Cycle for Water – 30.000 kilometers on a bamboo bicycle

Posted by Joost @ 7:46 on March 12th, 2012 in Cycle, Position, route

Arriving in Ushuaia turned out not to be our real finish. From the southernmost city in the world we were very fortunate to join our personal hero and inspiration, polar explorer Robert Swan OBE, and his team from 2041 to Antarctica. This last true wilderness holds roughly seventy percent of the world’s freshwater resources, and we were very anxious to see it in all its splendor, and learn about the effects of climate change on this; the White Continent.

Across the Land of Fire

Posted by Joost @ 10:37 on February 28th, 2012 in Cycle, route

Flat plains of dry grass lie on the other side of the Strait of Magellan at the end of mainland South America. This was the land of the Yaghans; the indigenous people who had the honor of being regarded as the southernmost living tribe in the world. The biting winds and the frigid cold has changed little since those days. For us it was to be the ending of our long journey south.

Riding the Windy Path

Posted by Joost @ 8:47 on February 20th, 2012 in Cycle, route

After our visit to Perito Moreno in the Los Glaciares National Park we had to begin our long anticipated, and much feared, battle with the notorious Patagonian winds. A wind so fierce that, in the words of the most famous contemporary chronicler of these lands, it ‘strips men to the core’. East of the Andes lies this land of pampas, of steppe; a desert land of estancias and sheep; a place where the wanderers drifted towards at the turn of the last century, escaping their lot in Europe or the United States, looking for new fortunes in the remoteness at the ends of the Earth.

Perito Moreno Glacier

Posted by Michiel @ 7:59 on February 10th, 2012 in Cycle, route

One of the most important tourist attractions in Argentinian Patagonia is the Perito Moreno Glacier. Although the two of us don’t really kick on tourist traps, we decided to visit the glacier, as it’s connecting ice field is the third-largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. So after reaching El Calafate, we jumped on a bus for a nice day of sight-seeing! The road to Perito Moreno goes through the Argentinian pampas and is surrounded by 2.000+ meter mountains with snowy summits, and lakes filled with pieces of ice that broke of one of the many glaciers in the area.