A Tough Start

I started my journey on Dec 18^th the morning after my friend Kim left me in Ushuaia.  Kim flew down from Alaska and stayed eight days with me.  We did some touristy stuff that I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise.  We rented a car and got a preview of some of the riding I would do, we saw penguins (different kinds than we saw in Antarctica), and Kim helped me immensely with last minute things I had to do.

Kim and I on the boat to go see penguinos

Magellanic penguins

Fully loaded for the 1st time

I was supposed to set off for my adventure before Kim left in her taxi to the airport. She was to photograph me riding off into the sunrise (yada yada) but it just didn’t work out that way.  Instead she left whilst I was loading up my bike  in the midst of my anxiety from realizing that I was packed up to the brim!

Now, at the moment of truth I had to reach way down and muster up some inspiration and I hadn’t even started yet!  I remembered my friend Eric’s words of encouragement when I told him my concern about the weight of my stuff whilst I was still back in Anchorage.  He said that I would just have to pedal harder and take it slower but eventually the weight would feel like less and eventually I would be able to ride longer and faster.

I knew this would be the hardest part of my trip for several reasons;

1)     Confucious say: that the hardest part of a 10,000 mile journey is the first step (or something like that)-smart man, and it’s true because someone said that he said so J.

2)     This part is the learning part. Learning what I need and don’t need, learning/remembering where I packed the friggin such and such, learning how much food I need to last me until the next town etc.

3)     This is the physical training part.  I didn’t do any training on the stationary bike they had at the South Pole Station because I don’t “work out,” can’t do it, and won’t do it. I knew the beginning of the trip is when I would be getting my training in and I have the time to go slowly.

4)     The coldest parts of my journey are at the beginning in Patagonia and at the end in Alaska and I HATE THE COLD!!!

5)     The most remote and uninhabited parts of my trip are at the beginning (and end) but here I don’t speak the language very well and don’t know how many days it will take between towns.

6)     This part is where I will have to camp a lot (and have no choice) as I am not able to make it to the next town in most cases so the camping is in the cold-did I mention that I HATE THE COLD?!!!

Okay so now I first had to ride west and south to the REAL end of the road down a dirt road into Tierra del Fuego National Park just to start. What is 30 miles on top of 10-20,000?

The end/beginning of the road

The two days that I was camping in the national park I couldn’t help thinking about what I was going to do with all of this weight.  Trudging on the dirt road through the park was a little disheartening my first day.  The road was rough and the inclines were much steeper than the normal grade of paved roads AND my bike with stuff weighs a ton. 

Enough worrying because I am just going to get stronger as long as the bike holds up!

I rode out on the third day with a brief stop in Ushuaia for internet use.  When I was leaving Ushuaia it looked like heavy rain was eminent so I put on some warmer clothes and kept an eye on the sky. I was determined to start the trip but I didn’t want to be a statistic.  I could see it now, “Whatever happened to that girl Holly who was going to ride her bike to 
Alaska?” “Oh, she got as far as the first day and was found frozen to death in her tent about 100 yards north of Ushuaia!”