I left Central America was back in Mexico, North America and I wasn’t looking forward to the riding. It’s a huge country and some of the roads are straight, dull, and boring, 2,800 miles to Tijuana. Overland Adventure Travel is risky & challenging. I haven’t worked out how riding along a straight road fits in!
I checked into a hotel in ‘Pakalna’ as I wanted to visit ‘Palenque Archeological Site’ the following day. I was doing some routine maintenance on my bike and I heard an American guy calling me. Juan, came over saying “I need to hear an English voice, nobody speakers English here!”. Juan told me his shocking story…
About 1 week ago Juan had been deported from the USA and was still in a state of shock. He is Cuban and moved to the USA over 45 years ago in the early 1980’s. He’s now 70 years old and was separated from his 4 daughters and grandchildren about 10 months ago when he was sent from Maryland to a detention centre in Texas.
Juan started a car repair business over 40 years ago and 37 years ago a customer didn’t pay him so ‘stupidly’ he smashed a window on the customers car. He went to court and was given an 8 month suspended sentence.
If you haven’t done the maths that was in 1988.
So Juan did something stupid and the court made a judgement of a suspended sentence. Since then he has been a good citizen; employing people, paying tax, bringing 4 daughters up who all work and pay tax. He is a grandad. In case it’s slipped your mind; he’s 70 years old.
Ten months ago he was taken to a detention centre in Texas and couldn’t contact his family because of his stupidity in 1988. I know, it’s truly unbelievable! A few days before 10 months he was put on a bus and taken to the border with Mexico, forced to leave the USA, and when he passed into Mexico he was forced onto a Mexican bus and taken 1,500 miles here, to Pakalna, southeastern Mexico.
Pakalna is about as far away from the USA as you can get in Mexico! As a comparison, if you were in London and travelled 1,500 miles south, you would travel down through Europe, cross the Mediterranean and end up in Africa, in the Sahara Desert!
Juan was even further from his family, 2,750 miles. So, keep going past the Sahara and when you get to Ghana, West Africa, you’ll be there!
Shame on you America! I mean Trump!
Juan is an old man who has given so much to the USA, he proudly showed me his USA identity card. He was distraught and at the age of 70 has no idea what his life ahead of him will be. I imagine Juan’s situation is widespread as he told me about everyone else at the detention centre who had similar stories!
This is a humanitarian disaster occurring with the support of some American citizens!
I felt so sorry for Juan and I was angry at the US treating him like this. It was less than a week ago I met Wilson a Colombian man who felt he had to leave the USA due to the way Trump is changing what was a great country into a hostile place where immigrants are considered bad (ironic that, as all Americans are or their families were immigrants)!
The next morning after saying goodbye to Juan I headed off to Zona Arqueológica Palenque. After the hassle of having to pay 3 times (entrance, bus into park and something else 🤷♂️), further hassle from the many guides (possibly more than visitors) and then the many people selling souvenirs, I enjoyed what is a great ancient Mayan archaeological site deep in the rainforest.
I was spoilt having visited Tikal in Guatamala, it’s so much bigger, but more than that, it’s the way they haven’t commercialised it like the Mexicans have.
As I rode towards Coatzacoalcos, on the Gulf of Mexico, I passed miles upon miles of heavy industry; massive petrol refineries as far as the eye can see. A little further and I arrived in what looked like the shitty-city! I thought the beach would put a smile on my face, but as I approached all of the buildings for miles around looked shabby! I was riding along the seafront alongside the promenade, I had hope. And then I walked to the beach… Oh dear!
En Route to Mexico City I was caught in the rain and got soaked, then a short while later it started raining again so I sheltered under a bridge. So, I’m on the side of a horrible highway with potholes, in a really dangerous situation with Lorries speeding by on a very wet surface and there happened to be a man selling pineapples, here in the middle of nowhere on the side of a highway! ‘You couldn’t make it up’, I thought. And there’s a dog 20 metres away barking like crazy at me, and there’s rubbish everywhere because that’s what Mexicans do, and I’m soaking’
This is ‘Overland Adventure Travel’ and I love it.
At about 2.30pm I arrived in the city of Orizaba. It was high up in the mountains at 1,220 metres, with the blackest clouds hanging over many of the mountain peaks surrounding the city. As I ride in I passed a freight train, Orizaba was evidently an industrial town, wealthy too.
I checked into Hotel Posada De Santa Rosa in Orizaba, where I wanted to visit Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz, the state art museum. I walked the short distance to the beautiful 18th century building which has been used as a hospital and prison over the years, it looked amazing.
I walked into what I thought was the entrance but as nobody was there other than 3 guards I wasn’t sure I was in the right place! I was asked to sign the visitors book (nobody had previously signed that day, which I thought was odd), and then one of the guards got some keys out of a draw and gestured me to follow him. We walked along a beautiful corridor and the guard unlocked a big painted wooden door, turned the lights on and invited me inside. There were about 30 paintings and etchings mainly from mid-twentieth century. The guard unlocked two further rooms for me, where art from 21st century was displayed.
I left the gallery feeling enriched! ‘I needed that’ I thought.
As I walked across the square I saw many street vendors. However, opposite the vendors was a restaurant and as the skies were black and full of rain… 10 minutes later and It poured down. There’s a time & place for street food and today wasn’t it!
As soon as I left Orizaba at 1,220m I had to stop and put my fleece top and rain jacket on for extra warmth. Another 5 minutes and the road started to climb up the mountain, and for 10 minutes I enjoyed blue skies, beautiful mountains and switchbacks, ‘so much better than those Roman roads’, I thought. And then at about 1,800m I arrived in the clouds; luckily there wasn’t much traffic, only a few coaches and Lorries about, and surprisingly every 1/2 mile or so police cars, loads!
Over the next few hundred metres the density of the clouds meant my visibility diminished to the point where I had to put my hazards lights and main beam on. There was nowhere to pull over, it was a dual carriageway with barriers and drop-offs straight down the mountain! I was getting cold and my ‘heated-grips’ were broken. Some crash-helmets have anti-misting visors, mine didn’t. So, I was wearing all of the warm clothes I had, my hands are freezing, my visor has condensation on the inside and water droplets from the clouds on the outside and I’m crawling along behind a car hoping a bus or lorry doesn’t crash into me from behind. Not only was I freezing but it was without doubt a very dangerous situation with no way out!
At 2,300m I was above the clouds in bright blue skies. Happy Dan.
However, a few minutes later at 2,500m I arrived at the summit back in dense cloud again. And then there was a cafe (a term I use loosely), so I pulled in and ordered a coffee. It was steaming hot instant coffee and I loved it. I cupped my hands around it and slowly defrosted my hands whilst watching the 2 woman prepare lunch in a massive pot on an open fire outside.
Why were there so many police? We’re they preparing for crashes!
I left the coffee shop at 2,520m wondering what the mountain had in store for me! Would the dense, freezing cloud go on for 10 minutes or 2 hours!
A few bends down the mountain and the clouds were now behind me, I was looking at a massive plateau stretching for miles and miles in front of me. Over the next 100 miles I stayed on the plateau as I rode through a vast agricultural area. I had left the tropical crops behind me and all I could see were salad and vegetables crops being grown in small fields being tended to by people, hundreds of people. There were a few old tractors but the fields were being prepared by horse-drawn ploughs and crops being harvested by hand.
I arrived on the outskirts of Puebla de Zaragoza, a massive city with a population of 3.5million and the option was to go with 99.99% of the traffic to the right, or be the only vehicle to head left, onto the toll road🤔 My gut feeling was to go it alone. I paid £1.50 and with a few Lorries the toll road quickly went up a ramp and for the next 10 minutes or so stayed high up above the city, on an elevated road. The city looked poor, the buildings looked unkept, crowded and the streets were congested.
It was a surreal feeling to be high up and virtually alone riding above the massive city, looking down on life but not being a part of it! And then I realised why I was alone, there weren’t any slip-roads (off-ramps), not one! The whole elevated road was constructed for traffic to pass over the city. Most cities have solved this by a bypass. It must be so expensive to build a road 50+ feet in the sky, and then very few vehicles use it 🤦♂️
As soon as I was at the edge of the city, the ramp took me down to earth, down to the mass of vehicles, I was participating not observing any longer!
And then after 30 miles the road started to climb another mountain, a 3 lane highway in perfect condition, with few vehicles… it climbed from about 2,300m to 3,300m over the next 5 miles or so, and then dropped back down again. For maybe 10 – 15 minutes I was back in the state of flow, fully focused on the road, I knew there were mountains around me but my focus was on the biking experience! And a few minutes before I arrived back on the plateau, I looked up, and in front of me, dominating a further plateau as far as I could see was Mexico City! Was it cloud or smog hanging over the city? Both city & smog stretched for 30 miles across with mountains either side! Wow.
Mexico City has a population of 22.5 million and as soon as I came off the mountain onto the plateau I was at the city boundary. Traffic instantly increased as we were all pushing towards the centre on 10 lane highways with train tracks running down the middle. My sat nav was taking me to the centre of the city, 1 1/2 hours more riding!
For me there is only one style of riding when in a foreign country and it’s to ride like the locals. Cars, buses & Lorries all drive knowing what to expect from bike riders. If I don’t behave like a local I put myself in danger! If the locals ride fast and swerve that’s what the other vehicle drivers expect of me, so in this example riding slow would mean I’m unpredictable and in danger.
Having been in many crazy cities (Delhi, Bangkok, Moscow, Cairo…) I found Paris had the craziest riders, going so fast and serving in and out of traffic.
So I do what I always do and replicate the behaviour of the bikers. Which in this case was a reasonable speed and with caution, filtering in traffic. Very comfortable.
As I progressed the traffic got heavier and heavier and the roads and junctions more frequent, to my right was an elevated train track under construction; it must have been 100 ft up above the city.
Google Maps assumes I’m in a car so as I filter through the traffic, the time to destination reduced exponentially. The journey in was about 30 – 40 minutes.
I found a hotel; £58 for 2 nights near the centre of Mexico City. It’s 2,260m and I’m cold!
To give the altitude I’ve been in over recent days some context; the highest mountain in England is Scafell Pike at just under 1,000m. And the highest mountain in the UK is Ben Nevis, Scotland at 1,345m.
It was about 4pm when I walked out into the city. Using Google Translate (as usual), I asked the hotel receptionist if it was safe to walk around at night, he said yes very positively! I walked in the direction of the centre which took about 15 minutes, initially walking past some homeless people and then I found myself in the ‘electrical engineering supplies’ district. If I had needed a 20kw induction motor, I was in the right place! I passed an area where I assume the artist and creatives may have lived, cool second hand clothes & coffee shops, and a vegan restaurant.
I arrived in the centre and it was crowded with people, no foreigners as far as I could tell. There seemed to be much to explore and I was looking forward to the following day when I had time. And then I came across China Town and I thought I was in Gerrard Street! I know I’m in Mexico City, but I decided to opt for an ‘all you can eat Chinese buffet’! They seated me at a table in front of the tv which was showing ‘Top 50 Greatest Christmas Songs’ which we’re all English.
It was dark when I left the restaurant and decided to walk back to the hotel. It felt extremely safe.
I could have easily avoided Mexico City, in fact if it wasn’t for a friend encouraging me to, I would have avoided it, as cities are not enjoyable for bikers.
As usual I’m up at 5.30am and thinking about where I can get a good coffee. I discovered the vast majority of coffee shops open at 9am, but I found one opening at 7.30, so at 7.15 I’m walking the tree lined streets.
Unlike most cities, Mexico City wasn’t awake at such an early hour! I arrived just as the coffee shop was opening and spent the next hour & half observing morning life in a suburb of Mexico City. This is my happy place, good coffee and ‘watching life play-out in front of me’!
By the time I’m back on the streets the city is awake; a few rough sleepers laying or sitting on cardboard (much less homelessness than England) and street food vendors everywhere feeding breakfast to people on their way to work; so vibrant. I was outside the city centre and felt very safe. Happy Dan.
I head to the Historic Centre and unlike many European cities which instantly hit me with beauty (Rome, London…), Mexico City was different, it grew on me, more and more. Oh, there is no smog!
Some of the tourist attractions had hoardings around them, which I initially thought was a shame.
However, I discovered that there had been many demonstrations in the city recently. There was one 3 days ago and one is planned for 4 days time. I later went online and read that people are demonstrating that the government isn’t doing enough to protect them from the violence from the cartels. However, a few local men I spoke to in the city said it was to do with the increased ‘cost of living’ and foreigners buying properties… So I’m not sure 🤔
Upon reflection it’s not a shame at all that some buildings had hoardings around them, in fact I love a city where people can protest. How selfish of me, a tourist, to think my view 👀 of a building is more important than the safety or wellbeing of the people who live there! ‘Give your head a wobble Dan’, I thought!
As hopefully I’ve said before, my travel isn’t about tourist attractions (although I am interested), it’s ‘all about the people’ and their ‘communities’ and their ‘towns and cities’, their ‘neighbourhoods’ not the ‘sparking, shinny bits’! I’m interested in the ‘engine room’ of the city, not the ‘outward facing splendour’.
I ventured inside one hording to visit the Museo Nacional de Arquitectura where to my surprise I got in free as I’m over 60, which I wasn’t very happy about! It was the first time my age got me a discount and I didn’t like the feeling at all. I would have rather paid the £1.24 entrance fee and continued my state of delusion! However, when I asked the woman issuing tickets for a concession and passed her my passport she looked at me in disbelief (this is how I interpreted her look and nothing you can say will change my mind!), which I took as ‘but you look so much younger than 60, you CANNOT be so old!’ The spring in my step had returned…
Art galleries; I know what I like and don’t, so I pass quickly through some galleries and ponder in others.
I was as impressed by the building as I was the art inside. It has many styles on the exterior but very Art Deco inside.
One of the main observations I made was how clean the city was, no rubbish anywhere, incredibly clean bearing in mind the population is 22 million! And the incredible part is that there aren’t any rubbish bins, anywhere, not a single one! ‘Very impressive, I thought!’ People taking their rubbish home, that will never catch on I thought!
The city is full of beautiful noise, more than any other city I’ve visited. Not cars & buses, but people, traders and shop keepers calling customers to them. It’s permanent and whilst I have no idea what they are saying, it feels really happy – I love it.
And to continue with my Central American theme, I can’t get over how there must be ten thousand tourists here but I’m not seeing any foreigners.
And then I arrived in Plaza de la Constitución. The biggest square I’ve been in with the biggest flag! The square was full of life, a demonstration by indigenous people, protesting for better rights! A government program in the square: free education, skills and activities for everyone. ‘I like Mexico City’ I thought!
What a vibrant, wonderful city. I love the fact that the vast majority of buildings are old, I really hate shopping malls and high-rise apartments! And the international brands are here, but not many and they are crowded out by independent shops! Wonderful. How I hate the ‘creep of Globalisation and the homogenisation of life’.
Life is so much better when my expectations are surpassed by reality!
It’s obvious where the locals have lunch!
£1.24 for 2 great beef tacos. I stood on the street eating them and a man arrived, stood to one side, quietly, unassuming. Within 30 seconds a man brought him a plate of tacos, another a bottle of drink and a third person some further food. And then a guy put a rolled up bank note in his hand. Community is alive in Mexico City! I thought.
I started to see ‘hatches’ in building walls everywhere selling tacos. It’s possible to eat cheaply in the centre of Mexico City.
And then I passed a traditional bakery the size of a supermarket! The bread and cakes could have graced any French bakery or delicatessen. And then Ivor came over and asked “where I was from?” He told me the bakery is 98 years old. You get a tray and put everything you want to buy on it, take it to the counter and it’s boxed really beautifully, you then take a ticket and pay.
Mexico City moves into top spot for good looking policewomen too!
Having been walking for 8 hours, I realised, there are NO bars or pubs anywhere. ‘That’s odd’ I thought! And then I stumbled across a bar, and it was near empty! I think it’s fair to say Mexicans aren’t alcoholics
And then I walked out again, another 2 hours, in the darkness of the evening this time. I wandered into the park as it looked busy. I got food from a street vendor and walked around, ‘aren’t city parks meant to be dangerous at night’ I thought!
I returned to the hotel at 7.15pm exactly 12 hours after I left in the morning. On the way back I saw people giving an old man singing (really badly) coins, the homeless people I passed in the morning were being given something by a man, the street vendors were still working as was the motorbike mechanic next door to the hotel. If my experience is a reflection on the wider city, then the Mexicans in Mexico City are hard workers, take care of those less fortunate than themselves and take care of the city by not littering it. Whilst I’m absolutely knackered and ready to fall asleep, I loved the short time I’ve had here.
Over the following days I headed west and as I experienced throughout Mexico, there is a very heavy military presence. Trying to get control of the Cartels I assume!
And then I had crossed back to the Pacific Coast, where I stayed with a friend for a week over Christmas.
Juan called me just before Christmas. He’s got a job as a mechanic and talks to his family back in USA everyday. He’s still in a poor psychological state (scathing about Trump and how he’s changed good Americans to nasty, hateful people) but he’s ‘ploughing on’.
The last adventure of this overland journey would be 1,200 miles north, through Mexico and onto Phoenix, Arizona, USA, where I would leave the bike and jump on a plane to visit my cousin. I wasn’t looking forward to it as I imagined there would be ‘zero adventure’, just a straight toll road through Cartel territory, getting ‘off the road’ at 3pm, finding a hotel and not emerging until the following morning.
What could possibly go wrong!
I left as soon as the sun emerged and rode for 6 1/2 hours, stopping only for fuel and a coffee. At about 1pm in the scorching heat of the arid landscape I heard a loud ‘bang’, the bike lost all power and I freewheeled to the side of the highway!
I instantly knew the situation was very serious. My mindset is usually so positive, but in that moment I knew I wouldn’t be riding to Phoenix over the forthcoming days!
I got off the bike and saw the chain had broken and wrapped itself around the front sprocket, so tightly I couldn’t dislodge it.
It’s boiling hot and I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere on the side of a road! Add to that, over the past 3 months every American I’ve met told me Mexico isn’t safe and I have to be very careful of the Cartels. The main area for Cartels is where I am!!!
I may have been slightly over optimistic about ‘zero adventure’…
A lovely Mexican man stopped and told me that because I’m on a toll road I can get a free recovery. He phoned the number on the reverse of my toll ticket and I waited.
‘I shouldn’t be as calm as I am’ I thought as I waited alone.
I remembered I had about $1,000 hidden in the motorbike battery box for emergencies, so I removed it as I knew a mechanic would be stripping the bike down. At this point I didn’t have a clue what was in-store for me. Where would the bike end up? Where would I sleep tonight & how would I get the bike back to the USA?
At 2.24 the bike was loaded on the flat-bed recovery truck and we were heading in the direction I just came from! I offered the driver cash to take me to the BMW dealer 50 miles in the opposite direction but he said he wasn’t allowed to do that. He told me he knew a great mechanic who would repair the bike.
At 2.45 we pulled up in a really shitty service area. I asked the recovery man where the mechanic was? He said that the mechanic changed his mind and now we are meeting a further delivery guy who will take me to BMW 60 miles away. I felt like I was being ‘stitched up’!
It’s bloody hot, I’m in a dirty, dusty, shitty service area and I had no options but to agree. It was good that I would be in a city in a few hours and very fortunate there’s a BMW main-dealer there.
The boss of the recovery company arrived with one of his drivers in an old horrible car, and told me it would cost £355 for the 60 mile journey. We negotiated and I paid the obese slob £196.
It was gone 5pm when the bike and I were dropped off at BMW. The people there were very good, they assumed a new chan was all that would be needed to get me on my way again, but my feeling hadn’t changed, I thought there was no way I would be riding away!
Fortunately there was a hotel next door, so I checked in. One of the guys at BMW said the city is dangerous and I shouldn’t leave the hotel until the morning!
I was at BMW as they opened at 8am and the mechanics started work removing the chain straight away. However, it was lodged so tightly around the front sprocket it took them over an hour to remove it!
And then the ‘bombshell’ that I knew was coming arrived. The bike was damaged beyond economical repair, it needed a replacement engine! Whist I wasn’t shocked being told, I had no idea the effect it would have on me!
My good friend had so generously loaned me his motorbike which he rode overland, around the world, through Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia and the Americas, and whilst I maintained the bike and didn’t cause the damage, I was riding the bike, its custodian, responsible…
I was very emotional, not for myself, but for my friend who was about to find out that his bike is a ‘write-off’ and 2,500 miles from his home, in a very dangerous part of Mexico!
Over the next hours he decided there was no point in spending the money for the repair so I disposed of it! And that was that, what do I do now!
I spent two evenings with Juan Carlos, the manager at the hotel. He used to live in USA but was only there earning money to send home to his family. He’s permanently back home now and enjoying life again. We talked about Mexico and the Cartels. The whole of Mexico has a major problem with them, there are about 20 in the country and two rival cartels in Culiacan. About 20 people are killed or kidnapped every day in the city as they fight to be ‘Top Cartel’. Juan Carlos and the residents don’t even know who is a cartel member. The government is trying to make improvements but he believes there is much corruption! Stupidly, I walked 20 minutes from the hotel to the shopping centre in the day where nobody else was walking, everyone else was in a bus or car. He said the streets will be empty after 8 or 9pm as it’s too dangerous afterwards (that’s no people or cars). As I’m sure you are, I was shocked at the deaths & kidnappings, 20/day is 600 people every month in one city.
Juan Carlos told me at anytime there are about 10,000 troops in the city, a further 3,000 were deployed there a few days ago.
The shopping centre I went to was modern with American branded shops, I told Juan I thought the city seemed well-off, and he said most people have no money, it’s just government workers and people being paid by the cartels who go there. He said so many people have left the city, it used to be one of the nicest cities in Mexico, not anymore!
Mexico, like America has high GDP per capita, but both countries have poor wealth distribution. Most of the money is with a small percentage of the population.
As I was listening to him, I wondered if it was a good thing that I was leaving the country sooner than planned, the last 600 miles to the border were going to be the most dangerous, crossing ‘Sonora Region’, which various people told me is very dangerous…
You would think leaving a war zone would be cheap as the authorities want you to go to a safe place. However a 2 hour flight one-way to Phoenix, Arizona cost me £350!
At 6am the taxi arrived to take me to the airport. As I opened the boot I thought the screeching noise would wake all the hotel guests! I got in the front seat and went to put my seatbelt on but it had been removed; I assumed for a quick exit if the cartel guys came for me! Although, as I would find out at the airport, it was impossible to make a quick escape as the door handle didn’t work. I had to wind the window down, reach outside and open the door by using the external door handle. I found all this very amusing and gave the woman a tip and a smile. The juxtaposition between the journey to the airport in the car that shouldn’t be ‘on the road’, the wooden shacks on the roadside, the potholes in the road and the shinny BMW dealership was interesting to observe.
The airport was tiny, which I appreciated as my bag was heavy with all of my usual stuff and the addition of riding gear and a crash helmet! Petrys was the lucky woman who had the job of checking me in. Bearing in mind I’m leaving a war-zone I would have thought Petrys would have wanted to process me and get me gone quickly… However, Petrys continually smiled, but took ages, asking me many questions over and over again! Eventually, she called a Manager over, whereupon they wrote ‘Revision’ over my boarding card, along with ‘SSSS’ in bold red marker pen.
I had no idea what occurred over the 20 minutes I stood smiling at Petrys but I left confused wondering how passport control would be. As I would discover, there was no ‘passport control or immigration’. I assumed the Mexican authorities would want to know I had left their country, especially as they wanted to know so much when I entered. For the first time on this adventure there was no exit stamped in my passport.
I passed through security easily and took a seat near my gate. As the flight was an hour and half away, I settle down with a coffee. Within a few minutes Petrys from the checkin desk came rushing over wanting me to follow her, so I did and was escorted passed the people queuing for the flight (why were they queuing one and half hours early?) beyond the gate entrance to somewhere not quite at the airplane. This is when I saw two women with surgical gloves on standing behind a pop-up desk. For some reason I was smiling and perfectly comfortable with my situation, but it did feel like ‘Midnight Express’. I know that was Turkey, but would I end up in the worst prison in Mexico!
My second thought was that maybe ‘I was a VIP? An English hero?’ Over the next 10 minutes I was searched more thoroughly than ever before. They must have used 50 wipes on every part of my clothing and stuff,: my clothing, shoes, everywhere! Then the wipes put in what I imagine was the ‘drug test machine’.
By the time that had finished I no longer was at the front of the queue feeling like a VIP. I was at the back, queuing like a good boy!
I think I have a good idea why my boarding card was written on! ‘Deeply suspicious English guy…’
Then I realised in a few hours I had USA border force to contend with and I had two books in my hand luggage: the titles were ‘American Facists, the Christian right and the war on America’ and ‘The secret history of the American Empire’. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
And then I’m on flight Y47884 in seat 13F.
Back to the familiar and the madness. I know what’s going to happen: disembark, collect my luggage, be interrogated by a US Border Guard, get a bus to a hotel… I didn’t like the feeling! For 3 months I had been on an adventure, life was all about the unknown, meeting new people, dealing with with new situations, landscapes & challenges. I’ve had such a wonderful time, and whilst I can’t wait to be with my lovely family and friends, I was sad my adventure was over!
What have I learned…
Riding south through Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California I learned three things. Firstly, the western side of America has vast amounts of wilderness. Secondly, ‘The Land of the Free’ isn’t that free! And lastly, if at all possible, avoid talking to Americans about guns & Trump…
My decision to do as little planning as possible proved really successful, other than not realising I needed a visa for Honduras, my adventure evolved in a really organic and positive way.
I can’t speak Spanish and whilst it didn’t stop me doing anything, it meant I didn’t have as much connection with people that I would have liked. With a smile, a few Spanish words, Google Translate and locals occasionally speaking English, I always achieved everything I set out to do!
When I think about Central America I will always think about the jungle, the Pacific Ocean and men carrying machetes. Oh, If you don’t like ‘rice, beans & tacos’ you might go hungry.
The biggest surprise was the lack of foreigners. There are Canadians and Americans in coastal resorts but I was generally avoiding these places. However, I thought I would come across other travellers & overland adventurers, but I didn’t! Other than Wilson, the Colombian guy riding a motorbike from USA to the bottom of South America I was the lone Gringo!
