Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999
From: Claude Marthaler yak83@hotmail.comCoyhaique, km 85175
One traveller, one travel, one single story. Millions of travellers, millions of stories. There is no road, the road is made by pedalling. In Villarica, I met Jamie, an American cyclist who started one month ago his journey in Temuco, central Chile. At 25, he met his real mother for the first time in his life - for only four hours. Enough to give him wings and finally two wheels in Patagonia towards what locals call - for geographical and commercial reasons- "the end of the world". The destiny sealled us to ride to Ushuaia. Jamie intends, after four months riding in the southern cone to cross his own country from East to West towards "the beginning of the world": his mother. A voyage into the hearth.The YAK_
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999
El Calafate, Argentina, km 8632O
One comes always from afar to see Patagonia to find the end of the road, at best themselves. The infinite yellow skin of the Pampa reduces you to an essential struggle being. I had just one word to describe the wind and only one way to cross Patagonia. The local Indians, all exterminated, had thirty names for that damned wind.
Since april '97, the Yak had riden down the American continent in search of Ushuaia, "the bay turned to the West", a dead end. At only 1OOO kms. from the southern most city of the planet and just six days from celebrating middle of nowhere the 5 th. anniversary of the Yak's journey. Knowing, like an alpinist, reaching this horizontal summit was only half-way.
Like a compass, one should never loose the North; but the North this suddenly signified more: coming closer towards my origins, Europe. The Pampa tells you that even a man with wings needs roots to resist to the fastest wind on earth.
I wanted to slam on the breaks; though my legs were still in Patagonia, my head was already in front of my wheels: Africa.
The YAK_
