About 3 months into my cycle trip in 2017, while listening to a Modest Mouse song in Peru, my stupid brain remembered my camera actually had the capacity to film things and I was inspired to create a video montage of my travels. My filming was sporadic and wild – sometimes I filmed a lot over a couple of days then barely filmed a thing for weeks on end – but eventually I gathered together enough footage to make a video. Then, after 18 months of procrastination, that same Modest Mouse song came on shuffle and I was once again inspired to drag myself to my computer to edit the thing. While making this video brought me immense joy, a part of me laments the countless moments, places and people that I failed to capture. Either way, I hope it gives you a window into what was, without a doubt, the best year of my life, and inspires someone somewhere to load up their bike and do what I did. They won’t regret it.
Uruguay
Cycling Uruguay: Reheated Cabbage in the Land of Parrillas not Guerrillas
11 months in and I finally made the ferry crossing from Buenos Aires to my last stop on two wheels: Uruguay. But alas it didn’t feel like a triumphant final voyage I’d hoped but rather a pleasant footnote to my journey through South America. The Italians have an phrase cavioli riscaldati (reheated cabbage) for when you try to reignite a romance with a former flame. Suffice to say the cabbage never tastes quite as good after a minute in the microwave. When I put foot to pedal in Colonia – the appropriately named colonial port town across from Buenos Aires – I felt contented and happy, but after the emotional arrival to Ushuaia and the sense of urgency of my hitchhiking trip, I found it impossible to get excited about cycling again. It was one ending too many; the cycling equivalent of that hobbit orgy at the end of Return of the King. Hard to believe but it turns out that after 10 1/2 months cycling the length of a continent, the prospect of a leisurely cycling holiday through swelteringly hot flatlands isn’t so inticing. That’s not to say that I had a bad time in Uruguay. Far from it. But all the best times were off the bike.
ROSSED IN TRANSLATION 