6 countries. 10 months. 13,000 km. 142,000 meters of altitude. And an extremely large number of cups of coffee.

These are the key figures for what we can boast from now on, and forever:

Namely that we have cycled the length of South America!

We are actually quite proud of that. That is quite an achievement. But when that is said, it is not the sporting performance, or the many kilometers as such, that we sit and look back on. What we look back on are the individual experiences. We must recognize that the journey from A to B serves no other purpose than to be a form in which we are enriched with adventure. Alaska is still the lighthouse at the end of the journey. And if we once long ago said; "If we only come to Mexico, that's fine too", we lied. Coming to Alaska means EVERYTHING. But only because we love to travel. We love to feel the world this way. We love cycling our way to new adventures. And the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead, between us and Alaska, we are very much looking forward to.

We are well over halfway now. We just landed on a new continent. A milestone has been reached.

Both in terms of kilometers and time, we are roughly halfway between Ushuaia and Anchorage. Mentally we are in a vacuum. Hopefully this blog post can help us clear up our thoughts and experiences a bit, and create space to take in North America.

So sorry if it gets philosophical, but we feel we need to understand a little of what we have learned.

Eg. that you can always have a photocopy made, anywhere in South America. It is simply impressive that an entire continent has decided that photocopies must never be used. I would almost venture the claim that you cannot stand anywhere in South America without seeing a sign with 'fotocopias'.

Well – silliness aside…

We have learned that bamboo is stronger than steel, and therefore a better building material in many contexts. It turns out, for example, after hurricanes, that bamboo houses are the only ones standing.

We have learned that instead of spraying coffee plantations with toxic insecticides, you plant tobacco plants between the coffee trees, because then the insects go into the tobacco instead.

We have learned how the glacier water from a single mountain functions as an irrigation system for all the families and farms in the surrounding valleys.

We have learned that the water in the rivers in Patagonia is so clean that you can drink it.

That many families in Bolivia's mountains preserve food without the use of a refrigerator or freezer.

And that everywhere in South America, work is being done extremely intensively with visionary projects around sustainable agriculture and lifestyle.

In many ways, South America is a study in where we were years ago in Europe. However, with the knowledge that we now possess globally. That is that South America is old-fashioned in some areas, but at the same time also has a unique opportunity to be more forward-looking than Europe, because they have learned from our mistakes.

One of the things we have thought about is that modern man wants to control nature. We are constantly trying to model, cut, reshape, encapsulate and control nature to our advantage.

But we have experienced that what we often end up doing is working against nature instead. We are long past the point where we lived in harmony with nature, on its terms. In our time, you will appear extremely fanatical if you try to live 100% naturally. Sustainability in its pure form is an illusion to which we cannot go back.

But we also see clear trends in research and development turning back towards learning from nature again, and using this learning in a smarter way. I believe that the 'sustainability' of the future must be found where technological development within refining and transport meets naturally grown materials/crops in beautiful union.

As a very wise man said: "We don't need to make all possible rules, nature has already made all the rules for us".

It is thought-provoking, over how short a time humanity has evolved from living in harmony with nature, to destroying it instead. It is a development that has really picked up speed within the last 100 years. If you hold it up to humanity's development, which spans about 200,000 years, and think about the fact that it is really the current generations that are destroying our planet, then you can either cry or be filled with hope. We do the latter. We believe and hope that we can reverse the negative spiral in which we develop, to develop again in harmony with nature, so that we can restore the balance. And thus improve the conditions for our own existence on earth. Because as I said, we believe that nature decides.

The cycling culture in South America is amazing. Here I don't think so much that the cycling culture of the natives is anything special. Except, however, Columbia, which has strong traditions in the field. What I mean is that there are fantastic opportunities for cycling and that many people take advantage of this. Both bikepacking along small winding mountain roads and more traditional touring cycling along the larger country roads offer kilometer after kilometer of unique landscapes and exciting cultural encounters.

And precisely because it is so, we have a new family. A cycling family. That's how we feel. We have met so many exciting, sweet, funny people who have also chosen to spend time cycling through South America. We have stopped and talked to everyone. We have followed some for a day or two. Others we have cycled with for several weeks. And others again, we have met again and again.

The funny thing is that you sometimes hear about other cyclists. About their achievements and personalities and about their route. And at some point you might bump into them yourself, and already feel you know them in advance. It has happened to us several times. Like the Norwegian family we met in a bus cafe on a rainy day in Patagonia. Like Russ we sailed through the Caribbean with. Like the Israel we met out in the middle of the Salar de Uyuni salt desert.

Common to all these meetings is that we instinctively feel like friends. We understand eachother. Although many different types of people go on a bike trip, there are still common basic features that bind us together. We know each other's situation. The physical challenges. The economic ones. The loneliness that gives birth to the social need, etc., etc.. We feel we know each other a little, without things being said.

And it's nice to have a little new family that you can be safe in when our own friends and family are far away, for a while.

But it is not only the other cyclists who are exciting encounters. We have so many fantastic and wonderful experiences meeting locals. We have experienced such great care, helpfulness and warmth. In Denmark, we are used to you looking after your own things and your own life. "Mind your own business". But in South America everything is everybody's business. It also means that it is important for people to help us if we need a place to sleep. People couldn't think of leaving us in the lurch. In the cold mountains, one could say that it is a necessary cultural strategy so that people do not die of cold. But we experience the same helpfulness and openness in the warm lowlands, so we attribute it more to general charity and warmth, as well as the fact that you cultivate the family to a greater extent. And probably also a greater relaxation around strangers.

In addition to getting help with necessities, it just makes the journey so much more interesting and enjoyable that it is easy and pleasant to talk to locals and that they are curious about us, just as we are about them.

That it also means that we have told about our trip almost a million times, have nodded when people comment on the big tires on the bikes, and are completely tired in the arms of drawing Europe and Denmark in the air, we just take that with us .

However, we are sad that we do not know more Spanish. If we had to do the trip over again, we would have taken even more Spanish classes away from home so that we could engage in even more interesting conversations.

Of course, there are also things we absolutely will not miss.

Garbage everywhere. There are almost no rubbish bins on the streets. When cycling on the roads in Peru, you can easily feel hated by drivers who throw cans or rubbish out the window after one. Many cyclists have tried that. But in reality, motorists simply throw the rubbish out to get rid of it. And they are not so used to cyclists that they think about the consequences. We see mountains of rubbish on the side of the road where people have simply thrown it away. We fear that if South America does not very soon adopt a policy around garbage and start campaigns, then they will drown in their own shit, so to speak. It's terrible. And extremely critical.

We also won't miss the noise that is everywhere. There is a horrible push culture here. This means that you push when: you want to say hello, you want to scold, you come to a corner, you want to offer a lift, you are tired of holding too many red lights, you overtake, you turn, you are overtaken, you are a taxi and looking for customers, the light changes to green, etc., etc. So all in all, it roughly means that the easiest thing is to just push a little randomly, all the time, then you're covered. And that's exactly what people do. After all, this again means that the rant completely negates its own meaning, because no one cares about it. And then there is only the noise left. That noise must then be drowned out by something else. Eg. loud music, shouts from street vendors, traffic police whistles, etc., etc.. Yes – there is extremely much noise everywhere.

And we probably won't miss white bread right away either. We guess we ate twice as much white bread in South America as in the rest of our lives combined. The same applies to sugar.

We have to admit that we misjudged our project. It is complicated. But the easy way to explain it is to say we have too little time to get to Alaska. When you sit on the sofa in Vesterbro on a cold winter's evening, and look at maps and read other people's blogs, you have to estimate a timetable. And when that schedule is finished, it has to fit with the seasons in Patagonia and Alaska. Then you can file a little on the times, you can e.g. say you just drive a little faster. And then 80km a day doesn't sound like much.

When you find yourself in Peru's mountains above 4,000m, for the tenth day in a row, with a thin stomach and too little food, the 80km a day starts to become difficult to achieve. Then the average is suddenly below 50km per day. And when we add to that the fact that it could be fun to drive 300km detour to see a volcanic crater, or that you have to wait 2 weeks for a spare part from Denmark, then the schedule completely falls apart.

We just have to admit that we are traveling slower than expected. We drive fewer kilometers per day because the landscape we drive in is more difficult to access than expected and more beautiful than we dreamed. We spend more time on the good experiences than expected, because we have found that this is what the journey consists of. And we had forgotten to factor in time to keep still when there are problems with the body, or with the bike, or we just need rest and to clear our heads.

All in all, it has forced us to take a bus, twice in Peru, in order to keep the overall schedule. We hate it. We wanted to cycle all the way. But we have to accept that we either have to spend about one more year on the trip, or skip a bit here and there. We have chosen the latter. So far. For one thing we agree; we don't want to cut down on the experiences and drive the straight country road to Alaska, just to be able to say we did it.

So there is one thing we have learned, and that is to have time. Time to meet people. Time to say Yes to an invitation. Time for an extra detour. Time to be exactly where we are. Something good always happens in those situations where we took the time to do so.

What remains most clearly for us when we think back to South America are the unique encounters with the fantastic people and the fantastic nature. It is hard to describe, but it touches us very deeply.

And we are deeply grateful.