Posts tagged ‘pampas’

May 10

Tierra del Fuego

The_road_signs keep telling us that Ushuaia is just a few kilometers away. What does it mean to be this close to where the road ends, where we can go no further south? The closeness of Ushuaia hasn’t made Tierra del Fuego’s famous winds any easier to combat on bicycle. For reference, when the wind isn’t in your favor, it is quite easy for a strong cyclist to be humbled by the pace of a gaucho herding some sheep at a horse’s walking pace. The rough, washboard gravel road that we took more than 100k from Porvenir to our final crossing into Argentina wasn’t made any smoother. Our excitement and simultaneous bewilderment at how close we are to the end of this long road hasn’t kept our feet and hands warm while riding through wintry mornings. Ushuaia is where we pack up our bicycles and fly home and say good-bye to this life of tent-camping and stove-cooking and unknown miles by bicycle. Yet these last days with my brothers and Joe aren’t any more special or significant than the hundreds that came before them. That first comical day out of Anchorage, struggling to get 100k finished as complete rookies in abundant Alaskan daylight, was no less crucial than the 100k that we covered yesterday and the 100k we’ll ride tomorrow to finish Bound South. These last days on Tierra del Fuego aren’t special or different, and for that we are thankful. These last miles are simply more sustenance for this moveable feast we will always know as Bound South.

Boarding the ferry to Tierra del Fuego.

Skewed horizons on the Strait of Magellan

Our first day on Tierra del Fuego brought us to Concordia, a sheep farm of 7000, where we were welcomed by two gauchos.

They had four extra beds, a roaring stove, coffee and mate, bread and homemade “ruibarbo” jam. We were ecstatic and so thankful to be out of the elements.

We were told the gaucho on the far right is the oldest shepherd in all of Patagonia, having worked for over 80 years!

Patagonian wind.

Three days.

The Atlantic.

Life in the Vast Lane.

To celebrate Joe’s birthday, we biked 110 kilometers through the wind and rain. This is Joe 60 kilometers in.

Our destination that day: La Unión, a bakery in Tolhuin. We sang for our keep here. They housed us, fed us, and treated Joe to this much-deserved slab of cake.

Buen Provecho!

May 6

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Miracle on Highway #40

When_we_aren’t riding, eating, or sleeping, chances are that we are planning. The exercise of planning anything with my brothers will be one of the things I will miss dearly when we leave Bound South behind. Countless times between Alaska and Argentina, I have found the three of us standing in a circle near our bicycles, bantering at lightspeed in barely intelligible English as we weigh the most efficient, adventurous, and fulfilling means to ride across Colombia, navigate a grocery store, or decide who has to do dishes and who will pack up the tent. There is an loving contentiousness between brothers where the volume and intensity of argument can escalate to near-blows when everyone is tired and hungry and I want to stop for food before camping and Nathan wants to stop to camp before we get food. Frequently, the best-laid plans go awry; the important thing is that everyone is heard and contributes to our course of action.

Sometimes, failure isn’t an option. Bound South made some bold plans to ride across the Austral and Highway 40 in time to meet David’s best friend, Joe Burgum, in El Calafate. Three would become four for the final leg to Ushuaia. Yet stiff winds and washboards and cold conspired to put us 200k behind schedule. After pushing our bodies to the limit, we rolled into a dead-end town on Argentina’s Highway 40 with no way to reach El Calafate on time. We had not seen internet for a week. We had no food. The town had neither, only a gas station with a few overpriced ham sandwiches. And the last bus to El Calafate? It left an hour before we arrived. And due to the Argentine equivalent of Labor Day Weekend, no more buses would run for days. So we were stuck, unable to ride the deficit in time to meet our friend, unable to notify him, and fearing that he would arrive to a strange town with no Spanish skills and no idea if we were dead or gone. We stood in a circle, hungry, despairing, and had few ideas other than dressing in all of our winter gear and waiting on the side of Highway #40 to pray for a truck to hitch with.

We ate some overpriced ham sandwiches sullenly. The owner of the gas station explained that he had a friend who would be happy to drive us for the low, low price of $540 USD. I politely thanked him for the offer, neglecting to tell him that this sum would pay for nearly two months of bicycle adventure. We drifted around the parking lot aimlessly, feeling in our gut that we were in trouble but that somehow things would work out. Three brand new Toyota pickup trucks rolled into the gas station. Loaded to the brim with coolers of food, fishing rods, clothing, Argentine wine, and some of the most gregarious Argentine family that you could possibly imagine. The details run long, but before we knew it we were hurtling across the empty, cold pampas in the back of a pickup truck, camping out at the ranch of an Argentine business mogul, and enjoying Argentine steak and wine and company in front of a fireplace.

The most indelible experiences of a bicycle expedition, just like the most unpleasant, can never be planned or counted upon. We sat in a circle that night as a family, after being filled with steak dinner and a tired by a rugged moonlight hike. Wine flowed and dessert of cheese and jam was served. We sang for our hosts as is our brotherly tradition; a Lutheran hymn and a negro spiritual, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” In a uniquely South American way, the men drank and smoked and held court with some of the most contentious, high-volume, and dramatic conversation that I have ever seen. The topics of conversation were also among the most mundane and entertaining that I have ever seen; why the Argentine Patagonians don’t sing like these fine North Dakotan men, why gas prices are so high, why we don’t ride our bicycles during the night, and what handsome eyelashes David has. The women, young and old, tended to sit to the side and laugh at the spectacle of Bruno, the patriarch of the ranch, shout “Lies! Lies! Lies!” during an absurd conversation about mothers’ insistence on musical lessons for their children, or fall asleep as the conversation thundered into the early morning. North Dakota Lutherans don’t stay up this late, and perhaps we don’t always have as much fun, either. And like a dream it was over too soon, with our bodies and bicycles dropped into the frigid air of El Calafate the next morning.

One of the family men, Jorge, refused to accept our offer to help pay for their generosity. The women had left to use the restroom and do some quick shopping. With the wisdom that can probably only be accrued through years and years of loving a wife and raising daughters, he said, “I don’t want you to give us anything, you have given us so much.” With a wink, he said, “I don’t need anything, but perhaps the women might appreciate something…” and he gestured to the chocolate shop down the street. He was a wise man, indeed. We snuck off to the chocolate shop and purchased some of the most expensive and delicious chocolate that I have ever seen in my entire life. We returned moments later, and as the women returned we presented our gift. In twenty-four hours, we went from hapless gringos to pitied American bicycle vagabonds to charming, courageous adventurer-singers to golden-boys bearing gifts of fine chocolate. The looks and kisses on the cheek good-bye said it all. For a short time, we were a part of their family, and they were a part of our story. The memories of our time with them and that unique, unplanned miracle on Highway #40 stays with us forever.