Earning the Horizon

Riding at Night: The Atacama Desert

2010-03-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's cold. High desert. I prefer it this way. Of course, it is more
dangerous to ride at night, but here I can do it. There are no
insects, no water for them to survive off of, so there are no insects.
I prefer it. And there's a full moon. It gives me a shadow, down the
embankment to the right, black spirit on moonlight sand. Weightless,
flickering.
The moon is upsidedown. The poor man in its surface is standing on his
head. Upside down, the world inverted and the moon turned upside down.
That's a good sign.
In the distance is a small cloud of light, faint domed white specter,
soft mist glowing. Like an explosion a thousand miles away, or a
prison under bright white security alone in the desert.

I Will

2010-03-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following to myself when I was in Mexico. There was a time when I read it with frequency however it eventually lost its effect and I forgot about it. I just re-discovered it and thought I would share it.

I am going to be strong. I am going to be strong when I have no strength. When my head begins to bow I will press my spine back straight. I will decide to ignore my weakness, I will instead choose strength. A loss of desire is not a loss of ability. Desire is fleeting, illusory and weak. Purpose is strong. Intent is strong. Weakness feeds on weakness, strength leads to strength. Despair is not fatigue, rest does not cure it. Drive is music, fire and steel. Drive is joy and joy is energy. Find it. Lie to yourself and say that it is there, and you'll find that it is. Set your jaw, narrow your eyes and be strong. It will take strength. Be strong.

First, Do No Harm

2010-03-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

There is nothing impressive in taking and hurting. That is the main thing I have noticed in encountering situations where someone is trying to steal or cause harm. It really just looks pathetic. Sometimes the people look ashamed, and sometimes unaware of themselves as though they were beings without consciousness, soley focused on what they want and entirely unaware that there is a world out there observing and judging them. Despite myself I know that I always look at them in the way that you look at someone who should be ashamed.
When I was in Central America, somewhere in central America, I don't recall where though I have it written down, one of the guards at a check point tried to take my Leatherman. This may sound frightening or dangerous, and I'm sure the situation could have been tweaked to make it so, but in truth it was just, well, pathetic.
The man was short, middle aged and round. I was talking to another guard when his short fat hands slowly drifted towards a pocket on my bag. With tender, timid care he unzipped the pocket and slid his fat fingers inside. I was watching all this and he knew it, and his expression and gesture was that of feigning innocent curiosity, but I knew he was going to try and take something. He rummaged around delicately for a moment in the pocket he had opened and then extracted the black leather case holding the tool. He took out the tool and opened it. I stared at him, caught his eye to be sure that he knew that I knew, and that he was examining the tool with my permission, and continued talking with the other guards.
'Give me this.' The man with the tool interrupted a second later.
He had opened the knife and was trying to figure out how to close it again. I turned back to face him. My face, beaten with sun and fatigue, behind sun glasses and smeared with diesel. My shirt open, face, arms and chest running with sweat. His face, round, timid, embarrassed.
'Why?' I asked laughing lightly.
He paused, still unable to close the blade. I reached out to show him how to do it but he pulled pulled back and wouldn't let the tool go.
'Give me this he repeated again,' mainly because he couldn't answer my question: why?
'No.' I answered him.
A list of the facts of situation might make it sound dangerous and impressive: I was in the rain-forest in some third world country surrounded by three men wearing camouflage and carrying machine guns. The man trying to steal from me was holding my knife between the two of us.
Those are the facts, but the reality is that they wore their rifles over their shoulders with the casual sling of a woman's purse, the men were short and yes a bit unsavory, but shy: normal men in boots. The man with the knife held it not like a knife but more like a new cell phone he didn't know how to use. There was no danger. There was no danger provided I could somehow establish that we were friends but that I was not going to indulge their begging.
You can fight with anyone if that is what you are looking to do. I did not want to fight and the situation passed. The knife was returned to me and I smiled at the man to let him know it was okay, as though to pretend that he had never tried anything so rude and embarrassing.
It was the same for me in every instance I encountered this type of behavior. It was never impressive. From street fights to petty theft to pimping and dealing to when four men on motorcycles tried to rob me one night in Colombia, the instances sound far different in one line descriptions than they are in reality, and the best I can do to describe the reality is to say that it is really nothing at all impressive.

Tomorrow There´ll Be Sun

2010-03-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

It was calm. Cold. It was dark but for the moonlight and starlight and silent except for the bumping and shaking of my gear as I continued to bounce along. I occasionally switched off my headlamp and let my eyes adjust to the moonlight which dimmed or brightened as thin veils of cloud moved across the sky. With my light on I was able to see the road directly in front of me and the stars and moon. When the light was off and my eyes had adjusted I could make out the low rolling blackness of the landscape and discern the horizon line where the solid blackness of the ground met the lighter nighttime sky.
In the distance a car was approaching. It drove slowly but I could hear it many minutes before its lights reached me. I could tell by the sound that it was a small passenger car and I waited for its powerful lights to illuminate the road ahead of me as it passed. Cars heading the other direction temporarily blinded me but those moving with me illuminated in perfect detail the road ahead. I would imprint the general lay of the road in my mind and then follow it after the light had passed. I could also watch where the red taillights went into the distance. Where they disappeared in a certain way there would be a descent. I could watch them climb, turn and eventually disappear and so learn something about the road ahead.
The night around me brightened subtly. The headlights were not yet shining on me but the diffused glow of the car was close enough to cast a barely discernible change.
I looked ahead and waited for my shadow to appear. That was often the first indicator I would get of an approaching car. My shadow would begin infinitely tall and faint. As the cars neared my shadow would stay black as the ground lit up. The shadow would shrink and drift to the side until, as the car passed, it would flash out and only the diminishing red glow of the taillights and the howl of the car would remain.
The car behind me peaked a small rise and the lights shown directly on me. It was still quite distant so the lights barely skimmed the surface of the road, only catching the top edges of gravel and leaving the rest of the surface in complete darkness. I had never seen such an illusion before but looking down I could only see the tiny points of rock catching the light but could not see the road itself. I moved over a surreal blackness containing hundreds of small points of light, exactly like small stars. It was otherworldly and beautiful. The small points of light stretched out to look like lines as they whisked past my front wheel. After several moments the car shifted angles and the illusion was broken. The rough road lit up completely in the warm yellow lights of the car as my shadow became more defined and shortened and then broke. The car passed slowly leaving a dense cloud of dust in the air. Still and quiet returned again.
It was nearly midnight when I saw the sign. I knew I was close to the junction, the place where my secondary road met back with the main highway. The sign was for a Hospedaje; a place where truckers and travelers could buy a meal and a bed for the night. I had very little hope that there would be any sign of life there this late at night but I couldn't help think that I just might get to step inside and warm up over a cup of coffee.
I reached the junction and although I was dismayed to discover that it was still unpaved, still rough, I was relieved as it indicated that taking the road I had been struggling along was maybe not such a terrible mistake after all.
I bumped slowly around a curve in the road and saw in the distance the lights of a building and the lights of a semi parked next to it. That was reason to rejoice. I had long since learned that the pairing of building and truck along the highway usually meant a rest stop, and the fact that both still had their lights on was a good sign that someone there was still awake. In moments like this I always tried to prevent myself feeling too hopeful. I could arrive there expecting something good and find nothing other than an angry dog, or a power transformer or a water tank.
As I neared I realized that the building was the Hospedaje and that the lights were still on inside. I pulled up and lightly chuckled at my little victory as I climbed off the bike. My feet had become so cold that walking on them felt sharp and painful.
I pushed my way inside to find a comfortable little restaurant. There were native decorations along with old coca cola signs covering the walls. A rack of souvenirs stood just beyond the door. It was warm inside.
A man had heard me enter and appeared from the kitchen. He was strange looking; the type of man who puts too much care into his physical appearance with an unnatural looking result. He was balding but wore a heavy amount of grease in his remaining hair which was combed down close to his scalp. His hands were soft and a light sheen reflected off the oils on his face.
'Hello,' I said, 'are you open?'
'No, no the kitchen is closed. It's all closed.' He said, gesturing around. The restaurant was completely empty and mostly dark.
'I just want coffee.' I said, aware of the note of pleading urgency in my voice. I was thinking, 'Don't you see me? How could you turn me out? Don't you know how cold it is out there? I am asking for very little.' 'Coffee? With milk?' I continued.
He regarded me for a moment and then answered in his soft, high voice.
'Yes we have coffee with milk do you want the milk hot or cold?'
'Hot. Please.' I smiled, glad that I had been accepted and sat down at the bar as the man retreated to the kitchen, poured some milk into an aluminum cup, lit the propane stove and set the cup on the flame.
There was a flat panel television hung on the wall. As I waited I watched as a movie played without sound. It was the new King Kong movie. Hundreds of giant dinosaurs were charging down a ravine as crazily and aggressively as the traffic in a Central American city. In the rush they were crushing everything beneath them except for the main characters and a few others to make it more believable. 'Right, more believable.'
Twenty minutes later I was back on the road. I had bought the only food he would sell me: four sleeves of cheap, pre-packaged cookies. I had also learned some useful information: there was nothing open in San Sebastian, the pavement didn't start until the border with Argentina and the service station in Rio Grande was open 24 hours.
The border was 15 Kilometers away and I reached it a bit more than an hour later. The crossing was quiet and easy. Border crossing are commonly confusing, crowded and require a great deal of time, but at one in the morning this crossing was a matter of two stamps in roughly as many minutes and I was back on the road. What was more, the road was paved.
The road climbed over a small range and dropped down to the ocean. The temperature crept lower, hovering just above freezing. The moon disappeared behind thickening clouds and the road was empty. In the still night, on the smooth asphalt, I flew. Standing on the pedals I raced the 80 dark kilometers from the border to Rio Grande.
It was still dark at 5:30 when I reached the city. Rio Grande turned out to be a small oil town, empty and industrial, well lit by hundreds of orange street lights. As I drew deeper into the town I looked around anxiously for the service station, hoping that my information was correct. After a period the lights became less common. There were no more houses and I was worried that the city was already ending and that I had not seen any places that would possibly serve food or drink. If I didn't refuel in Rio Grande I would be in serious trouble in trying to reach Talhuin, the last small town before Ushuaia, 92 Kilometers away. I saw a man walking along the sidewalk with a heavy jacket over his sweatshirt. He had the hood pulled up over his head and walked with the stomping stride of a man trudging to work.
I pulled over next to him and called out.
'Excuse me? Hello! Hi.' The man stopped and looked curiously at me. 'Is there a service station here?'
He approached me slowly, looking with relaxed curiosity at my strange appearance. I could tell that I was in danger of falling into a long conversation, something I didn't have the time or the energy for.
'Yes yes, yes there's a service station there,' he pointed back the way I had come, 'down by the port.'
'Is it close? How far is it?' I asked. I had had identical conversations for thousands of miles.
'Ach! It's close. Not far it is here. Or, maybe closer there is another, just follow straight ahead,' he pointed down the way I was going. 'Where are you traveling from?'
'Alaska. Is it open? Do they serve food and everything there?'
'Alaska? On Bike? Peddling only? Nothing more?'
'Yeah purely on bike... but they serve food there and they are open 24 hours?'
'Yes yes, no problem. It is one... two, three, four... four blocks and then you will find the roundabout and it is there. The road on the right will go into the town and then you just go straight and the road will go and curve...' he meandered along a lengthy explanation of where the road went. I knew I merely had to follow the signs but I did not interrupt him.
'... and it's just past the roundabout and you'll see the service station on the right so just stay to the right on the roundabout and then continue directly ahead afterwards. How does Argentina appeal to you?'
'Oh I like Argentina very much. Thank you very much for the help. Thank you,' and I moved off.
The service station was exactly where he described and I pulled up nearly shaking with exhaustion and relief. I rode right up to the front door and my heart plummeted. It was dark inside and the door was locked. It was closed. 'No. Wait. Look around. Find someone. Get help.'
I noticed an attendant fueling a car across the lot. I rode over and asked when the shop opened,
'Not until 7:30.'
'7:30!' I looked around. I must have looked quite tired and anxious.

'Is there another shop here? One that is open now in that I can buy food?'
He paused and thought, I waited nervously.
'Ehh... Yes! Yes. Here, nothing more.' He said gesturing just down the street.
'Right here? What is it called?' I had long since learned to get the names of these places as finding them is rarely as easy as the helpful locals make it seem. He told me and I rode off slowly, looking for the shop.

Taking Control

2010-03-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

I laid the bike down on the deck not wanting to risk that the kickstand would fail under the motion of the ship. I pulled some food from the panniers and went up to the observation deck running along the port side. I could see the island of Tierra del Fuego approaching across the water. Down in the wake several small dolphins colored white and black flashed out of the dark and occasionally jumped entirely out of the water. I wondered how many days it would take me to reach Ushuaia, never imagining that I would make it there without stopping.

We unloaded several minutes later and I set off again as quickly as I could; the conditions were still favorable. A bit more than an hour later the road split. I followed the sign to Rio Grande, the last city on my route before Ushuaia. Several hundred feet past the junction the pavement ended and the road became washboard dirt covered in large sporadic gravel.

My bicycle is a touring bike which means that it is not as stiff nor light as a normal road bike, but it is also primarily designed for the road. My tires are narrow and the frame is thick and made of steel. It does not have any suspension which means that every tiny bump jars the frame and ripples up the seat through my spine and up the fork through my wrists and arms. My speed immediately dropped as I worked harder to overcome the rough surface and swerved unsuccessfully trying to avoid the worst of the bumps.

It was rough to the point of not working. I can remember thinking, Oh; well this simply doesn't work at all. When the bike hit a bump all the bags bounced and banged so that riding along sounded like distant machine gun fire. Bang! BangBangBang! BANGBANG! Bang!

Oh well, it's not supposed to be easy right? I thought as I bounced along. I hoped that the dirt would last only several kilometers and that it would smooth out later on. I could never help hoping for things like that no matter how many times in the past such hopes had been dashed.

Twenty kilometers later the road had wound its way into the hills and had not yet gotten any smoother. The wind had also picked up. The jaunty morning breeze had turned into a vicious whipping force that came from ahead and to the right. It was impossible to ride straight and very difficult to move forward at all. Passing trucks kicked up thick clouds of dust which were quickly sucked into the distance by the wind. There were no plants other than the dry yellow grass I had had for days some the low hardy shrubs, all of which were quivering and shaking in the wind. On my map I could see that the road made a 90 degree turn to the left in what I estimated to be 20 K away.

That turn should be enough to turn this headwind into a tailwind, I thought. If I can just get there… it's maybe... two hours. Just get there and maybe that's where the pavement starts and you can just fly outta here and get to San Sebastian tonight. I was running low on water and food and was anxious about filling up. I would not be able to stop at least until I had reached a water supply.
It was ridiculous though, how slowly I was going and how difficult the going was. The wind kept ramping up and up. Clouds blew over and a few light drops of rain threatened to become worse. It had already been a full day of riding, but being so close to the end of my trip I wanted to finish strong and pull really big days to the finish line.
A small pickup with a miniature horse in the back pulled over and waved me down. An old man wearing a tweed scally cap, a wool cardigan and windbreaker leaned out the window,

'Where are you going?' He asked in Spanish.
'San Sebastian, If I can,' I answered him.
'Ach! San Sebastian. It is far, too far. Come, I have a farm just over there. You can rest and stay.'
'How far is San Sebastian?' I asked. I had to shout over the wind.
'It's far, it's...' He consulted the young man riding in the passenger seat, 'far. It's too far. Tomorrow. You go to San Sebastian tomorrow. It is already late.'

I thought about it. Thinking clearly in such a situation is difficult. I was tired and flushed with adrenaline and trying to compute too many unknown variables. No, I thought, No I can't rest. I've gotta... I should... What are you crazy? another part of my mind protested, You've already done a big day, you can't get anywhere in this wind, you need water and food, it's about to rain and you've got a place to stay and a new experience to have. Sleep tonight and do whatever craziness you want tomorrow.

'Alright, yes. Good. Thank you.' I said.
'Ah good! Good! You follow. It's close just over here. Just follow, you follow.'

The truck moved off as I turned the bike around and followed a few hundred meters back to a private dirt drive branching off from the main road. I had passed many hundreds of drives like this, most of them blocked by a gate or cattle guard and bearing some sign naming the property.

'Estancia Diego Portales'

I read as I bumped across the cattle guard.

I was always curious about where these roads led. They were roads in the middle of nowhere that I could sometimes see stretching for miles and miles into deeper and deeper nowhere. The small farm was a mile and a half down the dirt road, tucked in a small draw between two hills. I pulled up as the old man and the younger one were unloading the small horse. A moment later the Old Man walked over and introduced himself. 'Toro.' The farm consisted of several small warping, creaking wooden buildings, a large old barn and a few pens containing a small number of sheep.

A half hour later I had had a hot shower, changed into comfortable clothing and was drinking tea with rolls and jam at a small wooden table in the dark quiet kitchen. The wind was howling outside and although the house creaked and moaned and even moved in the wind, inside it was dry and warm. I was feeling immensely pleased with my decision to stop and rest and was enjoying seeing the quiet, simple life of these two men.

Toro finished eating first and excused himself outside. He lived in the adjacent house. My host, whose name as best I can spell was something close to ´Jeiur´, cleared his plate and moved to sit on an old wooden chair against the wall. I looked over and imagined him there in this house alone. There were no books; there was a television that did not function and a small radio that emitted mostly static.

What does one do when this is home? There is no stimulus, just quiet emptiness, eternal boredom. I wondered when the last time he had been on a date was or how often he had a chance to make new friends. His attitude towards me suggested that I was not often. He seemed terribly excited to have me there, but timid, as though I were something like a wild animal you can sometimes get close to but if you move too quickly will scare it off. We exchanged a bit of polite conversation which never really warmed to anything natural so I pulled out my map and tried to figure out what I wanted to do.
Let's see, I'm about... here... and that means that Ushuaia is 42 add 15 add 80 add 52 add 40 add 67 add 40... I scratched out the numbers and summed them. 336 plus a bit more to reach the junction so say 360... Divide by, oh let's say 15 K an hour and that gives us 24 hours of riding to reach Ushuaia, assuming I can hold a 15 K per hour average... But it might drop to like 8, worst case scenario, but then again it might be closer to 20, 21... But 15 seems reasonable if the wind isnt like this tomorrow. But wait, 24 hours, ant it's... I glanced at the clock on the wall, …only 7 now, that means, oh no. That means if I rode all night and all day tomorrow I could get there tomorrow evening?! No! Oh, no. It'd be rude to leave... But this is it! This would be the perfect ending! Oh God could I actually do that? I know what it's like to be tired, but this... this would push that to a whole different level. My body might begin to break down after midnight, 2 am, 4 am, not even thinking about 4 pm, 6 pm, 8 pm tomorrow. Ooo I don't know. I just don't know. The other part of my mind stood up and answered, What are you kidding? Of course you can do it. There is no question. Does it matter if it is difficult? Have you forgotten what you've already done? This works out perfectly. Go. Go now.
I stood up from the table. My host looked at me. I didn't know what to say and didn't have the skills with the language to say it well anyways.

'Look,' I said bringing him the map, 'Look here. Here we are,' I pointed, ´and from here to Ushuaia, only 360 kilometers. If I go now and if I don't sleep I can arrive tomorrow.'
            'What? I don't shounoutodoando. What denonshotado.' he said, some of his Spanish too heavily accented and coming too quickly for me to understand.
            'Sorry? You don't understand me?' I asked guessing the meaning of what he had said. He nodded.
I explained again, speaking more slowly and he nodded his understanding.
            'So you're going now?' he asked.
            'Yes, I want to do it.'
            I cringed as I changed back into my filthy riding clothes and shoved my feet back into my shoes. I filled my bottles and accepted some bread in a plastic bag for the road.
            Outside I found Toro on the path and explained to him what I was doing. He told me to come back for coffee when I changed my mind. I thanked them both and apologized profusely for leaving, jumped on the bike and struggled up the hill back to the highway. The day was just yielding to evening as I pulled away from the Estancia.
            I had wondered several times already that day if I were indeed on the correct road, an unsettling question to have flickering in the back of your mind in a moment like this. On my map I could see the main highway and also a secondary road, both meeting in San Sebastian. I was unsure whether or not I had inadvertently gotten onto that secondary road. A few facts suddenly clicked into place.

'That sign for Cullen does not have any distance labeled on it which means I'm probably in Cullen, (Cullen was a spot on my map on the secondary road. A spot on this map was not a guarantee of there being anything there at all), I have not seen a single passenger bus go by and... Oh no, I turned left at the junction.' On my map the main highway clearly was the one to the right. 'But why would the signs have pointed me this way if it were not the main route? But if it's the main route then where are the buses? But if it's much rougher or longer than why are all the trucks going this way?'

I digested all these questions as the sun sank lower and night slowly dimmed and blanketed the landscape. I knew it was only a day or two past the full moon and I hoped it would rise soon. I had my small led headlight on which allowed me to stay on the road but didn't provide proper light for choosing the 'smoothest' path along the road.

There is a certain list of sensations which fall into the category of unquestionably, unconditionally and entirely not good. Hitting a large unexpected bump in the road on a suspensionless bike is one of them. It's an unexpected slap in the face; it is the feeling of having cold water dumped on you in your sleep and this sensation was one that consistently jolted me out of any sense of focus or relaxation.

As the night deepened and even the subtlest trace of color disappeared from the western horizon the wind diminished to a quiet barely perceptible nighttime flicker. 'So far so good,' I thought, 'Full moon on the way, almost no wind and the rain never showed up.'

The night was cold, hovering 3 or 4 degrees above freezing. First my toes were cold, and my hands. Then my entire feet began to feel frozen and sensitive. I tried to hide my hands from the wind of my forward motion by gripping the bars right behind my bar bag. My breath was as thick and white as smoke and was illuminated brightly by the light on my forehead before dispersing.

I had learned from Toro that the pavement didn't begin until San Sebastian, which was still more than 50 K away, an eternal distance on this road. I crossed my fingers that something would be open there, a place I could step into for a moment to warm up with a cup of coffee and buy some food. A few dim distant lights dotted the otherwise black hills. It was impossible to tell how far they were or whether or not the road would take me to them.

Trucks and cars rumbled by every half hour or leaving a lingering cloud of thick white dust which the light from my headlight reflected off of and made seeing beyond difficult. I simply persisted, taking distance ten K, five K, one K at a time, knowing that this eternal surreal situation would inevitably end with the rising if the sun and the return of warmth and light.

The Beginning of the End

2010-03-06T17:55:00.000-08:00

It was weeks away. Mean spirited weeks. Time was two steps forward and one step back. The wind made the remaining distance elastic. One instant it was within reach and in the next the wind would turn and strengthen and push the finish out of sight. And I never knew. I was so powerless. Everything depended entirely on the whims of the wind. That demon. That terrible demon that is never fair. It never gives, but sometimes it doesn't take. That morning it wasn't taking.

It was cold, before sunrise and the side of the tent that had been bulging in under the pressure of the wind during the night now hung limp and damp in the pre-dawn dew. 'It's stopped!' I thought, 'Go! Now! Go go go!' I had to go. I covered double the distance in the same amount of time when there was no wind so every second counted double. I threw my campsite back into my bags, shoved my feet into shoes and set off without so much as changing into riding clothes.

I was pushing hard, 'double, every second counts double.' I knew the wind would pick up soon; mercies like this never lasted long. The sun rose, orange and pink in a pure blue sky over the plateau. The low grass and shrubs glowed yellow in the light, reaching unbroken across the flat plain and meeting with the warming sky in the distance. 'Go go go. It won't last. Go go go.'

The sun rose higher and I began to sweat, still wearing my warm layers for sleeping. 'Don't Stop. The wind will change any minute and then you can stop and change clothes.'
I was paranoid about the slightest flicker of a blade of grass, sensitive to the most subtle draft that could be the first sign of the days wind. Time passed. Hours passed.

I dropped into a shallow canyon and began to head up the far side. At the point where my speed dropped to its lowest I slammed on the brakes and pulled over. With the practice and speed of a race car pit crew I whipped off my warm thermal layers and squirmed into my light dirty riding clothes. I jumped back on the bike and sprinted off.

It was mid day, 'Thank you! 'thank you! Even if the wind changes now I've saved myself an entire day of riding. But what if the wind stayed calm! Oh what if! But no, that's impossible. The sun doesn't rise in the west after all.'

I was looking at the next city on my map, Güer Aike. I set out from Piedra Buena expecting that it could take three days to cross the vast uninhabited plain and reach the city to re- supply, but at this rate I could reach it tomorrow? Today? 'No, don't hope. It's going to change now. Soon. Oh but what if it didn't! I could get to Rio Gallegos! Impossible.'

Hours passed. I didn't stop. Güer Aike was 50 Kilometers away. There was still time enough. The light lasted till nearly nine. Even if the wind changed I was guaranteed the city.
I continued. The wind began to threaten, only gently. It was a warning. 'In a half hour it's gonna make me pay for my fun,' I thought. The wind did get stronger, but it was not fierce. It was rude but not cruel. It was like riding on flat tires rather than riding on square ones. Güer Aike came and I sat up and clapped my gloved hands and rode straight through without stopping.
'Rio Gallegos? I'm going to reach Rio Gallegos today! Even with this wind!' a mere hour and a half later I reached the city.

Ushuaia 578 K

The sign above the road declared it as though it were nothing important. 'No. It's impossible! Not possible! That's days not weeks away! No. Don't hope. The wind will return and will get worse steadily from here to Ushuaia. And there are two border crossings, the Strait of Magellan and I've heard a stretch of unpaved road. No, it will be less than two weeks. Maybe a week.... But maybe not! 575k that's like three really big days! The wind might not pick up and I could be there in three days!'

YPF. God bless the YPF service stations. I pulled in and dashed into the cafe. I grabbed some sandwiches from the fridge, filled my water bottles and set out again. I still had light.

Out of Rio Gallegos it began to get dark. But it also calmed down. The breeze died and the sun began to sink and the high clouds turned a pastel pink and orange. When it began to get too dark to see I pulled over to a flat spot along the road and set up my tent in the grass. I gathered some of the sparse twigs on the ground and lit a fire around my steel thermos. I splashed some cold water over my body and blotted off with the rank chamois towel I carried. As soon as I had dried, changed into warm clothes and prepared my sleeping bag the water began to boil. I took the bottle from the small fire and sat in the tent sipping tea.
'What a day,' I thought, 'I'm gonna pay for it tomorrow. I just know it. The winds gonna realize I've been having it too easy.'

When my alarm went off in the morning it was not yet light. I could hear the wind. 'Yeah' I thought in my half sleep, 'that's more like it. I was beginning to think I had it too easy.' I rolled over and tore a small bit of tissue from the roll and held it out the tent flap. I let it go and watched as it was carried down the road in the wind.

'Well it's not too strong yet, but a morning like this means it's only gonna get worse. Oh well, at least now I have an excuse to sleep in.' and I curled deeper into the bag. 'What if that wind actually blew the way I was going. Wouldn't that be amazing. Imagine what I could do. But of course it's blowing... wait... It's blowing on the foot of my tent... And I'm on the... On the... West side of the road and... No! Oh! It IS blowing from the north! Impossible!'

I sat up and looked. It was true. I'd somehow gotten disoriented in my sleep and thought that I was facing the other way. 'It’s a tail wind! A tail wind! It's not possible!' A tailwind is like a Unicorn, yeah it's a nice idea but we all know they don't really exist, but here one was! 'Go go go!' I went.

It carried me the short distance to the Chilean border where I crossed without incident. From there it turned and blew from both ways and both helped and hurt me, but it was fair. I arrived at the Magellan Straight a few hours later and was relieved to wait an hour for the ferry. I could rest and eat.

The ferry came slowly across the water, lowered its steel ramp onto the concrete launch and unloaded the dozen cars and half dozen buses and trucks heading north. I walked my bike down the launch and waited to be signaled aboard by the dock worker. I was told to wait until the cars loaded. I watched nervously as the engines strained to keep the ship stationary in the visibly strong current and the waves. At one point the boat was pushed far to the side and had to struggle back into position before the waiting semi could board. At last the attendant stooped the last car and I noticed with some horror that the ramp was already being raised and the ship pulling out. I looked at the attendant; he looked back at the ship, shouted and then talked into his walkie-talkie. The ship began to reverse and lower its ramp back onto the launch.

'Go! Go!' the attendant shouted.

The steel ramp had two small extensions where vehicles tires line up before connecting with the bulk of the ramp. These extensions crashed into the water and onto the submerged concrete. I ran several paces down the launch as the ship drifted at an angle. It pushed a bit closer, the water drew back and I charged ahead, pushing the bike and bouncing onto the boat as the waves surged forward again. The attendant laughed, and gave a small cheer as he waved and the ramp rose blocking the shore from view. I shoved my bike further onto the deck, trying to find a place between the tightly packed cars and trucks.

The Weight of Memory

2010-02-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

At times there will be some smell, some cue of the light or a curve in
the road that somehow seems familiar. In the flashing electrical
randomness of memory some quiet and undisturbed moment from the early
days of my ride flickers to my attention. In memory, in the warm
twisted nostalgia of memory these old moments seem ancient and
precious. It's simple things, the noise of the stove, rain and fire
camping in Canada, the precise smell of a forest, the debilitating
relief of arriving somewhere with warm food and a door to shut against
the world. These memories now all carry such a profound emotional
weight for me that when they come so suddenly and unexpectedly I often
find myself slamming my eeys shut, holding my breath and turning my
head for a moment until the memory plays through and then fades.
It is a weight, in a sense it is a scar. I sometimes feel damaged
and burdened under them, but at the same time they are simply
priceless. They are the pay I receive for the work I am doing. They
are beautiful and massive and too much for one mind to hold. I deeply
desire the time to be able to unburden them onto paper, and clear from
my mind the responsibility of maintaining them.

I Have Done It!

2010-03-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

On March 3rd, 2010 at 8:15 pm local time I arrived in Ushuaia Argentina after being on the road for 7 months, 8 days and after riding over thirty hours straight, crossing two national borders and the Strait of Magellan to reach the sea and end my journey.

Hey Dave, how ya doin?

2010-01-14T05:19:00.000-08:00

Oh hey, good, well... fine. You know, hangin in there. Peru has
been really tough. I was sick through literally all of Ecuador and for
a while in Peru and I hardly ate anything and I felt really weak but
that's pretty much gone. My appetite is mostly back though the thought
of fried chicken still makes me nautious and I feel stronger so that's
good, but I am really ready to get out of this desert, or at least
this wind. In Ecuador I got really frustrated that by the fact that my
average speed was like 12 km an hour which is narly half my normal
speed because the Andes are just so steep so I cut over to the coast a
couple days early even though I really did not want to be back in the
heat and humidity. I was really ready to just go and go and go and
cover massive distance. Ride from dark to dark and only stop to eat
kind of thing, and for a couple days I covered great distance, but
then pretty much as soon as I got to Peru I rode straight into the
infamous headwinds here and the toughest riding of my trip so far. The
desert starts pretty much right where Peru and Ecuador meet and it
reminded me of Baja California, except Baja is luxurious and
Americanized and close to home. I was thinking 'oh boy, here we go
again. I can't say that I wanted to do Baja again.' When you get into
the desert the food gets worse (the coffee unspeakable), and the towns
get dirty and loud, at least compared with towns at elevation in the
Andes. The biking here actually would be pretty good if it weren't for
that wind! It's very flat and the scenery is exotic, but I'd be happy
taking it at double speed. The wind here really is just like riding on
a treadmil that moves back at half the speed you move forward. I don't
know what it is, if it's the wind or if the sun here is harsher or
what but my arms burnt real badly one day, like I've never had a burn
before. They didn't peel, but turned pink in patches and very painful.
Then the next day my face and finger tips sticking out of my gloves
and my neck all began to get the same burn. I'd say it's just a wind
burn except that I don't get it on my chest. The sun also made me feel
sick for a couple days. By the end of the day I'd feel like I had the
flu. My muscles in my neck and arms would be sore and I'd get cold
real easily but then by the next day it'd be gone until that evening.
So now I ride with my jacket on despite the heat to protect my neck
and arms from the sun. I wear my long fingered warm weather gloves and
keep my face covered witha tshirt I cut up and tie behind my head.
Getting through the Atacama and into Chile now sounds incredibly
wonderful. Any country that produces wine can't be all bad right?
Little luxuries now seem impossibly wonderful and distant to me.
Luxuries like a good bed, the food you like, leisure time etc. Working
five days a week and having a two day weekend seems impossibly
luxurious. I was finally able to get my clothes washed yesterday. I
hadn't since Colombia and it was certainly past time. I really do feel
ready to get done with this trip and I do not feel close to being
finished. I think that will change after the Atacama. Oh and I need
new tires but don't know if I'll be able to find any decent ones. I'm
hoping I can find a good bike shop in Lima, do you know any? Anyways
that's probably a longer answer than you wanted but it gives you an
idea. How are you?

Lost in Translation.

2010-01-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

Navigating in central and south america is generally very easy. Once I
have a map, (and getting one can be tricky,) I simply find the red
line that goes to the next country and then follow the road signs that
point to the cities along that red line. Very easy. No GPS, no
orienteering, nothing fancy. Frequently there are intersections and
forks which are unmarked, but there is generally someone nearby,
usually just standing on the side of the road waiting for a bus who I
can ask. Even if I didn't speak any Spanish all I'd have to do it say
the city name and shrug my shoulders and they would point me in the
right direction.
It gets more complicated when trying to find something specific lin
a city or when the roads become more complex. Then the instructions
come more quickly and involve many more words and require much more
intricate hand gestures. Those hand gestures are funny. They
frequently come with sound effects, usually at the point you connect
back to the highway or have a nice big straight section. Depending on
who is giving the directions I can either understand every word or
hardly one. Some people really mumble and slur and have difficult
accents for me to understand, so I have learnt to watch their hands
very closely. All of the verbal information is encoded in that complex
hand gesture. What I hear in a bad case might be something like,
'Asolodontondoar up! Bayanda Joe. Around bomboa the sigonandolono
Hotel and coca cola anaota wshhhht!'
But the hand, the hand speaks truth if you can read it. It points
ahead and continues up till the stoplight, it turns to the left and
heads an equal distance up the hill until the hotel with the Coke
sign, where it turns to the right and wshhhht! Straight ahead to the
highway. Nevertheless traveling as I do can give a whole new meaning
to the phrase 'Lost in Translation.'

Sometimes

2010-01-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes.
Sometimes it's brutal, it's torture. It's laugh or you'll cry, laugh
or you'll die. It's beyond possible. Not beyond what you can imagine,
but it is exactly the worst you could imagine, except that in
imagination it doesn't feel, it isn't real. It's every song and
feeling. It's brutal in a moment and brutal in a week and brutal for a
month. Five minutes could dry you up, chew you up and spit you out.
Five minutes could make you give in, could shut you up. Five minutes
you could write home about and never would forget.

But sometimes,
sometimes I think: well this isn't really all that hard. There's
really nothing to this. Anyone could do this. This is actually rather
pleasant. I could sure think of worse things than this. I think I just
might finish this.
And sometimes,
sometimes, it is wonderful.

The Dress T

2010-01-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

Oh the Dress T! Well that's what I call them anyways. The name is not
very clever and describes exactly what it sounds like. So what is it?
Simple: take one tight mens cotton T-Shirt, add one complicated
pattern of swirling lines and symbols, preferrably eminating out from
the wings of an eagle or heart, add logo in creative location and just
a pinch of glitter or gold lam for accent. Serve with one pair fancy
leather shoes and tight, embellished jeans. Style hair as desired.
This is the way to fit in AND stand out if anyone is thinking of
following my route south of the border!

Those people

2010-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

I wrote the paragraph below somewhere in Central America and recently
re-discovered it. I didn't post it at the time but on re-reading it, I
found it impactful. In the first sentence I reference 'those people.'
So a fair question would be to ask 'Who are those people?' But let me
avoid the question. I would much rather you fill in the blank
yourself. Let me just say that I have found 'those people' everywhere
I have gone.

Sometimes I want to shout at those people. Stand up! Don't you know
you're human? Don't you know how special that makes you! Don't you
know how powerferful you are? We are the stewards of the world! We can
think and feel and create! Stand up! Why are you just sitting there!
Don't you know what you are, what you can do, the freedom you have?
Don't you see life in all its richness and texture laid out before
you? Don't you want to protect that, admire it and enhance it? Stand
up! Why are you sitting down! This life now is the chance you have
to... do something. Don't be passive. Don't be nothing. Don't you know
you're human? Don't you know what that means?

1"^2

2010-01-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

Most of you already know generate all the written content for this
website by tapping away on my iPhone. It is in a sense convenient and
it is light weight, but it is of course far from ideal. It is quite
often difficult for me to write, not for a lack of ideas, I have a
list of nearly a hundred articles I'd like to write for the home page
and many hundreds I could write which don't relate to the trip. And
let's not even mention how desperately behind I am in my journals
where there is so much incredibly good and interesting stuff I can't
wait to share. Part of the reason I am so behind is that I don't have
time in the morning nor during the day. The sun is simply not up for
enough hours. At night I fall asleep quickly and generally feel like a
spent balloon. One that has been inflated and stretched, but then
emptied. Writing feels like picking up that thin sticky shell in your
two hands and trying to wring more air out of it. And in typing on
this little phone it feels like trying to paint a massive painting,
but only being able to see one square inch at a time, and only having
random minutes here and there to work on it. It's like boxing, the
bell dings, you stagger over to the corner and painstakingly add
another inch of color to the canvas, trying to remember what you've
already done and how this square need fit in. Then, much to soon, you
return to the fight.

Colombia: Part Two

2009-12-26T07:58:00.000-08:00

Colombia: Part Two
The dirty fringes of Cartagena were very similar to those of almost
any central american city I had passed through. I was insane with the
desire to get away from the sweating, dirty, loud madness of these
places. I had hoped that Colombia would be different and sure, it was
subtly Colombia and not Panama or El Salvador or Nicaragua, but the
similarity was close enough to be very depressing. I started to feel
like the remaining thousands of miles all the way through Argentina
would be like this. More than anything I wanted to get where it was
cold. Biking in the heat is a painful, terrible experience, but even
worse is trying to sleep in a hot and still room, a room that stinks
like vomit or uring. Worse is twisting in the thin sticky film they
call a sheet in a half asleep daze until morning. My first several
nights in Colombia were this way, the same as nearly all my nights in
central America. Colombia was more scenic, the towns a bit cleaner and
the food was better. Fresh fruit, coffee and juice could be purchased
nearly anywhere and I was grateful for it, but I desperately wanted
change.
Colombians are certainly the most friendly people of any country I
have come through. There is a tourist commercial that runs here which
says, 'the word in Colombia for foreigner is friend,' and this
certainly seems to be true. The general attitude seems to simply be,
'Friends are great. Let us therefore be friends.' It is instant and
genuine and good. They pride themselves in this hospitality, and are
proud of the recent improvements in security here but even still I
have been warned repeatedly by Colombians no to ride at night and not
to camp along the road. I have asked whether or not anyone has tried
to kill me to take my bike. Well I'm still here, and have not yet lost
anything to someone with bad intent.

Colombia: Part One

2009-12-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

Colombia: Part One
I arrived in Cartagena barely standing. Well that's how I felt
anyways, but I shook my head clear and held my head up and put on as
best I could the appearance of being focused and sharp. I was not
fnctioning at my best and so and did with extra care everything I
needed to do. The flight arrived late that night and as I came through
customs the woman behind the glass asked me where I was staying, 'I
don't know,' I answered. She paused, smiled and stamped. I managed to
get all my baggage and my boxed bike onto a cart and out to the curb.
The air was hot and still humid; the terminal small, and fairly quiet.
Getting a taxi was easy although the large box with the bike inside
hung out of the open back and I had to hold onto it behind my seat to
keep it from sliding out. I had very little cash on me and no idea
where I would be sleeping.
The cab driver turned to me and said something quickly in spanish.
What I heard was something like:
'Where tandaboysa going for tonight donso?'
'I don't know,' I said in Spanish, shutting the door. 'Where go the
tourists? Is there a cheap hotel in the tourist area?'
I'll save the details for a real journal entry, but much later I
was cashed up and conked out in a little hotel in an only semi bad
part of town.
What I wanted to do in Cartagena was to spend two months in a dark
air conditioned room drinking nutrient rich meals in liquid form while
watching bad movies. I knew that that was not going to happen, but I
at least hoped to get some rest in a nice and quiet place for several
days. What actually happened was very far from rest. What actually
happened, while less than my normal exertion, was the kind of
experience that requires recovering from, rather than providing time
for recovery. The next morning I woke early under the anxiety of what
I had to do. I took a cab into the nice part of the city, tracked down
a cheap room and left a deposit. After a slightly disgusting and
greatly overpriced breakfast I headed back to the hotel and dragged
the large box with my bike into the entry, slit open the tape with my
knife and began to put it back together. I was pleased to see that
everything arrived unbroken. An hour and a half later, under the full
heat of the day I packed up the room, loaded up the bike, and left for
the old city to try and find my room again.
Without too many extra turns I found the room, heaved the massive
bike up the steep stairs and shoved it in the barrow space between the
bed and the wall. I squeezed the door shut and switched on the AC.
That was the moment of accomplishment. That was the moment where
everything was in its place. I was where I wanted to be, the bike was
in one piece and still functioning. Everything was not accomplished, I
still had emails to write, calls to make, parts to buy, places to
find, laundry to do etcetera, but the stage was properly set. I turned
on the small fan also and lay down for twenty minutes. I should have
made it longer.
The rest of that day I found myself running all around the sweaty
scenic little town until that evening when I found myself in one of
the poor barrios playing a scrappy game of fútbol on my poor broken
legs. I got back to my room far too late, and instead of having a
blissfully empty day planned for the following morning, I had instead
a new friend to make sure nothing ever became to dull. I spent the
rest of my time there refusing drugs, prostitutes, jewelry, fake
cigars and bad art. I found myself in bad neighborhoods late into the
night, not that I was concerned for my safety but I was concerned for
my sleep. I could hardly walk after my game of fútbol, but I walked
the city, saw the monuments, fished along the harbor at night, went
diving, saw the islands, went to the wrong clubs and the right
restaurant and hardly had five mintes to decompress. When I finally
did get back on the road I had the grateful sensation of leaving
something frantic and stressful behind. I was grateful for the
simplicity of solitude and the road, but wow, I was in Colombia and
while many things would be good, nothing was going to be easy.

Beginning to Break

2009-12-07T05:12:00.001-08:00

Before I left I did not know how my body and mind would respond to the
stresses I would soon be placing on them. I imagined a plank of wood
set across a ravine. I imagined the trip like a massive weight dropped
on the middle of the board. I didn't know if my mind and body would
bear the load comfortably, if they would bend, creak and splinter, or
if my mind or my body would break.
I remember watching myself closely the first couple weeks. I
observed what I said, how I sounded and what I thought. How do you
know if you're going crazy? I seemed okay, I really felt okay. It
didn't seem to strain my mind at all and after a month my body had
caught up as well. That persisted with some constancy for quite some
time.
Today I realized that I'm beginning to break. I have been pushing
hard. The climate is brutal and life has been rough. My body is fine,
beaten and tired, but fine. But my mind, my mind is deeply and
profoundly weary. Today I realized the symptoms I have been watching
for all along. Over the last several days I haven't been able to
focus. I can't listen to podcasts except for those that are simple,
otherwise my attention drifts and I can't follow what's being said. My
Spanish is worse. I have a harder time understanding, my words form
more slowly and my pronunciation trips often. I have found it
difficult to write. Words come more slowly and my train of thought
breaks like soggy spaghetti as I pull it from my head. I make worse
decisions and take longer to do so. I retrieve things from my bags
that I don't need and can't remember what I went to get in the first
place. Small problems seem large. My usual reserve of patience feels
scraped away leaving my senses raw and fragile. Loud noises make me
jump. I normally feel strong and capable, but now everyone else seems
tall and strong and better than me. I have trouble remembering what
I've already said and even where I slept last night. Even my digestion
has slowed and my appetite waned.
I don't want to cause anyone any anxiety. If you were to speak with
me you wouldn't notice anything amiss, I just wouldn't want to take an
SAT right now. I'm going to push hard tomorrow and hopefully get out
of Panama the day after (Tuesday) and rest up a bit in Colombia. I'm
not concerned, nor upset. I'm simply observing the changes as though
they were separate from me, like a doctor noting the symptoms of a
patient. I just feel I need to get out of Central America.

Face to Face

2009-12-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

I wish I could share with you just how real it all is. I wish you
could feel the sun here. It has a real physical presence. It feels wet
and close, like a steaming wet blanket draped over one side of my
body. I wish you could feel the air which is hot and persistent like
an insect that buzzes too close to my eyes and ears and will not go
away. I wish I could share exactly how it feels to begin a climb whose
top I can't see. How the wind from my speed drops and my heart rate
and breath begin to pulse. How after only a minute sweat flows over me
like water over a tarp in the rain. I wish I could share with you
exactly the experience of reaching the top of one of these climbs and
picking up speed, how the wind begins to dry the sweat off my face and
chest and leaves salt behind. I wish I could just put in letters
exactly what the world looks like here. How the leaves are all thick
and waxy and reflect the sun in a dull silver. How rivers move wide
and silent and are covered at the banks by overhanging roots and
branches. Do you know the smell of a rotting animal? Here it means
that there is a boa constrictor or a dog or a sloth or an armadillo
disembowelled somewhere near and I'll have to swerve to keep from
hitting it. Even the noise the bike makes when I swerve, do you know
the noise? The stuff in my bags shifts and rattles, the tires buzz
against the asphault and bumb against the reflector on the white line
which sends a rattling thump through all my gear. I wish I could put
in words the sound the cars make, how deafining the engine brakes are
on the trucks as they come past one after another after another down
the steep hills. It is loud enough to be a joke. Loud enough that if I
were to scream I couldn't hear it. In fatigue and work a mental static
sometimes builds, one you can't hear in the same way you forget about
the noise of a fan or heater and only notice when it's off. All this
builds and the wind is loud and the insects don't stop and the cars
only take breaths and then there's someone in my ears giving me a
lesson in biology or economics or something and then the road and my
heart and breath and Stop!
Now I'm standing in front of a skinny man with no shirt, a wihered
face and spread yellow teeth. He's holding a machete and wants me to
buy 500 oranges. The madness again. Breath, heat, heart, until: A
beautiful girl with a shy smile and a slant glance, a dog that barks
and then runs off. A woman with wrinkes and an unshakeable frown. Five
kids in diapers with machetes. A rotting horse covered in vultures and
flies. A view of the ocean. A hut of trash and twigs. A wave and a
whislte from a man chopping grass on the side of the road.
Most moments flow like unexplained, unexpected phantoms through a
dream. There is a certain comic quality to it. If someone had been
there to take the right photos many of them would be very funny. Me,
with my glasses, hair puffed with wind and held with salt, in my
jersey unzipped all the way, absolutley dripping sweat, and there in
front of me, someone else. Someone different. Face to face.

Work Without Pay

2009-12-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

It is very helpful to know that people think of and pray for me. It
is hugely rewarding to know that I can help Acirfa literally, simply
and completely change lives. But even if no one ever knew about what I
am doing and if no one ever benefitted from it, the reward in the
activity itself is enough to make the trip profoundly worthwhile.
The return is absolutley amazing. On a basic level I am learning so
much about people, myself, the world, survival, commitment, pain,
strength, love, help, delegation, dependence, independence and more.
Don't think of these things as abstract concepts, but practical skills
and actual understandings. These things are important, but I feel that
they are secondary, in a way less valuable than another aspect of the
ride.
It is a difficult concept to express because it is abstract and
also because it is intimately personal. It does not come natirally for
me to share such things. Several weeks ago a phase flashed through my
mind: 'I'm forming a diamind in my soul.' We can all agree it's cheesy
and pretentious, but it really describes the feeling I have, and the
analogy works. To form a substance of such purity and value does
require intense conditions and pressure and it leaves behind something
that I will always carry with me, priceless and untarnishable. No
matter what happens in the remainder of my life, no matter what I do
or fail to do, this will be set in my center. It will always serve as
something beautiful I can see the world through, and it feels good to
know that it is there. There is more, much more that I could go on
about, about the ways this trip is rewarding, but I'll spare you all
for now.

I Can't See Peru

2009-12-07T05:10:00.000-08:00

As a kid I was always intrigued by that curve in the road you can't
see around. Creeks and rivers were mysterious; I would look upstream
and could not imagine where the water flowed from. While hiking I
followed the trail that seemed darker, more obscure. Driven by simple
curiosity I would always want to press on after everyone else had seen
enough. Only rarely would I ever reach the end of a trail or road, and
it always left me with the same satisfaction one gets when reaching
the top of a hill.
When I started this trip the entire world was concealed behind the
curves of the road. I could only vaguely imagine what it would be like
in Canada to watch the road cut between mountains that look
impassible, what it would be like to come across a town, a building or
a person in the forest. I had no feeling of it, and no real
understanding. The same was true of the pacific northwest: 'How is it
that the coast transforms into the city of Seattle? How will the city
fall away?' I would look at a map and see a massive empty chunk of
land and wonder what was really there: 'Is there really nothing? What
is that like? Who is there in that nothing?' California I knew
already, but have now studied and tasted it, watched it slowly bend
and change with reluctant miles.
Mexico I had only fragments of stereotypes and photos flitting
through my head. Looking at maps it seemed impossible to traverse the
distance. Looking at the mad jumble of countries beneath it, my
imagination was virtually useless. 'What is the road like? How is it
to cross a border? Are there towns? People? Food? How much danger will
I be in? Will my Spanish work?' It looked just impossible at a
distance, but that is a common feature to all interesting problems.
There is something I find profoundly beautiful and satisfying in
rock climbing. It is a pure exercise in problem solving. There is
something wonderful about a face of rock that catches the sun and
looks smooth and featureless. From a distance it looks impossible to
climb. There is nothing to grab, nowhere to stand. But once you get
right next to the rock, once you feel it with your fingers and look
carefully at its surface, features appear. It comes in waves, and even
once you see the weaknesses in the rock, it still doesn't seem
possible to climb. But begin anyways, just start. Put your hand on
that crack and try your toe in that hole and press here with your palm
and move your heel out and slowly you'll see that you can hold on. It
still looks impossible higher up, but don't worry about that now,
because when you get there you'll see and feel the curves and cracks
and edges that make climbing it possible. There is always a point or
two where your weighting gets off, where you lose confidence or tire,
and you can't see a way to get through a tough time. Stop. Just stop.
Stare at the rock, let your mind simply work. Let your body recover.
Now slowly change your weight, try a new angle, be creative and
patient and suddenly everything springs into place. Suddenly
everything feels right and natural and you can move through the
difficulty with confidence.
I came closer to the problem, to Baja, borders, roads, cities,
mountains, weather and so on, and now I understand it. I know where
the cracks are, how to leverage my weight and where to put my hands. I
know what the tough spots look like and what to do with them. I have
been around enough curves in the road that I can see beyond them now
before getting there. I can look at the horizon and just know where
the road will go, and what will be there. It took a while to reach
that point here in Central America, but I certainly have. Tomorrow is
my last day riding here and I am ready to leave.
I still cannot see the road in Colombia. I can't imagine the
mountains there, or the roads, the rivers or the people. 'How is it
that a village is set into the Andes? How does the road move from heat
to snow?' Ecuador seems even more distant to my imagination, and Peru,
Chile and Argentina and pure black boxes. I can still go in my mind
quite clearly to any place I have already been, and I can't wait to be
able to do that for South America as well.

My Advice

2009-11-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

I can see no reason why doing this trip would place me in some sort
of privileged position from which to offer advice, but I do want to
share some simple things I have learned so far about travel, people
and home.
Travel, but in general do not travel alone. Experience that is not
shared loses value, but be sure to take time on your own to go and do
what you want to do, and give those you're traveling with room for
independence. Go where the guidebooks recommend unless you're looking
for an outdoor adventure, in which case go crazy and get way off the
beaten path. Only use bicycles for traveling short distances, and
preferably only downhill. In finding and creating home, find what is
good and of quality and treasure it. Whether it's a small item of
comfort, a beautiful place, a person, a painting or a song, realize
that quality is very very rare and incredibly valuable. Value beauty
and quality. Learn to recognize it. Find it. Create it. Protect and
share it. Always be in the process of becoming the person you want to
be. Never be scared but always be careful. Always assume that people
want to do good but never doubt their capacity to do bad.

You must have just missed it

2009-11-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

I know that it must have happened a countless number if times. I know
that I've missed it nearly everywhere I go. It's a shame. It's a
tradgedy how frequently it happens and how horribly it impacts me. It
is a problem inherrent in the way I tour and it is the great fault
with my trip. I am locked to the highway. The best and the beautiful
may be hidden just a few feet away through the trees, a few miles down
the right obscure road, or in the right places in town, and I would
never know. There are so many places that I know can be wonderful if
they are pursued in the right way. I spent weeks in Alaska, but the
majority of my time there was smothered by opaque cloud and smoke, by
a highway that avoids the mountains and ocean, and so my experience of
Alaska was one of engine noise and an endless bland redundance.
I knew that this would be a problem before I began my trip, and I
remind myself that this is not meant to be a vacation, that there will
be time for selectively choosing what is best and interesting, but
that this is not it. I do make a measured effort to find the better
things tucked just behind the curtain, but on the whole I simply lack
the resources to do a very good job of it.
Of course traveling as I am is just a very good example of a
problem that exists for everyone. How do we know when we miss meeting
someone special by just having our backs turned at the wrong moment?
How often do we look the wrong way and miss something amazing in the
other direction. How often do we make decisions whose full
consequences It would be impossible to understand, and so direct our
lives on an entirely different and more difficult course without ever
being able to recognize what we missed? We simply can't ever know, but
we can fight it! We can do better than chance. The best way I can see
to overcome this is to get as much information as we reasonably can
about things in order to make good decisions and also to have the
power to act on our decisions. I often know virtually nothing about
where I am or where I am going. My days are defined by a red line
punctuated by a series of identical dots. 'Is this dot worth going to?
Is this dot scenic and this one dangerous? Is this dot a tourist town
and that one a dump?' I often think such things, and usually do not
know. When I do know, when I do have some idea, some information, my
mind is more at peace and I make better decisions. But sometimes I am
simply restrained in my ability to do what I know would make my life
better. I'll sleep here, in the dirt on the side of the road even
though I know that there is a great place fifty kilometers away simply
because it is impractical for me to get there. So I lack the power to
find these better things. That is why whenever people assert that
cycle touring is the best way to travel I cock my head sideways and
give them a curious look. Cycle touring is all airport and no
vacation. Cycle touring is more journey than destination. In this way
it does have a certain value, it is the value in seeing the honest
truth about the world. It's the value of being unable to skim the
cream off the top and understanding first hand what really is out
there and what places are really like.
We do need to find balance. It would be wrong to be obsessive about
compiling information on every one of our decisions, and we need to
accept that there are certain things that we know would be wonderful,
but that we simply cannot do. But in order to help ensure we don't
grope through life with a blindfold, learn what you can, and fight to
keep the ability to act on what you know.

Fatigue

2009-11-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

Fatigue is an umbrella term we use to describe a range of
psychological and physical states. Fatigue can be a wonderful feeling,
a relaxed sensation of spent satisfaction. It can be a coursing rush
of endorphins and adrenaline which still flood your system even after
the challenge has passed. Fatigue often only really comes only when we
allow it to, and we only allow it to when the job is done, when we
have completed what we set out to do. This completion and achievement
factors in to the general sense of well-being that can come with
fatigue.
At its other extreme fatigue is a rawness of the nerves left by
abuse and overuse. It can leave someone feeling irritable, stressed
and strained. It's the fatigue that comes from spending hours in
traffic, from doing errands, from working a problem which you cannot
solve. It is most often caused by having the wrong frame of mind. It's
a fatigue that someones ones own anxiety inflicts on themselves. It's
a fatigue that comes from overwhelm and from a sense of being
powerless. I can also confirm that it is a fatigue that comes from
spending all day, everyday on a bike. I wish that I were simply able
to adjust my frame of mind and turn the feeling I have into that of
content completion, but no matter how well I begin a day, by the end
the stresses are almost always too great for me to bear with joy. Not
that my life is lived constantly in such a state, but the nature of
the fatigue that affects me at the end of a day is unfortunaltely not
that pure and completed kind. For that, go for a jog, take a nice
shower, and then make a good dinner.

A Matter of Perspective

2009-11-21T07:18:00.000-08:00

I don't actually know how far I have left to go. I have had some trouble with my odometers and do not know how many miles I have gone, and have not had the time or resources to figure out remaining distance. I have come across quite a few people who remark with excitement that I am almost done, and while it is good to hear this instead of 'you've got a long ways to go,' I think that when people say this it is because of a misconception about the relative size of North and South America. The map we all grew up with is the Mercator Projection. This map was developed in Europe in the 1500's and, low and behold Europe is placed in the center of the world.

Projecting a sphere onto a flat surface is difficult, but many other options exist. The map below is called an equal area projection, and is an accurate representation of the relative size of the continents.

Notice on the Mercator projection how comically large Greenland is compared to South America and how absurdly massive Antarctica is. It also makes Europe look insignificant compared to Africa and South America. So while it pains me to say it, I've gotta long way to go.

Hello Goodbye

2009-11-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

In the US we do not say bye without first saying hi. I can think of no
reason why it need be this way, but it's somethething I didn't even
realize until southern Mexico. People started yelling 'Bye!' to me as
I rode past, waving and smiling as though we had just parted after a
good conversation. I thought they were maybe using the wrong english
word, or maybe I was mishearing some Spanish word, but then I started
to hear 'adiós!' in addition to the English. I guess it does make more
sense than saying 'hello!' because I am leaving. But it's funny when
people all along the road are shouting 'Goodbye!' as I ride past. In a
sense it's a little foreboding, like they know something I don't...