These 100km teach me valuable lessons. Each one is the longest kilometre of my life and in many ways redefines my understanding of metres and kilometres alike. I have fundamentally misunderstood distance this whole time. I have been a fool. Kilometres are not easy when the road is slipping underneath your tyres with each pedalstroke and metres are massive when the road is entirely vertical in front of you. Why have I done this? This was a terrible idea. This is horrible and gravel is awful. 

We come over the crest of the hill.

And we descend. 

And it doesn’t matter any more.

Nothing really matters any more, it's truly just my bike and us and this South American path. I bump along the gravel, the white noise of the wind in my ears and crushing stones beneath my tyres. I’m poised on my flat pedals, feeling the thick spongy sole of the inappropriate footwear and weaving between potholes and particularly large stones. Later, I watch a video that Ailsa took of me doing one of these kinds of descents and realise I am not actually going as fast as I think I am. It’s crucial to choose to create your own narrative around speed and bravery levels. I’m going properly fast and I am fearless.

So just like that, I am sold on what I had already bought: gravel is lovely. The days are simple; we have to get up early to beat the heat so we roll out before 7am as best we can until the sun becomes too hot and then find a nice lake or river to sit by for a few hours. We have cups of tea and eat pan amasado (a Chilean flat bread) with tomatoes and avocados. We swim and snooze and talk about what people from school are doing now. I had no idea she had a baby. I turn the thought over in my head about never going home. Once the day has cooled a little we roll on for the second part of the day and try to find a camping spot for the evening. The climbs continue to be challenging but I know what the reward is now which makes it easier.

Once we cross the Argentine border, the days cool a little bit and the clouds come over the sapphire vegetation, darkening its tones. In the last 20 kilometres descending into San Martín de Los Andes, the heavens open and the sort of lightning I thought only existed in films or paintings shatters the sky, the thunder interrupts me counting the seconds and I realise we are riding through the eye of the storm. In the haze of this I can’t see Ailsa in front of me or, wait, is she behind me? I keep pedalling hoping to catch up with her and then slow so she can catch up with me. Which is it? Just as I am starting to panic, soaked through with no phone signal, I hear a truck rattling behind me. The driver calls out to me in Spanish and then proceeds to pull over in front of me. Ailsa’s head pokes out from the tarp cover. A slow puncture had gotten the better of her but with the rain falling like this I am more than happy to throw my bike in the back and trust the stranger to take us the last few kilometers into town.

One night we roll into a riverside campsite at dusk and I realise I’ve never seen the stars in the southern hemisphere. I watch them until my neck hurts and then I lie down and look at them some more. I look at my bike lying on the ground and move to stand it up against a tree so it can see the stars too. I should have never doubted my silly wide bars and pink tyres.