Mom, Don’t Read This-Day 17 of my solo bike trip across South America

I should have known when I passed the dead horse in the road. It was a big chestnut and had fallen half-in and half-out of the road-its guts already bursting out of its belly, its eyes eaten clean. No, I should have known before that, when I passed the Gaucho riding tall and training a new colt that skittered and pranced beside him. “Are you taking this road to Balde on your bicycle?”, he asked in Spanish with a raised eyebrow. That should have been enough. No, I should have known when the tiny grey fox came out of the bushes and just started at me as I wheeled by. No, I should have known when I woke this morning to the sight of roiling black clouds on the horizon. But, it was only 20 miles and it was all down hill. So, I didn’t heed the warnings.

The road started out pleasant enough, as it left San Luis. I passed girls trying to roller-skate on gravel, piles of puppies and a lovely pink convent. But, as the road continued on, pink convents turned to tar paper shacks and there were no girls on skates, just smattering of hungry looking men, staring at me as I pedaled by. The shacks became fewer and fewer and the road turned to dirt. I was alone, but not alone enough. I pedaled faster. 

Finally, shacks stopped all together, and were replaced by a dense chaparral, prickly pear and thorny acacia. That is when the lightening came. The roiling clouds had moved closer and their dark, angry mass filled the sky. They were coming from directly where I needed to go. I began pedaling slower, and the lightening came again and again. It shot to the ground, it shot from cloud to cloud-thick ropey bolts coming closer and closer. I stopped pedaling.

There were no trees, no buildings, just me and my metal bicycle. I decided to get off the bike and away from it. I dragged it off the road out of sight and then walked further away, mincing between shrubs that tried to grab my clothing and I squatted down and waited. I tried to call my husband Twain, just so someone would know, but there was no coverage.

The storm came. I feared dying and nobody ever finding me. How would they? I was hiding. My stomach rolled, my breath was shallow. Then the rain came. Torrents. I was so small.

It passed, and as I untangled my bike and headed back to the road, I saw it had become a sandy stream. I tried to ride it, sliding and skittering through the sand. The mud got up in my disc brakes making a horrible scraping sound with every revolution. My chain came off once, then again. A piece of wire had somehow jumped up and become coiled around my derailleur. I had to take it apart and put it back together again. 

When I finally made it to Balde, the town was flooded. The campsite was full of families stuffing wet tents into car trunks and heading out. I am shaking, but I am here.

I have eaten a pizza now-and a liter of grapefruit juice. I have soaked in a thermal hot spring, called Twain and set up my tent. The sun has come back and it is Sunday, so the park has refilled with people. There are eight different radio stations playing, and the smell of roast meat is in the air. I am okay. I am not sure where all this is taking me-but somewhere. I was powerless in the storm , but I can’t believe I rebuilt my own derailleur, with just these hands.

On a lighter note, I stopped at a gas station for a café con leche this morning, before all this craziness, at 7:30 and it was filled with people dressed in haute fashion. Probably four dozen of them, all ordering pizza and cokes. When I asked about it-I was told that the disco just let out. Man-us New Englanders have to start mixing it up a bit!