Riding on the western side of the mountains, I found myself nodding off and had to pull over and do jumping jacks beside the road. What if I crashed? Instead, the mere fact that I was alone made many folks eager to engage with me and created opportunities for connection.Īfter a couple of weeks on the Peruvian coast, I set out to cross the Andes like it was no big deal and something that could be done in a day. I would be a target for bandits, they said. Before I left, many friends and associates cautioned me about traveling solo. I was welcomed into their homes, offered food to share, and helped with bike repairs.
The people I met in South America were generally friendly and treated me with great hospitality. His father-in-law was a fisherman, and we ate ceviche fresh from the ocean. I rolled out my sleeping bag on the roof of their house about two blocks from the Pacific Ocean. The seller put me up for a few days with his extended family. I flew from Lima to Piura to pick up the bike, a used 2005 Kawasaki KLR 650 I named Rocinante. Eventually, I found one for sale in a small northern beach town called Máncora. I bought a ticket from Seattle to Lima, Peru, the ultimate destination to be determined.īuying a motorcycle in Peru proved more of a challenge than I’d anticipated. Packing was a challenge as I didn’t know how much storage I’d have or what bike I’d be riding, so I kept things to a minimum: helmet, gloves, boots, riding pants, a jacket, clothes, sleeping bag, and a tent. While I didn’t have a huge budget, I figured I could stay on the road for about three months, give or take. A friend agreed to house-sit for me, and I hired someone to keep my small construction company going in my absence. I decided to wing it and buy one once I arrived. Shipping one of my bikes would be expensive and time-consuming, and neither of the bikes I owned at the time was particularly appropriate. In early 2015, I decided I wanted to explore South America by motorcycle. The earth would eat the bike, with the rust blending into the red landscape. The vultures would pick my bones, and the wind would carry away my tattered clothing. Nobody would come along and save me if I crashed. There were no other people in that valley, and even if there were, I wasn’t even on a track.
The wind and rain would wash away my tracks in weeks, if not days.
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!” The place I was in didn’t need me at all its rocks and sands were entirely indifferent to me. I found myself riding a fairly beat-up motorcycle across desert highlands in Bolivia, a quote from Back to the Future 2 bouncing around in my head just as all of my gear was bouncing over rocks and grass balls.
0 kommentar(er)
