Subio, Baja, Subio, Baja
Elapsed time: 74 d 05 h 6 m; Distance travelled 13,981.90 km (8,688 mi)
“Can you put that into terms I’d understand?” I asked Ashleigh over the phone as she sat down to a plate of chili con carne, her go-to meal since arriving in Colombia. The recipe is simple: a bag of tortilla chips, a can of chili, a generous helping of avocado, and a mountain of parmesan cheese.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied. “What I rode today was about the same as riding up North Mountain in Cape Breton, more than six times… in a row.”
I laughed. “That’s insane! I know what you’ll be doing when you’re back in Nova Scotia: winter Cabot Trail ride! With Derick!”
Ashleigh has reached the Andes Mountains. For those who don’t know, the Andes are the longest continental mountain range in the world, running the entire western spine of South America. They’re a landmark in every sense of the word: a physical reminder that she’s now well into the second half of her ride, and a figurative one - the dream destination she’s imagined for years. Picture lush rainforest, mountains in every direction, and a cool 20 degrees. Here’s her on Day 63, on entering the Andes:
It is beautiful, because like, there's just people, people are just living on the side of the road in these towns, these little villages, and they're gardening, they're playing, there's puppies, there's, yeah, they're just living on the side, and it's just nice to see, because I think a lot of the [mountainous] climates in North America are just like, you know, nobody's there, or if they're there, they're far away. And this is just people there.
I have to admit, I haven’t been checking her location with the same feverish regularity I did during her Dalton Highway days, or when she was battling illness in southern Mexico. Maybe it’s because I’ve come to have such confidence in her - I know now that, whatever happens, she’ll be okay.
But when I finally looked at Colombia’s elevation profile before writing this post, I nearly spat out my tea. Suddenly, everything made sense. I’d wondered why her daily distances had been shrinking as she moved deeper into the country. It’s because she’s climbing mountains - over and over again, and at insanely steep grades:
Going into the Andes is [...] like there's this one big climb [...] and then it's sort of punctuated by these teeny tiny little ups and the road is kind of messed up because of slides and geology and stuff and it's like you get wavy roads and these short little, you know you're going up, it's seven maybe seven percent and then all of a sudden you hit this little bump in the road and you have to go up and it's like 20 percent, it's like going up and over this tiny little speed bump but the speed bump brings you back up to the seven percent climb and it's like, oh f*ck…
A view of what Ashleigh’s been climbing since entering the Andres, and what she’ll see on the other side.
On Day 69 alone, she climbed 3,084 m over just 86 km (this is where Cape Breton’s North Mountain is a good meter stick). The elevation explains her deep hunger, the second and third breakfasts, the need to eat what feels like her body weight in food - and still not feeling full. It also explains the fatigue: the bone-deep tiredness that leaves nothing in her tank by 6 p.m., when the nearest hotel starts to call her name and she can’t help but pull over to rest.
Even with all the climbing, Ashleigh somehow finds time for the small repairs that keep her moving. A few nights ago, she sewed up some holes in her bib shorts and patched a glove that had split at the palm. Her dry bag, bitten by a curious (hungry??) dog, is still hanging on, a little uglier, but still waterproof. She finally bought a poncho after weeks of enduring a rain jacket that never kept her dry, and rage-purchased a new Camelbak because her Salomon hydration-hose was “so annoying”. We feel you.
Through all of the physical and logistical challenges though, mentally she still has her eye on what’s to come. This is from Day 66, in the Cauca valley (the only flat riding she saw in Colombia), as she was winding down from the day:
[Tomorrow I’ll be heading] back into the Andes, but this time, the Andes will continue to grow. Instead of topping out at 2,700 m, I will eventually get to 3,800 m in Ecuador, and fun fact, once I get to that elevation in Ecuador, it's about, I think it's about 40 kilometres of descending to 46 m of elevation.
Needless to say, I will be stopping halfway down, because that's a lot to do, and, yeah, I don't know how my body's gonna feel about that, but I am hoping, I'm really hoping that all this riding in elevation will help me with the headwind, the inevitable headwind on the Peruvian coast, and all the way down to Ushuaia, because that's exactly what's gonna happen, and I'm gonna be praying for the Andes again, but they will not come, they will come in a smaller form, much, much smaller form at the end, so yeah, as much as it is daunting, it's also, yeah, it's also just cool to be in the Andes, and to be up at a really high elevation, because it's a, yeah, it's a new, a new experience, a new thing, it's very cool.
There’s a rhythm I’ve come to notice in Ashleigh’s reflections on her journey, in what she’s ready to leave behind and what she’s looking forward to. For the first time, now that she’s in South America, she’s allowing herself to think about Ushuaia, her final destination, the town that sits at the very tip of Argentina. With fewer than 8,000 kilometres to go, it’s no wonder thoughts of the finish line have started to creep in.
There’s something remarkable about endurance sports: the way people learn to break an enormous challenge into smaller, manageable pieces. Digestible, doable, and often the only way forward. I know Ashleigh sometimes feels like she’s making excuses for the shorter distances she occasionally covers, but to me, it shows growth, learning her limits, and understanding what’s worth pushing for and what isn’t. Here’s a moment from Day 67:
When I got to Popaya, I was super hungry, so I was in town, looking at my phone, trying to figure out where to go. There was a gas station that had something attached to it, and as I was looking, the thunder started to crack above my head, and I was like, well, I guess we've got time to look now. So I went under this shelter, and a bunch of motorcycles pulled in as well, and we watched the downpour happen. The streets flooded, and people were still driving and motorcycling through it. It was wild, and I was just there chatting with some of the motorcyclists, and they're like, you know, asking me where I’m going, what I’m doing, where I’m from.
“Oh my gosh, you need a motorcycle”. It's like, uh-huh, yes, of course (laughter). And then it stopped, the rain stopped, and I was able to get on the bike again. I'm getting a lot smarter about just not riding through that stuff, because it will eventually end, and there's no need to get everything soaking wet, and water in places it doesn't need to be. It just doesn't make sense. So yeah, waiting for those storms to be over is the smarter thing to do by far.
There are many more stories from the Andes that I could share, but I’m going to save a few for Ashleigh to tell you herself this winter, over a cup of tea and maybe while knitting?
I'm looking forward to learning how to knit. I think it'll be a really peaceful and rewarding experience, or I'll hate it and not want to do that because my coordination is not good, but we'll see. Maybe I'll just knit a long, long scarf with the same sort of pattern all the way through. I have done that before, and it was okay.
Yeah, I'll just knit a bunch of scarves and hang out, and that'll be what happens. Yep, yeah, that's it.
Thanks for reading! We’ll see you on the Peruvian coast.
- Jessie
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