OUTSIDE YELLOW LINES
BY ALLIE GAHR
I have always felt intensely, reverently drawn to stories like On the Road, Into the Wild, and The Motorcycle Diaries. Of course, this type of fuck-the-consequences, freewheeling, adventure literature almost solely focalizes in and around men. It seemed as though they alone had enough privileges of safety to be able not to care about everything else. I loved their world— and though it felt inaccessible at first, it was only a matter of time before I knew I would somehow recreate it for myself. And yet, it was never about the unbridled “liberty,” the fantasm of the open road, the concept of leaving an alienating society behind (as these accounts eventually figure out). You can glorify and romanticize this mystifying, alluring freedom forever, but the People are where it counts.
Like many things, I really had no expectation of what I was getting myself into. The first day of the trip Nico and I rode ~40 km, crossing the border from Chile to Peru. Easy enough. There were a lot of changes I physically felt as the countryside changed. We found ourselves enveloped in olive groves on either side of the road. The air was faintly scented, and there was a light breeze. There were men in the fields carrying hay on their backs. Something like Palo Santo burned in the distance. It was a world of minutiae I realized I would have easily missed in a car. It was hard to figure out whether or not we had actually “arrived” at our destination. The asphalt road turned onto a sandy lane, where boys in the back of a truck passed by, and then goats, and then dogs. We finally found the hostel. It was a big, colorful facade that had a large black gate, and it was right on the beach. An old couple opened the door and let us in. It seemed as if no one else was there. The old man had trouble inscribing my very phonetically-American name and address in the guestbook. I felt tenderly for him. Finally, Nico and I got into the room. The standard fare: two towels, a roll of toilet paper, and a bar of C’est Si Bon soap awaited us on the bed. At dinner, the old woman made us plates of chicken, rice, fries, and a small salad with lemongrass tea. We sat in the hallway in red plastic chairs and ate. There were a few dogs roaming around. In Peru, there are always dogs around. After that we went to the beach and sat in the sand and watched the sunset. There were people there, but it wasn’t touristy at all. There was no WiFi and very shitty cell service here. People were living their life. The gold of the sun made everything soft and glittery, and when the tide came in, it blanketed the space in a gold calm too. I have never seen a sunset like that. When I looked out at the expanse of it all, I felt like I had been given a very rare gift.
The next day we left early. I started to get a sense of how much time I would have. It was a little disarming—road stretching onandonandonandon and nothing to do but pedal and think. I don’t like to make too many “meaningful” inferences about my travels, nor do I like to be so “I”-centric, but I do like to write, and due to the fact that I can’t explain personal experience outside myself, we’ll have to make do like this. I thought about the heat, old old memories, would my period soak through my bike shorts? my favorite songs, frosty beer, how my hands hurt, women, men, A Great sandwich, the passing of time, Addison Rae, when was the last time I felt cold? It is hard to turn your brain off. Someone once told me that humans only had about 10-12 different thoughts per day. What they would eat, what they would do next, what they wanted for the future. To break such reveries, I saw people selling watermelons on the side of the road. So we stopped and bought watermelon and it was so cool and so sweet and so refreshing.
Travel by bike is an intelligent way of leaving the comfort zone. It is probably the most (paradoxically) straightforward yet difficult thing I have ever done. I don’t want to come off superior or pretentious when I say this, it’s not like I’ve done anything revolutionary, but people sincerely do not understand how comfortable they are. Nor am I trying to elicit gratuitous sympathy/empathy/pity. I genuinely just want to provide an honest account of what I experienced. For example, an average day in my life (as a student) and probably for most average Americans/Europeans: Wake up, cook breakfast, pick out clothes from wardrobe, take public transport to city, go to class/work for a few hours, come home, watch tv or see friends or go to gym, have a hot shower, sleep. The world of routine is a fantastically incredible microcosm of habits that kept me happy. I don’t have an average day now. Everything changes on a day-to-day basis. (And that, I want to acknowledge, is a privilege in itself-the fact that I even have the time and money to choose this lifestyle is an enormous privilege). The fissures created in the spaces where a “normal” life used to be are now filled with the realizations of the luxury it is to be stationary in a developed country: to be able to go into a market and buy fresh, raw vegetables. Or simply to have the option to cook whatever you want. To have control over what you eat and what you wear. To have a fan in your room. To look into a full-length mirror. To get into a clean, comfortable bed at night. Maybe its tone-deaf of me to point out my necessary adjustment to these things, but in reality, I’m writing to explain how humbling it has felt in a way that no other experience ever has.
The next day we intended to ride 100km. There are so many uphill climbs and it’s reeaaaal hot. We stop on the side of the road to take a picture (it closely resembles California’s Route 1). While we are stopped, a family in a truck slows down to hand us some cantaloupe and cold water. I start to feel a little insane because small gestures like this become very significant to me and touch me so deeply I could cry. There is a real generosity and neighborliness to the people here. They hold my gaze, really looking at me. I wish I had something to give them too. As we continue, my brain turns off more and more and the ride becomes like a meditation. Up, and down, the coastline slopes. Both directions, I find the conclusion (either trivially obvious or stoically thoughtful) that it really does take just as much time to do something as it does to do nothing. Nico is in his “What the Hell?” phase. He likes to holler expletives in English whenever we round the corner and see a massive uphill climb. (He doesn’t speak English, so the expletives are still shocking, and I can tell he likes the way it rolls off his tongue). The first few days I silently blame him for taking so long to get ready and us leaving so late (the mornings are fresher). But externalizing blame, or complaining, or thinking about the next stop is 100% ego. It is the part of me that wants to be comfortable all the time. When it gets really, really difficult, I repeat this small litany of gratitude, partly to keep myself present, and partly so that my mind does not convince my body to give up. Thank you earth, thank you plants, thank you sun, thank you moon, thank you stars, thank you body, thank you grass, thank you flowers, thank you God. Other times, I couldn’t do anything but chant the rhythmic LA LA LA from Cibo Matto’s “Sugar Water.”
About this time we realized we were not going to make it to our planned destination, still 50km away. That’s one of the beautiful things about being your own mode of transportation. Everything is less calculable. The miles and miles of altitude/distance no longer submit to your four-stroke combustion engine. You are returned to premodern inconveniences, of being subjugated to Nature, to Her whims and fancies that drench you in sweat and fatigue your body. So we cycled into this little pueblo and stopped at a farmhouse and asked the owner if we could camp in his backyard. He said yes, and that we could even use his outhouse to shower (!!!). We put up the tent a few yards away from his fields and fields of orange peppers. They blanketed the land for miles. He had chickens and goats and bunnies, too. It felt good to hear animals conversing and go to sleep when it got dark. It felt good to get clean, to be enveloped in cool water and not to have dirt and sand caked on my legs anymore. It felt good to be bored, and sit there at camp just flicking a lighter on and off and watching the flame go out. It felt good to trust my body deeply, to realize that everything I did to care for her, she returned to me in strength. I looked at myself at the end of the day thinking, you carried me here. Most of all it felt good to know people are still good, generous people, and we could take up space without having to pay, and that (as trite as it sounds) the best things in life really are free. It smelt so good that night, like damp earth and flowers and hay. And in the morning, I saw the breeze ripple through the grass, making all shades of green appear, like the wind was brushing earthhair. Nico made coffee on his portable camping stove. We listened to everything waking up, which was mostly eclipsed by birds, and went on our way.
The next day we made it to Ilo, a city where we rested for a few days. We did laundry, and had clean clothes yet again! We slept 12 hours, a good long time. Just laying down, with the bed supporting all your weight, not having to hold yourself up anymore was more than enough. I got to eat empanadas and fresh orange juice with pulp every morning! The city was lively and vibrant and summer was in full swing. There was always a plethora of kiosks along the streets selling raspadillas (snow cones). After this, the journey took on a kind of gentle rhythm. Nico entered his “Holy Shit!” phase. The ocean was there to greet us every day. The coast got more and more beautiful. The tenuous bonewhite of clouds were, at times, the only marks interrupting a pure vista of sky and sea, separated by a horizon thin as gossamer. At certain peaks, the scope of cerulean expanse was so vast, I swore I could almost see the curvature of the Earth. And coming down the other side, the wind would cool and dry all the sweat on your face, and you could look over your left shoulder, and see only rollicking blueblueblue forever.
At times when we stopped to drink water or eat lunch, whatever filled the pause was truly the only thing to have ever existed. Of course, I’m going to come off dramatic here. But when you’re sitting, pedaling in the same position for 4,5 hours and you break the rhythm with a cool taste of water, or a plate full of hot food, your life, reality, any person speaking to you, fades into nothingness. It’s you and that plate. And when you look up, it’s like a magic trick! All of it appears again! This happened with a lot of senses as the days went on because (as cliché as it sounds) you really do start to value everything more. Almost in a hypnotic manner. I could probably write 5 pages about the relief of taking off your tight, sticky, sweaty clothes at the end of the day. Or eating a good piece of chocolate cake. Or watching the interplay of natural light and shade through a window, or really experiencing any kind of shade.
Anyways, there’s not too much more to say. We finished the coast yesterday. A few days ago, leaving the most impoverished pueblo yet, I saw a group of girls playing volleyball. The roads were all sand and dirt, and there was barely a market. I watched as a young girl served the ball. She served like I used to when I was 13. I remembered my old gymnasium, my volleyball uniform—I remembered being her age, and how cool it was if you could serve the ball with the flat part of your palm, not the fist. Like so many other people I met or saw on the coast, she brought me back to another me, seemingly very far away, in both distance and time, connecting both then and now in an inexhaustible spiral.
ALLIE GAHR is an erstwhile photographer, an itinerant writer, and a wannabe apothecary. She digs Diane di Prima, Eve Babitz, and hopes to live a thousand different lives. Her work appears in Inkblots magazine. She has lived internationally five times, and is currently traveling South America by bike, sometimes collecting fodder for her writing.