Cycling The Globe

Distance: 96.60 km
Ride time: 8:17:37
Average: 18.28 km/h
Total: 21782 km

My thermometer showed 0 degrees in my room as I woke up. Outside it would be a few degrees colder. With the strong Patagonian wind I frankly didn’t feel much like hitting the road.

I knew that if I wanted to make it to El Calafate I needed an early start, so I put on all my clothes and faced this cold, windy and clear Patagonian morning. As I started to cycle I was dreaming about a warm tropical day in Colombia… in a couple of months.

To my surprise I was still enjoying some of the tailwind from yesterday. This was very fortunate as I’m not sure I would have been able to handle the icy wind straight in my face.

After three hours of cycling I was enjoying a beautiful downhill stretch towards Lago Argentino. At this point I had covered 50 km and was well on track to reach El Calafate. This was when the wind changed.

I was now using all my strength to move forward at 6 km/h, and the 40 km towards Calafate seemed to go on forever. At some point I saw another cyclist approaching. When he turned across the road to say hello I saw a Danish flag on his handle bar. I don’t think I have ever met a Danish touring cyclist before, so it was a great surprise to meet Michael. As we are both heading north we exchanged contact details as it would be nice to cycle together further down the road.

I was very relieved when I finally saw the first houses of El Calafate. This was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. For some reason this tourist town at Lago Argentino had been my first milestone since leaving Ushuaia. I was truly exhausted as I rode the final kilometers into town.

Instead of looking for a campsite as I normally would, I was planning to spend some days in a hostel. After some very cold nights I was much in need of a warm bed.