Photo by Ella Friberg

The Long Road South will depart from our home in Portland, OR.  Cutting immediately to the ocean, we'll follow the Pacific Coast Highway south along the rugged Oregon coast, through the California Redwoods and along the Lost Coast to San Francisco.  From there we'll stick with Highway 1 through LA to San Diego.  Right now, our plan is to continue south on Mexico's Baja Peninsula before ferrying to the mainland and keeping the sea breezes as we remain on the Pacific coast for the length of Mexico.  This leg through Mexico is the most likely to change.  We'll be monitoring the security situation in Mexico and make a decision about our best route (or way around if necessary) when we get close.

We'll join the Pan-American Highway in Guatemala, following it through the Central American countries of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.  In Panama we'll have to load our bikes on a boat to bypass the roadless jungle of the Darian Gap.  Landing on the Colombian coast we'll immediately begin the long climb into the Andes.  Traversing the spine of South America we'll keep following the Pan-American Highway through Peru's high plateau, south through the brutal Atacama desert of northern Chile before crossing back over the Andes into the Argentina's pampas region.  Surprise, surprise, from here we'll keep heading south, crossing the length of Argentina to reach Patagonia.  Other than the region we don't have an exact destination.  Much of this trip is an expedition into the unknown.  No one on a handcycle has ever rode many of these roads, and to keep our pace even, Kelly will be hauling much more weight than the normal touring cyclist.  We're confident we can make it to Patagonia within a year, but how far south will depend on a host of variables that will remain unknown until we actually start pedaling these far off lands.  Which is exactly why we do crazy things like this, no?  To see what happens.

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