“Where does your Mum come from?”
“Alaska.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll ask her myself …”
By the afternoon Tom was tired because sitting on the sailing boat all the way across the ocean had made him really unfit. He would get fit again in the next few weeks, but right now his legs were aching and his bum was sore, bouncing up and down on this bumpy track! He began looking around for a good place to pitch his tent. After spending weeks at sea where his bed was always wet and every wave battered and bounced him around as he slept, he was looking forward to a dry, still night’s sleep.
That first evening, Tom camped by a lake in a soft field filled with yellow and white flowers. From his tent he could see the tops of jagged black mountains dotted with patches of white snow. The only sound, as he drifted off to sleep, was a noisy toad croaking happily in his hole beside the tent.
Patagonia is one of the windiest places on Earth. The wind howls across the ocean, building up speed and power for thousands of miles until it slams into the only bit of land that juts far enough south to get in the wind’s way. Wind is a cyclist’s biggest enemy. It’s worse even than riding up hills. Hills are hard work on a bike. You huff and puff and sweat as you creep up them. But at least you get the fun part of zooming down the other side.
Wind is even worse than the annoying dogs that chased after Tom in many countries, snarling and snapping at his heels. Tom had learned a trick for getting rid of these: he squirted them with water from his drinks bottle and then pedalled away as fast as he could. Headwinds are much, much worse. When the wind blows into your face it slows you down and makes riding really hard work. It pushes you around like a bully, flicking your face, shouting in your ear. A headwind is stupid and dumb – just like a real bully – and is very, very annoying.
One day the wind was so strong that Tom could not even cycle; he had to walk down the road pushing his bike. That was a terrible day. Later the wind became so fierce that it took all his strength not be blown backwards. He had to shelter in a ditch until the wind dropped and he could continue creeping forwards. By late afternoon Tom could still see the place he had set off from that morning. Have you ever travelled that slowly?
Alaska felt a very long way away.
But that evening, as he pitched his tent on a hill looking down over the sea, Tom could still enjoy the feeling of being out in the wild, far from the nearest town or person. Dolphins leaped out at sea and a rainbow hung in the sky. The best part was that Tom got to meet a penguin. He had never seen one in the wild before. After cooking his tea, Tom walked down to the beach to visit a colony of King Penguins.
King Penguins are the second biggest penguins, behind Emperor Penguins. They grow up to a metre tall and have beautiful yellow markings around their faces and throats. The birds waddled up close, curious to take a look at this funny-looking boy creature. They themselves looked funny to Tom as they tottered along the beach, because penguins are not very good at walking. But in the water, they look amazing. King Penguins dive to catch fish, and have even dived as deep as 300 metres. This is three times deeper than any human has dived while holding their breath.
On the previous leg of his journey, when Tom had ridden through Africa, every day had been boiling hot. It was horrible. Sometimes his head got so hot that he thought it was going to burst. Tom dreamed of dropping ice cubes down his pants or swimming in icy seas. He promised himself he would never moan again about cold weather.
Or so he thought …
Because the next morning, here in Patagonia, he woke to an unfamiliar feeling. It was dark in the tent, much darker than it should have been at this time of the morning. During the night it had snowed and Tom’s tent was now completely covered, making it dark inside. As he crawled out of his warm sleeping bag, he began to grumble. By the time he had put on his cold shoes and packed away his snow-covered tent, his teeth were chattering.
“I’m f-f-f-f-freeezing!” he shouted, even though nobody could hear him. Except the penguins. They didn’t look cold at all. In fact, the penguins looked quite warm and happy in the snow. He thought maybe he should p-p-p-pick up a penguin and use it like a hot water bottle.
“This is t-t-t-terrible!” Tom moaned.
At that moment, he made a new promise. Being cold was so bad that he wished only to be hot. He would never complain again about being too hot. Never ever again!
Tom set up his tiny stove to cook some porridge and ate breakfast straight from the pan. He did the washing up by licking the pan and the spoon until they were clean. He thought back to his life before this adventure began. It felt so long ago now. He used to eat cornflakes for breakfast, or choose from about five other different cereal packets. Or sometimes he would choose toast. He used to really annoy his Dad by taking so long to decide whether to have jam or Marmite on his toast. It had seemed so important back then. These days Tom ate the same thing for breakfast every day – gloopy porridge. It had no real flavour but it was cheap, hot and full of energy. These were the most important things for a meal to be these days. He stirred the porridge and sighed as the gloopy bubbles rose to the surface, then shovelled his breakfast into his mouth very quickly.
Tom zipped his coat up tight, pulled on gloves, and set off as fast as he could to get warm again.
“Goodbye!” he shouted to the penguins, but they didn’t reply. Perhaps they didn’t understand English.
Adventures in the Andes
Occasionally Tom passed a lone farmhouse, miles from any other building. It must be peaceful to live out here, he thought. But it might get a bit boring or lonely too. Whenever a farmer spotted Tom he would invite him inside for a bowl of soup and a drink of mate. Mate (“mar-tay”) is the South American version of a cup of tea. Mate, though, is always drunk through a silver straw from a ball-shaped cup. Everyone shares the same cup and the same straw, passing them on to the next person. Mate is a drink to share and an excuse to have a long chat with your friends. In every country around the world, the people Tom met were kind, curious, generous and welcoming. Patagonia was no exception.
This was one of the most beautiful regions he had ever cycled through. It was wild and free and unfamiliar – the very things that, for Tom, made for the most thrilling adventures. Sometimes the road ran through valleys, sometimes it climbed high in the mountains clinging to the edge of cliffs. The roads didn’t have safety barriers, so if Tom fell off his bike he would also fall off a massive cliff! It was scary riding, but exciting.
Turquoise rivers rushed through green forests. Trout leaped to catch flies. Each night Tom jumped into a river to wash. The rivers flowed down from the mountains, thundering over waterfalls, carrying melted snow. They were freezing. In some parts of the world Tom didn’t get to wash for weeks on end, and so he was often quite smelly! A chance to get clean in a mountain stream was too good to miss, even if the cold water did make him scream a bit. Jump in the river, it’ll make you shiver!
Green fields carpeted with daisies and dandelions reminded Tom of England. Then a rhea ran across the road, reminding him that he was actually very far from home. The rhea is a huge bird, like an ostrich. It stopped and looked in surprise. It had never seen a boy on a bicycle before! Mind you, Tom had never seen a rhea before. It was taller than Tom himself. Rheas cannot fly but they run really quickly, up to 40 miles an hour! Another evening, as he watched the sun set, a little armadillo trotted hastily past Tom’s tent. Armadillos sleep for 16 hours a day, so it was a treat to see one actually out and about, looking for food.
Mountains towered above, jagged like sharp teeth, with mighty glaciers running down from the peaks. Glaciers are formed over hundreds of years as snow is compressed and turns into ice. Glaciers are like enormous rivers of ice, but rivers that move so slowly that you can’t see them move. Three-quarters of all the fresh water in the world is frozen into glaciers. Tom looked up at the end of a glacier – a gigantic wall of i
ce in a bright blue lake. Every so often a chunk would fall into the water 60 metres below. Gigantic blocks of ice – as big as cars – crashed down into the lake with a sound like an exploding bomb. As they hit the lake they made massive splashes, causing huge waves. It was great fun! Tom settled down with a couple of banana sandwiches to watch the show.
The road now was nothing more than a stony track, and Tom’s bags rattled as he bounced along. There were no bridges so sometimes he had to cross rivers. Tom would take off his shoes and socks and roll up his trousers above his knees. Then he would push the heavy bike through the freezing water, taking care not to lose his footing. If he fell over he would not only get very cold and wet and cross, he might also be swept away by the strong current.
After a few more days, the track fizzled out completely. Tom felt alone, but not lonely. He felt excited. He had been riding round the world for a long time now. He was fit and strong. He knew how to repair his bike if it broke down. He knew how to read a map, and how to survive in the wild. This was a wilderness challenge, and Tom was up for it!
For a whole day Tom pushed his bike up a small, steep, muddy footpath. Hour after hour, mile after mile. The forest around him was dark. Sometimes he had to carry his bike and bags, and tripped over rocks and roots. It was exhausting. When he eventually reached the top of the track he saw a tall metal post. It was old and rusty. Nobody had been here for a long time.
On one side of the post was written the word “Argentina”. On the other side of the post was written the word “Chile”. This was the border crossing between two countries! Tom had crossed 30 international borders on his journey around the world, but this was the first time that the border had ever been on a muddy footpath on top of a hill. There were no barriers or police checkpoints. He was wet, cold and tired, but Tom still had the energy to smile and punch the air.
“Yes!” he shouted to himself. “That’s one more country done.”
He freewheeled slowly down the track, away from Argentina and into Chile, down towards a lake dotted with small icebergs. He could not go very fast for two reasons. The first was that the track was too rocky to go quickly without shaking his bike to pieces. The second reason was that Tom was now sharing the track with an enormous bull! He didn’t know where the bull had come from, and he didn’t know where it was going. But he did know that the bull was huge and ferocious-looking. Every so often the bull turned around, looked at Tom, and snorted loudly. He didn’t want to shout “hurry up” or try to overtake him on the narrow track. So Tom had to settle for trundling along behind the bull until they reached the lake.
The next morning Tom had a lie-in. He had to wait to catch a boat across the lake to the other side, as it was the only way he could continue heading north. He could lie lazily in his sleeping bag for as long as he wanted. The trouble was that Tom didn’t know how long he might have to wait. In fact, nobody seemed to know! The boat arrived “about every two weeks”, but nobody he asked knew anything more than that. It was a relaxed way of life down in Patagonia. The boat did not come that day, so Tom had a lie-in the next morning too. And the morning after that. He threw stones at icebergs, went and said hello to the bull, and washed his clothes in the freezing lake. He was getting bored sitting beside the lake, waiting.
So Tom was happy on the morning of Day Four when he awoke to the chug-chug sound of a boat. Leaping out of his sleeping bag, he ran to the water’s edge, waving and shouting. The captain of the yellow-and-blue boat changed direction in order to come and pick him up. Tom hurried to pack his gear and wheel it down to the lake. Everything he owned, including his house, could pack away into just a few bags, ready to move on to the next adventure. It’s surprising how few things you really need in life. The fewer things Tom had, the happier he was.
“¡Hola!” he called to the captain. “¿Cómo está usted, señor? How are you, sir?”
Tom hadn’t seen another person for days and was happy to have a chat. He was also looking forward to reaching the town across the lake because he had been rationing his food and was now really hungry.
“¡Vamos! Let’s go!” cried Tom, heaving his bike on board. “Tengo hambre. I’m hungry.”
Tom pedalled further north. The huge peaks of the Andes mountains – the biggest in the Americas – rose up ahead of him. They were formed millions of years ago. The plates of the Earth’s surface push against each other all the time, extremely slowly but with massive force. Hold your hands out flat in front of you. Touch your fingertips together. Now push them harder and harder together. Eventually they will slide one over the other, buckle downwards, or buckle upwards like a mountain range. This is how mountains “grow”. The Andes seemed to buckle halfway to the sky. Tom had never seen mountains as big as these.
He gulped. His legs felt wobbly and weak. The road climbed ever more steeply upwards, past acacia trees and prickly pear cacti before disappearing into the clouds. The mountain pass above him was 5000 metres high. And Tom had to ride over it on his bike!
The road zig-zagged up the twisting bends. Sweat dripped into Tom’s eyes. He was panting. It would take about two days to ride up this pass. He didn’t think he could do it. His legs were wobbling like a jelly, and he was even hungrier than usual. So, as he always did when things seemed impossible, Tom climbed off his bike and sat down to make a banana sandwich.
In a few bites, the sandwich was gone. Then Tom lay down and folded his hands behind his head. It was time for an after-lunch nap. High in the sky, a condor hovered on the warm thermal air that rose from the valley. Condors – giant vultures – are enormous, almost as big as Tom’s friend Albert the albatross. Tom let rip an enormous, noisy burp into the quiet mountain air. When you are alone and cycling round the world you can get away with doing very loud burps.
Back on his bike, as the road climbed, the temperature fell. Even though cycling was hot work, Tom needed to pull on an extra jumper. He was wearing thick gloves, a warm hat under his helmet and both his pairs of socks. Up, down, up, down went Tom’s legs. Up, up, up crept his bike. On and on and on he pedalled. Down, down, down crept the distance to the top.
A fox, in its white fur coat, flopped through the snow next to the road. The snow was too deep for it to walk through, so the fox was jumping forward then sinking, jumping forward then sinking. It looked even more tiring than cycling up the big mountain.
Tom remembered the lesson this adventure had taught him: when you think you cannot do something big and difficult, do something tiny and easy instead. Take one little step. Push the pedals round once. You can do that. Push the pedals one more time. Then once more. You can always do one more. Ever so slowly, Tom realised that the road was beginning to flatten out. He was almost at the top. His head was hurting and his legs were wobbling, but he had made it to the top. Tom had ridden all the way up a 5000-metre mountain pass! There would be more mountain passes to come, but doing the first one is always the most difficult.
He stopped at the top to take a photograph of himself and his bike. Then he quickly put on every piece of spare clothing he had. It’s always cold high up in the mountains. Camping last night, Tom had had to light a campfire to help keep himself warm. At the top of the pass it was -20ºC, the coldest temperature Tom had ever experienced. He even put his spare pair of pants on top of his hat to help keep his head warm. He looked very, very silly with a pair of pants on his head! But it was too cold to care, and nobody was around to laugh anyway. The boy climbed back onto his bike to enjoy his reward for cycling up the mountain.
His reward was the fun of zooming down the other side!
“Woohoo!” Tom howled, free-wheeling faster and faster. Everything passed in a high-speed blur. He freewheeled downhill for 50 miles! It would take about an hour to go that far in a car, or days if you were walking. Think of a town that is 50 miles away from where you live. And now imagine being able to get there on your bike without even having to pedal! Tom’s face was fix
ed into a grin. Riding downhill was the best bit of cycling round the world!
Would you like to be strong enough to cycle over the immense Andes for month after month? It’s easier than it sounds. There is no shortcut or magic potion to getting fit without putting in hours of hard work. But if you ride your bike a lot, or run or swim or play sport regularly, then you will become fit and strong. Tom knew that all children need to do at least one hour of exercise a day (something that gets you tired, hot and out of breath), but he was doing a lot more than that.
Bolivia: A High, Cold World of Wonders
Mile by mile, mountain by mountain, Tom moved northwards through the Andes and into Bolivia. Llamas and alpacas grazed on the thin, yellow grass. He was still high above sea level, but the land became flat again. He had reached an area known as the altiplano (from the Spanish words “alto” – high – and “plano” – flat). Farmers had ploughed tiny fields in the dry earth, each field only about as big as Tom’s classroom back at school. The farmers did not have tractors or machines so the work was hard. The men dug the earth while their wives and children weeded the ground, harvested vegetables and gathered firewood for cooking.
Beyond the fields, women with babies strapped to their backs spun wool on spindles as they looked after flocks of alpacas. They were turning the alpacas’ wool into wool they could use to knit clothes. The women wore bright ponchos – like thick woollen blankets – striped with colourful patterns. On their heads they wore small bowler hats, which looked quite funny to Tom.
Tom cycled through villages looking for a shop where he could buy some food. But there were no shops. Life is tough in those cold, poor villages. People make, grow or raise everything they eat. In the end, Tom decided to ask a farmer if he could buy some food. He stopped and lay down his heavy bike. The family in the field stood up, stretched their backs, and stared.
Riding the Americas Page 2