leap.

The steak in Argentina is really good. I´m eating a lot. Bread, pastries, salads, veggies, and I´m now way past the point of caring whether or not I accidentally drop my food on the ground, which has always been an issue for me. Brush it off and I´m good to go. I´ve camped every night for the last 3 weeks now and I think that if I ever buy a property somewhere I may just skip the building the house thing and just set up a tent. It´s pretty nice. Pretty simple. I got a hammock in Chile for next to nothing and always hang it up after I find a place to camp and quite a few hours of afternoon napping has happened in that thing. I´ve added so many cheap, odd, and of course, bulky things to my luggage that it´s actually starting to get humorous. A hammock, a guitar, a backpack for trecking. I´ve met quite a few other cyclists, most are total minimalists, and they can only smile when they see me with my bike all loaded. I would be a feature on¨Hoarders: the cyclist edition.¨ In a few months time my goal is to ditch half of what I´m carrying.

About 300km ago I met a great guy named Rob, also cycling solo. He´s about my age, from Scotland. I haven´t ridden with anyone yet on the trip, but we´re now hooked up in El Bolson, Argentina, and heading South together toward the Southern tip of Chile down the Carretera Austral. Apparently it´s an untouched cyclists mecca, 1200km of mostly untouched wilderness split by a gravel road through the heart of Patagonia. We´re both really excited about it. A crazy amount of wild camping ahead, trecking, adventuring. The goal is to live on almost nothing. I´ve stocked up on line and hooks and we´re planning on eating like kings from the lakes and rivers. We´ll see how that goes. We´ll be making our own fishing poles from bamboo. We´ll see how that goes.

It´s been an amazing ride. I´ve almost swerved off the road many times just looking at my surroundings. Like nothing I´ve ever seen. I take pics but they look horrible compared to the real thing. I camped on a lake the other night in the middle of nowhere and had the whole thing to myself. Really unbelieveable. Just laying on the beach having some wine, watching the fish jump and the sun go down. This town I´m in now is really great. Total hippie vibe. Artists, musicians, bakeries, and I think they might even have drugs here. There´s a big beer festival happening right now and tons of bands play every night. I´ve met some really cool folks, and once again it´ll be kind of sad to leave. The past 3 nights have been spent BBQing on an open campfire with the coolest group of Argentinian 20-25 year olds who just bust out song after song after song on their guitars and harmonicas until the fire goes out. Amazing. Lots of Beatles and Dylan and sweet Argentinine music. They gave me a harmonica. So good.

We´re out of here day after tomorrow, Lunes- and I´ll try to update this thing again once I´m further South. We´re planning on checking out Conservacion Patagonica, the 2 million acre piece of land that Doug Tomkins owns. If you haven´t seen the film ¨180 degrees South,¨ check it out, it was a cool piece of inspiration before I left on this trip and it´s mostly filmed in the area I´m heading toward.

Hasta luego amigos. Hope things are well, wherever you are.

el bolson.

trecking in the andes in chile. best swim ever. that´s snow on the right.

top of volcan villarica near pucon, chile.

this is my system: fire on the right to shove hot coals to the left to cook my 500g steak. and there´s corn and potatoes in the coals.