Amigos, Ushuaia and 38 Boiled Eggs

Picture this, you pop the kettle on, grab your favourite mug, and flop onto the sofa. Just as you take that first glorious sip of tea, your phone buzzes.

"Wanna go bikepacking in South America?"

Would you say yes?

What if you'd never bikepacked before?

What if you didn’t have the right gear?

What if you didn’t even own a bike?!

That was exactly the predicament I threw my friends into last summer. A casual invite. No big deal. Just a little pedal-powered jaunt through one of the wildest places on Earth.

Fast forward to December 1st, and there I am - Puerto Montt, Southern Chile. A place known for it’s wild, furious weather. But today? Today, the sun is out. The sea is glittering. And as I roll my bike down towards the pier, my stomach does a little nervous-excited flip. Because I’m not alone.

Waiting for me at the water’s edge are eleven of my friends, all buzzing with equal parts excitement and mild panic. Some had done this kind of thing before. Most hadn’t. At least half of them had either borrowed or panic-bought bikes. And yet, here we were. About to ride thousands of kilometres through Patagonia, right down to the very bottom of the world.

We’d start with the Carretera Austral - a rough and remote stretch of road famous among bike tourers for its beauty, remoteness, and deeply unreliable weather. After a month of riding, some of the group planned to head home and the rest of us would push on, south for another month to Ushuaia ,where the winds are notorious, reaching speeds that can throw a fully loaded bike sideways.

We push off. And just like that, it begins. We set off together into the unknown.

When you take on an adventure like this, you expect the physical challenge. And don’t get me wrong, over the next two months we had our fair share. Relentless headwinds, climbs that felt like they would never end, numb fingers, aching knees, broken gear...

But honestly? The hardest part wasn’t the cycling.

It was learning to adapt to one another.

Putting yourself in a tough environment - where you’re tired, hungry, and just trying to keep going - is one thing. But doing it while spending almost every waking moment with other people? That adds a whole new layer. When you’re riding solo you set the pace, you call the shots, you decide when to stop, when to push on and when to feast on an entire packet of biscuits because, well… you can.

But in a group? That’s where the real adventure begins.

Every decision - where to eat, where to sleep, whether to push on or call it a day - is shared. A mechanical? We stop. Someone’s struggling? We rally. And moods? Oh, they’re contagious. If one person is buzzing, the energy spreads like wildfire. One person is struggling, and suddenly, you’re all feeling it. So you learn, fast, that you have to show up as the best version of yourself - even on the days when you’d rather throw your bike in a ditch and have a little tantrum.

And in the end? That’s what makes it.

As we finally rolled into Ushuaia, the last stop at the end of the world, I looked around at my friends’ tired, wind-burnt faces, all split into huge grins. And the memories came rushing in.

Rachel, always the first to put the kettle on. 
Perri, cooking us 38 boiled eggs. 
Matt, lighting the fire in the cabin at 6am, before setting off into the rain, so the rest we’d wake up to a warm house 
Swimming in cold glacial rivers 
Camping in wild, beautiful places or curled up like sardines on a bus station floor. We did it together.

And I just felt overwhelmed with gratitude.

Because the challenge is never just about the miles. It’s about the people. The ones who help push you up the hills, who share their last scraps of food, who make you laugh when all you want to do is cry.

So next time a friend texts you and says, “Fancy an adventure?”

Say yes.