“A dog approaching us, muzzle wet with blood from a freshly slaughtered cow; real life gauchos; pushing our bikes through 8 miles of boggy cow pasture without a trail; hoisting them over barbed wire fences, down cliffs, hauling them up to the rim of a volcano through a mile of steep, slippery soil and stinging nettle; endless frustration with volcanic sand and other unridable surfaces; starting to get sick with the 2 hardest days looming on the horizon and no time margin, but deciding to push on anyway; the first evening, arriving to a mirage of a lodge after an afternoon of cobblestone hell and 3 hours of wrong turns, pedaling in the darkness, only to find no food for purchase and a closed kitchen; the many hunched abuelitas who called out to ask where we were going as we sped past on dusty dirt roads; sharing cookies with a small child as we took shelter from the rain on a porch stoop; a little boy riding home from school on his llama; the many dogs sleeping on fences, in front of houses, in the road, or patrolling fields that never ceased to startle me…

Just a few of the moments I will remember forever.”