Dec. 24, 2017
First, Merry Christmas Eve from Chile!
This is going to be long, so I hope some read this.
Today was hard. Not because I’m missing my family, which I am (by obligation… right?), but for another reason as well.
The picture you see of the bike on its side was as hard as I thought today would get. On a normal day it probably would be. I’ll explain, but first how I arrived at that particular predicament…
I’d been riding mainly ripio (gravel) for hours. The weather has been cool and misty/raining all day. Humming along between a walking pace and ~100kph. My own mini Dakar. It was awesome! The crossing back into Chile was flawless, and all the guards thought I was a rockstar (obviously correct).
So I’m riding along this river that is a color blue I can’t even describe. It’s amazing. The scenery is changing to this kind of jungle. Epic. Of course I want a good place for a picture, but not just anywhere. I have to figure out how to get to the beach, obviously. Ah! A very rough “road”.
I take the road down and it turns to sand. I go as far as I dare and take the other images I’m posting here. Side note, I found the timer on my iPhone.
Spend a bit of time, get turned around carefully as it’s soft sand. Head back out the road, slow for some stupid reason going back to the main, bike sinks, stalls, and there you have it. A very slow walk-off home run.
About 20 minutes of lifting, digging to firmer ground, bouncing, blah later I’m back onto the main road. Zero cars pass until less than a minute after I’ve sorted it out and am standing in the middle of the road sweating. Oh, I’ve also mostly stripped my kit off because I’m overheating at this point. Who the hell thought riding solo was a good idea? What an idiot. Hah.
I honestly thought that was as hard as my day would get. Again, I was wrong.
You may have heard of a small place in Chile called Villa Santa Lucia if you’ve been watching the world news (https://www.theguardian.com/…/chile-deadly-mudslide-destroy…). About a week ago a massive mudslide wiped the whole village out. Gone. 5 dead and 15 missing that I know of. I’d heard about it from the locals who assured me the bypass was in and I could pass. Nothing prepared me for actually seeing the destruction first hand.
At the time I was so focused on getting through the military checkpoints that were every 500 meters that I wasn’t really processing things. The sheer amount of mud and nothing was so vast. I saw a truck ripped in half. Emergency, police, military… everywhere.
As I finally found the road and kept riding I replayed everything in my mind and I’ll be honest, I cried riding down the road in my helmet. I’ve seen plenty of bad things, but seeing this hit me pretty hard. Still rough now.
I felt like I needed to share this because it really reminded me how lucky I (and you) really are. No matter how hard it gets we have it easy in comparison. So this Christmas make sure reach out to your loved ones and remember what really is important. You never know when it all ends.
I found this if you’re so inclined to donate – [link removed]
From Chile… Ryan
Ryan Cavalier 