Ruta 40 Argentina

Crushed dry and unreal, papiermâche mountains under a pinkening sky. And the billowing yellow grey clouds turn blue and dark, and the grass I see is golden. Though I see it as a small bright square in a blackened border.

I am sleeping under the road again. Though it is only as the full fat light of the setting sun shines through my shelter that I realise I am seeing for the first time today. I have spent 10 hours blind and pedalling - stoned tired eyes, not a grimace, not a smile, as slowly the gravel road runs below.

I will sleep as well under the road as in a bed. Better perhaps. And I won´t be scared as the motor of a truck slows and stops above me, nor excited by the dawning day.

For hours, like a desert, I have seen nothing but soup and risotto and garlic bread and salad. Close-ups, steaming and constant. And a vague notion of meeting up with Joe and seeing Debbie again in El Calafate. And then soup and garlic bread and risotto.

People say in the desert that, for lack of external stimuli, the mind turns in on itself and you can see some true essence of your soul. Well, I´ve seen it - and it´s soup. If I wanted something better perhaps I should have brought more food.

Now, in the sun, face golden, but unseen, soul of tomato and basil soup, stoned eyes and legs untired, I have reached it again; the rarely mentioned danger of travelling. I am used to it. The world changing every day. And now, and now, I don´t see it.