Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Night Rides.


It usually happens around 10 in the night. Slowly, one by one, as drops falling from the water tap we all start crowding Tom's den. Warming up our heads for what's to come is a ritual we must not avoid. It usually takes some time till the gang is complete or maybe incomplete, but once ready, we depart for the night.

Smoothly through the city we surf our way through the semi empty streets, the short traffic jams and passers by. Most of them are on their way home, for us, we are on our way to the skies. We are there to get rid of what the day threw at us, emancipate our souls from the bad and get rid of those thoughts that trap us in our minds. We are there to set our spirits free from everything. We are there to live.

It takes little to reach the base of the San Cristobal and the only back door we can use to enter the place. Usually the hype and the warm up makes us reach that point in no time. Still, we are far to complete our quest, we still need to avoid the guards that will try to get rid of us and cast us out of the place.

In pitch black night we start the ride, sneaking our way through the wannabe gates poorly guarded by a guy that maybe won't even notice we are there. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not, it will probably depends on the karma of the riders in the gang. Still, the speculations hits; “is it the right time to go up?”, “what if the guy is outside?” “and the pick up?”. The mind trying to play its tricks on us. Time to shut it down and start the ride.

Covered by the night we start riding up, in what will be next hour till we reach the goal for the night. Nobody says a thing. All silent we push our pedals up the hill protected by the darkness that sometimes, just sometimes, breaks due to the shiny city lights.

Down there, the city and the lights that won't break our darkness anymore. We still have to keep pushing up, and now, try to avoid the pick up that takes rounds from time to time. They want to cast out the probable intruders that sneaked through the only back door of the park. They are looking for us.

Covered by the night we make our way through the park, pushing uphill, alert to any sign of light in case we have to hide. We have to avoid the pick up that may block the pass and chase us down all the way to the exit doors. No way we want that. We are on a mission here and we need to summit.

We may get lucky as most times or we may not. Usually we reach summit and get our price; shinning lights all over the horizon. Distant sounds of cars, parties, people, buses, the monster called city. But the monster is down there and we are up here with the place only for us. Small tiny people existing down there not noticing in the monster they are living in, but we can notice for them. We are surrounded, trapped in the middle of shinny lights that have no end in the distance.

We are still half the way though. We still need to go down. Feel the the speed, the wind and the night. No lights will enlighten the road and show you the way. It's the bike, your instinct and you. For the new ones it gets hard at the beginning, some of them get tempted to turn on their lights and go slower as the way looks completely different once you go down. For the ones that have been doing this for a while, it's another successful night in which we got to be free. Far in the distant, like stars the city lights randomly show up through the trees. Nothing can stop us now, the pick up, the guards, some dogs, fuck them off, we already got to the top and we are paid for the job. It's time to go home. We sneaked in, and we sneak out. We don't really care anymore though.


We surf the now empty streets on our way home. We are the owners of the streets as few cars pass by on the late night streets. Slowly the gang dissolves as everyone takes their own roads home. It will be till a next night we say, we meet at Tom's den, where we will all gather to reach the top again.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Uncertainty no more.



On monday I went to talk to the diving guys. Their office is around 15 k away from Punta Arenas. As usual, I took my bike to place because still, after 2 weeks here, I have no idea how to take the buses. Walking and biking is the norm for me and I'll try to maintain it during the winter despite the ice and the wind, unless someone gives me a ride of course.

On my way to their offices I got the first sight of the hills behind the city covered with a thin layer of snow and small spots of snow here and there over the city. It's quite early for snow it seems and lots of folks are saying that this winter will be one of those we will remember in the future years. It snowed most of the morning and the wind was awfully cold. I couldn't help but think about those old days back in Norway and how happy the snow and the coldness make me. I felt like a small kid living the life and laughed like the mad guy I am.

After some minutes being lost, because I decided I won't look at maps anymore but will only ask people for guidance about finding places, I found the office of the diving guys. Patricio, friend with Kanaan received me at his office and showed me the equipment they use for the diving classes and told me a little about what they do and what they are currently working with. We talked about my journey to get here and how I wasn't sure about leaving for taking the course somewhere else. Coti, another of the guys who work for the diving company showed up and I got introduced to him. The usual talking kept on and then I mentioned how I would like to reach Antarctica if I stay around for the winter. Instantly Coti asked if I spoke english and if I knew how to cook, he asked for my number and told me he had some contacts that could have more information that may get me there. Wow, that was unexpected.

We kept talking for a bit more but my decision was already made, IpushPedals will go into hibernation mode for the winter and will turn into IdiveInTheStrait. They gave me so much information in so little time and told me about several places I could go that I felt I had to stay in the area for the winter and maybe a bit more in order to complete the diving courses I want to take. So if I stay in the area, the machinery to reach the white continent now will start to work in order to try to find a job for the next summer season. By then, if everything goes right IdiveInTheStrait will become IsailBoats, lol. But all of those are just ideas of the mind that are not worth of thinking yet. For now, I will stay in Punta Arenas, I will try to find a regular job and earn some money in order to pay all the courses that I will take and start diving by the end of may or the first weeks of june.

Funny thing, the diving courses are given during winter. Usually in the past years they gave the Open Water course in a swimming pool because the suits for that course are wetsuits which don't isolate that much from the coldness of the Magellan strait. This year though, the swimming pool is closed which means we will have to take the dives into the strait. I shall get ready for such experience, eating like a pig in order to gain some fat for my body. Good thing, I already took a swim in the strait to get a sneak peak of what's to come.

Everyone is in the right place at the right moment for some reason. Now that I look back, it's funny how I was lost in my mind and in imaginary things that weren't real at all and all of that jazz made me get confused and were guiding towards what I didn't want at all, for now. It's funny how when I decided I would stop thinking and picturing the future, deciding for things that still weren't real at all and instead I  would throw myself to life, everything changed for good. It's good that everything is clear now and that I am back in track. I guess I had to experience all of this uncertainty  in order to come back to the world of here and now. Good thing all is sorted. It's funny too to look back to the past week and realize how crazy one can go sometimes. I hope I don't forget the lessons.

Until then.

Cheers.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Lost in the mind, still in Punta Arenas.



It's funny how life goes on when you are somewhere you don't know, with some ideas that you would like to carry on but with not a clue on where to look for. It's funny how there is to learn to be patient and calmed and look around in the search of opportunities and just wait and hear what your guts, instinct, heart has to tell you to decide what to do. It's funny how easily I forget all these things and collapse in a world of decision making and start getting stressed out of nowhere because I need to know what's ahead. It's crazy to think that I know I shouldn't really get stressed by these things and how I know I have to hear what my guts tell me but still I forget all of it and fall into weird-ful thinking. It's funny how anxiousness ends up hitting me and guides me through the wrong paths. It was funny how I had to start talking to people to seek for some advice when I know I have to hear what my insides tell me instead of asking to others to tell me what my insides are telling them. I guess I still need more road time to tune my instinct and keep on with the learning on how to hear what the inner I has to say. Being surrounded by too many people disbalances me. Probably I have to learn how to live among people again.

I am about to start my third week here in Punta Arenas and I was about to leave this town for good as there was “nothing” to do. Still every morning I would wake up with the feeling of not leaving the city at all. Till today, I don't know why. It's quite weird considering Punta Arenas is just another city in the south of Chile and quite big for the Patagonia with no real attractive to a person like me. There is a mall, a huge tax free zone where you can buy lots of things, lots of shops in downtown, lots of people going and coming, lots of tourists in summer and winter, and still now, that winter is almost arriving, tourists coming and going. Still every time I take a walk next to the sea, or look up across the Magellan strait, or when I look up at the mountains, there is something that catches my eye. This city has something. Maybe it's the weather.

Still, not hearing at all this feeling I had decided I would go back north to Valparaiso and take a diving course there for the winter, then I would continue the pedaling north towards Perú and maybe to the Jungle across Brazil. Everytime I thought about buying the plane ticket and going through the process of organizing things to fly I would just feel lazy about it and would delay it mentally for the next day. Then in the evening I would feel anxious about leaving and with a weird do not leave sensation. Next day I would repeat the same. The idea of diving is damn amazing but once I picture myself going to Santiago and then to Valparaiso everything changes and procrastination hits.

I took the decision of going back because I got the answer from the ski center. They told me they didn't have money to hire me now so they could hire me in mid June. In the meantime a CEO of a big hotel wanted to talk to me and offer me some job. I went to him to talk about it and the offered me a position as a bellboy, but, I had to shave and cut my hair in exchange for minimum wage. The answer was simple, no fucking way. So after some fast thinking and being pressured by the starting date of the diving course in Valparaiso I decided I would leave. Still, 3 days later, I had no idea which day I would do it, and didn't feel at all like organizing things to leave.

Yesterday night, for some chances that life throw at us I met Kanaan again thanks to Alexandra and Bartosz. They are a couple of Polish bicycle tourers who are staying at the same hostal I am staying at. They invited me for a beer and to meet another bicycle tourer from Alaska who was on his way to Ushuaia. Knowing some of those bicycle tourers I asked what his name was, they told me it was something with K, like Kan, Kev, or something like that, I asked Kanaan? And they said YES!. What a surprise! Definetely I had to go and meet this man with who we had an awesome time at el Chalten.

Kanaan got quite surprised too and it was nice to meet again. He told me about his plan and his desire to maybe come back to Punta Arenas after reaching Ushuaia because for some unknown reason he liked the city a lot (sounds familiar). I told him what I was thinking but I wasn't feeling that sure about leaving the city for some reason and that as I didn't have much to do here I would probably leave, I mentioned him the diving course and this is when the shit hit the fan. He spent his stayance here in Punta Arenas with a diver who told him there is a course starting in the following weeks. The course is given during winter months and they dive at the Magellan strait and sometimes in the San Isidro Lighthouse. Uh?. Diving, San Isidro lighthouse, Magellan strait, winter. Click.

Kanaan told me he would send me an email with the email of the diving instructor so I can get to talk to him and check the information about the diving course. At the hostal they told me they have plenty of job to do for at least a couple of weeks so they have no problems in me staying around for some time till I figure out what to do. From what I've read the commercial diving license is valid only in Chile, on the opposite the license they give here is the PADI, not commercial, but valid everywhere in the world. For some reason I want to stay in the area and I think now I got some chance to actually do it. Probably I always had the chance but I was kind of blind thanks to the anxiousness. Tomorrow I will go and talk to the people and check what's gonna happen.

Until then.


Cheers.