On getting There.
A reflection on destinations and dreams while my roommate furiously pukes up bad empanadas in a courageous recovery effort so we can set off on the final 200 kilometers of the most beautiful and painful road on earth.
A funny theme has surfaced among the increasing number of cyclists we have encountered recently. Many of them have been on the road for months or years, finally nearing the end of their journey in this southern Patagonian wilderness - a popularly symbolic and literal end of the road. Besides the road itself, though, there is another common thread connecting these pedalling voyageurs; that is their eagerness to finish.
“Patagonia’s rugged road was the part of my (insert absurd number of kilometers — think tens of thousands)- long trip that I was most excited for. Now after (insert absurd number of months or years) of living on the bike, I find myself wishing it away, eager to be done”.
This isn’t a direct quote, but rather a summation of what I have heard from many cyclists over these past few weeks. Now, the wonderful thing about cycle-touring is that you have no choice but to immerse yourself in your surroundings, so there’s no real danger of the beauty of this place passing you by. Every day we cycle from dusk until dawn, drinking from the rivers, feeling every ray of sun and drop of rain. Windy nights in tents, while sometimes restless, ensure we are never, even in total darkness, removed from the beautiful and at times hostile landscape through which we traipse. This ‘final push’ mindset does, however, eliminate thoughts of detours or side-trips that might otherwise have been alluring.
The question I keep asking myself is why we all seem to have saved arguably the most spectacular stretch of cycling for the end of our trip. Why wait to be tired, restless and over-it before indulging in the most exciting part of the journey? I think this question begs another, one that is farther reaching than the cycling community. It calls into question a notion so universal that it is applied to everything from smarties to retirement: saving the best for last.
In the book Walden, something of a bible for the vagabonding philosophers of the opend road and the most commonly found book on hostel shelves in Patagonia, Thoreau laments that we tend to “…[Spend] the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it”. In other words, we waste our energetic and able-bodied youth toiling away in order to save money so we might travel and experience the good life once we are older and less capable of fully taking it in. I can´t help but draw parallels to the very phenomenon I have been noticing among fellow cyclists. Why do we deny ourselves the joy of experiening our dreams? Why do we put it off instead of diving right in? Why not cycle through Patagonia first?
To answer these questions I examined the cycle-touring mentality. One does not embark on a multi-thousand kilometer journey on a bicycle without some kind of twisted love for suffering. There is always a shorter, smoother or less mountainous road out there. Or, quite frankly, a bus. But we choose to put our legs, wrists and butts through hell on gravel switchbacks for the sake of the ride. We are seeking out suffering and exhaustion because it heightens our senses and makes the simple act of getting from point A to point B an adventure and an accomplishment in itself. In much the same way, when planning a trip, we feel we must first cycle thousands of kilometers before we earn the right to cycle on the sacred Careterra Austral (the revered gravel road through Patagonia). I believe we do this for precisely the same reason we save the red smarties for last. We are terrified that if we were to go ahead and dive into the best bits of life or a cycling trip, then the rest would seem unbearably dull or underwhelming. In doing this we tire ourselves out, stoking our internal engine by allowing the idea of our promised land to manifest and grow into something so great it could never truly live up to our expectations. And then, suddenly, we´ve arrived. The mountains, rivers and lakes are breathtaking. The weather and winds are as ferocious and challenging as expected. But we are still cycling. We are still setting up camp, cooking spaghetti, going to bed. Waking up, making coffee, packing our panniers. We quickly realize that despite our incredible surroundings, not much has changed as far as our daily routines go, and we carry on in very much the same way we always have. Once we reach this point, we often feel that we must immediately start looking forward to the next destination. We can´t wait to get There!
Get where?
I suppose this is the way in which we deal with the sometimes crushing realization that life- and cycling- can be trivial and underwhelming for long stretches. By constantly putting our faith in the excitement of some future event or destination, we can justify the dullness of the current moment. I´m starting to understand that this is a major source of discontent for many people, and that some of the happiest folks I have met are those who have been able to get away from this line of thinking. Instead, they ensure that each day is filled with interactions and endeavours that bring them happiness and satisfaction in small doses.
I booked my flight home a week ago. Naturally, this changes the nature of my mindset — instead of an indefinite journey, I am now en route to a destination at which I must arrive by a certain date. I have to be a little more planned and calculated, more forward-looking. I’m trying to make sure that I don’t allow this fixed end date to alter my experience too greatly, but rather let it be a reminder that my time here is limited and allow that to be encouragement to take renewed pleasure in some of the things I have started to tire of or take for granted. If there is one thing I have learned throughout my travels it is that the beauty and meaning of a place is not so much defined by the milieu itself but rather by your state of mind. Some days I’m so hungry and exhausted that the mountain I’ve been looking forward to seeing for weeks nearly goes unnoticed. Other days, I find immense beauty in a small old woodshed on the side of the road. The point here is, in travel and in life, we cannot allow the idea of some future destination to be the balance in which our happiness hangs. We must seek to find it in each day. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend significant amounts of time working hard towards a goal. It just means we must be self-examined enough to understand how we can ensure that the weeks or years of getting There are enjoyable and exciting in case There isn´t all we thought it might be.
Given my now-established timeline, I won’t reach the exact geographical ending point I had in mind by the time I have to head home. Instead of hammering down a highway in pursuit of this final goal that was set nonchalantly months ago on a paper map, I’m choosing to spend a little more time here in the wonders of the Careterra Austral — after all, Here was There just last month. I suppose this decision is my way of testing out the theory that the more we allow There to ebb and flow with our changing pursuits and evolving journey, the less pressure there is that it live up to an expectation, and the more fun we will have Getting to it.
Nick
