Gooood night readers! Giving continuation. Two crazy guys, two bikes, 400+ km, 12 days. Check this travel story.

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This is the PART 2 of a story a friend and I experienced this past february. We made our way to Montevideo in Uruguay, bought some bicycles and rode them back to Brazil. An amazing experience full of overcoming situations that I'd like to present through this texts.

If you are landing here now consider checking PART 1, link presented below:

[PART 1] Travel Story: Coast of Uruguay by Bicycle | Planning

In PART 1 I talked about the motivation behind the idea and how simple it was to plan everything. It gives you and introdution to the main idea, preparations and the basic road map for our trip. If you like my work please consider checking that out, it'll be much appreciated.

Hope you enjoy reading this continuation and the ones to come, feel free to leave your feedback down below!

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D-Day 

It was Feb 11th, 2018, Carnival holidays. My family and friends were reunited at my mom’s place, the beach house with a big living room looked like an indoor camp with mattresses all over the floor to accommodate everybody, a feeling of happiness for the holidays and for debuting the newly constructed house, that my mom always wanted, contaminated the air. People were going in and out, in preparation to go and jump on the “blocos de rua” (carnival blocks).  

My friend and I knew that the next day would be the D-Day and a good night of sleep would be appreciated to have energy to start our trip, it was in fact the last chance to sleep in a confortable bed. However, we wouldn’t let the opportunity of drinking a cold beer slip. It was fantastic.

Equipment double checked, beers making effect and with peace of mind we went to sleep. Plan for D-Day was to wake up early, take the rest of the stuff at my mom’s city house (camera, helmet and gloves) and hit the road to hitchhike our way up to the border with Uruguay. 

It worked perfect until all the drunk, crazy and maniacs came back from the festivals waking everyone up, making it difficult to sleep. All we could do was to wait until they’ve gone to bed, after eating they finally did.

D-Day, Feb. 12th 2018. I woke up around 0900 hour. With a hot and strong coffee and a cold Lasagna from the night before I was ready to drive to the city when two friends asked for a ride. Exited with the journey André and I were about to start they decided to go with me to the city and go back to the beach by bike (aprox. 25 km), easy for them who have been bicycling in competitions for many years. During the ride I took advantage of their experience to take notes on how to handle the bike for longer distances, we chatted about cycling and nutrition on the road, they gave us gifts such as better gloves, water bottles, lubs for the bikes. All items were heavily used during the journey. 

Fully loaded it was time to hit the road, we took a ride to the main road that leads to the border of Brazil – Uruguay, the city is called Chuy, very famous for the main avenue. In Chuy you cross the street and you are in Uruguy making it possible to step in Uruguay and Brazil at the same time.  The plan for that day was very simple, stay on the road in a place called Vila da Quinta and try to hitch a ride to Chuy, it’s basically a straight road with aprox. 200 km, piece of cake for me and a little worrying for André, he had never tried to hitchhike like that. 

Route planned to hitchhike.

Well… sometimes things don’t work as planned. I knew that hitching in Brazil was not that easy, due to violence, the drivers tend to avoid giving rides, unfortunately. It’s sad to see so many cars wasting energy to transport one single person. If only they knew how great of an experience it would be to share the space with us, how many experiences would be exchanged, all lost because of fear of violence. Maybe we could’ve waited more, or try the other day but for André it was getting a little frustrating, thus after some hours of trying and failing he convinced me to take a bus to Chuy, and that’s what we did. 

The arrival in Chuy at 2200 hour didn’t help, the plans to exchange money and go to the supermarket were frustrated, it was late and everything was closed, we were hungry and tired. 

- We should find a hotel. - André said. 

- No freaking way! - I replied.  

I was frustrated for not being able to hitchhike, my money was considerably lower than his and I could not please myself with such luxury.  

- Let’s check the bus to Montevideo, we can sleep on the bus during the night and wake up there.- I proposed. 

We both accepted the idea and luck struck us hard, next bus leaving in one hour, more than enough time to eat something. 

It costed us 700 $ Pesos, relatively cheap given the distance Chuy – Montevideo (aprox. 500 Km) and the fact that we would save money by sleeping while moving.  

Night was calm and hot, with the tickets bought we found a food trailer where we drank our first liter of Coke and ate tons of Pancho, a simple uruguayan ‘fast food’  prepared with a thinner hot dog bread and sausage. Bus departure was set to 2300 hour and arrival in Montevideo planned to be around 0600 hour on the next day, the big day.

The beauty of travelling like that is the fact that, even when you think everything is going wrong, you always find positivity. Thats the best way to change your mind set into creating solutions instead of worries and you learn to enjoy the little moments such as drinking a cold Coke.

I end this part with a quote:

Kaizen! Change for Better! Today better than yesterday. Tomorrow better than today.

We entered the bus and slept all the way to Montevideo.

Total route traveled on D-Day by bus.

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And you? How to you deal with unexpected situations? Have you ever tryed some crazy adventure?

If yes, leave as comment telling what you have done, I'd love to read. If no, what is holding you back?

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I'm Arthur. I blog about Brazil, Travel, Camping & Life Experiences.

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[PART 1] Travel Story: Coast of Uruguay by Bicycle | Planning