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We take our boards to the worlds largest salt flat: Salar De Uyuni. in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 11,975 feet high.
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In 2008, Paul Kent and Aaron Enevoldsen from Calgary, Canada decide to chase Adam Colton through the heart of South America…..on skateboards. This route could very well be capped as the hardest paved bicycle-touring route the world. The terrains obstacles of the Alto Plano are the high altitude, averaging at 10,800ft and higher, (very little oxygen). The Alto Plano is a channel of farmland through the Andes where the ancient Incan Empire was established. At this altitude, very little grows naturally except cactus grass and the options for food are scarce.
Paul Kent is a new world record holder, Adam Colton is a world famous longboarder, and Aaron Enevoldsen of the three, an extreme sports junky, writes about this insane journey as the tale unfolds. (Click on image to enlarge gallery)
For more all images please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/fartinabag/sets/72157615824227354/
By: Aaron Enevoldsen
Paul and I fly into the coastal desert city of Lima, Peru, with no return tickets and 1200 dollars, our hearts pulse anxiously like juicers blending our blood. Paul and I are scared. Two pretty young ladies approach us in the terminal and asked if we are the two guys about to skate across Peru. Paul and I look at each other in confused amazement, thinking we had attained stardom in Peru without even trying. Nope, it’s Adam Colton’s sister Deanna, and her good friend Erica who are on vacation and waiting for Adam to arrive 1 hour after us.
Erica, a Peruvian citizen courteously scolds us, letting us know we are going to get robbed, hit by a car, kidnapped and held for ransom. Exactly what we were hearing from friends in Canada, now from someone who lives here! Nonetheless, 3 days later Paul, Adam and I throw our longboards down onto the Pan American Highway.
1st goal: Nazca, Peru. Final Goal: Somewhere in Bolivia.
Between Lima and Nazca we get our first and bitter taste of the journey. We sit down to only two cooked meals. Otherwise our diet consisted 50% of cookies (Oreo-like), 30% of tropical fruit, and 20% of soda pop and flat bread. We skateboard across the driest desert in the world. I had fallen twice, Paul once, and Adam had the first fit of Diarrhea. After checking into the first vacant hostel we have our very first shower in 6 days, Paul and I get wacked on Coca-leaves, while Adam continues his battle with profuse diarrhea. The poor bastard has to sit in our first traditional Peruvian bathroom, dirty, scummy, and very ill in design. The bathroom door closed three inches from the toilet bowl, therefore your legs must spread eagle into the splits so the door will close. This must have been terrible for Adam, who insisted the next day we leave to camp.
Just outside of Nazca, three silhouettes appear slammed in the glare of a 100volt light. A dog in the distance is barking and Adam, Paul and I are shocked with a decision to try and run from the farmers field or do what? Spanish voices are mumbling from the light and Adam squeaks out an “hola,” in return. Our tents are all freshly pitched and we have no chance of a getaway, so we put out our hands in surrender walking through the brush towards the blinding light. We approach two small, humble-looking mustached men. They smile and mumble “Gringos!” to each other. Immediately we tell them we skateboarded from Lima to Nazca three hundred miles in six days and we need a place to sleep. “Skateboard?” So excited the farmer runs into his field and plucks a watermelon the size of that rock that killed Piggy in Lord of the Flies. I get my utility knife to dice up the watermelon and the 5 of us share it smiling attempting to converse terribly in Spanish while spitting out black seeds. What a beautiful night it was…..
….. The next morning we took on a whole new challenge: The Andes.
2ND Goal: Cusco, Peru.
I wait in the Puquio town hospital with my Spanish-English dictionary looking up how to say “insurance” and “falling off skateboard.” Somewhat neglected by the nurses and doctors, I sit with an inch-deep laceration in my elbow. The road had turned into dirt 10 miles before the mud ridden city. I ate the rocks attempting to dodge an elderly couple obstructing the smooth side of the road. After Paul’s first-aid treatment, I hopped in a took-took (3 wheeled cab), off-roaded for 2 miles, and paid my 30 cent fair to the town hospital. I was exhausted. Three days before I had 2nd degree sun burn on my chest and now I feel useless.
Finally I get some attention and the doctor takes a look at my wound. He asks what I did and I tell him “accidente con un patineta.” He seems worried as he pulls out a tray with a cloth, as he unravels the cloth he beholds sharp scissors and scalpels and nasty looking hook tongs. My heart is racing as I have no fucking clue which one of those he’s going to use, and I have no idea how to ask in Spanish if I’m getting stitches, flesh removal or what be it. He just sterilizes my wound, thankfully!
The extremity of this trip should be considered. The highest pass we skate over was 14,857 ft (over half the height of Mt. Everest). This altitude leaves us gasping for air as we push, hoping that we would reach the summit and drop down to lower altitude before night-fall. If not, we have to endure a freezing cold sleepless night with trouble breathing. Our tents become frosted over on the frozen ground. To make things more of a dilemma, we also hope we packed enough food and water to last us until the next town with a store. This is a self-supported trip, all of our survival gear is in our backpacks, that weight was on our legs all day for 2 months. Options for food are little, restaurants and bodegas are mud houses with dirt floors, and a table. We seldom eat the meat because they don’t have refrigerators, and when you ask for vegetarian food they still try to sneak you chicken.
At the top of a steep 15km incline into the city of Abancay, I notice something different about Paul and Adam. They are machines that lost a little piece of their mental health. In cities we’re attacked constantly by domestic dogs, local’s stares, and we have no way to shield ourselves; we are totally vulnerable to our surroundings. Five times a day a dog lashes at our heels bearing its full load of teeth. Combined with people whistling, pointing, and shouting “Gringos,” it is inevitable we are going to lose our patience. I don’t know what happened to Paul this day, screaming at the top of his lungs “I’m a fucking gringo, YO SOY UNA GRINGO, LOOK A GRINGO! AHHHH,” he persisted to drag on the attention by chasing a barking dog through the neighborhood on foot. What a miraculous entry to the city.
Adam Colton has skated across USA, France, and New Zealand. As a very well practiced longboarder and filmographer, his online videos Whirling Dervish and The Loaded Dancer have reached the most viewed longboarding videos in the world. Mr. Colton is a master of pushing and downhill, and holds no inhibitions whatsoever riding totally unprotected. Paul Kent is of similar attributes, a very “straight edge willy” who is the top Canadian for long distance push racing. He recently broke the distance skateboarding record of 250 miles in 24 hours. For 4 years he trained in covert ops and espionage wearing nuclear fallout suites with the Military. He has an outstanding ability to push his physical and mental realm to its absolute limit. Then Me, who has been long-boarding for 8 months prior and just recovered from a broken foot. My sports career was started with an off-road racing device called Dirtsurfer.
Abancay is just 126 Miles from a major goal of ours, the famous Incan city of Cusco. To my recollection, food is the primary drive behind this goal. We want non-authentic gourmet tourist dining. Our diet consists now of 40% French fries, white rice and eggs, 60% cookies, chocolate bars and flat bread. Instantly, in Cusco, we gorge on 3 dinners in 2 hours at an unbelievable café. I get so sick from eating too much and all I do to cure it is go out and eat more. We spend the equivalent of $25 each meal, which is almost unimaginable in Peru.
When we aren’t updating our blogs in internet cafés, we‘re hitting tourists with water balloons. I film Adam hitting 2 cops and then waving with a panicked whimpering laugh. From our hostel balcony with the last water balloon of 200, Adam almost got arrested, hitting the wrong guy right in the back of the head while his picture was being taken. The balding, stocky Argentinean man hears us shrieking like little girls with laughter and persisted to try and enter the hostel to kill Adam. After the police warned us, they escorted him to our room where he spoke slow and angrily, calling Adam a small child and a coward who hides like a little boy. All I can think about is seeing the amazing picture.
3RD Goal: La Paz, Bolivia
We continue to almost get arrested. Lost in the dirty muddy back streets of Cusco, we venture into neighborhoods no Gringo has ever gone before. We ask “donde es la calle afuera la ciudad?” Where is the street outside the city? Confused with our intentions and mode of transportation, people point us in the right direction. We come to a brick wall and the three of us climb over being watched by a very worried man. Crouching in the grass we witnessed a real life Boeing 737 touch down at what we now realized is the Cusco International Airport. Only 200 yards across the tarmac is another brick wall that separates us from the Highway out of Cusco. It is the most exciting moment of my life when we are all about to do it, run for the sake of not getting an international criminal record. Just then 2 fueling trucks come in our direction as we take cover shitting our pants in the grass. They slowly roll by, we squeak and hold our breaths. I must say it was a hard thing to do, climb back over the fence, but mostly because our bags are really heavy.
I’ll tell you we camp everywhere, sand dunes, riverbanks, under bridges, volleyball courts, and even right in the middle of cities. Our souls become very plump with the fat of the land. We didn’t visit Macchu Picchu because we didn’t have enough money. But what we’ve experienced of Peru was more than any tourist could ever imagine. Chasing Llama herds and wild Alpaca though the grassy hills, cold rain, the warmth of the sun rays after a cold night, the roughness of the road chattering our bones, exhaust burning our lungs, all the head winds holding us back, and the tailwinds pushing us forward, the smell of freshly killed road kill, or is it us? 8 days with one pair of underwear and no shower, cars passing inches from our shoulder, dogs chasing to kill us, the mass stares of confusion from locals. We are an awesome team and the hardships we endure together.
My mood is heavily dependant on the condition of the pavement. We’d been warned that there is a 40 mile stretch of the road that may be un-skateable. Sure enough the pavement between Pucarã and Juliaca is a total debauchery of my moral. We finish the 40 miles of rancid potholes and chip seal, and, to our surprise, it doesn’t end there. The following 44mile skate past Puno is worse, and I bitch and complain we should hitch a ride to where the pavement is tolerable. Desperately, we bargain for almost 2 hours with a family for one of their boats. The pavement makes us feel like slaves, and we are willing to risk paddle-boating on Lake Titicaca all the way to Bolivia. Unsuccessful, we turn back to the shambles of the road and consequently, the nose of Adams board snaps-off completely because of the terrible pavement. I watch Adam randomly tumble off his board evading a semi-truck barreling down the road. Here, for the first time, in 986 miles, we use, motor transportation.
The Birth of The Catfish
With Adams board now broken, we take the micro-bus system to Copa Cobana, Bolivia. For the first time since we began skating we have more than 2 full days off. Before we even shower Adam is all over the girls. He introduces us to 4 ladies of unimaginable beauty that we spend the next few days with. Unfortunately, Paul breaks his sternum with his chin attempting the most disgusting back flip I’ve ever seen. After that, Paul laughed himself into excruciating pain. This was such a serious injury we thought he would have to abandon the trip. Still determined, we begin fixing Adam’s board at a carpenters shop. We drill 4 new holes, then, tediously cut two new wheel-wells with a pocket knife! What would be a 5 minute job with a proper saw took 30 minutes of forearm burning labor. This new beastly looking board is crowned “The Catfish” by Paul, who, added duct-tape whisker to the nose for aerodynamics.
We then skate to La Paz, Bolivia, the highest capitol city in the world at 12, 140 ft. Roughly 2 million people inhabit this steep valley of mud homes climbing all the way up the mountain summits. We find out later that La Paz is the city of built in birth control, you run out of breath before you can climax. Our lady friends join us once more and are very disappointed.
4th Goal, Potosi Bolivia (the finally)
The last skate-leg of the trip, La Paz to Potosi (highest city in the world 13,353 ft), is undoubtedly epic. Down a deceivingly fast hill, I crash right behind Adam and Paul at 40MPH and front flip onto my backpack. The divine skate gods leave my clothes torn to strings and myself with minimal damage. We pull into the City of Oruro, Adams mounting dislike towards cities make him anxious to leave. I, on the other hand, want to watch the action of Carnival: South America’s largest celebrated festival. Kids are slapping each other in the face with water-balloons, drunken marching bands stumbling through the streets while over 28,000 traditional dancers twirl about the city. Paul is laughing in severe pain at all the drunken Bolivians celebrating Mother Mary. We misunderstand where we arranged to meet Adam after the Internet Café that day. Unfortunately, Adam waited for 6 hours, gestating diarrhea in the wrong park amid the ruckus of Carnival. He finally finds us in the night, pale with bloodshot eyes, so fed up with waiting that he departs alone. That seemed to be the end of “El Tres Amigos.”
We set forth with a mission the next day. Adam left, angry and suffering from severe diarrhea, alone, sick and vulnerable. Paul and I had no choice but to chase our compaňero and finish the final 196 Miles to Potosi as the group we started out as. The tragedy is one of us never made it…….
……… We skated through the night.
Black silhouettes of the mountains surround us, we cannot see the road but can feel it beneath our feet. The wind picks up behind us and we glide effortlessly through the night. Our headlights illuminate the glowing stripes of the road that seem to fade into the stars. When we pass one stripe, a new one appears in the distance. Behind us a white light lurches and we can only hope they see our tiny red LEDs flashing. Suddenly the light grows massive and the vehicle lassoes us accelerating with a gust of wind. It was our calling to skate that night as the stars were whispering around our heads. Entranced by such motion the wind becomes your consciousness, it keeps you focused and rivals for your attention. Tonight the wind told us to relax for the first time as She, Paul and I venture through the dark to catch Adam.
Paul and I sit naked in a field on the side of the road tanning our inner thighs in the morning. Out in the distance Mr. Colton skates slowly towards us and we excitedly jump to our toes. He is baffled, either because we’re naked or maybe because we mysteriously got ahead of him. We step on our boards excited to be a team once more. Skating together to Challapata, there we eat a fine meal of egg sandwiches, french fries, rice and load up on snacks. Then I make a big mistake.
In Bolivia there exist bags of Yogurt, you rip off the corner and suck out the milky, artificially-flavored liquid. I buy 1 bag, and then 4 more bags because they taste supreme. I ravage through them and the next day I’m struck with a morning sickness. Yes, I think that yogurt laid eggs inside me. I tell Paul and Adam to skate ahead as I lay in a field next to a creek. I came to and realize that I’m stranded alone in the middle of Bolivia with no water. What the hell was I thinking? I also realize I left all my cash with Paul. Now my chance of hitching a ride is terrible because people demand cash in from the stranded white guy on the side of the highway. I crawl through the grass to the creek, fill up my water bladder with a yellow sediment-ridden substance. I crawl back and sleep once more. 1 hour later it’s to the creek again, the water’s now clear so hesitantly I refill only 1 liter, then get up to stumble after my amigos.
Skating sick is a terrible punishment, after an hour I am able to catch a ride but only to the next town. This town didn’t have any fucking water, I’m quickly realizing I should have filled up more at the creek. A bicycle gang of 10 year olds informs me they saw my amigos 2 hours ago, so I skate out of town and begin to have hot flashes. There are Bolivian yogurt bugs crawling in my guts and I’m down to a ½ liter of water. I only have cookies and chocolate to eat and I can only skate as far as my body will permit. I come to a charred school bus on the side of the highway. Tombstones and flowers encircle the bus, and a black cloud is looming near overhead. It induces me with a great affliction and distaste for my current situation. Blasts of wind barrel down the mountain at me and I remember two nights ago when the wind encouraged me to skate. Now I’m told to give up……..
……..I lay in my tent, sick and thirsty, for 13 hours.
The next day my luck caught up with me. After 25 miles of skating, I hitch a ride with a Narcotics officer and watch the scenery change at an unnerving pace. The pale grassy hills of Bolivia turn into gaping red canyons as I approach Potosi. I don’t see Paul or Adam on the road, but 2 days later in Potosi we rejoin and rejoice with stories to be told and accomplishments to be proud of. We’ve skated 1500 miles, 36 skate days, living at high altitude for over 40 days, and we are all in one piece (except for Paul’s sternum).
5 Goal: Skating on Salt
To put the cherry on top of the chaotic adventure we take our boards to the worlds largest salt flat: Salar De Uyuni. This desolate landscape is 10 billion pounds of flattened salt and during the rainy season, it becomes sheeted with an inch layer of water. Tide-less, this produces a near splitting image of the sky, unlike anywhere in existence, here, you are physically capable of taking a skate in the clouds.
This story must sound unbearable, full of grief-ridden misfortunes. We battled with ourselves, our surroundings, and diarrhea constantly. To only prove ourselves capable more than anything. What did we get out of the trip? Our muscles were fully adapted and our lungs were at their greatest capacity. We harnessed our power and conquered the monster within. Life was simple and disconnected from society, and normal every day worries were replaced with semi-trucks and potholes. We each managed with one pair of shoes, one set of wheels, and 2 pairs of underwear. And best of all, we got to pig out on cookies and french fries while skateboarding all day for 2 months! We lived every 12 year olds dream.
If you are now realizing your fate as a long distance skateboarder, check out www.whoisadamcolton.com for tons of info. The website for our trip and all our future trips is www.longtreksonskatedecks.com. Watermelons are cool but don’t eat Bolivian yogurt.
Super duper special thanks to, Laura Hatwell, Rayne Longboards, Longboard Larry, Seismic Wheels, Loaded Boards, Coma Sports, Racheal O’neil, David Enevoldsen, Colleen Thomas, Frances Murphy, Barry Morton, and everyone who donated towards our return tickets home!
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