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 Holy Patagonia!Back to ...and we're off!By Dan Wallace - 2008-12-16
Que Babaridad! That basically means "wow"; which is what I said I the team and I rolled out of Ushuaia’s airport on our overloaded touring bikes. As we cruised down a long hill I looked down at Susan (my green Fuji touring bicycle) and said, "Well girl, here we go!" I believe accurately describing my feelings during the first two weeks in South America in a blog is pretty much impossible; but I’ll give it a go.
Looking up through stinging winds at the looming mountain peaks made me feel very small. At first I was overwhelmed and though to myself, "what on Earth did I get myself into?" This doubt was shortlived however; and as I rode away from the airport I became more and more excited to be off the plane and on the bike. I stopped to get my picture taken by a local guy.
With broken Spanish I asked him to get the mountains in the background and he was more than happy to do so. After looking at the picture to make sure it was okay, I thanked the gentleman and tried to take it all in by leaning up against the wind and letting my eyes peruse the immense landscape surrounding me. I believe it was during this quite moment that thought to myself, "Man, I can’t believe what I’m looking at!" The very next moment, as I continued to gaze upon the wild and rugged lands laid out before me, another thought entered my mind as if to respond to the first, "Boy, you haven’t seen anything yet!"
The first few days were confusing, exciting, thrilling, annoying, hard, easy, and everything else. We camped at night and explored the town of Ushuaia by day. The wind was deafening at times and always very hard to pedal against when the bike is fully loaded. Think of pedaling a giant rectangular block with a big flat edge on the front in constant 25mph winds – its is very hard on the knees.
We spent the first few days figuring out what gear to loose and what to keep to make the bikes more ride-able in the wind. We met many other adventurers around town and got lots of tips on what to see, where to stay, etc. We started technical work on the computers at a hostel called Freestyle. The hostel is run by a group of young people, all very loving and jovial. They let us hangout during the day and use they’re wifi connection.
The last day in town we all rode up a mountain and hiked up to Martial Glacier. This was the first glacier I had ever encountered. We got to the start of the glacier which is situated in a bowl at the bottom of the peak of the mountain. The hike up was two hours! As I looked at the peak of the snow capped mountain I couldn’t help but want to summit. So, following my adventurous instincts I stood up and told the team I was going to the top. Then I said, "Who’s coming with me?" It took Daniel all of about 5 seconds to decide he was going. I started off up the steep snow covered glacier. After about one hour of climbing through snow and up rock faces Daniel and I summited. The view from the top was breathtaking.
I felt so amazing! I had a smile from ear to ear as I looked back at what Daniel and I had accomplished in sandals over the last hour. We scaled about 800 ft to get to the peak. We took some photos and then plotted our descent. I have a friend named Paul Longsdorf who taught my brother and I how to slide down snow covered slopes on our butts. This was a much larger slope than Paul taught me on though. Regardless, Daniel and I looked at each other, and then jumped onto our backs. Within 10 seconds we were cruising down this massive slope almost 4,000 ft up with no one else around. I’ve never has so much fun on snow minus my snowboard. We got down from the peak in about 7 minutes. I’m pretty sure that was one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.
We rode out of town and made our way over the course of four days to where we’re at now, Rio Grande. The trip from Ushuaia to Rio Grande holds many memories, but too many to write now. I think it will suffice to describe it like this: wind, rain, sunshine, hot, cold, traffic, diarrhea, spaghetti, wind, one llama, trucks, wind, hills, wind, naps, and wind. Get the picture?
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