From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

We did it – 20,000 km biked since Anchorage! It was an emotional moment yesterday just outside of Cochrane: 20,000 clicks in 19 months. The last few kilometers have been pretty tough. We're tired, and the bikes are tired, and our nerves are a little raw...

I was pleased coming back from Coyhaique with Sara's wheel and a brand new rim. I wanted to keep the new hub and cassette from Santiago, and so I asked the mechanic to put on a new rim and new spokes on the older hub. It seemed like he had done a good job, until we actually put the wheel back on the bike. The wheel was not only warped but that the rim itself wasn't a proper circle but was more like an oval. On one side the wheel nearly rubbed against the frame of the bike right by the brakes, and on the other side it was miles away. We were unimpressed! The expletives came fast and furious, feeling discouraged and not a little hopeless… With tears in her eyes Sara helped me true the wheel and try to adjust the brake pads so that they weren't touching the tires but still close enough to the awkward oval-shaped rim...

We left the next morning, a little worried about the strength of the wheel, considering that we still had 500 km of gravel road ahead. We were still both sick and struggled against the persistent headwind. The beautiful landscapes helped us some: small lakes of an improbable turquoise color, and a hidden valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains. After climbing a 600 m pass, we could see the rain approaching. We abandoned the plan to join up with the cyclist from New Zealand who we had met the night before, and we hurried to find a spot to camp. As soon as we got the tent up it started to rain, but that didn't stop us from bathing in the glacial river. It rained all night.

And it was raining the next morning too. The morale was pretty low, but we were in the middle of nowhere, 50 km from the nearest town, so we had to mount up and keep going. We risked cooking breakfast in the tent, waiting until the very last minute to go out in the rain. It was raining only lightly, but the road was soaked. Only a couple of kilometers down the road we saw the tracks made by the cyclist from New Zealand. We kept going, and then my back tire exploded! It was the only original tire left on the bikes, and we changed the tire and the inner tube in the rain.

Only a few kilometers later, the tire was flat again. I pumped it up. Sara was really not feeling well. It was slow going despite the decent road. We stopped again to pump up the tire. But just a little bit further, the game was up and the inner tube wouldn't stay inflated. I had to unload the bike again and change the inner tube. Sara made lunch in the meantime, and I ate before putting the bike back together. We were sheltered from the rain, but not the wind, under a leafy tree. It was cold and didn't linger over lunch. I was glad I had waited to put the wheel back on because it was already flat...  again... The patches that we had bought in Chile and Argentina are not very good and don't hold up to the tire pressure. So I changed the inner tube, again. We set off, not feeling great despite the fact that the rain was letting up. Although we had only done about 40 easy kilometers, we were tired, and felt like we had done twice that many. We started looking for a place to camp. The lake that we had been following was specular. We saw two men heading back up a road leading to a house, and they asked us in French if we were Heather's friends! They had been in Coyhaique the night before in the same hostel as her (she was still having knee problems when we left Coyhaique and wanted to rest up a bit more, planning to take a bus later to meet up with us), and they knew all about us! They showed us an abandoned house that one of them was actually considering buying. We took a look and decided to stay the night. It was raining again and it was dry inside. Later in the evening they also came in to spend the night. It was a great camping spot, and the pleasant company went a long way to lifting our spirits.

The next morning it was still raining, but it seemed that the sun wanted to come out. The landscape and the colours were spectacular. The wind was behind us, but the road was steep and our legs were  heavy. 16 km later we arrived at Puerto Rio Tranquillo where we got an email from the Swiss couple Urban and Rebekka who had been waiting for us for two days, thinking we were ahead of them. We continued on, the road was tough but the sun was out. The sun actually helped us a lot to get over the hardest parts. We went around the lake General Carrera and it was magnificent. We found a great little camping spot and took a cold shower in the river.

The next morning a few scattered raindrops weakened our already shaky motivation. Sara was still sick and tired. I was slowly starting to get better. The weather lifted but the road wasn't easy. As soon as there was a bit of sun the horseflies came out. The landscape was just as beautiful, and Bertrand Lake and the Rio Baker were a gorgeous bright turquoise. The road was bad; washboard in some places with big stones over which we skated and skidded. We found a great camping spot on a green carpet of grass, sheltered from the wind and beside a river. It rained that night and the next morning. I took out the video camera to film our ideal camping spot, but the camera wouldn't record...  It seems our mechanical difficulties were not confined to our bikes!

It was only 30 km to Cochrane, the next town, and we were hoping to arrive in early in the afternoon to have a day and a half of rest. But that wasn't taking into account elevation gain of the road and the continued mechanical problems! After 3 kilometers Sara's cage gave out. After 5 kilometers one of the links in Sara's chain decided it had had enough traveling and peeled off. We did the repairs buffeted by the wind, chased by the horseflies and a not a few raindrops. The sun came out though and we eventually arrived in Cochrane around 5 pm. We ran into Urban in the Internet café and also found out that Heather was still in Coyhaique.

We spent the rest day camping, something we haven't done since the United States. The weather is good and there are redcurrant and raspberries growing all around us. Sara just came back with enough fruit to make jam! Mmmmm!

PS: Last Sunday was the second round of the elections, and Sébastien Pinera (on the right) won.

Sébastien