San Martin de los Andes to Buta Ranquil: Calaminas

“Are you falling asleep?” I asked, even though I could hear her shifting in her sleeping bag. 

“No, not really.”

“Do you want to do rose bud thorn for all of Patagonia?”

Something we do each night before going to sleep.  Something I learned while working as a naturalist with kids at the green river preserve in North Carolina. Your highlight and lowlight for the day, plus what you are looking forward to tomorrow. 

We were camped in yet another cow paddock... but different to all the other cow paddocks we’d slept in before. Because like Be said, we had to cross TWO fences to get here and hide behind THESE pokey bushes before setting up our tent. Because each camp has been different and none of the others had THIS view: of the mountains we’d spent the last five days cycling along the eastern edge of. 

“Yes!” She said. “Let’s do rose bud thorn for all of Patagonia!”

And so we started.  Of course there wasn’t just one rose. Two and a half weeks in Ushuaia and over seven weeks cycling - pampas, mountains, turquoise rivers and lakes, cabanas, bird calls, alfajores, wild camps.  

And of course there wasn’t just one thorn — though surprisingly neither of us mentioned the headwinds, freezing rain, yellow jackets or corrugated roads (calaminas).  

—

When I was riding yesterday, along that calamina-filled, sandy, rock scattered road, I kept thinking about that Barbara Kingsolver quote.  The one she said she had posted above her writing desk.  The words she said to her kids over and over as they were growing up. The, “You Can Do Hard Things.”

And how, while bumbling over all those rocks and slipping in the loose gravel, I thought, “I can do hard things. This is hard!  I can do hard things.”  And how that turned into its own mantra in order for me to keep going. To keep going in what is MY hardest riding condition— “It won’t always be this hard. It won’t always be this hard.”

Over and over, said out loud. Something to keep the frustration and rage at bay.  

Because something happens. The rocks, the slipping tires, the calaminas, the trying to keep some sense of momentum — it flips a switch.  It pokes and it pokes at something that makes me feel out of control.  And once the flip switches, it’s this seething rage. Uttering profanities.  Spewing hate.  Face tight.  And I can’t explain it and it doesn’t make sense.  But I hate it and I hate those calaminas.  

Several times now they have brought me to some sort of breaking point — shoving the bike to the ground, kicking and throwing things, screaming, crying. 

Breaking. 

Break. 

Broken. 

Boiled open. 

Sobbing. 

Sitting on that little rock edge above the Aluminé River, sheep herd around me, just sobbing.  “I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.”  Because it was that hard. 

And then here it was again.  That horrendous road jostling me and my bike all over the place.  But, “It won’t always be this hard.  It won’t always be this hard.”  

Over and over and over. 

Until, the road smoothed for a stretch and the headwind blasting sand in my face eased and, “It’s already not so hard!  It’s already not so hard!”  Over and over until,

“It won’t always be this hard.  It won’t always be this hard.”  

Oh, “It’s already not so hard!”  

Right there, moving forward. And I don’t know what I want to say about that — About softening towards myself and the road. About giving myself space.  Five days of river valley and canyon walls and one river swim and an elderly couple to camp by and Araucaria Trees with branches like elephant trunks, reaching and greeting. —

I don’t know how to make any of these biking days accessible or sensible, even to myself.  

Hello Kelsey. Hello Patagonia.  Seven weeks of cycling upon her back and last night was our last* night sleeping in her wilds.  Rose, bud, thorn and shared appreciations of each other and ourselves and

Hello Be. 

Hello Kelsey. 

Hello Patagonia. 

Harsh, abrasive, pokey.  

I know those parts of myself.  

And tender, soft. Her underbelly. 

Hello Patagonia.  Reflecting, shining, showing. 

Soft hues of purples, yellows, greens and browns. 

All I can say is thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

Because you weren’t easy to get to know. You weren’t.  But I guess I feel like I have gotten to know you.  And I like you. I really do. 

Love, Kelsey 

 

*last night in Patagonia (except, well, when you are in Patagonia, nothing goes as expected and less goes as planned so when  you reach the next town where you planned to take a bus northward and the bus refuses to take your bikes on board and you are unable to hitch a ride, you get to have one more spectacular camping night as you bike towards the next town (which, after some fierce negotiating, will take your bikes onboard as you bus your way to Mendoza for a rest week)).