Well this has been a long time coming. Back in Bogota on around the 2nd of February 2017 I dyed my hair peroxide blonde in a kind of third-life crisis/stunted act of rebellion and started taking a selfie every day to chart both my bicycle trip through South America and the growth of the blinding white mop.
What started out as a fun side project became a minor obsession. I had a Google Drive folder for the selfies from each country and creating a new folder as I crossed each border felt like a small victory, a measure of how far I’d come.
It felt a bit pathetic when there was but a lonely ‘COLOMBIA’ folder but it slowly grew more impressive.
Taking the selfie became an essential part of my routine and I was always on the lookout for weird, unusual or interesting backgrounds. Initially the photos more reflected my mood at the time but by the end I was pulling the most ridiculous faces I could think of.
Or perhaps I was just losing my mind.
Either way it kept me entertained and was always a source of amusement when I showed the people I met the ridiculous changes I’d gone through over the course of the trip.
Here are the stories behind a few of the pictures:
Back in Colombia before I realised landscape photos would look much better than portrait. The most hated dog in Cauca is somewhere just out of shot.Standing at the centre of the earth just north of Quito in Ecuador. The day I won like $150 playing poker in San Jacinto. Very happy…and drunk.7am at Balsas, Peru at the bottom of a sweltering desert valley. After this I climbed for 8 hours straight from 800m up to 3000m before falling horribly ill in Celendin. There’s a parasite somewhere behind those eyes.RAINBOW MOUNTAIN! Probably the highest altitude photo at around 5000m. Even though I didn’t have the summit to myself as I’d hoped, it was still a great moment.At the cholita wrestling in La Paz, Bolivia where I reunited with my friends Kevin and Carol. Think I beasted 70km in like 3 hours that day in order to get there on time.Sunset on the night we camped on the famous Salar de Uyuni. Philipp was horribly ill that night and the following morning the salar wasn’t quite so pristine.Getting devoured by Mariposa, the sloppiest hound in Chile, at Muriel’s house in San Pedro de Atacama where me and Philipp took a week off.The momentous crossing into Argentina for the first of 6 times. Me and Philipp were so relieved at the prospect of escaping the altiplano. I would end up spending almost 4 months in this monster of a nation.As my longest travel companion Philipp deserved a selfie. This was the moment we parted ways in Salta, Argentina, although we bumped into each other a couple days later and gorged on asado and wine in Cafayate.Maybe the worst day of the trip. Punctures. Sandstorms. Broken Tent. Lost Mp3 player. Sleeping in a drainage tunnel in below zero. Fuck that.Up in the snow having just crossed back into Chile via the Cristo Redentor pass. I felt well smug cycling down the famous ‘caracoles’ switchbacks and down to more forgiving climes.lolzGetting beardy with Sylvie and Vince on the Carretera Austral.After the final boat crossing from Villa O’Higgins to El Chalten with the rest of the biker gang. There were about 14 of us who did the 2 day crossing together.At the pink house, one of many abandoned houses turned cyclist refuges, wearing a headband knitted for my by Sylvie.Arriving to Ushuaia. An emotional moment.Hitchhiking north from my mortal nemesis Rio Gallegos. This truck was truly a godsend.Christmas Day with a homeless smile on the beach in Puerto Madryn. Place was rammed with jellyfish.New Years Eve in Buenos Aires with Norwegian and German friends Erland and Rene. Arriving in Uruguay, country number 7. For one hot minute there I had a ponytail.In Montevideo, at last.
ROSSED IN TRANSLATION 
First photo is wicked! Nice blog.
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