Time has come to look back on this incredible adventure!

From Ushuaia to Lima, we cycled 8,000 km and overcame several mountain passes over 4,000 m of altitude, culminating at 4,818 m above sea level. One of the important points of this project were the six weeks we spent with our three partner charities. Thanks to your generosity, we raised 22,000 €, of which 11,000 € were used to fund the three projects that we put together with each charity.

Our first charity stop was at the beginning of March at the Teletón institute in Concepción, a medical centre for children with disabilities. There, we assisted doctors and helped to run sports, arts and music classes. Water Wheels bought two rowing machines for Teletón's sports hall.

At Red de Alimentos, the largest food bank of Chile, which is in Santiago, we helped in the warehouse,  receiving food donations and preparing product orders for local charities. Water Wheels’ donation contributed to the construction costs of a cold room to stock fresh products.

Finally, Corazón del Bosque, our last partner charity, works for reforestation and the development of new methods of sustainable agriculture in the region of Los Yungas in Bolivia. We helped in the green house, in schools, and sold honey and coffee produced by Corazón del Bosque's partners on markets in La Paz. Water Wheels funded 20 bee hives, 15 coffee drying tables, and contributed to the acquisition of a small truck to facilitate the employees' transport.

The cycling part was extremely diverse, starting with the landscapes – plains that stretch as far as the eye can see, snow-capped mountains, oceans and large lakes, deserts, glaciers, etc – incredible encounters and a fantastic personnal challenge.

If we had to summarise all of it in a few points?

- First puncture: after 3,000 km

- Our second houses: the river banks in Chile, schools in Bolivia and fire and police stations in Peru

- The most original place we slept: an abandonned train wagon in Ascotan / a rock mine in Tierra del Fuego

- The longest uphill stretch: 300 km from Antofagasta at sea level to the pass at 3,411 m  just before San Pedro de Atacama

- The longest downhill stretch: 135 km from Ticlio at an altitude of 4,818 m to Lima at sea level

- The speed record: Agnès with 73 km/h

- The hardest part: the wind and the cold

- The shortest day cycled: 15 km on the road from San Pedro de Atacama to get to Machuca, after having spent an freezing cold night and labouriously climbed from 3,600 to 4,100 m in altitude

- Extreme temperatures: -15 °C during the night in the North of Chile at 4,000 m  and 35 °C in the middle of the day just North of Santiago

- The best food excesses: 2.5 kg of lama for two meals / a whole day eating exclusively oranges (60) and bread (40)

- The most absurd road sign: « Suspected people and vehicles will be burnt dead or alive »

- A new common passion: el manjar (dulce de leche, sort of caramel cream)

Many thanks for your precious support on this project. It has been an incredible adventure that would not have happenned without you. Your messages kept us going in the difficult times and we lived an extroardinary experience!

Clic here to discover our very first newsletter : description of our charity projects, bike purchase and much more!

This is it, our departure is in exactly 2 months today, so it is time for a little update! In case you don't follow our Facebook page (you should!) and haven't seen it, we have recently booked our flights and will be taking off from Paris on 10th January for Ushuaia. There, we will start cycling towards Concepción, where our first charity stop will be.

We have been working hard since presenting you our three partner charities, to raise funds to meet our budget, plan the logistics of the project, find our equipment and quite importantly train on our bikes! Although quite busy, it is all moving in the right direction and it's very exciting. 

After great discussions with our three partner charities we have had a chance to refine the specific projects that we will fund with each of them. Through these we are hoping to complement the help that we will bring them by volunteering in person to have a lasting impact. Here are therefore the three projects that will be funded by Water Wheels (with your precious help!):

- Paralympic sport equipment with Teletón: this will benefit not only athletes for their training but will also serve for therapeutic activities for patients. We are convinced of the benefits of sport activities, in terms of health but also as an important factor of social integration. By cycling inbetween our partner charities we want to surpass ourselves and are therefore delighted to be able to fund sporting equipement for Teletón, to allow others to do so as well!

- Industrial machines with Red de Alimentos: the running of the largest food bank in Chile involves heavy logistics and their operations would greatly benefit from a new industrial truck, to facilitate the volunteers' work and make it more efficient. 

- Agroforestry systems and beehives with Corazón del Bosque: the implementation of new hectares of agroforestry systems, associating crops and trees, will help both the renewal of the primal forest and the local economy, giving farmers diversified incomes. We will also fund new beehives, together with appropriate training and equipment, for farmers, because we are beelievers! 

On the equipment side of things, we now have an extensive list of everything we need to bring with us - thanks to hundreds of travelling blogs providing precious information. We are currently noticeably researching touring bikes, to find what will be our best companion - or probably worst if you ask our legs - during this project! Not forgetting the important aspects we are also currently sorting out travel insurrance as well as vaccinations.

Our fund raising campaign is also going well. We are currently looking for sponsors to join the three companies who have already decided to embark on the Water Wheels adventure: Lunette, elete and Home Diffusion; we also have several partners who donated products, and are in discussions with a few other companies who are interested in the Water Wheels project. We recently organised a raffle through our Facebook page, which was met with great success. Thanks to the support of many of you, we are also getting closer and closer to our crowdfunding target everyday and have already received over 7,000€, many thanks for your precious help!

As you can see this is all keeping us quite busy, but we are all getting more and more excited everyday as the big departure approaches! Make sure to keep an eye on this page as well as on our Facebook page for exciting media publications, announcements about our sponsors and more raffles to come!