Jono's Travel Blog

12/09/2010 Day 12 Vancouver to Mexico

Distance Travelled: roughly 25 km around Portland

Money Spent: $5 for breakfast.

Both Shannon and I woke up with hangovers this morning, I had to be up early to cook off the Jerky that had been marinating in the fridge for the past couple of days before I left. We went for breakfast down the road which was good, cheap and the weather was just gorgeous. It wasn’t until 2 till I had to pack up my things and start heading out of the city via the Visitor information center to get a detailed bicycle map of the pacific coast and another map to get out of town.

I was going to take highway 99W to highway 18 but apparently its busy and hasn’t got much of a shoulder. Shannon suggested I should take the light rail out of town and then highway 47, I thought id just ask the information center. Unfortunately for me the info center closed at 2 and I really wanted the maps from there so I headed to the hostel again and got in contact with Amanda through couch surfing who said she could put me up for the night for me to head off in the morning.

I cycled back across the bridge from downtown about 6km to where she lived, she lived with her boyfriend (Michael) in a small but cool place, they were very friendly and offered me beer as soon as I entered their house, I was their first couch surfer that had stayed with them and they were more than hospitable. After chatting for a while they took me to a bar where I met some of their friends, had a few to drink and then had some tata tots, basically deep fried potato chunks served with salsa, guacamole and sour cream, and for $3 it was great value for money. The beer was cheap too but almost seemed watered down, but what to expect at $2 a pint.

View of Portland from the North East side of the River