Trying to Get Lost-Bicycling Solo Across South America

When I was eleven or so, I used to try to get lost on my bicycle. I would jump on the saddle and just start pedaling away from my home. I decided where to go at every intersection based on what looked less familiar, and which route seemed like it might have a smaller hill to contend with. I would turn left, right, and left again, meandering farther and farther from home and anything I knew. I would only stop when the realization hit me that I didn’t remember how to get home-then I would challenge myself to find the way.

Usually, these adventures were overlayed by fantastical stories that I would invent in my mind-I was delivering top-secret messages, or a hurricane was coming and I had to rescue a cat, or I had to sneak across the border of a hostile country. I would get lost not only on the road, but also in my head, letting one thought lead to another, away from whatever stresses eleven-year-olds hold.

For this reason, I would always go alone. I had friends that I played with at other times, but these were solitary adventures that allowed me to just be me, with no one watching. I felt the need to bump up against the borders of my self and my backyard with a little manufactured challenge and independence.

When I did eventually find my way home, and could finally see my sturdy, unchanged house, I always felt a little stronger, braver and more content than when I had left, and also, a little relieved. I had gone out on the land and learned something about the world and about myself and now I delighted in feeling safe again, until next time.

I don’t think that I have changed a lot since then. They say that women return to their prepubescent selves during midlife, and I believe, for me, that is true. The only difference is that now, I have to travel farther to get lost.

I leave for my bicycle trip across South America in a little less than four weeks. I have fussed over maps and tried to figure out my route, but the truth is, there are so many variables out there that I can only plan a day or two at a time. South America is big. Maybe there will be traffic to avoid, or bad weather, or a big hill. I do know that on the first night of the adventure, I intend to stay in a zoo. In Uruguay you are allowed to camp in them! Me and the hippos. My eleven-year-old self is cartwheeling in excitement.

I have also learned that it will be hot. Very hot. The average high temperature will be 101. This will mean very early mornings, a lot of water and the need to sneak out of range of the sun’s merciless rays. I will be a spy-delivering myself safely from shady spot to shady spot, from the cool of one night to the next.

I will bicycle across the long flat pampas in Uruguay for about a week, up along the River Plate. Then I will cross into Argentina at Concepcion del Uruguay, from there will pedaling through what I hear is endless cattle farming land, until I reach Cordoba. In Cordoba I will head up the Salinas Grande mountains and down on to the salt flats. They are huge-the third largest in the world! Then I will make my way to Mendoza-deep in the foothills of the Andes, and then, hopefully, up and over them. The tunnel at Paso International Los Libertadores marks the border between Argentina and Chile. It is high in the Andes at 12,500 feet. I guess there will be no avoiding hills this time. When I leave the pass, I will hug the switchbacks that serpentine down the lush western flanks of the Andes for several days all the way to the sea. I will finish my bicycle journey in Valparaiso, where I hope to take a splash in the Pacific.

It is a big adventure for me and an exciting one. I will cross borders-like in my childhood fantasies and face all sorts of obstacles and challenges. I am looking forward to going alone because that is how my brain unravels best-in a good way.

I have faith that when I do get home after the adventure, and I see my sturdy, unchanged house, I will feel a stronger, braver, more content, and a little relieved-just like I did when I was eleven. I still feel like a child sometimes, but now I have the wisdom and strength of fifty-three. Middle-age rocks.

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