Aftermath: Ripples in Time – The 2024 South American Cycling Expedition

Tom Perlmutter recently completed the 2025 Silk Route Cycling Expedition. He looks back at his previous trans-continental experience on the 2024 South American Epic Cycling Expedition.

Rainy day crossing the Cauca River, Colombia

It was downhill to Ushuaia at the southern tip of South America, gateway to Antarctica and the final destination of our near six-month cycling odyssey down the length of the continent up and down its Andean ribcage. It had rained the night before, our last one camping, but by then we were used to the elements from the raging heat of the Colombian lowlands to the chilly blasts of the Bolivian Altiplano, the world’s most extensive high plateau (averaging about 4,000 meters) outside of Tibet. We were weatherbeaten, blistered and aching in parts of the body we hardly knew existed and utterly exhilarated.

A year has passed since that day that capped our incredible adventure. Great undertakings do not end at their outward conclusion; they send out ripples that undulate through our lives, sometimes overtly, more often unconsciously. An inner bell tolls that reminds us that ‘this we have done.’ There is an affirmation that strengthens us in whatever else we do.

I took the opportunity of this first anniversary to speak to a number of my fellow riders to share stories and see what that trek has meant for them.

Mike Crum

Mike C. is a bluff teddy bear of a man in his early sixties, an organic kiwi fruit farmer from New Zealand, always ready with a smile and an encouraging word. He spoke about doing the trip to push boundaries, physical and mental. He had, perhaps, more of a challenge than most of us. It was only four weeks before we set off from Cartagena that he got the medical okay to go ahead with the trip. He was in recovery from a mini-stroke.

As he flew by me on that final day I smiled thinking of what I had learned from him. He had embarked on his cycling adventures in a change period of his life. He was moving into retirement with a burning desire to expand his horizons. South America gave him that. “I was getting a view about life; it opened up possibilities.” I knew he was right.

Mark K. at 27 was the youngest of our riders. An Egyptian he divides his time between the family home in Cairo and his work and studies in San Francisco (he is a graduate student in engineering at Stanford). Mark is a questioner probing at himself and his environment. His face is often stamped with a quizzical expression which just as often gives way to a broad grin as one struck by a sudden moment of enlightenment. His most distinctive feature is his shock of curly black hair, as if he’s just poked his finger into a light socket.

>>Related Post: South American Epic Cycling Expedition Documentary Film Screening In Toronto

Tom and Mark, Paracas, Pacific coast, Peru

Mark was new to long-distance cycling. The longest he’d ridden before was 90 kms and never on an overnight trip. He thinks about what South America meant; it fills him with gratitude. “It made me more resilient,” he says. “I developed an endurance muscle” for all walks of his life. Because of South America, he says, “I can have big goals and see how to do it.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Marie-Josée V. (M-J as we all called her). In her early sixties she is trim, hardy and perennially buoyant. She is an athlete with significant accomplishments under her belt: five major summits of 5,500+ meters including Kilimanjaro (highest mountain in Africa at 5,895 m) and Aconcagua (highest mountain in the Americas at 6,967 m); skiing to the North Pole with an all women team; and quite a few cycling expeditions. Even so she was apprehensive because she had never done such a long trek. She thought it might be hard to go day after day, month after month. She surprised herself. “It was all so beautiful. I was in better shape than I thought. No matter how hard a day was, how tired I was coming into camp, the next morning I was ready to go. I never wanted to take a day off.”

M-J

Diversity was a word that kept cropping up. The sheer variety of landscapes, cultures and people astonished and delighted us all.

Ellen L. is a sturdy, fearless GP whose no-nonsense attitude is belied by her great warmth and a remarkable openness to the world about her. Dutch born and bred she has worked most of her life in Cornwall, England. Her daily regime involves cycling 50 kms to work and back on the steep Cornish hills regardless of weather conditions. She has backpacked across the Caucuses on her own and cycled in various parts of the world, again often on her own.

Ellen

The challenges of long hard days and some extreme conditions were dwarfed by the great exuberance of South American life. The diversity, to her was astounding: the lush tropical conditions of Colombia; the stark beauty of the Tatocoa desert; the immensity of the Bolivian Salt Flats, the tempting vineyards of Argentina, the exquisite beauty of Patagonia and on it went. At every turn there was a gasp-inducing moment of amazement.

Tom in Tatacoa, Colombia

For Paul L., an experienced cyclist from British Columbia, on his first extended tour and his first group tour, the wide range of cultures and people spoke to him as someone whose work as an arbitrator, often with First Nations, developed in him a cultural sensitivity.

Paul

On our rest day in Bogota, cycling in with hundreds of locals on car-free Ciclovía day, we mingled in the main square with a joyous crowd clad in yellow t-shirts in honour of the Colombian national soccer team who were about to face off Argentina in the final game of the Copa América. It was only the third time in the 48 years of the Copa that Colombia had made it to the finals. Even a heart-rending 1-0 loss in overtime could not dampen the enthusiasm and generosity of the people who embraced our participation in their festivity.

Ciclovia in Bogota

In the high Andes of Bolivia we learned to respect the aversion of locals, the bowler hatted women and juyuna (poncho) sporting men, to cameras. A short, stout shepherd had come to talk to us, curious about these lycra-wrapped tourists on bikes. The exchange was warm and reciprocal until one of our group asked if she could take a photo of him. The very mention of a photograph sent him flying off like greased lightning. It was clear that they had had too many encounters in the past where the question was only a prelude to the act. We kept our phones tucked away.

Ayacucho village, High Andes

From a guide on Lake Titicaca riding on dragon-shaped boats to the floating islands we learned about the complex history of the Aymara and Quechua peoples whose ancestors, the Incas ruled this land from Ecuador in the north as far south as Chile and Argentina.

Lake Titicaca

So it went. Shifting landscapes, shifting cultures, shifting cuisines. Arepas (corn cakes), aborrajados (fried sweet plantain with cheese), beef and pork empanadas, the hundreds of varieties of quinoa, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, the abundance of fish and sea food along our campsites on the Pacific coast, the richness of the fruit, far greater than anything we see in North America or Europe with guanaban, dragon fruit, pepino, papaya, passionfruit, cherimoya, granadilla and tamarillo to name only a few.

Roadside produce stall, La Pintada, Colombia

For us there was always someone with whom to share a new delight. We were a group but we didn’t travel as a pack. Everyone went their own pace. Ride alone if you wished or team up with riders compatible with your pacing and how much you wished to stop on route. For some a group ride was a new experience.

Kenny S. from Inverness, Scotland doesn’t see himself as a particularly outgoing person. But he appreciated how on this trip “meeting new people changes aspects of your life.” As he went on he made an effort to cycle at least for a day or half-day with everybody in the group.

Kenny (seated)

M-J remembers a tough day. It was raining and very cold with temperatures hovering just above freezing. “It was one of the very few days I thought of abandoning the ride. Then Ellen stopped and gave me a down vest. Thanks to her I was able to keep going.”

Paul, on his first group ride, says he “had to work through issues because I found it hard at first to be in a group.” As time went on that changed. Riding with others added a whole, unexpected dimension to the experience, opening up new vistas. In that time he made new good friends among the unlikely few who at the drop of a hat will head off into a great unknown for months at a time.

Kenny is a long-time member of a cycling club back home. He says that even his cycling friends, ardent about getting out on the road, “can’t get their heads around what I’m doing. They think it great if they can get a week off to go cycling.”

Mark recalls his family thinking him crazy. “But they knew I would do crazy things.”

Climbing to Quito, Ecuador

I have very active cyclist friends who tell me that there is nothing in what I have described that would induce them to sit on a bike for hours at a time, day after day and face some of the challenging conditions that inevitably surface.

There was another advantage for us to travel with TDA. Paul who had long experience of solo cycling expeditions of several weeks duration knows what it is like to organize the complex logistics of such trips. He says, “I was amazed at the wonderful job TDA did in logistical support.”

Tried and true athlete M-J notes, “I wouldn’t go on a trip like this on my own.” Crossing a continent through large swathes of uncharted and remote territory is very demanding. She appreciated the sense of safety provided by the TDA support. So much so that she has signed for multiple more TDA journeys.

Ellen agrees. “Most of the cycling I’ve done has been on my own. I couldn’t have done this one in that way.”

At the end of the day, regardless of the support from TDA or fellow riders, we face the road on our own. Each morning we saddle up not knowing what the day will bring. The kilometres stretch ahead of us; our feet press down on the pedals and off we go.

Paracas National Reserve, Peru

A journey across space, time into unknown lands and the unknown of ourselves. As we posed for photos in Ushuaia, mission accomplished, I think we all realized that something wondrous had happened. On mounting our bikes in Cartagena to cross South America we had tumbled into Alice’s rabbit hole through to a wonderland of mystery, magic and enchantment. We had emerged at the other end different, larger, trailing clouds of glory that would forever be a part of us.

RELATED
TOUR

South American Epic

This challenging expedition offers you the best opportunity to explore the vastness and diversity of South America by bike. In keeping with the TDA...