Only half of the racers who started finished---that's how hard it was racing in Patagonia this year.
The 2009 Patagonia Expedition Race is perhaps the toughest race of its kind in the world, and this year proved that fact once again.
"I know the human body can survive for about 11 days without food or water and we could find water out there and there was a berry that we came across." Druce Finlay (team Calleva)
According to Reuters.com:
"Four American adventurers had to live on berries during three days lost in the wilderness, a Briton and the French defending champion suffered hypothermia, the Canadian team fell into an icy river with their equipment and a Spaniard got attacked by mosquitoes."
"We were exhausted from bushwhacking in the valleys so we tried to go above all the brambles and pop down on the other side but it left us a bad, bad connection to the finish," team member Sarah Percy told Reuters.
"The only way was through the coast but we were two miles from the finish for the last 48 hours and we just couldn't get there, whatever route we tried."
The annual event, regarded as the wildest and toughest adventure race in the world, was won this month by British team Helly Hansen Prunesco in six days after an epic 600 kms of mountain biking, kayaking and trekking to the southern tip of the American continent."