The Andes’ Calling

Seeing back our Kenton motorbike, we realize how much bags we have, and how small the vehicle actually is. It is not meant to be a vehicle for two people including luggage, hauling not only far away distances but great altitudes too. All our stuff is brought back to a minimum, yet extra racks have to be mounted to carry our gear.

To know what this continent holds, is to become instantly impatient. This is Geo his second time around, but since he met me, he never saw more than Paraguay. This is our mutual discovery by motorbike in South America beyond Paraguay.

Filadelfia is a nice town. It is the capital of the Chaco, where a large portion of the Mennonites life, flourish and only move forward.

We both feel at home and glad to be back. The boredom, nothingness and quietness are in fact soothing. Walking around we see no Halloween nonsense nor skulls, no dragons, no toy firearms (since Mennonites are pacifistic) and no graffiti. The supermarket plays no music, no one openly smokes cigarettes and it is quiet at 22.00 PM. Fashion is no issue here. Make-up, tattoos and piercings neither.

We are back in a sort of Germany from the ‘50. It looks old-fashioned and calm, but undercurrents play. When the pioneers came to Paraguay, they were anointed a patch of land, only to share with the native Indians, and under one promise: to make it profitable. They did, with assistance they imported steam engines, peanut press, cotton machines and much more, to produce dry bush land into something one may expect from Europeans. So, with machines came internet, and youngsters automatically arrive at rubbish (such as porn). Machines and economic growth brings inevitably stuff purists can do without.

Once back at the farm of Marilyn and Gerd, 20 kilometers away from town, we feel instant relief! Finally total quietness. This quietness and nature is pure balm to the soul.

This is how I want to live, when I am not traveling. The ground is packed mud. There’s a fire pitch. A well. A beautiful cat comes purring around me. Heavenly goodness, can it get better?

It feels good to walk on soil, the orchestra of birds around me, the known and even the unknown, the outhouse.

‘You really have an obsession with toilets’, Geo says. I am simply elated with an outhouse. Not the endless flush of water, the never ceasing cleaning of the ceramic pot, the smelly synthetic products to clean it. Camping, or living rather, and being away from conventional structures, makes me instantly leap with joy, intestines included. Constipation flushes as soon as I can sit in an outhouse! The joys of life!

However unbelievable, sitting on the back of a motorcycle is not less tiresome than riding a bicycle. To drive the same stretch, first on the bicycle and now on the motorbike, is a not to comprehend truth. How could I cycle these distances? I only now see how others must have seen me. ‘Are you crazy?’ and ‘Why?’ are very normal questions from my new point of view. Of course, the answer is, riding a bicycle makes a body and mind very strong. Constant activity provides more energy, especially when all is new and good still.

Distances in the Dry Chaco are long and utterly boring. What Geo drives in two days, I did in 6 stages. Ratio 1:6 nights along the road.

I was always looking down on motor-riders, thinking: ‘What could possibly be so difficult about your trip? You just sit!’ or ‘Hard? Are you joking? You got a machine under your bum who does all the work for you!’ or ‘How very unadventurous to sit on a motorbike, especially for the poor lady in the back.’ Again, I realize how biased, prejudiced, contemptuously… and proud, I was.

A bicycle is not to compare with a motorbike. All perspectives changes, depending the angle you look at it. A cyclist sees and experiences the world different than a motorcyclist.

I still have the buzzing, sticking flies to every part of uncovered skin when we stop for a camp spot. I still have the comforting lack of so-called comfort and the terrible bad food. I also strongly feel that I do not want to cycle again, that mode of discovering is somehow over. Crossing into Bolivia, we meet with a new adventure.

November 2019. Route: Filadelfia – Mariscal Estigarribia – La Patria – Infante Rivarola

Here is a link to Geo his blogpost, German only.