It started with a “Yop” yogurt beverage, the only one on the shelf. It stood in solitude in the scantily stocked cooler in a convenience store on the Chilean side of the Island of Tierra Del Fuego. This sparsely populated, windswept, southernmost island of South America offers one of the last vestiges of civilization before reaching the circumpolar region of Antarctica. Flat Earthers will know this region as the southern ice wall that prevents all of us from falling off the side of the planet, on the great foosball table we call Earth. A Yop was an unusual find in such a remote place, considering that we had not spied this treasured childhood beverage anywhere on our travels throughout the continent so far.
Joanne and I had been travelling Peru, Chile and Argentina for about 2 months, and the last month or so by bicycle. We rode heavily laden, clunky mountain bikes back and forth across the Andes, the mountain range that doubles as a border between the latter two countries.
We had gotten the idea to head to South America after taking a conversational Spanish course together at university a couple of years earlier. I, with attention deficit issues, and Joanne, with diagnosed narcolepsy, were able to pay attention just enough to achieve adequate grades and very basic levels of understanding of conversational Spanish. We figured with our combined knowledge of the language, us two neuro-atypical gals could manage to get along just fine.
The Author, in a typical landscape in the south of Chile (2007/2008).
Having already cycled over 1500 kilometers from the arbitrary starting point of Curacautín, Chile, we were bottomless pits when it came to food consumption. We had sky high metabolisms that increased incrementally with each mountain pass we ascended, or every howling headwind we struggled against - by now, our hunger knew no bounds. Every gastronomical opportunity that came upon us was seized, especially one saturated in nostalgia, such as this fortuitously placed Yop.
With one thick glug of this dairyful delight, you could transcend space and time, back to a schoolyard in New Brunswick in the late 80’s. There, a Yop might be found inside your yellow “Gem and the Holograms” lunchbox, nestled next to a pack of Popeye candy cigarettes and a bruised banana. At recess, you would hold the Yop in one hand, and pretend to smoke the now slightly banana-flavoured ciggies with the other, while sporting a teased hairdo with vertical bangs, and wearing a Budweiser beer t-shirt tucked into your acid washed jeans. You were just your average 7-year old, channeling your inner pool hall skank, which was the style at the time.
Dairy gives me robust zits, so I waived the nostalgia, to the delight of my complexion. Instead, I pounded back some empanadas while Joanne indulged in the last Yop on the shelf. The empanadas were a dreamy medley of spiced ground meat, a quarter of a boiled egg, and one singular olive, all neatly tucked and baked into a delicate pastry envelope.
A staple at convenience store counters in this region, empanadas sat unrefrigerated all day in the summer heat. Salmonella be damned! This sort of laissez faire seemed to baulk at the food safety standards upheld by North American counterparts, but appealed to my own personal willingness to take risks on things left out over a questionable period of time.
Safety standards in the South American regions that we visited seemed to be more vague notions than steadfast rules. Seatbelts sometimes were just ropes that led to nowhere, “bus stops” doubled as wind shielded-urination spots, and actual bus pick ups happened anywhere along the highway that you could flail your hands freely.
Schedules were a charming concept, but were subject to the whims of weather, human operators, and other unreliable factors. This chaos was like the jazz of cultural infrastructure- incomprehensible to newcomers, but if subjected to it long enough, you may start to perceive its rhythm. That being said, even if you feel the rhythm, there’s no guarantee you’ll enjoy every note. I never grooved to the type of “eclectic jazz” that allowed grown men to just pee anywhere and everywhere, even indoors - an act we witnessed on several occasions throughout our travels.
Overall though, I found joy in the dynamism and chaos of erratic lawlessness. Doing what needs to be done, in order to do what you need to do just makes good sense, in my books. I’ve struggled to jump on the bandwagon of arbitrary rules and the rigid standards imposed in Canada, or at least, in the populated parts of Canada. Here in Tierra Del Fuego, the Land of Fire, I readily warmed up to the rhythm of life.
In the past couple of months, it was “trial by fire” with our language skills. We figured that any of the words we didn’t know in Spanish, we could probably guesstimate by plunking an “o” or an “a” at the end of a French or English word, in order to cheat our way to some kind of understanding. We had success with this theory, but our conversations also left many disturbed, confused, or maybe aroused individuals in the wake of our exchanges. Probably because I was distracted on the day that we learned the Spanish iteration of the verb “to take”, and because Jo was probably sound asleep during the same class, we naturally surmised that the word “tocar” might be the most likely candidate. While it sounds like “to take”, it actually means “to touch”. So, when we told a fellow that “nosotros tocamos en el bus” to get here, roughly translating to “we touched each other on the bus to get here”, we conveyed a certain unintended level of sexy travel desperation that we weren’t quite ready to enact.
Other fun blunders included telling everyone how embarrassed or excited we were by one thing or another. Naturally, we elected to use the adjectives “embarazado” and “excitada” to express these emotions, and the result was that we told several people that we were pregnant (we were not) and horny (for food, maybe) on multiple occasions before being corrected between bouts of laughter.
Armed with this linguistic mediocrity, we deemed it appropriate to launch ourselves into an immersive experience to really get the hang of the language, and where better to do so than in some of the most remote communities and corners of the Spanish speaking world? It was 2007, and our first time travelling internationally together, and also our first big cycling trip. I had only had two previous cycle touring experiences, and Jo only one.
My first “cycle tour”, if you could call it that, was an 80km solo adventure to Kouchibouguac National Park from Miramichi, New Brunswick. Solo trip “highlights” included forgetting my sleeping bag, bringing only one match to light a candle (which was immediately extinguished by a suicidal moth), forgetting my flashlight, my money, and I also failed to tell anyone where I was going. I spent that cold spring evening wrapped in a towel with my backpack pulled up to my knees as a makeshift sleeping bag, illegally camping in the woods behind the actual campsites in the Park, due to my lack of wallet. The next day, my chain broke, I abandoned the bicycle in the ditch and hitchhiked 100kms back to my grandmother’s house. It is a wonder my picture didn’t end up on the side of a milk box, my impulsive actions immortalized as a cautionary tale.
Jo and I embarked on our first cycling trip together on a manicured rail trail across Prince Edward Island. That trip was about 350 kms long, and we were riding on cheap Supercycle mountain bikes, carrying our gear in backpacks - a big bicycle trip no-no that will buy you sore shoulders and a one way ticket to Chafe City.
It’s safe to say that we were amateurs at the cycle touring game. When we rode across PEI, neither of us were aware of the existence of bike panniers and neither of us knew how to change a tire tube. From that experience, we became wise to the virtues of panniers and bike racks, and made a vow of self-sufficiency in replacing our own tire tubes after being stranded on the side of the trail with nothing but endless potato fields in sight. The learning curve was steep, but we were willing to climb it.
Now, in Tierra Del Fuego, nearing the end of our 2-month travels, we had overcome many hurdles, learned valuable lessons along the way, and were much more adept at cycle touring. But with the road as your teacher, there are always more lessons to be learned.
With empanadas and Yop consumed to take the edge off, we cycled into the village of Porvenir, seeking a main course to fuel up entirely before hitting the road again. After a brief jaunt through town, we “decided” on the Croatian restaurant, which also happened to be the only restaurant that was open. Feeling adequately topped up, we were poised to hit the road. As we mounted our bikes, a cute stray dog came by to visit us and made friends with Jo.
Jo bent over to pet the dog - a small, scruffy grey mutt, who enjoyed the attention. Soon another scruffy dog showed up, a bit shier than her companion, but still very keen to be in our orbit. The two dogs were females, and within moments of their arrival, two or three potential male suitors came sniffing around, attempting a few failed mounting tactics, and marking their territory. The females were in heat, and their very existence - the state of being female and fertile - created a tense energy that seemed to be sensed by all male dogs within a 10 km radius. Since almost all animal mating behaviour falls in the “you shouldn’t have worn that dress” side of consent for the females of the species, it was obvious that the two little dogs were anxious and apprehensive - they were now using our bicycles, and our legs to block their unwanted suitors.
Jo and I could relate. Peru, Chile, and Argentina were some of the most machismo cultures we had experienced, and we were constantly being kissed at, cat-called, and harassed by the human equivalent of the dirty, mangy dogs that were currently milling around us. A few weeks earlier, we had been pursued out of a small farm village by a teenaged boy on a bicycle, who bluntly asked us if we would take his virginity. After playing dumb by using the language barrier as our shield, we moved onto our next avoidance tactic - flashing our faux wedding rings to the boy as a deterrent. He said: “Que lo entiendo, chicas Americanas estan muy libre sexualmente y no importa si están casadas” (translation: From what I understand, American girls are very sexually liberated and it doesn’t matter if you’re married). He cast a wide net - he said either of us would do, that he wasn’t picky. He was nothing if he wasn’t practical - chopped liver was always on the menu for this kid. He followed us out of town for about 10 kms before we left him, and his blue balls, on the side of the road.
When the two female dogs followed Jo and I as we pushed off and pedalled through the dirt streets of Porvenir, we formed a 4-pack of Bitches - we needed strength in numbers to stave off the male dogs. The road out of town was not immediately obvious, and soon we became disoriented and needed to ask for directions. As we ambled along the empty streets in search of someone to talk to, the two female dogs stuck with us dutifully, and behind them, an ever-growing gaggle of male dogs shuffled fervently in pursuit. There was mounting tension among the male dogs, and we heard rumblings and grumblings that pointed to an imminent eruption among the pack.
On the topic of eruptions, Jo’s guts decided to join in on the protests with their own rumblings and grumblings - there was an uprising within. Since we began this cycling trip, our #1 and # 2 functions were decidedly separate. At this moment though, these two entities were joining forces to create an unpopular union - the much maligned #3. Our team had not felt the wrath of # 3 since I became mysteriously ill in Peru 2 months earlier, and lay in a hostel room for 24 hours while my soul left my body and the exorcism played out.
For the past 30 days, we had eaten the same food - we shared snacks, we even had the same meal at the Croatian restaurant earlier, and I felt fine. This left only one culprit in today’s gastric betrayal - the beloved, most trusted and familiar dairy drink of our youth. Et tu, Yoplait?
Unsurprisingly, Jo mentioned that she’d like to get out of town ASAP due to her overwhelming need to explode from her anus. To make matters more dire, trees and bushes are scant in Tierra Del Fuego, and public bathrooms even more so. The windswept land only allows for a sparse smattering of stunted, knobby trees to grow in gnarly wind-forced configurations among dry grassy expanses. Privacy is achieved by being far away from others, rather than hiding behind something.
We spotted a woman who was walking down the middle of the road with her toddler. We stopped to ask her for directions towards Bahia Azul, our next port of call. By now, we understood Spanish well enough to be able to tell that this senorita had a speech impediment and was very difficult to understand. As we struggled to decipher the directions in these dire moments, a comedic genius could not have penned a more aptly timed farce. Were we the unwitting participants on the set of a Benny Hill Skit? I waited for the frantic kazoo music to play as the pack of muy excitada dogs encroached upon the two females.
The canine Casanovas were of various shapes, breeds, sizes, ages and conditions. It was like a “Dogs Playing Poker” painting had come to life, only the poker game was being held at your hometown Legion, and the players were all the haggard, lonely bachelors with hunchbacks and googly eyes that had never managed to find anyone to shack up with (and not for lack of trying). The male dogs jockeyed for position to get at the females, and began to bark and fight as they drew closer to us. Their roughhousing nearly knocked the little girl over, and made her mother’s stuttered directions almost impossible to understand.
Jo began biking in circles, the mounting urgency in her bowels was now detectable at the extrasensory level. “Gennnnnn!” she said in a nervous crescendo that matched the increasing canine mayhem around us. This scene had become a spectacle - some onlookers emerged onto the streets, hanging out on benches and stoops. Where was everyone a few minutes ago when we were looking for one single soul to talk to? Now, they were laughing at us, and who could blame them? We were the unintentional clowns in a street circus formed by unfortunate circumstances - two foreigners on bicycles with an unruly canine entourage, and one of us was about to shit ourselves for the Grande Finale.
We were pointed out of town, and we dashed off in that direction - unsure if it was really the right direction, but we no longer cared. Jo was in the lead, her face glazed with sweat generated by her body as a direct order from her bowels to alert the calvary - a fecal coup was nigh - ready or not. Her eyes darted left and right for any place that she could find to squat. It had to be far enough from the ogling eyes of our new fan club of loitering townsfolk. I followed behind sympathetically, while coming up with a plan to execute doggy defense tactics when we stopped.
What the past 25 minutes had taught us was that chaos erupts within the pack when it is halted. Unfortunately, on our campaign to find a way out of town, we managed to recruit more dogs to join our shit parade. We were the reluctant Pied Pipers of horny strays. Our pack had grown to 15 strong, a melee of ardent lovers poised to break into passion-fueled battles upon our imminent stop.
No longer able to wait, Jo dismounted her bike and made it 10 meters off the road into a field of scrubby bushes and tufts of dry grass. She made a valiant, yet ineffective attempt to hide behind a few errant blades as she pulled down her pants. The little female dogs were right there with her. The loyalty of the pooches to their protector would have been endearing in any other instance, but their devout following also attracted the eagerly pursuing male dogs who now grew only more engaged. Not only did Jo have eligible bachelorettes at her side, but she was also adding another intriguing element to the scene. A taboo subject among humans perhaps, but in the dog world, the poo-poo platter was as prized as prime rib in some kinky circles.
I dumped my bike and quickly sprung into action, as planned. I grabbed a handful of rocks and stood between Jo and the highest concentration of dogs. I began yelling and pelting the dogs with rocks - their single mindedness momentarily broken with each pelting, creating a 10-meter radius around myself and the damsels in distress. In that moment, I was a valiant knight, protecting my fortress. Behind me, were precious treasures of our main resources - fertile eggs and fecal matter.
Having lost the plot on “leave no trace” travelling after defiling the countryside, Jo was ready to get back on the bike and head for the hills. The dogs were frenzied, and their spirited fighting had actually worked in our favour. Most dogs were too entangled in conflict to notice that we had made off with the fair maidens. Only a handful of the most astute dogs, plus one rather unfortunate old timer - excluded from the royal rumble due to his sad state - continued to trail us on their quest. Our mettlesome sisters ran close behind us, their little legs propelling them, their wills carrying them forward to freedom.
We biked over 15 kms out of town on a slight uphill grade. In that distance, all but one of the remaining dogs gradually dropped off, exhausted, dejected, or discouraged. The unlikely lone contender was the mangy old geyser still hoping to sow his wild oats. At 20 kms, the old man gave in and skittered away, and the bitches were proven victorious!
At 40 kms from Porvenir, we reached the height of the land, the sun began to drop, creating a brilliant orange glow that set The Land of Fire ablaze. We stopped for a minute to say goodbye to our fugitive friends - they were now the Thelma and Louise of the Hispanic doggy world, destined to lock paws and launch themselves off the Grand Canyon - a dramatic adieu to an unforgiving world.
We pedaled on, descending into a dry, grassy expanse, as we picked up speed. As we rolled down, I looked over my shoulder - the last I saw of the girls was their determined little bodies, bathed in golden light, on the road to adventure in the perpetual pursuit of freedom.