The Road at the End of the World

Darwin travelled these parts long before the automobile, when time and nature stood their ground. His observations gave us an outline to nature´s never-ending story. If he returned today his book might be titled ¨The Decline of the Species¨. The first half of the road across Tierra del Feugo is idlylic - through ancient beech forests with meadows and trout streams. The second half is across bare wind-swept steppe through an oilfield. The road is wide enough for two trucks to pass, but not two trucks and a bicycle. The constant noice of wind whistling thru the bike helmet drowns out the sound of trucks approaching from behind. The slipsteam of the passing truck sweeps you forward on the gravel shoulder, like a wave carries a surfer. The vacuum as the truck passes sucks you back on the road, only to be buffeted by the full force of the wind. Usually I stay upright, but not always. The landscape is dusty and featureless except for the oil pumping stations, with their nodding heads they are like a remorseless mechanical god. The road, the trucks and the oil exist for each other. I am an outsider. It is like being in the post-apcocolypse movie- Mad Max. Existance is reduced to juggernault trucks riding an endless highway through desolation.
Earlier in the trip time and distance were measured in horizons. Each horizon was about 50km apart and each day had two, maybe three horizons. Then, biking through the mountains, one eye scanned the the maze of U-shaped valleys for a gap. while the other watched the road immediately in front for rocks and holes. Now my head is bowed and I stare three feet head in front to avoid the rocks and wind. Long forgotten lines from Bob Dylan surface. To remember this trip I will not use photos or my scribbled notes , but rather put old Dylan vinyl on the turntable and smile. The trip will have been a success if for no other reason that I belive I now understand what Bob Dylan was writing about in the 60s.