I’ve been bikepacking from the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina and reached the highest mountain passes of my life on the Peru Great Divide. Through frostbitten whiteouts above 16,000 ft [4,876 m], I miss a hairpin turn in the red gravel road and end up climbing an extra hour, adding warm winter layers as I go, headlong into a hailstorm.

Still the colors up top are immaculate. Ensuing descents, insane. Some peaks are sage green, some the darkest shade of red wine. Others a liquid type of orange as if still maturing, all ribboned with veils of ice and snow that hardly ever melt away. I slide across the shrapnel in reckless abandon, hurriedly scouring rocky embankments for a place to tent before the tortured grip of darkness takes hold.

My tent zipper snaps in the cold. Rain gear, no longer waterproof. Then comes a panicked race for cover before thick berms of ice can pelt the rainfly once again. More Mars-like desert. More lassos of headwind. Huge plates of white rice and a whole thermos of coffee. Body crumbling over and over with nowhere to escape to and no way to get there, just raw specters of emptiness in all directions.

Too often I’ve defined myself by that spirit of emptiness. I stitch all my wounds with its peripatetic thread, wayfaring between nowhere and somewhere as if by nature, inimically unsettled, perpetually distanced, arms outstretched towards the faintest whisper of belonging.

“The end of the road is so far ahead, it is already behind us / Don’t worry, just call it “horizon” and you’ll never reach it / The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed / Remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.”

• Ocean Vuong, Night Sky With Exit Wounds

It's been suggested I post here, if you will forgive the arrogance of posting it myself.

Elephant performs a headstand while getting a bath!

Credits:

Scooter guy: Nitrocircus

Song: In my ride