|
Gavin's Gutsy Ride
A journey over the Andes and into the After a successful solo mountain bike trip in Indochina in 2002, Gavin Wright, a type 1 diabetic, was spurred on to an even more challenging adventure in 2005. He was to cycle from Lima, on the Pacific coast of Peru, over the Andes mountain range and out into the Amazon jungle on the other side. Gavin shares his amazing story with Reality Check here. Novo Nordisk thought this was a great message to be sending and sponsored the trip. Gavin also got help from Enviroair and Giant Bikes.
When I first said I wanted to ride my bike from the Gulf of Tonkin, through Vietnam, over the Annamite Mountains and down to the Mekong River in Laos, I was faced with a choppy sea of furrowed brows. I wanted to do it more than anything and I worked very hard on my bicycle to get fit. But when it turned out that my mate from London was going to go and climb a rock in the North Atlantic instead – and I had to go alone – there was an awful kerfuffle. The phrase ‘kidnapped by bandits’ was used almost as much as ‘wandering off into the jungle hypo’. To all
this I reacted with laconic stoicism. Those close to me conquered their
irrational (or perhaps a little bit rational) fears without my intervention
and my plans went ahead. When it came close to leaving and I found a
recent report on the internet of hundreds of bandits storming the Vietnam/Laos
border crossing through which I would be going, I couldn’t bring
myself to say anything – I just made sure I had plenty of jellybeans.
I managed
to get sponsorship for this trip in the form of generous donations to
my children’s primary school. At a school fete, shortly after
I returned, I sat with the principal and passed her the Tiger whisky.
A white-haired woman held in much esteem, she took a slug from the bottle
and with a glint in her eye said simply, ‘Where next?’ It had been a hard, hot slog through Indochina, but I knew I could do more. An idea was forming in my head: I was beginning to want to show how far I really was from being vulnerable in a remote area. I felt that managing diabetes was something you did all the time whether you were at home in front of a computer or taking a break in the shade of a Buddhist temple high on an Asian mountain. I wanted to show that I could cycle over mountains as high as they come and as I flicked through the pages of the atlas I was also looking to have some fun. I was looking for the hardest and highest road in the world. I don’t know if that’s what I found, but I certainly found a good one. I’ll have the guinea pig, please: Peru 2005 I trained for nearly two years for the next ride, a journey across Peru that I cycled in August 2005. My friend Hugh and I rode 840km from Lima, on the Pacific coast, over the Andes and out into the Amazon rainforest on the other side. I had to take training a lot more seriously this time round: consistently a lot of cycling, long rides at least once a week and hills wherever possible. I did blood sugar tests before, sometimes during, after and a couple of hours after exercise. I rarely got hypo out on the bike, but I sometimes failed to carb up properly after a ride and would find myself getting low a few hours later. What I did find was that as I grew fitter my blood sugars levelled out like I had never known them before. I didn’t get any really high readings – I never seemed to go over ten – and my Hba1c results dropped accordingly. Naturally, my specialist was pleased with all this and from her I never once got any negative responses about the trip. This, and the same support from my GP, was important not just for my sake, but also as a reassurance to my family. Wandering off into the jungle hypo was never mentioned this time around and I managed to assure everyone that the Sendero Luminoso (the Shining path, the murderous political movement that had torn Peru apart for over fifteen years) was no longer active, at least in my part of Peru. And so off we flew to Lima. The first part of the ride was relentlessly uphill, reaching an altitude of 4,818m in less than 140km. Giant slopes of loose and barren rock surrounded us as soon as we reached the edge of Lima. The colour of milky tea, we were to live with this backdrop until we neared the very top of the Andes. Outside Lima it was much easier to find authentic Peruvian food and on our first stop we sat down to huge plates of potatoes, corn, salad and roasted guinea pigs. An excellent meal with plenty of carbs. It took us three and a half days to reach the top and towards the end we were seriously affected by the lack of oxygen and stopped frequently. I have to say that Hugh seemed to cope better with the thin air than I did. I know he didn’t find it easy, but it was always me calling for a stop. We were both equally as fit: my endo has suggested it was just because he was ten years younger. I would cycle as far as I was able and then get off, throw down my bike (lowering it took too much energy) and lie down quickly on my back at the side of the road. As air began to re-enter my body I found myself slipping off into sleep and it was a beautifully pleasurable feeling, but somehow I knew this wasn’t quite right, so up I would get and carry on up the hill. My Giant Xtc2 LE was superb. The gears went down and down – I don’t think I ever went into the granny gear. It’s a lightweight bicycle, but the panniers, which weighed more than the bike, seemed to pull me backwards.
Cycling up mountains is all about turning the next bend and you never
know what you’ll see when you do. When we pedalled round the very
last bend and saw the sign – ABRA ANTICONA Altitud 4818m (15,800
feet) – it was a surprise and a wonderful moment. It was a huge
relief, but much more than that – we were elated. We felt we had
really achieved something. We rode to the sign, got off our bikes, shook
hands and hugged. If you cycle down that road they will shoot you We spent a couple of days at high altitude and had some spectacular, long descents. Up in this barren mountain landscape the people all have the long straight nose, black hair and darker skin of the pure Peruvian. Here we saw the bright colours of traditional taffeta skirts, ponchos, long woollen hats, live snakes and frogs in the rambling markets and heard the haunting sound of panpipes in every town.
I was testing my blood sugar level five or six times a day, so I had a pretty good idea what it was just about all of the time. The road we took is the only one that crosses the Andes for at least 100km in either direction and all the way up and along we passed big mining centres. This ensured a good road surface, needed by the heavy traffic, and also a great many roadside eating places trying to attract drivers. Up in the mountains Peruvians eat a lot of carbohydrate, sometimes having noodles, rice and chips on the same plate, so there was never any danger of missing out on the right food and we never had to carry more than emergency supplies. The eastern Andes break down into the Amazon jungle in a series of spectacular ridges and valleys. Apart from being fantastic cycling country this is one of the biggest cocaine producing areas in the world. The United States, through the medium of the Peruvian government, is currently trying to scale down these operations, with the result that the local coca growers have been killing policemen in protest. It was in a town in this area that it was put to us quite simply: ‘If you cycle down that road they will not know who you are and they will shoot you’. Well, that was clear enough for me. We packed our bikes into the back of a car and took a drive out into the Amazon proper – out of the coke zone. From
here on it was all long machetes, black vultures, lush greenery and
thick dry dust. Hugh got terribly sick straight away and I had to nurse
him back to health. Every few hours I would say to him, ‘How are
you feeling now, Hugh?’ I kept this up for a day and a half and
eventually it worked – his fever broke and he was back in the
saddle. Bandages and coffins
Twice we took a boat out onto Lake Yarinacocha to visit the Shipibo villages and get shown some of the local wildlife. Unfortunately, while we were on our second trip bad weather rushed in from the east: first the wind blew up a terrible dust storm and then came the rain. This cleared the air and we could see a huge column of smoke rising from the bush near the airport. We didn’t learn about it until hours later, but this was the TANS Peru Boeing 737 that crashed just outside Pucallpa airport killing over 40 people. The whole town was badly affected by this and we never again saw the evening crowds that gathered to socialise in the town square. Two days later we checked in for our flights out of Pucallpa. Some of the waiting passengers were heavily bandaged and everyone at the airport was on edge. It was clear there were no aeroplanes waiting on the tarmac. As the
rain started pounding against the airport building, not much more than
a small warehouse, we learnt that the pilots were nervous about leaving
Lima. The staff in the control tower were trying to persuade them everything
was OK in Pucallpa. As we bravely raised our glasses all the lights went out. Hours later, after the storm, we watched through the glass wall as our precious bikes were hurled to the ground from the top of the baggage trolley and coffins were loaded – with a great deal more reverence – into the hold of our flight back to the capital. Diabetes didn’t stop me We certainly did have some problems on our trip. Reaching the Anticona Pass and dealing with the thin air at high altitude was probably the worst, although we stuck at it and got there. Murderous cocoa farmers could have been a very grave danger. We didn’t actually see any, but the threat was enough to get us off our bikes and break the magic bicycling line that runs under your wheel from start to finish, in this case from Lima to the Rio Ucayali. And the tragic plane crash at Pucallpa didn’t just dampen everybody’s spirits, it very nearly left us stranded in the jungle with no way of getting to our flights out of Peru. But one of the things that didn’t cause any problems was diabetes. I trained very hard for this ride: I built up a regime of heavy exercise (cycling long distances and up hills) and underwent a long period of adjusting insulin levels in response to frequent blood tests. My endocrinologist recommended an exercise ECG (echo cardiogram) to check my heart, which was fine, and I also saw a sports medicine specialist, who reported that I was quite likely to get altitude sickness. Fortunately, I didn’t. My blood sugar testing went up from two or three times a day to four or five all through training and my overall daily insulin went down by about 20%. I achieved a lower, or more normal, range of blood sugar levels with all this training and this carries on through days without exercise as long as the heavy exercise remains regular – three or four times a week. You don’t have to cycle over any mountains to achieve this yourself – cycling up and down your local creek will do it. As far as diabetes was concerned, cycling up the side of the Andes wasn’t much different from training days at home. I was monitoring my blood sugar even more often, so that I had a good idea what it was all the time, but Peruvians’ carbohydrate consumption meant getting refueled was never a problem. I was used to the hard physical work and we always stopped to eat. I did decide to use more stringent hygiene standards: I never used a sharp more than once and always cleaned flesh with swabs, even before finger-pricking. I don’t know if this made any real difference, but I was certainly in an area of unfamiliar pathogens. All my used sharps came home with me and were disposed of properly in Melbourne. My diabetic routines became like regular maintenance on a car – or a bike – it had to be done, it couldn’t be ignored, but once I told myself I could do this thing it was just a matter of working it out. A long time ago I could have said to myself that I should have a quiet lifestyle, but I didn’t. I certainly don’t expect other people to do what I choose to do – I know that some people hate to travel and I respect that. The point I wanted to make was that it can be done. Riding
my bike over the Andes and into the Amazon was not easy, but having
been dependent on insulin for so long was not one of the difficulties
– diabetes didn’t stop me. Published: January 2006 Last reviewed: February 7, 2006
|
|
Ants
in my panniers: Vietnam 2002
We
had a few days before our flights back to Lima and settled back to rest.
We found great food here: I must have eaten half a dozen different animals
that I didn’t know the name of (I hope none of them were endangered);
the spiced fresh fish cooked in banana leaves were superb; and the chicken
prepared by the Shipibo (local Amazon) cooks, dark meat from huge jungle
fowl, had a rare and powerful taste.
