At 4:30 the two
Brazilian girls left the common area and I was alone after a long time. I
thought I could stay up the rest of the night but in a few minutes began to
sleep on the cushions. After 2 hours I made it to my bed and then awoke at 8:20
as Carlos was departing for the end of the world, Puerto Williams, and we
needed to eat one last breakfast together and I needed to take the bottles from
the common area and wash all the glasses from the night before. In the hallway
were his bags. A great warrior and cyclist, Carlos was listo. We exchanged the
common greeting: “Buenos dias campion.” “Buenos dias, maestro.” We had been
riding together since just south of Coyhaique but now he was headed south and I
was on my way back north to finish the route to the north of Brasil I had
started back many months ago.
We ate pan and dulce de
leche and Carlos drank coffee and I drank yerba mate and in between bites we
got the gear outside, then the bike, then finished eating. A final embrace, and
Carlos rode off to a boat he had found the day before.
Yesterday I began
to ride to the national park when I ran into the French couple on their
bicycles, now empty of their gear. They were trying to sell their trailers and
their bags and their bikes, so when they were asked about their gear they made
a hard sell and if you really wanted to know you were asked to buy.
The French snapped
a photo of me in front of a sign in Ushuaia with the “Fin del Mundo” slogan,
but just North of Puerto Williams it wasn’t quite accurate. I remembered there
was a sign because I had seen the photos but I didn't care when I had arrived.
No, Carlos was off to the fin del
mundo and would stay there for perhaps a week until the next boat.
I rode back to the
hostel with the French and there was Juan and there was Carlos and with the
five of us maybe we were the last to get to Ushuaia on bicycles before the snow
got thick on the roads for the winter.
I spent the night
speaking with Carlos, a fella from Spain, Thais, and Talita and it was
tough to change back to the Portuguese. Carlos joined us and we drank wine and
beer and fernet and I hadn’t realized Carlos could speak such Portuguese, he
faulted nothing and was fluent and I realized I needed to get things going with
the Portuguese with a flight to Rio in a few
days. Then Todor came to join us and I tried my best to speak the Bulgarian but
a whole lot of Castellano came out instead but Todor was patient and it was
soothing and it made me happy and I felt at home with the Brazilians to the
left of me and the Bulgarian to the right of me, a great manner to stead the
course.
In the morning Todor and I spoke about returning to Bulgaria and we spoke of banitza and boza and kiselo mlyako and I knew I had to get back
soon, but not before I had to get back to the land I had left too soon to get
down South here just North of the end of the world as they call it here in
Ushuaia but not down there South in Puerto Williams.
I worked hard in the
mountains from the Panadaria Union in Toulhin to Ushuaia, 104km in 6 hours
flat. Paso Garibaldi wasn’t that bad and it was pretty with snow and the brakes
were shot so it was good the roads didn’t have the ice on the turns. The roads
and the mountains and the snow made me think of Colorado and I rode fast because I
remembered it always rained around 2 in the mountains and rain would be bad in
the cold and on the descent, so I rode real fast and got to Ushuaia while there
was still sunlight. When I passed the first signs into Ushuaia a man stopped in
his car and motioned for me to pull over. He had ridden Ushuaia to Alaska in 2000 and told
me I was crazy, he was crazy, my bicycle was crazy, and would I like a coffee or
a yerba mate or anything else I needed. But I had to get to the camping because
it was all I knew about the city. I got to the center of town and asked a real
nice fellow about the Andino camping that had the lodge with the view of the
city in the mountains and he said the route was a bit complicated to follow so
why didn’t I follow him in his car and we could make our way to the camping.
There was a climb, he said, but no problem, I said. But like most climbs in any
city at the end of a long ride they are always the steepest and come when the
legs run out of gas but I couldn’t let down Pedro, he was watching me and I
needed to ride strong because he could only pull over and wait so many times as
I rode up the steep climbs in downtown Ushuaia. We arrived at the camping and
Pedro told me it was tough to find work after Kirchner stopped the imports. He
couldn’t do his work without the trade and so he worked as a cashier. He was a
smart man and he gave me great help when I was tired and lost and he gave me his
contact information and told me if I needed any help I could call.
The camping was closed
for the season and there was a young Brazilian keeping watch over the place and
he had cycled from Brasil as well. He was cooking bread in a pot on the stove
and he had learned the recipe from an Irishman and it had a bit of salt in it
but it was good and hot and it was his first bread and the first bread is
always tough and always an experiment. But the camping was closed and I had to
descend back to the city center with the shot brakes and I put the boots down
hard to brake the bike but the bike was too heavy so I ran with the bike down
the hills as I couldn’t risk losing control of the bike and skidding into
somebody and wiping them out so far south. I found a place to sleep and there
was Carlos with his bike in front of the same place and he had just arrived and
so we both had made it.
