While most people tucked into their Christmas dinner in the comfort of their own home, Oxford's cycling doctor Steve Fabes was heading through South America on the latest stretch of his mammoth, five-year ride across six continents.
Since leaving the UK at the start of 2010 Dr Fabes, who grew up in north Oxford, has cycled around half of his 50,000km Cyclingthe6 challenge, passes through Europe and Africa on his way to Argentina. The former Abingdon School pupil has raised more than £19,000 of his £50,000 fundraising target for frontiers medical charity Merlin, tackling bandits, monsoon rains and desert conditions on route as well as making frequent repair stops.
The intrepid adventurer spent the New Year in Chile after a backbreaking trip through the Patagonian mountains, at the southern tip of the Americas. The end of December saw the cyclist climbing the Carretera Austral, a 1,240km highway from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins in rural Patagonia constructed under the orders of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
"It stretches for over a thousand kilometres and seems to slip perfectly into this pocket of Patagonian wilderness," Dr Fabes said. "It's the first thread on a spider web and afterwards a multitude of different options branch off, scattering cyclists to different corners of the continent. The route is hardly ever flat, the ups and downs though serve to satisfy every cyclist's inner masochist. The dips, rises and curves of the rollercoaster make every minute a different one and every corner and crest reveals a new view. Sometimes it felt like I had cycled through a portal, suddenly transported to another distant place on the planet."
As well as dealing with a bout of gastroenteritis, the adventurer dragged his bike through dense bushes and through thick mud, while wading through knee high river water on the Chile border. Along the way he clocked up his 25,000km milestone, achieved by cycling through 28-plus countries.
"On Christmas Day we pedalled still, along the lakeside the inhabitants of nearby Bariloche were coming out to cook meat on barbecues, drink wine, play music and swim. I made my deadline and was reunited with old friends I hadn't seen in almost two years after a 20 day mission with just one day off my bicycle. So I'm resting over Christmas and the New Year and then I set off north once again through Argentina towards Mendoza and Salta," he said.
To fallow the progress of the Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust doctor, visit www.cyclingthe6.com
