Patagonian Trek

 

Here is the latest in our series of posts for our #tdacommunitynews initiative. Watch the blog or follow along on our social media accounts for more content everyday. In this post, former Tour d’Afrique participant Tom Perlmutter recalls his first bicycle tour – in Patagonia – prior to joining us.

Two years ago I went on my first bicycle tour: two and a half weeks off the beaten track in Patagonia. I was 69 and my cycling experience had been limited to the occasional tootle around the neighbourhood on a battered 20-year old Norco. This is what the first day looked like.

There were ten of us, most over sixty, on a journey through rough, twisting mountainous backroads of Patagonia where sheep outnumber people ten to one and ordinary tourists hardly venture. The first half-hour had gone much better than I expected. I had been worried for months about this trip, and about that day in particular because we were on the clock with three ferries to catch in quick succession and no support vehicle. To miss any one of the ferries would put the whole trip in jeopardy. Now, with the adventure under way I was feeling relieved. We were doing good time. I was keeping pace with the group, the hills had been manageable, the gravel road not overly jarring.

Then we stopped at the outskirts of a small village. Bernard’s derailleur had been sticking, throwing his chain off. As Juan Patricio, one of our guides, worked to adjust it, he casually motioned us to keep going. Roger, Scotty, Frank and Peter said they’d wait. Jackie, who had arrived a couple of days before us, said she had biked this route the previous day. She set off followed closely by Brian, Colin and Amir. I, eager to keep my momentum, joined this procession of biking ducklings. We snaked our way through the village onto the crest of a hill. We paused there to wait for the rest of our party to catch up. No one came.

Colin, the youngest of us, a mere stripling of 53, zipped back down and returned a few minutes later saying he didn’t see anyone. Brian, or maybe it was Jackie, said, “I think this is the right road. Let’s just keep going.” Amir said, “What if we’re lost?”. We kept cycling. Then Jackie, or maybe it was Brian, had second thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t the right road. Amir said, “I think we’re lost.” Colin was upbeat. “We have 45 minutes to get to the ferry. It can’t be that far.” We flagged down a car. The young couple fell over themselves to help us. No, they didn’t know the port we wanted to get to. No, they didn’t know which road to take. No, they didn’t know where we were. But they quickly pulled up maps on their cell phones and within minutes were giving us contradictory directions. As they drove off, greatly pleased with their good deed, leaving us choking in their dusty wake, we decided that we’d better retrace our steps.

After further encounters with helpful locals, more misdirections, scouring our own GPSes, we figured we were finally on the right path. Amir said, “We’re not going to make it.” Colin checked his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes. It can’t be that far.” Jackie said, “I’m not going to say anything anymore.” Brian didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the breath to say anything. I’d barely managed to crest a wickedly steep hill. At the top an elderly man was setting up a stall by the roadside.

He was carefully laying out crudely carved wooden objects for sale: misshapen sheep, small platters etched in a curious nought and cross pattern, mugs with a Tower of Pisa tilt. As we approached, he plucked a large cross from the table and held it up to us as if warding off vampires. In an unconscious reflex we collectively raised our hands and waved him off. With a tentative gesture, as if we hadn’t understood him, he pushed the cross towards us; we waved more vigorously. He shrugged his shoulders and put the cross down. We asked about our destination. He looked at us puzzled. We thought, ah yet someone else who doesn’t know but will nevertheless tell us where to go. We were wrong. He said, pointing back the way we had come, “But you missed the turn. It is way back there.”

Colin said, “We’ve got to keep going.” Amir said, “I knew we wouldn’t make it.” Jackie said, “I should have kept my mouth shut back at the turning.” Brian mumbled something we couldn’t hear. I think he was agreeing with Jackie. I ventured that we may have been too hasty in refusing the cross; we needed divine intervention.

It came in the form of a white van hurtling towards us; the driver’s hand stuck on the horn. The van screeched to a halt next to us. Out jumped Alejandro, our expedition chief. “Quick, quick,” he shouted. He hustled us, bikes and all, into the back of the van. The door barely slid shut and the van, screeching and burning rubber, was off.

As we settled into our seats gaping in wonder at each other, Alejandro, sweat pouring down his face, was shouting into his cell phone. After five minutes of intense telephonic communication, he pumped his fist, exclaimed a triumphant hurrah and turned towards us. The ferry had left with the others but a tourist boat, about to depart on a different trajectory, had agreed to wait for us and take us to our next ferry landing. As I sank exhausted onto a padded bench for the short crossing of glacier-fed Lake Frías, I thought, well, at least the worst is over. Would that it had been so. After we docked and saddled up, Juan Patricio pointed to a scree and mud covered track that seemed to ascend towards the sky at an impossibly vertical angle. “Why,” I asked tremulously, “are you pointing there?” But I knew the answer. What I had thought of as tough climbs that morning were baby slopes compared to what faced us now. As I found myself slipping and sliding, often backwards, on that perilous mountain track, which I was sure would soon be adorned by a new cross marking where I had expired, I wondered how the hell had I, nudging seventy, found myself in this scrape.