The Floor is Actually Lava
Día 14: Swerving volcanoes, riding lava and a couple of sneaky critters make their move (56km)
Día 14: El Amarillo-Lago Río Negro, 56km (Komoot GPX)
Do you remember the game?
Leaping from sofa to sofa, table to chair, cushion to doormat. Anything to avoid the scalding lava on the sitting room floor below.
It’s often written that we lose our imaginative capabilities as we get older. Or, more likely, they are reduced in scope by the structure of routine, work and a creeping realisation that adult life doesn’t offer time for genuine, freeform play.
To do something like this trip, you have to embrace that imagination once more. You must also be part fool. That is a personality trait I gladly claim. How can you experience true play unless you do crazy things?
The lava game needed us to imagine something impossible. And a 10,000km bike ride requires similar mental gymnastics in the planning phase. Decades of abstract dreaming, years of rough planning, months of specific logistics.
Then you start. And you transcend to another dimension. A 24/7 dreamscape where anything is possible.
But it’s not all dreamy sailing on the road. Sometimes we deal with bubbling emotions, and sometimes with actual volcanic spew.
Last night I was seething at myself for losing my card; frustrated at dropping something so important and annoyed at the inconvenience I’d cause us both moving forward. I’d have to be a sort of bank card limpet. Sticking to Jake like glue whenever I needed more cash.
In our rainforest cul-de-sac I found consolation in a crooning Thom Yorke. Jake’s mini-speaker is up there with the greatest ever packing decisions. Worth its weight in emotion churning gold.
Don’t leave me highhhh
Don’t leave me dryyyy
Leave me low, wet, and without my wallet.
The temperature has changed dramatically. It’s now warmer and wetter. Sleeping is easier but tents are sodden most mornings. Today, such heavy rain was predicted that we only dared break the cover of our benevolent thicket in late morning. I’m not complaining.
We read and listened to water dripping on soaking canvas. There’s no cosier place than a warm, dry sleeping bag a few centimeters from thumping raindrops. Each one on a desperate mission to drench you. Each one failing oh so deliciously.
I become vaguely aware of their plight in the early hours and snuggle further down in the delightful warmth. They can’t touch me.
We cruise down the flattish road towards the sea. There’s forest on each side so thick you’d need a scythe to go mere feet through it.
Rainbows wink through innumerable liquid atoms, they manage to keep up despite our breakneck pace. Snappy dogs barrel out at us on the outskirts of Chaitén, tarnishing the unblemished record of their glossy Patagonian brethren.
The canines, until now, have been adoring fans of our work, running alongside us into towns, fur ruffled by the breeze, ecstatic we’d made it through another unpaved wilderness.
But these ones are angry little bastards.
Chaitén, a town of 5000 people, was evacuated in 2008. The nearby volcano erupted, having stood dormant for nine thousand years (incidentally also the last time Arsenal won the league).
It jettisoned smoke ten miles vertically into the atmosphere and volcanic ash fell to carpet all its buildings, as well as much of Southern Argentina. Outside town, the road turns obsidian black, and we pass less and less cars as we enter el Parque Nacional de Douglas Tompkins. The floor really is lava.
I lose signal with Arsenal 3-1 down to Southampton. How has the title slipped so quickly through our grasp? Perhaps in their heads, the players were already attending the award ceremony. Desperate to bring success after 19 years absence. And therefore reaching out with nervous sweaty hands. They’ve only gone and dropped the trophy.
Never mind. There’s always glorious Chilean nature to admire instead.
We bump along slowly, till we spot a cliff-edge clearing in front of a wall-less wooden hut. Ideal for cooking and a bit of upright table sitting. A luxury sent by the Mapuche gods no doubt.
Because it’s road side, and a number of specific campsites had been closed on the way, I’m slightly concerned about whether we’re allowed to set up here. But Jake rightly points out that really no-one cares as long as we take everything with us and leave no trace. No-one will even be aware we were here.
Love the farm, leave no trace.
What’s more, in the darkness it seems very much like tomorrow will yield a dawn view for the ages. Too good to miss. We bed down in anticipation of more beauty to come. As if our souls weren’t already swathed by southern Chile’s pulchritude.
At this early point in the trip I’m still fairly susceptible to animal noises in the night. Sometimes I’m convinced I hear footsteps and lie wide awake, straining ears for tiny noises. Waiting for confirmation that the thieves who will steal all our possessions and then knock our blocks off for good measure, have arrived.
As always, it’s an overreaction.
The more I listen out for movement, the more of it I hear. And canvas can be remarkably noisy when all is silent around you. I always end up falling asleep and awaken hours later with everything intact.
Tonight though, there is definitely rustling. I doze off vaguely aware of an unidentified critter tweaking plastic that sounds suspiciously like it belongs to our bread bag.
End of Chapter 2
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