(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Couple has been on the road for 9 years advocating steps to save the earth
Richard and stani with their bikes in dubai on thursday. — kt photo by grace guino
Cycling across the world a french-english couple — richard fergé and stani martinkova both in their 40s — have been on the road now for nine years. they got married the year they set off pedalling and the last near-decade stani laughs has been their honeymoon.
In their eighth year the count was over 55 countries and a 152000km. gradually they’ve begun to pay less attention to documentation and more to the experience. both passionate about the environment along the way they advocate the little steps that go a long way in undoing damage done to the earth.
It’s the first time for both in dubai they’re here on a stopover. richard (pronounced: rish-aard) is waiting for his papers to be authorised before he proceeds to iran on a boat. stani can’t go — visa hassles; hers is an english passport. and so while he heads to iran she will travel to oman and then georgia. flights will be taken and at some point they’ll make their paths converge. “we don’t like travelling on the major roads and we’re virtually incapable of going in a straight line” says stani. it would be the first time in their travels they would have cycled solo.
Eco message
They’ve seen erosion and deforestation up-close in every country in the world.
Richard and stani are passionate about the environment. they think dubai could have lots more solar panels and a much better spread recycling culture. (even a cycling culture for that matter – tracks for cyclists).
They like to go to schools and educate children and talk about climate change and pollution and littering and a basic civic sense. schools in dubai can get in touch with them on facebook (look for ‘velomad’).
The cyclist couple composts their vegetable peels even on the road when they cook on their collapsible stove. through their journey they want to talk about how the planet is destructing. they’ve seen it with their own eyes cycled through monsoons landslides and too mild a winter in china. back in 1996 on a cycling excursion to antarctica people were talking about it being freak weather about the snow melting prematurely about how the seasons are all wrong now and mixed up about spring coming when it should be the onset of summer how it’s all wrong for flowers to have frost around them late into spring.
Richard says: “we like to share to inspire to help and to make the people who live on this planet aware of what is happening through our own eyes. we feel extremely sad to see how the earth as been treated.”
For more details on their travels log on to www.velomad.com/basics/updates.htm
Visas and rodents
The routes they travel on are decided “by visa and weather”. they’ve survived floods in the spiti valley — climate change is a big motivator. they’ve learnt words for ‘water’ ‘boiled water’‘cooking water’ ‘water for washing’ in ten languages. they have borne the heat of many deserts seen some beautiful landscapes woken up on mountain-tops and drunk fresh coffee and baked their own bread — the yeast for which was warmed in sleeping bags in their tent.
Stani talks about the soil in australia “being very fragile”. she talks of not knowing earlier that there were two types of dragon fruit and that if you taste the one that’s purple on the inside you’d never again touch the one that has black seeds and is white on the inside. richard says the best sweet potatoes he’s eaten were in ecuador where they have 50 varieties. like the 365 kinds of cheese he says exist in france “one for each day of the year”.
Vegetarians both richard and stani have obliged a family in laos and consumed rat meat (“clean rats they were field fed” richard says).
On the road
Money doesn’t come easy. to start richard by trade is a sommelier. stani the joke is doesn’t have a trade. but they say they’ve worked very hard to make it possible for them to do this across the world journey. richard listens to audio books while cycling — the alchemist was heard in september 2010 crossing a dry stretch in australia. he’s also heard harry potter in french the girl with a dragon tattoo. “the journey will continue” richard says “until we run out of money. the more we save on the road the longer it will take.”
And stani? she last heard the audio book q & a the vikas swarup novel on which the movie slumdog millionaire was based.
They travel cheap — talking about global warming as they make their way across cities crossing continents. they eat local. luxuries are scarce. they pitch tents make their own bread eat a lot of rice and bananas and in cities they stay with people who volunteer to put them up hosts of cyclists contact through an online network called warm showers dot com. “it’s like couch surfing but for bikers” richard says.
A silver pig in the chinese zodiac but otherwise a libran richard says now he wants to go home back to europe and so they’re moving towards that. how long that’ll take on a non-straight road they don’t know. what they do know is that they’re not going back and just stay put. they’re going back to re-fuel re-charge batteries earn some money till they take off again. “ i’m not ready to go back and settle down” says stani. in the chinese zodiac she’s a firehorse. they’re people who don’t give up easily.
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