My casa owner assured me he arranged a taxi van to the airport. At
2.45 a.m. I tiptoed downstairs and was relieved to find the taxi
already there.
Alas, the taxi turned out not a van but an old Mazda hatchback. I
could only laugh at the bizarreness of it all as the bicycle was half
hanging out the back. I giggled uncontrollably all the way to the
airport. The shockless old Mazda splattered, hiccupped, and farted
black fumes as we bounced over potholes in the direction of the
airport. I feared the bike could slide right out of its (by now) sad-
looking box. Not only was the box made from two boxes stuck
together in Jamaica and held together with an abundance of duct
tape, but it was by then, terribly out of shape and hardly capable of
holding a bicycle. Fortunately, we arrived on time and with the bike
still in the box.
While the airport had a wrapping service, it took convincing the
operator wrapping a bike box could be done. Eventually, the whole
shebang was booked in. With everything done, I could relax ahead of
my long flight to South Africa.
The plan was to visit Cape Town for a month or so before heading to
the Arabian Peninsula to cycle a few of the countries on that
exceedingly dry peninsula. With this came to an end my cycle ride
through the Americas. A journey which took me from Ushuaia in
southern Argentina to Seattle, USA and across the country to Boston,
with the islands of Jamaica and Cuba thrown in for good measure.