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Carretera Austral – The northern part

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It does not have to be fun to be fun.

Only when waking up the next morning, we realized the magical beauty of the surrounding landscape: steep little hills peeking out of the morning mist, densely wooded with a thick rain forest vegetation, with Bromelias and Fuchsias, mosses and Nalca leaves large like umbrellas. As they explained to us later in the Queulat national park, this region contains the only rain forest vegetation of the world out of the tropical zone, probably due to its volcanic soil. Only in 2008, the tremendous eruption of the volcano Chaitén caused the evacuation of 8000 residents.
As we went on the next days, struggling hard with the rough gravel under our wheels and the dust clouds of passing trucks and road works, but blessed with a perfect weather, the vegetation turned more into the thick woods you may find in Northern Europe. Patagonia still had not shown its teeth, I guess. We enjoyed the ride below hanging glaciars and along turquoise river streams and lovely wild camp spots at the shore of deep-blue lakes, a freedom and beauty only known to cyclists.
In Puyuhuapi a third musketeer joined us, the german sports and english teacher Jens, on well-payed vacation for nine months – I won’t trust any complaints of German teachers anymore.
The local people we met in the few small country villages, so quiet that even restaurants were closed at lunchtime, seemed rather grumpy, no interest in us at all. Already asking for tap water was bothering them. But we had some friendly encounters: once, Jens had lost its badly attached breakfast bag on the shaking roads – he got it handed over from a passing car 40 kilometers and 14 hours later.
We made it to Coyhaique after 434km and 5.630 height meters in 6 days, the last place on the Carretera Austral to get a decent shower and to stock up on food and energy reserves.

A Ferry Tale

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Chileans rave about Chiloe. The mists of this island are replenished with mythical flavour, with the legends of dwarfs and creatures like the Pincoya, the beautiful seductress of men. Cycling there on the Ruta 5, I could not really grasp its charme: crowds of backpackers, mochileros, lots of traffic and the lovely but fully occupied cities of Ancud, Delcahue and Castro. After two nights of camping on a lonely beach and on a green meadow, I was lucky to leave the serene idyll by ferry back to mainland, to Chaitén.
But then came the mystical part: the ferry fairy played its tricks on us – we left with four hours of delay. A large cruiser had blocked the narrow channel of the harbour, and its touristic passengers interfered with the loading of the ferry. The rising tide enhanced the steepness of the ramp and a heavy truck got blocked while he tried to pass. They fiddled for about two hours with wooden underlyings and with various manoeuvres of the ship. The whole catastrophy was unfold just in front of our eyes, and we enjoyed the great show. At this time, we could already see the next problem coming up: the scene changed from the ramp to the quay when the crew realized that one pillar to which the ferry was tied, was completely submerged by the rising water in the meanwhile. Bets were on, if one would dive down to loose the knot, but after some fumbling around with a pike from a boat for another half an hour, they just cut the rope and we finally circled around the cruiser out of the harbour.
This spectacle had caused considerable delay, and when we arrived after the 5 hours traject at the port of Chaiten, the ferry could not land due to the low tide. We had to wait 30 meters from the shore for the next tide at midnight. By this time, a young group of rebels had overtaken the ship, not accepting to be let out in the middle of the night without accomodation in this small coastal village. The captain, whom I had visited before on the bridge, turned up in the disguise of a barkeeper to observe incognito the ongoing negotiations and protests, but finally police had to clear the boat. The promised mayor of the town did not show up, but accomodation was provided in a sports hall.
Together with the english cyclist David, whom I’ve met during the passage, I preferred to cycle out of town. At 2 o’clock we pitched our tents alongside the road.
Adventure had begun again.

Farewell, Argentina!

„The problem is not the litter along the highway but the highway itself.“
E.Abbey

After these months in the andenean Altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, coming to Argentina, the cultural differences were striking. To name a few:

  • people live a european lifestyle: picturesque houses, heavy trucks and nice cars, elegant clothing.
  • much more individual traffic on the streets, and the roads have side rails.
  • people smoke, but do sports and like the outdoors: every village has a municipal campground.
  • all shops are closed in siesta time between 1 and 6 p.m. and on sundays. Life is expensive but the blue dollar business buoyed me up.
  • due to the public wifi in all central plazas there are no cyber cafes. Travelling without electronic devices, I felt like back in the middle ages.
  • No one tries to trade in my white cap anymore.
  • I can eat icecream without worries.

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Cycling there, I often had the impression that the adventure is over. But then came el Paso Agua Negra…
I cycled in Argentina for 1.538km, climbing 11.935 altitude meters.

A Straight Story: the Ruta 40 southwards

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Shortly after Belén, pulling in for a cold milk shake in the only open shop in a small village, I met the Müllers, a lovely family with a typical immigration background: the mother, daughter of a German captain and born on the ship sailing to Argentina, married a spanish immigrant, the two daughters never got to know their grandparents who still live in Germany. European immigration shaped the Argentinean population like no other country, with the largest immigration wave in the years between 1880 and 1950 and then again since the 1990ies. Many Argentineans keep up their tradition with european naming and their background culture is still remotely present – the Müllers immediately showed me their family photo album with pictures of the grandparents in a German red-brick building. With 50% of the population aged under 30 years, Argentina is a very young country but after the hyperinflation in the 80ies still struggles with a yearly inflation rate of up to 12%.
Later that day, I joined Mike, a decent cyclist from San Francisco I had met already several times on the road. He worked, as I did time ago, in the financial industry, quit his job to study philosophy, then cycled Mexico, and now South America. In the following days, we stood together the unbearable heat and the steady head wind, we recovered with tons of icecream and we nightly pitched our tents at beautiful campsites. I enjoyed the extended and outspoken discussions with him, an inciting exchange about american politics and western lifestyle, about progress in philosophy, about entrepreneurship and family context, and about reasons for poverty in the world.
On our way down the straight Ruta 40 we happened to run into the Dakar Rally, a bunch of tall, sunburnt and handsome guys on their heavy machines. In Jachal, our ways split up again after 940km, 57 hours and 6000 altitude meters climbing: he’ll continue southwards to Mendoza, I followed the call of the Andes, crossing over the Paso Agua Negra to Chile.

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Crecimiento

We need to try the impossible for the possible to happen.*
H.Hesse

Back in college, my first class teacher wrote me this sentence in my autograph book (yes, they were still common in those days). While it is clearly true for any scientific or technical achievement, it also holds for our personal lives: we grow with the challenges we take, we grow when we dare. No matter if successful or not.
Getting older is not growing. While we grow for the things we have done, we get older rather for the things we stop doing. We get older because we stop playing (well, some never do…), because we stop asking, because we stop exploring. We get older when we run out of projects, when we lose the trust in our dreams, when we cease to expect the more from life.
Some are old when they are young, reckoning to know already all about life, and they may get younger as they grow. Most people get older when they, looking for safety, enter predefined career paths, when they arrange with the existing as it is. We are the best educated generation in Germany ever, the globalized world offers a wealth of possibilities and challenges never known before, and we should dare more, we should head for more than to become the Senior Vice Brand Manager in the marketing department of L’Oreal, say. This is kappes, the world deserves more from us. Remember the words of B.Obama about N.Mandela: „what people can reach when they are led by their hopes and not by their fears…“
In this new year, for your projects, I wish you all the best:
be true to your dreams! Don’t settle. Keep on running. Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Dieser Beitrag ist zu ihrem baldigen Geburtstag meiner Mutter gewidmet, deren jugendlicher Offenheit für Erfahrung, deren unstillbarem Erfahrungshunger ich so viel verdanke.

*“Es muß immer wieder das Unmögliche versucht werden, damit das Mögliche entsteht.“

Bolivia: Farewell

Today, after only six weeks, I left Bolivia. Apart from the bad roads – actually the worst I’ve ever seen and -alas!- cycled – I loved this country: vast nature and captivating landscapes with endless open spaces, sincere and honest people living a free life and the unique city of La Paz with high mountains as well as rain forest close by.
I cycled in Bolivia only for 780km, 5.621 altitude meters and 77,5 hours, but this time belongs to the most intense periods of my life.

La Ruta de Lagunas

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Dans la vie, il n’y a pas des solutions.
Il n’y a que des forces en marche: il faut les créer et les solutions suivent.
A.Saint-Exupéry, Vol de Nuit (Nachtflug)

Ich sank erschöpft in den Sand und schloß die Augen. Alles drehte sich, und alles fühlte sich leicht, schwerelos an. Für die letzten 10km hatte ich dreieinhalb Stunden gebraucht, hartes Schieben durch weiches Kiesbett, gegen einen infernalischen Frontalwind, der mir täglich ab Nachmittag aus Süd-West entgegenblies. Erst in der Dunkelheit hatte ich den ausgehöhlten Felsen erreicht, in dessen Schutz ich das Zelt aufbaute. Über mir ein sternklarer Nachthimmel, Orion und Milchstraße, und um mich herum die endlosen Weiten dunkel schimmernder Sanddünen. Gegen halb Neun ließ der Sturm nach und wich mit der aufziehenden Kühle einer absoluten Stille, die gleichsam greifbar auf mich zukroch. Die Welt gehört Dir in solchen Momenten.
Die Bilder vom Tage klangen an: die bizarren Felsformationen, die ich durchwandert hatte, die immer wechselnden Farbspiele auf den samtigen, sanft gewellten Sanddünen, die ich für Stunden hätte beobachten können, die leuchtenden Lagunen mit den rosa hingetupften Punkten der Flamenco-Schwärme. An der blau-weißen Laguna Cañapa hatte mich eine freundlich faszinierte Touristengruppe, Besucher von einem anderen Stern, zum Mittagessen eingeladen, an der rostroten Laguna Colorada hatte ich meine Wasservorräte aufgefüllt, an der türkis-schwefelgelben Laguna Chalviri nach einem kräftigen Hagelschauer ein abendliches Bad in den heißen Thermalquellen genommen.
Am achten Tag erreichte ich mit der Laguna Blanca die Grenze des Nationalparks Avaroa, früh am nächsten Morgen bei frostigen -8ºC den Grenzübergang nach Chile. Vor mir erstreckt sich eine der längsten Abfahrten der Welt, die auf 42km feinstem Asphalt pfeilgerade mehr als 2000 Höhenmeter abfallende Straße ins Atacama-Becken, zur Touristenoase San Pedro. Meter für Meter trägt mich das traumhaft leicht gleitende Fahrrad zurück in die Zivilisation. Hinter mir liegt eine der intensivsten Zeiten meines Lebens.

There were times when I deeply doubted that a bicycle is the right means to cross a desert. These were moments of despair and they mostly happened in the evenings, after a day of hard pushing. Pushing here is to force a 50kg colossus in 4500m altitude through 5cm of sand – against steady headwind and uphill. With heavy struggle you average 3km an hour. You shout in the wind. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You simply go on. You don’t know how many days have passed but you know for sure that the solution is only ahead. The sand dunes gleam in the sun. You could stand there for hours watching the changing colors on their subtle surfaces. You pitch the tent at night behind some sparse shelter against the yelling wind. Stars shine bright in the silvery night as you listen into the absolute silence. You are all alone in these wide open spaces. You go on pushing the bike the next day. Now and then, visitors from another planet pass by in trucks, taking pictures of your efforts and pitifully handling over a bottle of water. Once you lost the way and felt your precarious exposedness in these lonely moonscapes.
On the ninth day I crossed the border to Chile, riding then on the finest tarmac I’ve seen for two weeks, heading back to the amenities of civilisation. I know that I just spent one of the most intensive times of my life.

Since Sabaya, I cycled (and pushed) for 68,5 hours, 668km and 4350 altitude meters.

This excellent map is taken from tour.tk.

Suerte!

Dear friends, dear readers,
I spent these last days in the pleasant comfort of the charming city of La Paz, regenerating and preparing for the next stage, one of the most demanding parts of my journey so far: the crossing of the Salars Coipasa and Uyuni and of the remote desert in South-West Bolivia on the famous Lagoon route. No village for 12 days and presumably no food and water supplies. I had the chance to get already a first impression of these beautiful landscapes travelling with my family in a 4×4 car, and I am fully aware that cycling there will be tough enough. Equipped with a jerrycan, several kilos of food, a new fuel stove, some lighters, additional warm gloves and spare parts for the bicycle, I start the journey today from Huachacalla. This blog will have to take a break for this time. Stay with me! Suerte!

Peru: Farewell

Today, I crossed over to Bolivia, thus ending the largest stage on my journey so far: in the wonderful country of Peru, I cycled for 2890 kilometers and 38.804 height meters.
At times, the people with not exactly rude, but unsociable manners, and especially the aggressive dogs gave me a rough ride. But the marvellous landscapes rewarded all efforts: the elegant waterfalls in Amazonas, the deeply coloured desert valleys and impressive mountains in the central highlands, the mighty ruins of Kuélap and Choquequirao.
I made the experience of opening the tap and waiting vainly for water, lived without electricity for days and – I learnt to do without these modern blessings. I met people who admirably stand the inconveniences of daily life, who curiously welcomed the stranger, who cited their poems for me at nighttime. I was often deeply impressed by their attitude towards things: much more than their scarce belongings they value personal contact and a happily shared time.

Quechua – „the language of the people“

Waiting one more day for the camera, which I then got back almost completely unusable, I had the chance to attend a lesson in Quechua, the language of the indigenous Andenean people, spoken in manifold dialect colorations by an estimated number of more than 7 Million people from South of Colombia down to Chile and Argentina. Peru with more than 3 Million speakers is the country with the most widespread use, in some parts it is even official language. I crossed villages, especially in the area of Huancayo to Huaraz, where the people did not understand castellano, but in general this language seems to be threatened with extinction: most of the youth does not speak it, and those few I met learnt it in their childhood from their grandparents. Still in their parent’s generation it was considered inferior to spanish and the recent inclusion into the school curriculum of rural areas was enforced against considerable opposition.
Even if Quechua counts only the three vowels a,i,u, the sound of the language is very smooth and melodious due to the lots of double vowels and -ay phonems: munay huarmi, beautiful woman or ñañay, sister. Their is no flection like in German, but the meaning of words is altered by appending of suffixes: k’an, you, becomes k’ankuna in the plural and chakrachaykuna, my little fields, is obtained by appending –cha (little), –y (my) and –kuna (for plural) to chakra (field). The same is true for verbs: llanq’ay, to work, becomes noq’anchis llanq’anchis, we work. There is a bunch of words in finely shaded meanings related to the semantic fields of home, family and environment, but for other vocabularies up to 30% are overtaken from spanish. Even some German words can be traced back to Quechuan origin, like Kondor, Puma, Pampa etc. Hopefully, people become more confident of their cultural heritage before it is lost forever.
During this time in Cusco, two new articles were published about my journey. You may find the links under the menu bar Presse.
Ashllatawankama!