Most times we travel in the present tense. Moving down a street, through a village, across a country in the here and now; all the meaningful interludes in the plaza, at the market stall, by the side of the road, are but present moments in time. For both ‘us’ and ‘other’ there is no past and little future; no yesterday and little tomorrow. All is two dimensional. Little depth. Which can be liberating, for I come with no form, nobody can know my history; there’s a freedom from responsibility, an escape from reputation. But when you make a return visit, depth, and the third dimension floats into place. The photo’ archive, that recording eye, is a potent reminder of what was. Now to find what is.

Such is the case and our return to Uruguay. 

Some things change; some things do not.

We first visited thirteen years ago. Then, it was possible to agree with the adage that on your first day you would see your father’s first car, that an Uruguayan has a Thermos surgically attached to their elbow at birth and that they will take umbrage when the Porteño resident of the Argentine capital refers to Uruguay as their 49th barrio.

Much has changed since we first visited. The heavy goods trucks still haul eucalyptus logs, but they no longer grumble slowly past in a cloud of particulates; nor do you get your groceries individually bagged in a voluminous eco-waste of single-use plastic bags. Nor did I see Dad’s Hillman Hunter; however I did find my first set of wheels.  I’m just not sure roseate pink was ever an Austin production colour. Finding the stretch Fiat 500 was an absurd bonus, and I have little use for a grounded plane. As for Yerba Mate and the attached paraphernalia, it still predominates, and you know when the ferry has docked by the pulse of Argentine cars that race past, heading for their designated beach along the coast. 

Julio is still the caretaker of the house we’re visiting, his hand-shake is still a vice-grip, he still arrives with an armful of hibiscus blooms for la señora; only now, he’s eighty-six.

That much is still a constant.  What is different is a significant increase in cycle travellers. For the geek in the know, if you saw a loaded bike with the panniers with those tell-tale reflective patches, you would assume they would be European, almost certainly Swiss, whereas if they were a family then they would invariably be French. 

Not any more. 

It’s been one of the joys on this trip to see the breadth of nationalities, and in particular, southern Americans, out on the road. Once the guidebook’s advice to cycling visitors was to bring all your spares with you, as the opportunity for purchasing parts would be non-existent. Frankly I felt that was a trifle condescending; we’ve had some very imaginative and durable repairs over the years.  However, now with this increased presence has come a vast change in the quality of componentry. There’s some rather nice kit out there. The bent-wood basket probably doesn’t go with the ethos of macho mountain bike, but I did like the design sentiment.

Forbye the more usual combinations of solo males and millennial couples, there was the Argentine father with his four year old daughter on a recumbent ‘tagalong’, followed by her older sister with a pet poodle in a basket and her mother bringing up the rear. Or there was Carlos and Cristián from Circo Trayecto with their clown’s collection of juggling clubs and a unicycle, away to perform in the middle of another crossroads somewhere between The Caribbean and Cape Horn. Or Juan who is hauling a wooden shed around the world, and this chap with a surfboard, riding south from Brazil. And then there is the Kumtrú touring club whose motto is: ‘eat a lot: cycle a little’, and who asked: “have you ever met so many fat cyclists?”. Who then they feed us vast plates of spaghetti.

So we can say with absolute authority, we have never in all our previous tours met so many other cycle travellers as we have this year. 

On occasions we are the “rule to the exception”.

*Note from The Navigator: you may have gathered, we are back in Scotland for a while; the blog may catch up – eventually.