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It's all part of it

By Mike Beris - 2009-02-17

How is progress measured? For some, one’s number of sales determines their "success." For others, papers published, projects completed, products manufactured, transmissions lubed, miles of concrete layed, and so on. So what about the four of us? What constitutes our getting somewhere?

Dan loves cities and can’t wait to get through the wilderness to the next hot spot. Chris prefers the peace and simplicity of the wild and always anticipates pulling out of towns. Daniel craves interacting with new peopleand puts anyand everythingon holdto meet someone. And I love to see a huge gallery of photos uploaded to ourwebsite and I get anxious when we miss our deadlines.

We all have slightly different expectations for the trip, and our chosen mission, we’re reminded again and again, is unique among world travelers. Many people we meet spend a few weeks with one group of people before hitting the next National Park with some hikers they just met at the last one. Others whip around the continent on motorcycle, racing to the next wine tasting. Most of them are free-spirited and don’t give us much credit for the "responsibilities” we’ve given ourselves for our international experiennce. So it makes sense that reminders have to come from all around that:

"Its all part of the adventure."

In the past two weeks, we have been reminded of this fact by friends and family, and we’ve had to remind each other as well. First, a lost passport necessitated an expensive and time-consuming bus trip for Chris. Then there was the last-minute realization that our awesome tents would probably contribute to our bikes breaking during the upcoming leg of our trip Because of the weight they add to the bikes.

A few days ago, we completed one leg of our trip and anticipated beginning the next as we left El Chalten. Chris had successfully acquired his emergency passport and had completed his 80 hours of busride. Daniel was able to trade one of our huge tents in for two smaller ones. We each had a refreshing few days by ourselves, Chris on bus, the rest of us on bike to El Chalten. We spent a day hiking around the majestic valley here and were looking forward to breaking the curse of not being able to spend less than a week in a town. Our exit seemed clean: a short (36km) ride to Lago Desierto, which we would cross via ferry. Things didn’t carry on so smoothly.

Three-quarters of a kilometer into the ride, Dan broke a spoke on his rear wheel, a problem we thought we had solved with a brand-new wheel a few towns back. Daniel stayed back to help with the repair, while I rode ahead to catch up with Chris and the two riders we had spent the last few days with, Hans Pieter and Marcus, because I carried the whole group’s single ferry ticket.

The latter four of us had a mostly pleasant ride at an easy pace. The road was unpaved and difficult at times, with headwinds kicking up dust that coated our gear. But we rested frequently and arrived at the dock with thirty minutes to spare. Dan and Daniel, on the other hand, dealt with three more broken spokes and a flat tire, each problem contributing to the next as they had to ride faster and faster to beat the clock. Unlike on the smooth highways that cut through the pampas, speed is an enemy on ripio, or unpaved, rocky roads.

The final blow came when Chris and I had just finished loading all our gear onto the ferry alongside our German-speaking friends. With one eye on the clock, the other noticed a lone rider in the distance, racing down the washboard road at breakneck speed. We instantly knew something was wrong: there was no sign of Dan, and Daniel’s bike lacked any baggage. He sprinted down the dock, flushed and streaked with salt. Dan’s speeding bike had hit a crippling pothole that fractured his rear rack, the aluminum platform that attaches the bags to the bike and that we had just replaced around Christmastime. This was not a repair that we could handle on the road. We would have to turn around and ride the 36km of ripio back to town and handle things there. Daniel hurriedly explained to the ferry guy our group ticket situation, trying to make things right for our travelling companions who had to continue on without us.

The next few hours held more difficult discussion about how to deal with our most current obstacle to our "progress," and we ended up back in El Chalten for a few more days.

I guess we are learning that we are still learning. The nature of our trip is harder than most of the people we meet, even people with more gear or longer routes. We¨re dedicated to our team and to our mission, and that makes a problem with one bike bring eight wheels to a stop. On the plus side, we got to spend a few more days with some of the people we met, I got to talk to a guy shooting video for National Geographic, Chris and I got to hike in the mountains some more, and we[re getting our update out a few days earlier than expected. I guess its just all part of it.