March 1987: At the equator in Ecuador, having cycled from Cayambe on a single-speed bicycle which I'd borrowed from the monastery of the Saliesian fathers.

cuador was the first stop on my round-the-world journey. I'd gone there to visit with my girlfriend-at-the time: an anthropology student doing fieldwork in the Amazon basin. We were going through the painful process of breaking up although neither of us had yet admitted it to the other.

I'd been staying in the town of Cayambe for about a month, living in a small unfurnished apartment that overlooked the market square. On market days I could look down from the balcony at a sea of local vendors who had set up their stands in the early hours, completely transforming the square. The Cayambe volcano, 5790 metres high, brooded at the edge of town.

Cayambe is located north of Quito, and just north of the equator itself. For this stage of my travels I was without my bicycle, having decided to explore South America by backpack (bus & train) instead. The bicycle (a brand-new Bauer Whistler) was waiting for me in Toronto, where I was to eventually return and re-pack for the trip's next stage: cycling north from Portugal to Scandinavia. But as any fellow-cyclist can attest: whenever a cyclist travels anywhere without his bicycle, he always looks longingly at each bicycle he sees.

And so, partly to satisfy this longing, and partly to escape the intense emotions in Cayambe, I decided to mount a bicycle expedition to the equator, using a heavy single-speed bicycle belonging to the monastery of the Saliesian fathers in Cayambe. I could visualize them riding it, black robes flapping in the breeze as they bounced along the cobbled streets, the spring-loaded seat adding rhythm to religion and the chain rattling time inside the chainguard. Despite its substantial weight there was a hint of elegance about the bike: royal blue fenders with white pin-striping along the edges, a polished chrome bell that gleamed in the sun; hand-brakes that used solid steel rods instead of cables. Sizing it up I decided that it would do just fine.

And so it was that, with a few bits of bread and cheese to lunch on, and a small bag of cinnamon hearts, I bumped my borrowed bicycle off its stand and hoisted myself into the saddle: the Great Solo Inter-Hemispheric Bicycle Expedition was officially under way.

Week later, the GSIHBE successfully concluded, my South American journey would continue by bus and train, through Peru and Bolivia and eventually to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I would catch a flight back to Toronto and that waiting bike.