I love the idea of cycling. For so many reasons. It is good for the environment, it is cheap, and it is excercise. All things I love. In theory. The problem is, in real life, no matter how I try to convince myself, I just don't like it. It is hard and it makes my knees hurt. To be fair, I would likely be better at it (and possibly enjoy it more...) if I did it more than three times every four years, but that is neither here nor there.
So, this weekend I find myself in a little place called San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. You know, the driest desert in the world. There are so many things to do there, one of which is go by moutain bike to the 'Devil's Canyon'. I thought, okay, I can do this. Even though my last South American bike experience was a bit of a disaster (I blame that completely on the vino and chocolate!), I thought I would give the bicycle another whirl. You know, give it a fair shake. It can't be that bad, right?
So, J and I rent these bikes from a small Chilean man who was running an internet cafe/heladeria (which basically means he sells ice cream)/and bike rental shop. Those things all match, right? So, after he gets all our information and money, we are off, equipped with a map, and of course a picnic lunch (we never leave home without a picnic lunch. Peanut butter and banana on a fresh roll? Yes, please!). The first part I was all impressed with myself. I am clearly not as a fast as J, but I am nearly right with her (which was not the case last time, when I could hardly see her). Things were mostly flat, and the scenery was so beautiful, I almost forgot I don't like biking. We were the only people on the dirt roads, and we were IN. THE. DESERT. It was amazing. Or, it was amazing. Until things started going wrong. Very wrong. Vertical up a mountain wrong. Did I mention I don't like biking? This leg of the journey improved ten fold after only a minor meltdown resulting in J changing the gears on my bike for me, and I could almost enjoy things again. It really was like nothing I had ever seen before. And, the best thing about riding uphill? Eventually you get to go back down. The way down was awesome (and easy), though my forearms are a bit sore from braking the entire way down, and my bottom still hurts four days later. These bikes were definitely not equipped with gel seats or any kind of shocks. So, here we are, biking in the desert, I am feeling pretty good. Until we reach the river we have to cross to actually get to the Devil's Canyon. We have passed over tiny streams (I thought we were in the driest desert in the world, why is there so much water?!?!?!?) without incident (not even a muddy rear end), but this time J bikes through and her feet go right under water. As I have the benefit of learning from what I thought was her 'mistake', I figure that I will do the improved version. I decided I could avoid getting my feet wet by going really fast leading up to it, and then throw my legs up in the air, to avoid getting soaked. What I had not anticipated was that I needed to keep pedaling in order to get through the water. The result was me, falling off my bike, into the river. I was not terribly happy, but hey, I'm in Chile. How bad can it be? We continue on, get to the canyon (which is really cool), and then have our picnic (always my favourite part of things). After our picnic we turn around to go back to the town. We arrive back at the river and we decide to try something a little different. We decide this time one of us (and by 'one of us', I clearly mean J) will jump across the river, and the other will hand the bikes across, and then follow by jumping. She gets across, no problem, I hand the bikes over (mostly no problem), and then I take a running leap. And I land half in the river. Of course I do. My sneaker is again very, very wet. And now muddy.
The good thing is that we were in the desert. The sun in the desert is extremely strong. So, we arrived back at the hostel with two hours to spare before we had to meet to go on our sandboarding tour, and by the time we had to leave my sneakers were bone dry. Dusty as all get out, but dry as can be. Which is nice, because I am not sure I can imagine anything less comfortable than sandboarding down a giant sand dune with wet sneakers. As a side note, sandboarding is awesome, and soooo much fun. If you ever get a chance to do it, you totally should.
Professional sandboarder?
Maybe.
Cyclist extraordinaire?
Definitely not.
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