“Beautiful, but harsh,” is how a resident of the area described Patagonia this time of year. Indeed we have found that to be true. While we were elated to have arrived in the mountains after a long stretch in the Argentine desert, we knew that the fall weather could spell the end to our cycling. Indeed a storm spell rolled in and set up shop, sleeting and snowing, leading us to our decision to end our trip. We only had a couple hundred kilometers between us and Puerto Montt where we have bought return tickets to fly out May 2, READ MORE
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Not Over Yet
Long days on the bike gives us lots of time to pontificate the meaning of life and entertain one another with dumb what if questions. A classic has been, “what if our bike breaks irreparably?” Would we buy single bikes and continue on? Return home? Continue the trip by backpack/bus? Set up shop in a cool city and take Spanish courses for a few months? Thankfully, we have not ever had to answer that question. Mark has spent countless hours maintaining our bike to keep it runnable, but since we decided to ride a clown bike for seven months through READ MORE
A Change of Pace
We knew that the pace we had settled into after more than 6 months of riding would not make sense to keep when Noël joined us; not only do we make different decisions with another person in the group, but Noël would be just getting acclimated to life on the bike. “This is more of a Mark touring pace,” Mark declared as we settled into the cabaña we rented for the day at 3 pm. We have been using the extra time off the bike to enjoy some wine, coffee, some good cooking and some bad cooking. Mark and I READ MORE
The Tandem Gets a Third Seat
More problems posting! Originally written for publishing on April 5th. After 6.5 months of traveling just the two of us, Mark and I are being joined by one of our close friends. We did not actually get a third seat, but instead, Noël packed up her bike and flew in from Colorado to join us for the last month of our trip. Yesterday we met her at the bus station in Mendoza and today we’ll start riding. We are really excited to have some new energy, since we have still been battling the post-dengue lethargy. The last few days of READ MORE
Down with Dengue
See our Strava here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic See our photos here:https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA I did not take much time to blog as we rode through the rest of Bolivia and into Northern Argentina. We were coving lots of kilometers, enjoying the fast riding in the remainder of the altiplano and here in the desert of northern Argentina. Our time in Argentina has offered many luxuries: good camping, some incredible vegetarian restaurants, wine, and espresso. The proliferation of Argentinian beef is certainly impressive (although of course not much a treat for us, though the cheese is much better here). Not only is it on almost READ MORE
Living the High Life
We climbed up to the Altiplano (the second largest high plateau on earth) a few hundred kilometers south of Cusco in Peru, and have been riding high on the plateau through Bolivia. We have not dropped below 3,600 m for over a week now and have been enjoying the impressive geographical features of this area: lake Titicaca, high alpine desert, impressive views of different nevados and the Salar de Uyuni. The mostly flat terrain has made it possible to put in some longer days. We rode 206 km one day, which is our longest day yet on this tour. We READ MORE
Waiting in Huaraz
I forgot to publish this post! It was originally written February 15th, we have long since passed Huaraz. See our Strava here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic See our Google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA Despite the title of my last blog post, we are indeed waiting in Huaraz. We arrived well before our tires are expected to show up, hoping that they would arrive early and we might be able to keep moving. No such luck, however, and we are instead expecting to wait for five days for them to arrive. We are a little anxious being off the bike, but excited to take the opportunity READ MORE
Highs and Lows
Peru has quickly become one of our favorite countries. Since we left Huaraz we have enjoyed many more incredible mountain vistas, good ají, met lots of friendly people, and been blown away by some of the best riding we have had on this trip. We have arrived in Cusco, excited to get some new bike parts and enjoy some of the luxuries the tourist city has to offer. While we have been reveling in the beauty of these incredible places, we have had to put in quite a but of effort to meet our physical needs here in the rainy READ MORE
No need to hurry up and wait
See our Strava here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic See our Google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA *I had trouble loading photos onto this post, so check out the link above for all our most recent photos!* After hours of WhatsApping bike shop owners and searching online for weeks, Mark found a bike shop that was willing to order us tires. We are expecting to show up to the shop well before the tires, so we’re taking it easy on our way to Huaraz, Peru. Our first few days in Peru were challenging: getting eaten by flies, I caught another stomach bug, and we found READ MORE
Funny stories
We are unfortunately sick again. We are very unclear what the culprit is, but some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning took me out for the count last night. I slept only two hours in between the stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Mark too has been hit with some gastrointestinal distress this morning, and with nothing but a big day of climbing ahead of us on our route, it was an easy decision to take the day off. We stayed at a cyclist specific accommodation last night: a spare room in a housing complex with a clean bathroom, shower, READ MORE