6 countries. 10 months. 13,000 km. 142,000 meters of elevation. And an extremely large number of cups of coffee.
These are the key figures for what we can boast of from now on, and forever:
Namely, we have cycled the length of South America!
We are actually quite proud of that. It is an achievement. But having said that, it is not the sporting achievement, 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 said a long time ago; “if we only get to Mexico, that would be great too”, we were lying. It means EVERYTHING to get to Alaska. But only because we love to travel. We love to experience the world in this way. We love cycling our way to new adventures. And the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead, between us and Alaska, we are looking forward to them extremely much.
We're well over halfway now. We've just landed on a new continent. A milestone has been reached.
Both in terms of mileage and time, we are about halfway between Ushuaia and Anchorage. Mentally we are in a vacuum. Hopefully this blog post can help us clear up a bit of our thoughts and experiences, and create space to take in North America.
So sorry if this sounds philosophical, but we feel like we need to understand a little of what we've learned.
For example, you can always get a photocopy made anywhere in South America. It's simply impressive that an entire continent has decided that you can never touch photocopies. I would almost dare to say that you can't stand anywhere in South America without seeing a sign saying '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 that survive.
We have learned that instead of spraying coffee plantations with toxic insecticides, we plant tobacco plants between the coffee trees, because then the insects go to the tobacco instead.
We have learned how the glacial water from a single mountain functions as an irrigation system for all the families and farms located 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 the mountains of Bolivia preserve food without the use of a refrigerator or freezer.
And that everywhere in South America, there is extremely intensive work being done on visionary projects around sustainable agriculture and lifestyles.
In many ways, South America is a study in where we were years ago in Europe. But with the knowledge that we globally possess now. That is, South America is old-fashioned in some areas, but at the same time also has a unique opportunity to be more forward-thinking than Europe, because they have learned from our mistakes.
One of the things we've been thinking about is that modern humans want to control nature. We're constantly trying to model, carve, 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 would appear extremely fanatical if you tried to live 100% naturally. Sustainability in its pure form is an illusion that we cannot go back to.
But we also see clear trends that research and development is being turned back towards learning from nature again, and using this learning in a wiser way. I believe that the 'sustainability' of the future must be found where technological developments in refining and transportation meet naturally grown materials/crops in beautiful union.
As a very wise man said: “We don't need to make all sorts of rules, nature has already made all the rules for us”.
It is thought-provoking 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 compare it to the development of humanity, which extends over 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 turn the negative spiral in which we are developing, to develop in harmony with nature again, so that we can restore 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 fantastic. Here I don't think so much that the native cycling culture is anything special. Except for Colombia, 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 kilometers after kilometers of unique landscapes and exciting cultural encounters.
And precisely because of this, we have a new family. A cycling family. That's how we feel. We have met so many exciting, sweet, fun people who have also chosen to spend time cycling through South America. We have stopped and talked to everyone. Some we have accompanied for a day or two. Others we have cycled with for several weeks. And others we have met again and again.
The funny thing is that sometimes you 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 like you know them beforehand. 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 Israel we met out in the middle of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.
What all these meetings have in common is that we instinctively feel like friends. We understand each other. Even though many different types of people go on a bike ride, there are still common ground that bind us together. We know each other's situation. The physical challenges. The financial ones. The loneliness that gives birth to the social need, etc. etc. We feel like we know each other a little, without things being said.
And it's nice to have a little new family that you can feel safe in, now that our own friends and family are far away, for a while.
But it's not just the other cyclists who are exciting encounters. We have so many fantastic and wonderful experiences meeting locals. We have experienced so much care, helpfulness and warmth. In Denmark we are used to looking after your own things and your own life. "Mind your own business". But in South America everything is everyone's business. This also means that it is important for people to help us if we need a place to sleep. People couldn't imagine leaving us in the lurch. In the cold mountains you could say that it is a necessary cultural strategy so that people don't 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 people value family more. And actually also a greater relaxed attitude around strangers.
In addition to getting help with necessities, it also makes the trip that 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 from drawing Europe and Denmark in the air, we just take that with us.
However, we are sad that we don't know more Spanish. If we had to do the trip again, we would have taken even more Spanish lessons at home so that we could engage in even more interesting conversations.
Of course, there are also things we absolutely won't miss.
Trash everywhere. There are almost no trash cans on the streets. When cycling on the roads in Peru, you can easily feel hated by drivers who throw cans or trash out of the window, one after another. Many cyclists have tried it. But in reality, drivers simply throw the trash out to get rid of it. And they are not so used to cyclists that they think about the consequences. We see mountains of trash on the side of the road, where people have simply thrown it away. We fear that if South America does not soon establish a policy on trash and launch campaigns, they will drown in their own shit, to put it bluntly. It is terrible. And extremely critical.
We won't miss the noise that's everywhere either. There's a terrible honking culture here. That means you honk when: you want to say hello, you want to scold, you come to a corner, you want to offer a lift, you're tired of running a red light, you overtake, you turn, you get overtaken, you're a taxi and looking for customers, the light changes to green, etc. etc. So all in all, it means that the easiest thing to do is just honk a little randomly, all the time, and you're covered. And that's exactly what people do. That means again that the honk completely negates its own meaning because no one takes care of it. And then all that's left is the noise. That noise then has to be drowned out by something else. For example, loud music, shouting from street vendors, traffic police whistles, etc. etc. Yes - there's an extreme amount of noise everywhere.
And we probably won't miss white bread anytime soon. We've probably eaten twice as much white bread in South America as we have in the rest of our lives combined. The same goes for sugar.
We must admit that we have 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 evening, looking at maps and reading other people's blogs, you have to estimate a schedule. And when that schedule is finished, it has to fit with the seasons in Patagonia and Alaska. Then you can tweak the times a little, you can for example say that you just drive a little faster. And then 80km a day doesn't sound like that much.
When you find yourself in the mountains of Peru above 4,000m, for the tenth day in a row, with a thin stomach and too little food, the 80km per 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 volcano crater, or that you have to wait 2 weeks for a spare part from Denmark, the schedule completely falls apart.
We just have to admit that we travel slower than expected. We ride fewer kilometers per day because the landscape we ride in is more difficult to access than expected, and more beautiful than we dreamed of. We spend more time on the good experiences than expected because we have found that this is what the journey is all about. And we had forgotten to include time to stop when there are problems with the body, or with the bike, or we just need to rest and clear our heads.
All in all, it has forced us to take the bus, twice in Peru, to keep to the overall schedule. We hate it. We wanted to cycle the whole way. But we have to accept that we will either have to spend about another year on the trip, or skip a few things here and there. We have chosen the latter. So far. But we agree on one thing; we don't want to cut back on the experiences and drive the straight road to Alaska, just to be able to say we did it.
So there's one thing we've learned, it's to have time. Time to meet people. Time to say yes to an invitation. Time to take an extra detour. Time to be exactly where we are. Something good always happens in those situations where we took the time for it.
What remains most vividly for us when we think back to South America are the unique encounters with the amazing people and the amazing nature. It is difficult to describe, but it touches us very deeply.
And we are deeply grateful.
