Stats so far

I have been on the road for 6 ½ weeks now but haven’t gotten very far actually. I have only ridden for 16 days of that time. I have been off of the bike this time around for 19 days. This is because of days in the national park and other days just taking care of business around town, and weather days. I didn’t want to ride yesterday because it was raining and cold. 

I met hitchhikers Daniel, Misael, and Diego at the border waiting room
 (where we all ended up sleeping).
For their first time trying it, peanut butter was a hit.
I finally had to take it away from them! :)

Here are my stats:

Miles covered: 337 miles (562 kilometers)

Total days on trip: 45

Days on the bike: 16

Days off the bike:  29

Nights spent sleeping in tent:  43

Number of showers: 9

Number of beers:  19

Number of jars of peanut butter consumed: 2
Total weight I am peddling around including the bike weight but not counting my weight: 154 lbs (70kgs) *
*weight varies depending on the amount of food and water currently on the bike.
Dromedary water bag is full and it weighs 11 lbs.
2 other water bike water bottles weighing 3.3lbs.
Food panniers including the stove, full fuel bottle, water purifier, and pot/cooking utensils 35lbs
Tent and dry bag it is in 5.5 lbs
Dry bag with sleeping bag, sleep clothes, first aid kit, spare tire 6.25 lbs.
Handlebar bag with camera, GPS, maps, money pouch, sunscreen, sunglasses, iPod etc 9.9lbs
Back panniers with clothes, netbook, charging devices, (electric and solar charger), bike tools/parts, spare water purifier cartridge, shower kit 44lbs

Torres del Paine National Park

Valle Francais (French Valley)

Torres del Paine National Park has been on my list of places to visit  for a long time. I finally arrived there two Mondays ago and hiked and camped within the park for 140+kilometers (85 miles)10 nights which was a long time for me. I hadn't done a hiking trip of that duration since I was in Nepal in '92 with Kim.  Back then I wasn't carrying a tent, sleeping bag, stove, food etc which amounted this time to carrying 42-49 pounds of gear (depending on the water I was carrying at the time). It was a good workout for me of very different muscles than what it takes to cycle. 

Susan and I goofing at Dickson Glacier

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks before I was heading to the park there was a fire set by a careless tourist that caused a lot of the park to be burned and subsequently closed for travel.  I was able to hike in as much as was allowed of the main areas of interest so I feel pretty satisfied in what I saw. 

Susan, a friend of mine from my second season in Antarctica, was in touch with me and happened to be in the area of Puerto Natales when I arrived. She was planning on going into the park as well so we met up to hike together for 5 of my 11 days of hiking which was super cool.
I will let the photos speak for themselves!

Sunrise at El Torres (The Towers)

Waiting for full sunrise-it was Susan's idea to bring sleeping bags for the hike up.

On the trail with my pack!

Our campsite at Dickson

Papa Noel

It has been a while since I have posted on this blog and this story is a bit old now but I felt it was worth telling.

A Brazilian motorcyclist named Marcos pulled over to talk to me on the road early on in my trip.  Marcos was fun because he was super hyper and very animated about the idea of bicycling and he was impressed that I was riding alone (although I had to point out that I was not alone at the time because I still had Munchi with me back then- the best companion ever).  Marcos was not the first or last person to pull over to talk to me, find out where I was going, and to ask me for a photo-it is tough being a celebrity!  Before Marcos rode off he told me about a man in Tolhuin who owns a bakery and who also loves cyclists and offers any cyclists coming through town to stay for free in a kind of 'bunkroom" behind his bakery. 

When I first passed through Tolhuin I was in a car with Kim on a mini road trip sussing out my route before I even started my bike trip.  The phrase “one horse town” came to mind when I saw Tolhuin. Not that there were any horses around but just that it didn’t seem to have much going on.  The roads were dirt, the town was dusty and because it was siesta time no one was around.  

When I rode into town on my bike it was Christmas Eve.  I found "La Union Bakery" and one of the employees showed me the casa de cyclistas (house of cyclists), where to put my bike and where I could sleep and take a shower.  It was kind of weird to roll my bike into the big warehouse area and lean it against the huge bags of flour and sugar, but it seemed to be normal to the employees that passed.

Emelio, the very hospitable owner, invited me to eat dinner with the family Christmas Eve at 11:30pm (after the bakery closed).

Papa Noel!!

Dinner included being witness to a traditional Argentinian visit from Papa Noel (a.k.a. Santa Claus).  Emelio’s son, Franco, played the part very well although he told me that he really hated doing it. He first climbed up on the flat roof across the street from the bakery banquet hall where we had finished eating dinner and walked around allowing the children to spot him. After sufficient cries of “Papa Noel, Papa Noel” from Emelio’s two grandchildren he came down from that roof and over to where the children were screaming for him!  It was pretty exciting!  One by one each person was called up to receive a gift from Papa Noel including me! I was given an orange fleece vest to keep me warm and to help me to be seen while riding!! 

Emelio and me with my new fleece!

The next day I was invited to have Christmas dinner with Natalia, one of the bakery employees, and her family.  They had a yummy barbecue (remember it is summer here) and we toasted to the holiday afterwards with an Argentinian version of champagne.

People in Argentina and Chile have continued to show me the wonderful gift of hospitality and caring  in many different forms.

In Chile now

Hola everyone!
I am writing a quick one just to say that all is well. I will post on my next stop about what has been up with me. The winds are horrendous but I am plugging along. The winds are less today so I am going to try to make some distance north today from Punta Arenas.
As they say here, ciao, ciao.

Guardian Angel

While I was contemplating setting up my tent on the covered deck near the guard station at the entrance to Ushuaia (if the rain didn’t let up) a friendly black Labrador retriever with a red collar decorated with dog bones came by to say hi to me. I petted her just a little and she just kind of hung out with me. 

Munchi where I first met her

As I left the area of the police/guard/sign I tried to tell my little friend to go home. I tried in Spanish and in English but she just kept following me.  When I came to a long downhill she couldn’t keep up running with me and I watched her get smaller in my rear view mirror. I thought she would give up and turn around but she just kept on running and of course caught up to me on the subsequent uphill.  She never turned back.  

Well it seems I was officially adopted by this dog.  She had not left my side since the day she found me. My friend Tenecia’s boyfriend has a cute black lab mix/mutt named Munchy and has been trying to give him away to a good home but to no avail for a while. Tenecia jokingly asked me before I left Anchorage if I wanted to take Munchy with me on my bike trip.  I told her that I wish I could have Munchy on my trip with me and that it would be a lot of fun to have a companion along like him but logistics would be hell. Well, I guess the saying is true, “Be careful what you wish for” since I think I ended up with Munchy after all.  I have been calling her Munchita, Munchi for short.

Fast forward 5 days later and I am in Tolhuin only 100km (60 miles for the metrically handicapped) from Ushuaia. I switched my GPS and bike computer to show in kilometers because it makes me seem so much faster and like I have gone so much further! Incidentally, all of the signs here are in kilometers anyway.

Munchi stayed with me like the best friend a dog is supposed to be for these 60 miles. I only rode about 18 miles each day but that meant she was running most of those. I would be taxed going uphill and she would be taxed going downhill!  I really had to ride the brakes on the downhill parts for fear of her poor little heart giving out 
because she would try so hard to keep up!  What a trooper!

Munchi and I getting water. I was purifying mine but hadn´t realized yet that all the
water from streams etc in Chile and Argentina are okay to drink from!

Well, I really enjoyed her companionship at night in the camp. I had visions of appearing on Oprah with this miracle dog that followed me home across two continents!!  Mom would be so proud (she loves Oprah). Then came a reality check when someone mentioned the difficulty of crossing the many countries' borders with a dog and besides that Munchi was really slowing me down on my riding. Munchi is such a great companion and she makes me smile.

Munchi sleeping in the entrance vestibule of my tent

So, I landed in the town of Tolhuin and I was explaining my dilemma to the bakery owner’s son who speaks English. He thought it would be impossible to cross the borders with Munchi and he thought Tolhuin was a better place for her than Ushuaia but of course he personally could not take her in. I left the bakery and Munchi was gone!  She disappeared from my life the same way she appeared in it. As I walked around Tolhuin that afternoon I never crossed paths with her. Munchi served an amazing purpose to me.  She was with me on my first 4 nights of camping in the trees off the highway and in horrible weather, over my first mountain pass, and she saw me through to the next town outside of Ushuaia. A job well done. She will be greatly missed.

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!”

The goal, the plan, the execution!

Hola and Feliz Navidad from Argentina!!!

Some of you are new to me as I may have just met you on the road or we may have lost touch but thanks for joining me on my journey!

Here is a short synopsis of the makings of this trip/blog:

• Hollywood was a name given to me by a coworker in Antarctica (United States Antarctic Research Station of McMurdo) in 2005 and modified by me to the current spelling of Hollywould a couple of years ago.
• This bike trip was dreamed of by my friend, Kim, probably about 4 years ago. At the time Kim was intending to join me on the trip but current life situations don't allow for that now.

• A year and a half or so ago I got serious about making this trip finally happen. My friend Andy Martinez (I forgive you Andy, lol) came up with the idea of spending 13 months straight working in Antarctica (instead of my usual summer there of 4.5 months per year) because staying in Antarctica for both my usual summer and then the winter offered me a way to save money (not such great pay but just having nowhere to spend it).  This was drastic for me because I hate WINTER! I applied for a winter job anyway and landed a position and arrived at South Pole Station at the last minute possible before the station closed of all flights in and out for the 8-9 months of winter.



Leaving the South Pole on a DC-3 Basler aircraft

• After being "on the Ice" (the nickname us workers affectionately give to Antarctica) for exactly 13 months I flew home via New Zealand to Alaska and flew south again with my gear, bike and friend Kim to Ushuaia, Argentina.  Talk about a carbon footprint! Ushuaia is advertised as Fin del Mundo (the end of the world) but the advertisers have obviously never spent a winter at the South Pole! Well at least Ushuaia was to be the "end of the road!"
• Kim has since flown home to Alaska and I am now heading home too but via bicycle!  Estimated time of arrival home in Alaska about 20 months from now or August 2013 (or when my money runs out OR I stop having fun).
• Thanks to everyone who has made this trip possible, for their encouragement, support, and ideas and for taking care of my stuff while I am out living this dream!  I couldn't make it happen without all of you!
• Now it is off into the wild blue yonder...