The South American Epic: Cycling from Cusco, Peru to Ushuaia, Argentina

The last three months working on the TDA South American Epic from Cusco to Ushuaia were wild. I’ve been sitting at my computer for the last hour trying to figure out how to put my experiences and thoughts down into words. There were so many unforgettable moments like crossing the otherworldly Uyuni Salt Flats, seeing Fitz Roy for the first time, and being wowed by the beauty and unexpected modern development of Chile.

Of course, there were plenty of challenges, too, that tested my limits. We got trucks stuck, I got super sick, some of the campgrounds were very shitty, we had more than one logistical nightmare, and I faced many moments of exhaustion that made me question why I ever thought this was a good idea.

But in hindsight, what a trip! I mean, I got to travel 7,500km (4,600 miles), traverse through 4 countries, see Patagonia from a bike, and spend three months surrounded by great people, both on the crew and the amazing riders. It was tough, it was beautiful, and it was one of the best trips I’ve ever done.

All the good photos taken by our Content Creator, Mats Fredrix

Tackling the Ausangate Circuit

Before joining the South American Epic in Cusco, a friend (and fellow SAE crew member), and I embarked on a incredible bikepacking adventure around the majestic Ausangate, a towering peak in the Andes located just a few hours outside the city.

I’ve done a number of bikepacking trips in my life, but this one was both the most rewarding and the most challenging one I’ve tackled to date. The reward came in the form of stunning, untouched Andean landscapes filled with jagged peaks, glaciers, and remote valleys as well as and the deep sense of solitude while we were out there. On the flip side, the challenge lay in the laborious effort of pedaling and pushing a loaded bike at 15,000 feet – it’s not easy! I also learned that getting good sleep at 15,000 feet doesn’t really happen.

But despite the really tough days and long nights, our Ausangate trip was one of my favorite highlights of this trip and the perfect way to kick of the next three months of travel through South America.

Into the Andes

After returning from the Ausangate wilderness, we joined up with the South American Epic riders and crew in Cusco. The tour actually started two months earlier in Cartagena, Colombia, but because it’s such a long trip (5.5 months!) the tour had a big staff swap out in Cusco. Only 3 crew members stayed to do the whole 5.5 months, which, after completing just three months myself, is insane to even contemplate.

This was my second time in Cusco – the first time was when I did a mountain bike trip to the Sacred Valley in 2019. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any mountain biking in this time, but it was fun to be back there. Cusco is a popular tourist destination, but I really love the vibrant Andes culture and the authentic, welcoming atmosphere of the town. It was good to be back!

From Cusco, the South America Epic headed into the Andes. We crossed remote valleys, pedaled up steep passes, and spent the nights camping under the stars. This was the first TDA camping trip that I’ve done and I was really worried about sleep. I don’t typically to sleep well in a tent, but my fears were alleviated the first week when I was so exhausted at night that I fell asleep almost instantly after climbing into my tent. After three months, I actually came to really love my little camping routine and the ritual of setting up and breaking down camp each day (or almost every day – on rest days we stayed in hotels).

A dash To Bolivia

After about a week in the Peruvian Andes, the landscape started to transition from mountains to high-altitude plains. We were still at about 11-12,000 feet, which, truthfully, made everyone feel like shit. Headaches, poor sleep, shortness of breath, and irritability affected almost everyone. Even the smallest hills were hard to pedal up and rolling over in my sleeping bag at night left me gasping for air.

But soon, we’d have an unexpected break. As much as TDA tries to keep logistics moving smoothly, there are always going to be curve balls thrown our way. That’s just the price of doing multi-month, cross-continent adventures. This curve ball came in the form of Evo Morales, the former President of Bolivia. Apparently Evo didn’t like how the country was being run, so he and his supporters planned a march on the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, just a few days before we were supposed to cross into the country. Part of their (mostly peaceful) resistance strategy was to close roads and close borders. So, we had to get out of Peru and into Bolivia as quickly as possible or risk being shut out of the country for who knows how long. We quickly organized a bus to take all our riders to La Paz where they spent a few extra rest days while most of us the crew went to the small town of Oruro south of La Paz to wait with the vehicles and bikes.

Oruru will always make me smile and shake my head. It’s not a tourist town – it’s a true Bolivian town with not a lot going on. But, we made the most of our 6 days there. We found a great little coffee shop – Cafe Typica! – where went for breakfast every morning (they had the best pancakes!) and a few of us did a fun exploratory bike ride up a rough gravel road to the top of a vista outside of town.

It’s experiences like Oruro that make me love working for TDA so much. It’s the unexpected and off-the-beaten path adventures that I live for.

The Uyuni Salt Flats

I’d heard a little bit about the Uyuni Salt Flats before this trip, but nothing prepared me for how freaking cool and beautiful they are. They are the largest salt flats in the world! Unfortunately, I had to experience them from a taxi as the driver drove me two hours across the flats to the town of Uyuni on the other side. I was too sick to stay on the tour 🙁 I’m not sure what I picked up, but it was not fun!

But I’m glad I did get to see the flats, even if I wasn’t able to ride my bike across them or camp at the cacit-studded Isla Incahuasi with everyone else.

The upside, though, was that for some reason a few members of the Bolivian Air Force came to the hotel we were staying at in Uyuni and offered us a flight-seeing tour across the flats. Of course I said yes! It was really cool to seem them from above and get a better idea of just how huge this otherworldly slice of Bolivia is. Also, it was the Bolivan Air Force!

Finally… Argentina

Bolivia was tough. Between the stress of getting everyone into the country before Evo’s crew closed the borders, dealing with sickness (pretty much everyone was sick at some point in Bolivia), and the effects of the high altitude, I think we were all ready to get into Argentina.

And what a difference it made! One rider wrote in his end of the trip questionnaire “crossing into Argentina from Bolivia felt like a warm bath”. It was a pretty remarkable change from one country to the other. The highlands of Bolivia are stark, remote, desolate, and expansive, but once we started to descend down to Salta, the landscapes started to become more green and lush and the infrastructure vastly improved.

Wine country!

One of the things I was most looking forward to on the South American Epic was drinking delicious Argentinian wine. Our route went straight through wine country from Salta to Cafayate to Mendoza. We passed through endless vineyards of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon as well as ones I wasn’t so familiar with like Torrontés. There was definitely a lot of wine that was drunk between riders and crew 🙂

Chile, my new love

Oh, Chile. I have traveled a lot all over the world, but I’ve never visited a place that felt like home – a place I could see myself living in. Until Chile. I LOVED this country. It was such an unexpected surprise. The beauty of the Chilean Andes, the idyllic scenery of the Lakes District, the epic mountain biking, the snow-capped volcanoes, the incredible wildflowers, the rugged and weathered coastal fishing towns, the people, and the surprising modern European feel to the country…. I loved it all.

We spent about a month cycling through Chile from the border crossing just north of Santiago to the end of the Carretera Austral in Villa O’Higgins. Chile was by far the highlight for me on the South American Epic. I will be back!

The Carretera Austral & Patagonia

A lot of cyclists head to South America to ride the Carretera Austral. This 1,240km stretch of road traverses Chile’s Aysén Region from Puerto Montt, Chile to El Chaltén, Argentina. It’s famous for its epic Patagonian beauty and rugged landscapes filled with rushing rivers, fields of wildflowers, snow-capped peaks, and dense forest.

We followed the entire Carretera Austral route and I can confirm that it is quite stunning. But I was also surprised that large parts of the route are on busy roads and pass through major towns and cities. I guess I had it in my head that the Carretera Austral was super remote and out there (which parts of it are), but it is also lives up to it’s name – the Southern Highway – at times, too.

One of my favorite days of the whole South American Epic (and the hardest logistically) was the last day of the Carretera Austral. Technically, the road ends in Villa O’Higgins, but most cyclists continue on to El Chaltén. However, to get to El Chaltén, we had to:

• Take a 7km shuttle at 4 in the morning to a ferry dock outside Villa O’Higgins
• Ferry across Lago O’Higgins for two hours to the very remote Chilean/Argentinian border station at La Calendaria
• Get stamped out of Chile and into Argentina
• Ride our bikes 20km across this remote ‘island’. Half the ride was gravel road and half of it was legit singletrack (so fun!)
• Take a 30 minute ferry on the other side across Lago Desierto
• Ride a final 36km on rough gravel road into El Chaltén, where we, thankfully, had three glorious rest days

It was a crazy day that started at 2:30 in the morning (we had to cook breakfast at camp) and ended at 9pm when all riders made it to the hotel in El Chaltén. Epic day!

El Fin del Mundo

And then, almost just like that, we found ourselves hurtling toward the final stretch of the trip and our final destination – Ushuaia, El Fin Del Mundo. It’s so funny how fast and slow time can feel. There were days and weeks during the SAE when I felt like we’d never make it to Ushuaia and other times that felt like a riding stretch was over in a blink of an eye.

The final leg of the trip from Puerto Natales (great town!) to Ushuaia was fun in a lot of ways, but also wasn’t the greatest riding or scenery of the trip. We got a taste of the legendary Patagonian winds and wet weather, but we also had several beautiful days as well. The riders and crew came together to reminisce about the highlights and lowlights of the tour and we had a really fun final camp dinner filled with wine, laughs, and good memories.

It’s been about a week since the SAE has finished and while I’m glad to be wearing clean clothes and have shaved legs, part of me misses the simplicity and adventure of being on tour. It was an epic three months that I am so grateful for. I loved (mostly) every day of it and I’m super excited for my next adventure with TDA – the Road of Empires!