Day 17: Choices

The tent wall against my face is the first inclination something's wrong. A large clap of thunder jolts me from my semi-slumber and a huge flash of light illuminates the inside of our tent. Storm force winds are blowing it on its side. Ray can barely hear me over the the hammering of rain outside: "Where the hell did this come from?", I yell.

Last night's skies were clear and the weather was calm but no more. It's 4am and the world outside has gone mad. A violent storm has settled over us and is lashing us with everything it has. There'll be no early start this morning.

By 9am nothing's changed. The volume of rain being unleashed by this storm is incredible and it hasn't let up for hours. Wave upon wave rolls over us, letting up for a moment only to reassert itself with a sonic rumble and another torrent of rain.

Over the course of the morning our environment begins to flood with every square inch of low ground - be it a ditch, runnel or farmer's field - being swamped in water.

"The weather is supposed to remain like this for the next five days", states Lola matter-of-factly. She's been following the news on the truck radio and this storm system is wreaking havoc from here to Buenos Aires. It's flooding the entire region and seems to have no intention on letting up.

We immediately hit the road and scout the region for options. Highway #7 is as busy as ever. Pools of water are collecting in the ruts and runnels of the road so deep that our vehicle hydro-planes on one occasion. The spray being thrown from passing trucks is overwhelming, completely obliterating our view until overworked windshield wipers catch up. The ditches that we were traveling in last night are now completely filled with water, inaccessible to anything but a boat.

We turn off the main highway and head down to our only other option, the old dirt track that leads to Buenos Aires. As the water rises so too does the inaccessibility of this route but we need to see it to understand what we're up against. Fabian is nervous because if we go too far the vehicle we're in will likely get stranded.

"The problem with this dirt road", explains Lola, "is that once it gets flooded it takes weeks of sunny weather to dry it out. We cannot drive on it until then." What this means to us is that support along this route is now impossible. The large volume of water on this path has made it unrunnable as well.

We head back to camp and are faced with some difficult choices. Our intended route along the old track to Buenos Aires is no longer available. We'll need to wait weeks for it to be accessible again. This is not possible. Our only option is to run on - (not along) - one of the busiest roads in Argentina.

We've undertaken the Expreso De Los Andes expedition to inspire students to make healthy choices in their own lives. The idea that we'd undertake a suicidal mission to convey this message seems as ironic as it does absurd.

Over the last decade Ray and I have traveled the world undertaking expeditions from the sands of the Sahara to the ice sheets of Antarctica. We've faced sandstorms and crevasses, we've endured some of the hottest and coldest temperatures on the planet, we've pushed our bodies harder than we ever thought possible but amazingly it's this expedition - on the surface one of the most straightforward and definitely the most urban - that's proving to be our most challenging. But there lies the definition of adventure: an exciting undertaking of unknown outcome. The i2P Expreso De Los Andes expedition is holding fast to this quintessential tenet.

We're now faced with the most difficult choice of our adventure but hard decisions are easy to make when they are the right ones. We unanimously decide to skip the final section of the route into Buenos Aires.

We now head directly to the Argentinian capital to meet i2P Youth Ambassador Conner Clerke who arrives shortly to join us for the final running stage of the expedition. Stay tuned.