After the pandemic, long-distance cyclists Sonia Colomo and Eloi Miquel sold everything they owned except their biking gear and set off on a traverse of the Americas. They documented the most visually dramatic segment of their 22-day journey in the short documentary The Magic Puna: Bikepacking Ruta de los Seismiles.
Alpacas graze in a laguna along the Ruta de los Seismiles. Photo: Sonia Colomo/Eloi Miquel
The Ruta de los Seismiles stretches across the Andes along a ridge of volcanoes, each over 6,000m high. The land around is utterly deserted of humans. Colomo and Miquel pack enough food for 22 days and plenty of water, as fresh water is scarce along their route.
Their journey takes them to over 5,000m, into the unique Andean puna. Puna is high-altitude prairie, replete with lush yellow grass, salt flats, small lakes, and wildlife. The puna currently sits at a crossroads between two types of human habitation. Throughout the documentary, Colomo and Miquel stop for the night at abandoned chapels, signs that once someone lived here. But throughout their journey, they find only one family living on the puna, tending to sheep and alpacas.
At the same time, the mining industry looms like a vulture over the landscape through which they ride. They film mining installations and company towns on the way up to the traverse.
“We will surely be the last people who have been able to see the puna in this wildest state,” says Miquel.
A fox peers at the cyclists on the first day of their trip. Photo: Sonia Colomo/Eloi Miquel
‘A reality we don’t want’
Colomo and Miquel pass through the full diversity of the puna: They hunt for springwater in seemingly congealed desert, flee across cracked salt flats with a rainstorm at their heels, and carry their bikes across 80 streams in a single day.
They encounter other people only twice during the northern part of their route. The next day, they stop in the town of Fiambalá, where they ecstatically eat ice cream.
There are opportunities along the Ruta de los Seismiles for mountaineering, but you must bike in all gear, adding to the difficulty of the route. Photo: Sonia Colomo/Eloi Miquel
Then their journey continues onto the southern stretch, through twisted lava sculptures and the icy sheaths of penitentes. As a tailwind propels them through the last day of their 1,313km, once again approaching humanity, Miquel comments, “We are back to reality, but it’s a reality we don’t want.”
“We leave the Puna, we’ll find people again,” narrates Colomo to her camera as she bikes the last kilometers. “It’s going to be hot, we’ll have ice creams, but I would stay here for longer.”
