Well I've been through the desert...

The desert was the release from civilization. After we passed through the town of La Serena, the fences disappeared. Those barbed wire fences had been alongside the highway ever since we rolled out of Ushuaia, 4000 km back. Between towns, or small desert outposts, hundreds of empty barren kilometers could roll past. Decaying truck stops, dilapidated shacks, dust blown and fading, became oases, giving us water and food in the vast expanse of wasteland.

“There’s something wrong with my rack,” I said.

A few hundred meters back, I had felt the weight on the bike shift slightly. By the time I caught up with Chris and the Swiss cyclist who had been riding with us for a few days, I knew that this problem was probably no small deal. We unloaded the bike and practically gasped at what we saw: my poor rear rack had broken not in one spot, but three!