WORDS & PICTURES: Kate Crittenden
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In 2017, I set off to cycle 1000 km solo and self-supported through Patagonia, the southernmost region of Latin America. I had been drawn there by dreams of seeing mighty condors circling impossibly high peaks and glaciers calving icebergs as big as houses. Yet I spent most of my time on the Patagonian Steppe.
The Patagonian Steppe is the sixth-largest desert in the world, and is almost three times the size of Great Britain. It is infamous among the cycling community for its winds, which blow so strongly (up to 120km/h) and so persistently that the low-lying trees grow at an angle.
The grass plains stretch as far as you can see, with the Andes to the west and the Atlantic ocean somewhere far to the east. The sky is unimpeded, the flat horizon a near-constant companion as I cycled slowly north. Strangely, I was often the highest point for miles, which made gravity feel heavier. It was as if the enormous sky were resting on my shoulders, as it was just me: a tiny figure sandwiched between earth and sky.
Despite its inhospitable appearance, the Patagonian Steppe is full of life. I met foxes and penguins, as well as rhea, a small ostrich-like bird, and guanaco, a cousin of the llama. The first time I startled a herd of guanaco at dawn, I almost fell off of my bike, as their bone-chilling cry sounds like a combination of a motorcycle starting and a horse dying.
Wildlife thrives here; outside of the two or three towns, people are scarce. I rode past the occasional estancia (large farm), some are still functioning, others are derelict – remnants of the Patagonian sheep farming boom.
A hundred and fifty years ago, the region was home to over two million sheep, and thousands of migrants who came to make their fortune on the Patagonian Steppe, displacing the nomadic Yaghan, Selk’nam and Aónikenk (Tehuelche) peoples. The steppe was globally important, both for its sheep, and for the Strait of Magellan, which was, for many years, the only way for steamships to cross the Atlantic. Yet the boom went bust, and the Panama Canal put an end to the crossing. Now, much of the Patagonian steppe feels like a ghost town. I went days without seeing another person.
The steppe constantly changes, and the further north you go, the wilder and more desert-like it becomes. Reminiscent of the North American west, I cycled through wide valleys carved by sinuous green rivers, with incredible table top massifs. I wasn’t surprised to discover that it was here that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out in a bid to avoid capture.
The Patagonian Steppe is a harsh and unrelenting place. Yet I was surprised to find all this space and isolation incredibly comforting. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had room to truly breathe as I cycled along the roof of the world.
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