Alaska to Argentina | Episode 8 | The Highlands of Guatemala

The heat really started to get to me this episode. From Oaxaca, I climbed over the mountains that marked the end of the Central Mexican Highlands and descended into the lowlands. As always, the lower the elevation, the hotter the temperatures. Low elevation doesn't necessarily mean flat either.

I continued on the Trans-Mexico Sur route until San Cristobal de las Casas where I left it and headed for the Guatemalan border. I had hoped to up my pace this episode, but a combination of heat, rough roads, and a bit of sickness kept me from achieving the kind of speed I wanted.

In Guatemala, the dynamic was much the same, at high elevations I enjoyed riding through relatively cool indigenous mountain towns , and in the lowlands I sweated and struggled to climb back up.

I made sure to stop at a couple of famous locations in Guatemala, Lake Atitlan, the giant caldera filled with water, and Antigua City, an iconic colonial city.


Social Media:
Instagram: instagram.com/crankingit

Support Me:
Patrion: patreon.com/CrankingIt
Paypal: paypal.me/AlexvanGelder

True's SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/teacher-true

About the Ride:
My name is Alex van Gelder. I'm from Seattle and I'm just starting my first intercontinental bicycle tour. The goal is to ride from Deadhorse, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina in one go.

I also want to ride some bikepacking routes including the Great Divide Route through the Rocky Mountains and the Peru and Ecuador Divides through the Andes.

For this trip I built my own bike using a custom frame in order to be able to withstand rough mountain roads as well as power through long distances on pavement. (I had never built a bike before so we'll see if it holds up.)(lol)

If you want to learn more about my bike build, I go over it in this video:    • My Alaska to Argentina Bike Build  

I go over my gear in this video:
   • My Alaska to Argentina Gear Overview  

If you have any other questions you can check out my FAQs video:    • Alaska to Argentina | Episode 0 | FAQs  

Or leave a comment and I'll get to it as soon as I can.

I'm editing these videos on the road, so releases my be infrequent as I try to find a quiet place to edit.

Music Credits:

Theme song created by True.

Atlantis by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...