What have I gotten myself into?
That was the question I was asking myself over two years ago now when I was in a plane flying over the remote and untouched expanses of forests in Alaska on my way to Fairbanks. For as far as I could see I saw nothing that humanity had built and was seriously questioning my ability to do what I had set out to do. After cycling across Washington and making it over the White Pass mere hours before a blizzard this was quickly becoming a very humbling adventure. As the plane was approaching Fairbanks for landing the sight of a road was a welcome one, a familiar comfort that I could hold onto in this time of pending adversity. During my time in Fairbanks I kept up the façade of calm and confident in my endeavor because betraying that would allow the doubts that hid below the surface to come up and become real. In the weeks that followed I struggled and overcame many obstacles in the form of distance, mountains and mosquitoes and with that the lingering doubts slowly faded away and were replaced with a healthy respect for myself without falling into overconfidence. Every kilometer under my tires was another bit of learning and experience.
I don’t often now ask myself what have I gotten myself into and instead remind myself that I volunteered to do this and no one is forcing me into these situations in a kind of gallows humor way when I am really suffering from self-inflicted hardships but a few weeks ago I found myself saying that phrase out loud when I was entering the Department of Puno in southern Perú and encountered the first of many impromptu road blocks.
What have I gotten myself into?
The first few were easy to circumvent either by biking along the shoulder or though a gap left to allow for two wheeled traffic to pass between the large rocks blocking larger vehicles from progressing. As I continued south the road blocks became larger and more varied in materials used from just piling dirt 1.5 meters high across the road, overturned and burned out vehicles, thin wires strung across the road to clothesline anyone not warned, fires of various things, and shattered glass strewn about the road was common among them all. With the ever intensifying of the blocks themselves, the people were becoming less and less friendly as I continued to ride. The first the people waved me through and held up the wires there to stop those speeding by understanding that as a cycletourer my resources for being held up are severely limited. But towards the end of my ride that day I was routinely being surrounded by large groups of people, yelled at, grabbed at different parts of my body in an attempt to pull me off of my bike and people just holding onto my bike itself. The worst was as I was approaching the city of Ayaviri; I had long since given up the notion of camping for fear of my safety at night and was desperately trying to make it to that city before nightfall where I knew a hospedaje existed. I made it thirty minutes before nightfall, and felt a severe sense of relief being inside a locked room and safe. Not wanting to venture out for food meant I was stuck eating a few granola bars and some Oreos for dinner but being mindful to have enough for my ride the following day. This is a life I chose.
I waited until an hour after sunrise to leave and while I still had residual nervousness from the previous day’s ordeals there was a calmer feeling in the air. I encountered only a few more road blocks but it looked like they were being cleaned up and I finally was starting to get a picture on what they were protesting. The first block on my way out of town had a message written in chalk on the road and while reading in Spanish upside down while biking wasn’t easy I got the gist, mining companies were polluting or threatening to pollute the local water supplies with the runoff from their mines. I felt a little bad about being a Scab and crossing the lines especially for a cause I believe in. I had apparently biked though the second day of a two day protest to protect local water, had I known about this I probably would have postponed leaving Sicuani another day or just did a really short day and hang out at the hot springs just before crossing into the Department of Puno while doing so would risk overstaying my visa as my 90 days were running out.
I don’t know when the next time I will ask myself that question or for what it is I am asking it, but what I do know is that when that time comes I’ll know I’ve earned it and hopefully it’s for something good.