Travel
Aloneness Without Despair
Bikepacking Argentina: On the protection of spirits
How to talk about the sacred Without speaking of the rain? The night, The fog, The mist, Emanating from her skin, The Earth.
How to talk about the miracles, As they transpire into the night? The emptiness and fullness, The soul comforted, By her side.
Aloneness without despair, That candle in the dark, Marking the way, Signaling to rest.
On a recent bicycle trip in the northern mountains of Argentina, where I overestimated my strength and underestimated the terrain, the night caught up with me on the side of the road, and all around me, my pride expanded.
No, I didn’t want to knock on some stranger’s door for help. Nor use the SOS telephone poles to dial on. And I passed settlement after settlement: A little hut here, another abandoned one there, but the road continued going without my destination arriving.
Then there was a man who was a boy, Full of pride and resentment and loss, Crying in the night under a tree, Hoping for forgiveness, For the most treacherous of reasons: Being.
Then I saw it. There was a little chapel with a light-up candle in the night. The wind blew its light off after I arrived. It was pitch dark by then. Under the shade of two trees, I took a nap. Once my strength got restored, I continued going on.
Locals had erected a small altar dedicated to the mythical character of La Difunta Correa, Correa, the Dead Lady. The story goes she passed out in the northern mountainous terrain of Argentina with her son in tow. She died, but the child survived drinking from her dead mother’s milk.
Because of this, the folklore culture considers her a saint. People erected chapels and altars on the side of the local roads for her. Devotees leave offerings such as water bottles, sodas, and cigarettes in them. Some ask her for favors or miracles. To cure a disease, go to college, find love. Survive.
And not knowing what love was, The man who once had been a boy, He desired, and he lusted, Wandering the desert, walking, Unsure of knowing what he wanted.
I departed the town of Cachi that morning at eight. My destination was the city of Cafyate, a hundred miles away. I crossed my path with two other cyclists: This guy who was riding a proper gravel bike when he saw my road bicycle with skinny tires, he uttered without much mercy, “You are going to suffer.” Indeed, I was heading to this sandy gravel road where my tires could get no traction.
But now it was past evening, and the moon was out. I was still some thirty or forty miles away from my destination.
After a full day, I decided to turn off my phone to preserve the battery. In any case, there was no need for a phone: there was no signal.
Regardless, my mind was in a go mood. To arrive at Cafayate, I had to ride another 50 kilometers of sandy gravel with barely any traction in my tires, which meant a lot of walking. I was fatigued, and I knew I needed to rest. But I didn’t want to stop. Then, I saw this flickering light on the side of the road that seemed to call me.
It was a candle by Difunta Correa’s altar, the Dead Lady.
I approached it, and as I arrived, the light went off.
It may have been the still night wind. I took it as a sign to stop and rest.
He found the mother, who, for her son, her life, she gave. From her breast to the child, life gave. Enough to rest in her bosom, Enough to continue to walk.
I slept for a few hours on the bare floor by the altar. I felt comforted and protected by the two trees that covered the temple. Until then, I had heard about Difunta Correa just vaguely, and it wasn’t until the following morning that I google her to know more about her story. I remember feeling protected by a motherly figure. I felt as if I would be a fruit of the Earth. There, while I lay down on the soil, I felt as if I was a seed that, at some point in the past, millennia perhaps, had sprung up from its entrails.
A light rain woke me up at about midnight, and by then, I was ready to continue my journey.
After spending the night on the side of the road, I felt both spared and protected after having found a flickering light in a temple on this lonely road in the middle of the night, where I didn’t feel alone.
When I arrived at the hotel in the morning after finishing the ride through the night, I found Blue Insights’ Cultural Prompt from Maii in my mailbox:
Pablo Pereyra 2023. Thank you for reading.
