See the trailer from YouTube at the bottom of the post
That's not Clint Eastwood pushing his bicycle along railroad tracks in some bizarre spaghetti Western. It's a scene from “Andes Bicycle Expedition: A Crossing of the Bolivian Altiplano.”
Yannick Daoudi and Kathleen Mullin loaded their bicycles and rode a section of the Andes — set at 13,000 feet — known for its isolation and harsh weather conditions. It's a bike tour few, if any of us, will ever take.
They committed their biking adventure to film, which is being shown at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival Feb. 16-24 and is available at their website on DVD.
It's the first documentary from Daoudi and Mullin, who live in Montreal when they're not travelling. They met in 2000 and four months later launched their first bicycle tour from Beijing to Bangkok.
Here's what they say about the Andean adventure:
“Throughout the expedition, Yannick and Kathleen battle, the elements in order to move forward: fighting altitude sickness and extreme cold; pushing their bikes through impossible stretches of sand and abominable roads; struggling against a vicious Andean wind; questing for water in the arid wilderness; and trying to find food in a country where roadblocks have cut off supplies to remote areas.
“Bolivia's political situation provides the backdrop for this journey. Yannick and Kathleen witness the unrest of the Aymara people, Bolivia's indigenous majority, whose history of conflict with European-descended leaders runs deep and fierce.
“During their stay, the Bolivian government is overthrown by mass civil uprising and protests, an event which will lead to the election of Evo Morales as Bolivia's first indigenous head of state.”
That a bicycle tour documentary would be shown at a mountaineering film festival is testiment to the hardships they faced.
Here's a minute-and-a-half long trailer on their documentary:
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