The End of the Road to Nowhere
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Dominic Gill
Aug 8, 2008, 2:41:36 PM8/8/08
to dom...@googlegroups.com
My dear friends,
Thats thats then, I´m done. Finished. For now......
I am extremely grateful for all the support I have had from you all along the way, encouraging emails, lots of money for Hope and Homes for Children and everything else! THANK YOU!
Now comes the tricky part. Book writing, documentary editing, and doing talks....lots of talks. If your company wants an interesting talk about the last two years of my life....let me know!!
I continue to try and raise money for Hope and Homes (www.takeaseat.org), so please please continue to spread the word for me. Thank you. My website is updated with my last entry and photos from the end of the world here. You can also find my rmablings below...
Enjoy and please keep in touch. All of you!!
Lots of love
Dom www.takeaseat.org
The End of the Road to Nowhere
I had a fight today. It wasn`t a bad one, one or two small bruises nothing more. Strange that it should happen just as I arrived at the end, but it was then that Alonso my companion decided to change into "Chancho man", roughly translating as Pig man. I had a feeling this might happen, so under my waterporoofs I was wearing the Spiderman suit I had been given by a companion in Bolivia. Spiderman won of course, and wondered off to stare reflectively at Bahia Lapataia, where the road south ends on the American continent.
I am at the end of this journey. I`ve finished. I`m done with this bike ride.....whichever way I say it it sounds strange. I have thought for many many hours about these final moments, arriving in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (given the name due to the cooking fires seen burning on the beaches by Magellan and his crew). I thought about filming different conclusions, about jumping with joy, perhaps finding a local policeman or granny to ride with me for a few minutes. As it was, Alonso and I arrived tired, very wet and half numb with cold after one hundred and ten kilometres of heavy snow and wind, whipping the crystals painfully into my eyes as I tried to pick a line with the hardest snowpack free of heavy goods vehicles. But now we've arrived, the weather no longer matters, and much to my companion`s relief, slave driver Dom`s alarm no longer sounds in the frigid dawn to take advantage of what little daylight exists in these latitudes.
But that is now, A little over a week ago I was in Chile, waiting for a gap in the snow storms to cross the stormy Magellan Straits and enter Tierra del Fuego, a land of pampas, of uninterrupted wind and Gauchos (cowboys) that treat you like family, because there ain`t nobody else! Without Gauchos like Ivan, my tired body and failing mind would not have weathered the storms we have ridden through.......
* * *
Ivan`s horse skeetered sideways, still thirty feet away in the pampas but nervous of Achilles and his cargo. There was no estancia for miles, Ivan said, and the large homestead in the distance we could see had an unfriendly owner who, apparently wouldn`t show us hospitality. But, Ivan, smiling, invited us to follow him to his small house over a rise behind near the icy track, from where we could hear his dogs, who had sniffed us on the sharp Patagonian breeze.
We fought our way against the building headwind back the way we had come, following his horse to a small gate and over frozen ground to a tiny, sturdy hut. Our new home.
Three steaming plates of stew were placed infront of us, cramped around his table and all but filling his one room house. No sooner had I cleaned my plate than a rack of patagonian sheep was produced and Ivan began cutting and sawing the shell of meat into managable chunks. We would eat well tonight...
Ivan was telling white lies. He admitted it himself a few hours later. There were two estancias only kilometres away, but the truth was he wanted the company. It was thanks to those white lies, that I had one of the nicest meals I have ever tasted while learning little snippets of the life that Ivan leads, his deeply lined, kind, weathered face smiling shyly at us as the cold wrapped its crusty hand over his metal hut, crystalline fingers of ice spreading across the tiny window panes. Once our sleeping bags were prepared, there was no floor space left. Ivan tripped over me during the night when stepping out for a piss, and Alonso kicked me in the head by accident. It didn´t matter though, we were all happy to be there!
In fact, thanks to people like Ivan, since entering the Land of Fire I have not had to get my tent out once, and hardly my stove. Border Police, Gauchos and firemen have been our Guardian Angels and ensured that I didn`t lose a single gram of what little fat I have left to protect me from the humid cold winter here.
* * *
It was my penultimate day on the road. Alonso was struggling, not accustomed to lugging his hundred kilo frame around on a bicycle, and it was raining, a cold, sleety rain that seemed to burn a hole in your skin and freeze you from the inside out. So it was with weary hope that we entered the village of Tolhuin, heading directly for the fire station over the rutted ice. None of us expected what was to come.
Hugo, the Fire Chief slowly rolled open the huge heavy metal door and beckoned us in out of the snow. Achilles and Joselyns borrowed bike that had come to be known as Barbie joined thirteen other vehicles in the huge station. Five minutes later we were sipping Mate and watching the Simpsons with a handful of volunteers that treated the station like a second home. Very shortly after we had thawed out, smells began to eminate from the far side of the large living area. Hugo was preparing dinner, three huge pots of ´Puchero´, Patagonian lamb and steaming vegetables which we devoured, sitting at a huge table with the firefighters and their families, Alonso and I sharing a satisfied glance after seconds and thirds of this delicious food.
That was before one of the friendly, giggling firemen mentioned something about a “fireman`s baptism”……thoughts of rugby team initiation ceremonies galloped worryingly through my mind as I was told to don an old firemans jacket and boots, the bunch of men seemingly licking their lips with glee. “Do you want to go voluntarily or do we have to force you….I suggest voluntarily” the biggerst of them said, smiling down at me. I marched outside obediently while the firemen sniggered and some of their familys trailed closely behind, the children whooping with excitement. A particularly deep patch of snow was found to dump me in, my jacket, face, boots and mouth filled quickly with wet snow by a scrum of bomberos. And so I was babtised, Bombero style. Alonso was caught hiding in the warehouse and given the same treatment, as was Joselyn. Everyone is equal in this world.
Dry again shortly afterwards, we were congratulated by all members of the station and presented with a key to a lovely apartment in which to sleep. My last night on this journey was also one of the most comfortable, ending far too soon as we trudged out in the dawn light again, snow and rain specking our clothes before we had even started.
The painful memories of the last day cycling are now fading fast, as the software in my brain files those sensations, or sends the most painful of them to the shredder. In this way, the discomfort, misery and anger is skillfully forgotten, allowing me to start dreaming of other adventures that will doubtless be equally painful....
I´ve finished. Theres no more land left.
Did I succeed? I suppose so, geographically speaking, but the importance of that has slowly receded as I have been cycling south. I began this journey, hungry to prove that I could do it, that I was strong enough to survive, full of machismo usually connected to extreme sports. Slowly, ever so slowly though, my priorities changed and I learnt the real worth of this journey. Company. Sharing. Faith in those around you wherever you are, despite the largely negative scare stories that plague the world. Thanks to the spare seat on Achilles, I was able to learn a little more than I might have done otherwise. I could really physically share my journey with people, many people that would never in a million years have dreamed of travelling on a bicycle. Without knowing it at the time, setting out on the 16th June 2006 on Achilles the tandem bicycle, I was presenting myself with the opportunity to inspire, surely the best gift one can recieve. Did I make use of it? Did I make someone laugh or even smile? Did I plant a dream in the mind of a child or old man? I sincerely hope so.
The journey doesn`t stop here, it just changes. It will never stop. Thank you for accompanying me on this part of my trajectory. Without you, it wouldn`t have been half as special.
Dominic Gill, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
D O M i N i C G i L L
"One Tandem, One Camera, Twenty Thousand Miles of Possibilities..."
WWW.TAKEASEAT.ORG
Get fish-slapping on Messenger! Play Now
Thats thats then, I´m done. Finished. For now......
I am extremely grateful for all the support I have had from you all along the way, encouraging emails, lots of money for Hope and Homes for Children and everything else! THANK YOU!
Now comes the tricky part. Book writing, documentary editing, and doing talks....lots of talks. If your company wants an interesting talk about the last two years of my life....let me know!!
I continue to try and raise money for Hope and Homes (www.takeaseat.org), so please please continue to spread the word for me. Thank you. My website is updated with my last entry and photos from the end of the world here. You can also find my rmablings below...
Enjoy and please keep in touch. All of you!!
Lots of love
Dom www.takeaseat.org
The End of the Road to Nowhere
I had a fight today. It wasn`t a bad one, one or two small bruises nothing more. Strange that it should happen just as I arrived at the end, but it was then that Alonso my companion decided to change into "Chancho man", roughly translating as Pig man. I had a feeling this might happen, so under my waterporoofs I was wearing the Spiderman suit I had been given by a companion in Bolivia. Spiderman won of course, and wondered off to stare reflectively at Bahia Lapataia, where the road south ends on the American continent.
I am at the end of this journey. I`ve finished. I`m done with this bike ride.....whichever way I say it it sounds strange. I have thought for many many hours about these final moments, arriving in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (given the name due to the cooking fires seen burning on the beaches by Magellan and his crew). I thought about filming different conclusions, about jumping with joy, perhaps finding a local policeman or granny to ride with me for a few minutes. As it was, Alonso and I arrived tired, very wet and half numb with cold after one hundred and ten kilometres of heavy snow and wind, whipping the crystals painfully into my eyes as I tried to pick a line with the hardest snowpack free of heavy goods vehicles. But now we've arrived, the weather no longer matters, and much to my companion`s relief, slave driver Dom`s alarm no longer sounds in the frigid dawn to take advantage of what little daylight exists in these latitudes.
But that is now, A little over a week ago I was in Chile, waiting for a gap in the snow storms to cross the stormy Magellan Straits and enter Tierra del Fuego, a land of pampas, of uninterrupted wind and Gauchos (cowboys) that treat you like family, because there ain`t nobody else! Without Gauchos like Ivan, my tired body and failing mind would not have weathered the storms we have ridden through.......
* * *
Ivan`s horse skeetered sideways, still thirty feet away in the pampas but nervous of Achilles and his cargo. There was no estancia for miles, Ivan said, and the large homestead in the distance we could see had an unfriendly owner who, apparently wouldn`t show us hospitality. But, Ivan, smiling, invited us to follow him to his small house over a rise behind near the icy track, from where we could hear his dogs, who had sniffed us on the sharp Patagonian breeze.
We fought our way against the building headwind back the way we had come, following his horse to a small gate and over frozen ground to a tiny, sturdy hut. Our new home.
Three steaming plates of stew were placed infront of us, cramped around his table and all but filling his one room house. No sooner had I cleaned my plate than a rack of patagonian sheep was produced and Ivan began cutting and sawing the shell of meat into managable chunks. We would eat well tonight...
Ivan was telling white lies. He admitted it himself a few hours later. There were two estancias only kilometres away, but the truth was he wanted the company. It was thanks to those white lies, that I had one of the nicest meals I have ever tasted while learning little snippets of the life that Ivan leads, his deeply lined, kind, weathered face smiling shyly at us as the cold wrapped its crusty hand over his metal hut, crystalline fingers of ice spreading across the tiny window panes. Once our sleeping bags were prepared, there was no floor space left. Ivan tripped over me during the night when stepping out for a piss, and Alonso kicked me in the head by accident. It didn´t matter though, we were all happy to be there!
In fact, thanks to people like Ivan, since entering the Land of Fire I have not had to get my tent out once, and hardly my stove. Border Police, Gauchos and firemen have been our Guardian Angels and ensured that I didn`t lose a single gram of what little fat I have left to protect me from the humid cold winter here.
* * *
It was my penultimate day on the road. Alonso was struggling, not accustomed to lugging his hundred kilo frame around on a bicycle, and it was raining, a cold, sleety rain that seemed to burn a hole in your skin and freeze you from the inside out. So it was with weary hope that we entered the village of Tolhuin, heading directly for the fire station over the rutted ice. None of us expected what was to come.
Hugo, the Fire Chief slowly rolled open the huge heavy metal door and beckoned us in out of the snow. Achilles and Joselyns borrowed bike that had come to be known as Barbie joined thirteen other vehicles in the huge station. Five minutes later we were sipping Mate and watching the Simpsons with a handful of volunteers that treated the station like a second home. Very shortly after we had thawed out, smells began to eminate from the far side of the large living area. Hugo was preparing dinner, three huge pots of ´Puchero´, Patagonian lamb and steaming vegetables which we devoured, sitting at a huge table with the firefighters and their families, Alonso and I sharing a satisfied glance after seconds and thirds of this delicious food.
That was before one of the friendly, giggling firemen mentioned something about a “fireman`s baptism”……thoughts of rugby team initiation ceremonies galloped worryingly through my mind as I was told to don an old firemans jacket and boots, the bunch of men seemingly licking their lips with glee. “Do you want to go voluntarily or do we have to force you….I suggest voluntarily” the biggerst of them said, smiling down at me. I marched outside obediently while the firemen sniggered and some of their familys trailed closely behind, the children whooping with excitement. A particularly deep patch of snow was found to dump me in, my jacket, face, boots and mouth filled quickly with wet snow by a scrum of bomberos. And so I was babtised, Bombero style. Alonso was caught hiding in the warehouse and given the same treatment, as was Joselyn. Everyone is equal in this world.
Dry again shortly afterwards, we were congratulated by all members of the station and presented with a key to a lovely apartment in which to sleep. My last night on this journey was also one of the most comfortable, ending far too soon as we trudged out in the dawn light again, snow and rain specking our clothes before we had even started.
The painful memories of the last day cycling are now fading fast, as the software in my brain files those sensations, or sends the most painful of them to the shredder. In this way, the discomfort, misery and anger is skillfully forgotten, allowing me to start dreaming of other adventures that will doubtless be equally painful....
I´ve finished. Theres no more land left.
Did I succeed? I suppose so, geographically speaking, but the importance of that has slowly receded as I have been cycling south. I began this journey, hungry to prove that I could do it, that I was strong enough to survive, full of machismo usually connected to extreme sports. Slowly, ever so slowly though, my priorities changed and I learnt the real worth of this journey. Company. Sharing. Faith in those around you wherever you are, despite the largely negative scare stories that plague the world. Thanks to the spare seat on Achilles, I was able to learn a little more than I might have done otherwise. I could really physically share my journey with people, many people that would never in a million years have dreamed of travelling on a bicycle. Without knowing it at the time, setting out on the 16th June 2006 on Achilles the tandem bicycle, I was presenting myself with the opportunity to inspire, surely the best gift one can recieve. Did I make use of it? Did I make someone laugh or even smile? Did I plant a dream in the mind of a child or old man? I sincerely hope so.
The journey doesn`t stop here, it just changes. It will never stop. Thank you for accompanying me on this part of my trajectory. Without you, it wouldn`t have been half as special.
Dominic Gill, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
D O M i N i C G i L L
"One Tandem, One Camera, Twenty Thousand Miles of Possibilities..."
WWW.TAKEASEAT.ORG
Get fish-slapping on Messenger! Play Now
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