel next to a scruffy diner. In order to make the most of our early finish we ordered food immediately. It was a good decision. Within minutes, the whole place was heaving with ravenous refugees from the Rainbow Gathering. Most seemed not to have eaten for a week; many seemed to have forgotten the purpose of tables and chairs. Unsurprisingly, chaos ensued, especially when the deleterious impact of the holiday weekend on the restaurant’s supplies became evident.
The influx was not entirely a bad thing, however. Not only did our outlandish cycling attire now seem less incongruous. For the first time in three and a half weeks the dubious accolade of ‘smelliest people in the room’ could be awarded to someone else.
CHAPTER 28
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LOSING MY INNOCENCE IN WALMART
DAY 25
It was time to face up to the reality of our situation. There was still just over 500 miles to go until the finish, but we only had four days left to ensure we made it in time for Per’s flight. The prospect of 125-mile days was no longer daunting in itself, but clearly some days were more suited to covering greater distances than others. The important thing was to know which.
According to the profile on the map, which we had pored over at length after last night’s dinner and which we assumed couldn’t be as erroneous as the information it provided about shops and diners, the next 200 miles would make for good going. The next 160 miles in particular looked promising, as we intended to exploit one of the few rules of the race that allowed us to follow a paved alternative to the main route. Thereafter we would be confronted with 180 miles through the Gila National Forest that had a profile bearing a depressing resemblance to a saw blade, and a reputation to match.
‘Exceptionally steep and rugged mountains, where each steep descent is followed by an equally steep climb,’ said the map, which for once we were quite happy to believe.
It sounded no place to be trying to make up time. Now, we concluded, was the moment to make a move. Accordingly, we boldly decided to ignore the off-site continuation of the Rainbow Gathering in the motel’s neighbouring rooms and retired early in anticipation of a pre-dawn start. We surfaced at 4 a.m., even without the benefit of Stephen’s errant mobile phone, and were underway within the hour.
It was a good decision, if only for the first, glorious hour spent riding on a deserted road through a deserted desert in the silvery twilight of a setting moon. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, silver turned to gold as the influence of the moon succumbed to the power of the rising sun. Mesas and buttes, great eruptions of rock from the surrounding plain, were first framed darkly against the horizon, then bathed in blazing light.
By 6 a.m. the sun was fully fledged. By 7 a.m. it had dispelled the morning chill and replaced it with burgeoning heat. We had already covered nearly 30 miles, and the route ahead was appealingly flat, but it was set to be a long day.
Entertainment was provided by the local wildlife. Or rather, we provided the local wildlife with some unintentional entertainment. The fact that the pack of feral dogs that decided to interpret our strange presence in their territory as a catalyst to regress to traditional hunting patterns were nominally domesticated was of little relevance. They certainly behaved like wild animals.
First to run the gauntlet was Per. He had the distinct disadvantage of having set the pace for the morning, the result of which was that he was caught unawares by the dastardly dog ambush. Trevor and I at least had the benefit of being forewarned.
Not that such preparation made it possible to avoid the confrontation. The best that could be hoped for was to encounter it on our own terms. Benefiting from the distraction provided by Trevor, I gathered momentum down a short hill and sprinted past the dogs’ lair. Even though they had recently given up on Trevor, they were more than willing to try their luck on me. A dozen or so of the foulest, meanest, mangiest mutts ever to have disgraced a dog kennel came tearing down the verge in hot pursuit. Even the most vicious and ill-treated Yorkshire sheepdogs, with their seemingly inbred taste for cyclists’ calves, had nothing on these apocalyptic fiends.
I now had the certain knowledge of what it felt like to be an elk pursued by wolves. Fortunately, I had also seen enough David Attenborough natural history programmes to realise that they were likely to lose interest after a while, so I ploughed on. It was difficult to resist the temptation to unclip a foot and fend off the bravest of the hounds, but cycling uphill precluded such pre-emptive action. What’s more, as they seemed to have forgotten the art of felling their prey before trying to devour it, I decided it would be wise not to remind them. Eventually my endurance told and I emerged unscathed.
Per and Trevor had wisely continued to make good their escape. We reconvened some miles later at a gas station with a grocery store. It was something of a relief, not only because of the opportunity it afforded to relive our canine capers.
‘Nice dogs,’ said Per.
‘Lovely,’ I agreed.
‘They liked me so much they tried to eat me,’ added Trevor.
We were also keen to replenish our drinking supplies. The sun was now high in the sky and shelter was a redundant concept in this barren, treeless land. The map had already promised one gas station (which turned out to be abandoned) and two stores, one that turned out to be a gas station without a shop and one store that had in fact been a Laundromat.
‘A Laundromat? In the middle of the desert? Why?’ I asked, though I knew there was no likelihood of an answer.
Even more inexplicable had been the presence at the side of the road of four churches, roughly double the number of houses we had seen. Apart from the distinct smell of sulphur that we had encountered an hour or so previously, there seemed nothing to justify the existence of one church, let alone four. Yet four there were, all with suitably inspiring names: The Rock Springs Holiness Mission; the Angel Food Ministries; the Tinion Baptist Church; and last, but far from least, God’s Mighty Warriors Church. The free market in religion was obviously thriving. Or maybe the souls of local dog owners needed a lot of rescuing. There was even the North Fork Baptist Church Memorial Gardens, though evidence of a garden was somewhat thin on the ground. Either that or the gardeners were intent on cultivating the types of plants that grew in the surrounding desert. In which case it was a great success.
The sun continued to blaze in the sky. The temperatures continued to rise. We continued to pedal.
Four parched hours later, and 116 miles since Cuba, we arrived in Milan. Not the cultural and consumer capital of Italy but, judging by the presence of four well-drilling and welding company workshops and very little else, the small-scale engineering capital of this inhospitable corner of New Mexico. There was also a Cross Roads Motel, the appeal of which was lost on Trevor and Per.
Not in immediate need of having anything welded or any wells drilled, we continued to the neighbouring town of Grants, the charms of which we hoped would be more considerable. Things started brightly enough as we turned onto Route 66, America’s most famous road and an essential element on any road trip such as ours. That was as good as it got, however.
The most flattering way to describe the rest of our experience of Grants would be ‘unpleasant’. Downright miserable would be closer to the mark. Even the guidebook was less than effusive. After describing a past predicated on periodic mineral exploitation that had once earned it the slightly dubious title of ‘Uranium capital of the world’, it added: ‘Today, as residents await the next boom, Grants plugs along as a service town, selling meals and motel rooms to travellers on Interstate 40.’
Even selling decent meals seemed to be beyond it, however. The sole virtue of the charmless concrete block dressed up as a Pizza Hut was that it had air conditioning. This more or less made up for the inability to serve pizzas that bore any resemblance to our order. Or even to food, unless pizzas were supposed to resemble the box in which they were dispatched to takeaway customers. The waitress, whose pained facial expression revealed that she had obviously had to suffer life in Grants far longer than we had, had no need to spell out that it was futile complaining.
After what passed for lunch, and with there being no evidence of any other grocery stores in town, our next port of call was Walmart. ‘My first ever Walmart,’ I announced.
‘Me too,’ said Per.
‘Then we’re all Walmart virgins,’ said Trevor.
Unlike sex, however, it was not an experience you would wish to repeat. The expertly sycophantic ‘greeter’ on the door was the antithesis of the genuine hospitality experienced so far on the trip that had done so much to rid me of my European cynicism.
‘Hello, hello, come in, come in, welcome, welcome.’
Clearly, everything had to be repeated twice for emphasis. Having been lulled over the past four weeks into dispensing with my native instinct to ignore such behaviour, I returned the greeting. It was a mistake. The pitiful wretch grasped both my hands and said she’d always wanted to shake hands with an Englishman; her eyes suggested sincerity, but it was sincerity bought at the minimum wage. It was nauseating.
Instead of being sick, however, I had a nosebleed. Maybe it was all the adulation. More l
ikely it was the dry air. I managed to avoid despoiling the store, but only through the expedient of bleeding into my cycling top. It seemed to make little difference to my already unappealing appearance.
Inside, the choice was overwhelming, and any useful provisions that could be found invariably came in multipacks. Even in my thirsty state I realised I would struggle to consume six cans of Coke, though I bought them anyway. It was not a place to linger, but the soaring afternoon temperature deterred us from leaving. Eventually our role of novelty attraction for passing gang members circling the car park in their pimped-up rides lost its appeal. The New Mexico furnace seemed the lesser of two evils.
As we left town, we rode over the railway tracks, though which side was the wrong side was not evident.
‘Did you see that guy scamming outside the store?’ asked Trevor.
‘You mean the guy doing the competition?’
‘That’s what he was saying.’
I’d noticed someone purporting to offer the chance to win an exotic holiday. I’d also noticed the practised ease of his patter, targeted exclusively at attractive young women (‘You have two choices, you just have to tell me where you’d like to go, Acapulco or Paris? I bet you’re a Paris woman. I’m right? You’d go to Paris? Oh, that’s where I’d choose myself, it would be so romantic. I’ve never been lucky enough to have the chance to go like you, but I’m told it’s beautiful. Would you take your husband? You’re not married? I can’t believe someone hasn’t fallen for you yet . . .’).
‘They could only enter “the competition” by providing their bank details,’ Trevor explained.
The good news was that we were leaving all this behind us. The bad news was that we were riding into El Malpais – the badlands. Not just any old badlands either. The area had been awarded its own special accolade. This was the El Malpais National Monument.