I felt as if my right foot was on fire, but I blamed it on the wind. When the wind blows from the side, it pushes the heat of the engine sideways, hence the all familiar warm sensation, but this time my foot was actually burning. I looked down and found my right boot covered in hot oil and saw a cloud of smoke coming from the right tail pipe. The engine started to sound like a Chinese washing machine with a roll of quarters in it, and before I knew it, it lost compression all together. The tachometer needle dropped slowly from 6000 rpm to nothing, and I had to stop. I was broken down in Northern Patagonia, with 230 kilometers to the closest city, in temperatures as hot as Texas in July.

Two weeks ago, after 101 days of hard traveling, we rode gloriously into the end of the world, Ushuaia Argentina. With that I completed the longest leg of my journey, a distance of 26,400 miles from Helena Montana, to Arctic Circle and due south to the end of all roads: Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. I did this journey on a 28-year old motorcycle, which astonishingly made the grueling trip beyond the speculation of many.

It wasn’t just me who felt victorious, the Racing Green Endurance team was ecstatic. Setting a new world record, the SRzero electric car became the first electric vehicle in the world to successfully complete this distance on the longest road in the world: the Pan American Highway. The long journey was over and with that the filming of the documentary which Claudio shot from the back of my motorcycle.

Our parting was bittersweet as I bid farewell to Claudio and Paul as we had traveled together for so long. Although it was just another day for me, for Claudio and Paul, it was just the beginning as they flew back home to edit the hours of footage and get the episodes ready for the BBC. The eight-part documentary will start broadcasting on January 1^st, from BBC World News so don’t miss it.

For the rest of the team, I wish them best of luck on their future adventures. They were a good bunch, and despite the differences we had, we got along well and worked towards a same goal in harmony. However hard it was to be on the road every day, it was an honor for me to be a part of this monumental undertaking and play a small roll in its achievement. These young guys showed how with determination everything is possible, even when they were laughed at every time the bottom of the super-low race car scraped on another speed bump. The electric car is a reality, believe it or not. I was skeptical from the second I laid my eyes on it in Mexico, but I was proven wrong. Big thumbs up to the RGE team.

The end of the world

Ushuaia sits at 54 degrees of latitude in the southern hemisphere and is the most southerly city in the world. Just a few kilometers to the south, the Beagle Channel separates the last sizable land mass from the rest of the freezing waters of Antarctica. Here at the end of the world or as the locals like to call it: “The Beginning,” life is as laidback as it comes. It’s really no different from the Alaskan communities I’ve visited and the mental attitude is the same. Since Cynthia was flying back to California, we decided to spend a few days together in the wild expanses of southern Patagonia before saying goodbye.

We visited the penguins, and canoed to a few island south of the Beagle Channels and made some new friends. Between the touristy visits and recovering, I chased after new tires as the rear tire on the GS was worn out beyond safety (the horrible Pirelli MT66, of course) in only 3000 miles, and I needed new tires to cover the distance of over 3000km to Buenos Aires. The more I searched the less I found, and I had to ride on these tires from lack of a choice.

The bike needed some seals and gaskets to stop the oil leaks here and there, and since there were no parts available for this bike in South America, I contacted the Z1 Enterprise, a company that specializes in old Japanese motorcycles. I had a positive experience from my previous purchases from them and I knew if there was one place that could locate all the parts I needed it was them. With only one email (I had no phone access to call them directly), Jeff Saunders of the Z1 Enterprise answered my pleas and the Z1 Enterprise officially became our parts sponsor. I sent a long list of items to Jeff, and he started pulling parts off the shelves and direct ordering the rest from Suzuki. With that out of the way, Cynthia and I started the 600km journey back to Rio Gallegos in light snow.

The wind started to blow, and as Patagonia is famous for its mighty winds, we had every right to be apprehensive of this phenomenon. We crossed a 120km gravel section, survived a very bumpy ferry ride and camped on a rancher’s land at twilight the first day. The winds were still manageable and calmed down as we got to Rio Gallegos. We visited our friends, the Sanchez’s 100+ year old ranch, Chali Aike, on the way to El Calafate and got the taste of ranch life.  In El Calafate, after a day on the glacier, Cynthia got aboard a plane to Buenos Aires to get back to California.

Alone

In every relationship, there’s always a compromise. I always thought that you either have a choice to be in a relationship and be irritated, or to be lonely and not irritated. Now that Cynthia was gone, I was both! I felt alone. I was in a strange country with no knowledge of the language, or a single person I could call friend. We had rushed so hastily to the airport that I had no idea where I was in relation to the roads. I was truly lost, emotionally and physically. The only thing familiar to me was the old faithful GS850 that didn’t let me down. I walked out of the airport disoriented, sad and somewhat petrified. I had no GPS maps for southern Patagonia, and all I could do was to match the coordinates to my paper map and go from there. I rode out in mild winds towards Rio Gallegos with a million thoughts in my head and uncertain of the imminent future.

The wind

Somehow in the dark, I miraculously found the ranch we stayed at on the way to Calafate. Since the ranch was on a totally different road, I had no idea how I got there, but getting lost actually saved the night. The Sanchez family received me with a dinner of spaghetti and lamb and we capped off the night with Mate, the national Argentine drink.

In the middle of the night I woke up to the atrocious sound of the wind lashing the tin roof of the building and wondered how tomorrow was going to fare. In the morning, I walked outside and could barely stand straight as the wind forced me back in the house. The radio announced five days of wind averaging 80 to 100kmh in the provinces of Tierra del Fuego and Santa Cruz; where exactly I would be traveling. I had to make the call before it was too late. I could either stay put at the ranch and wait out the winds, or I could tough it out and try to out run it before it got worse. Since I needed the parts that Jeff was sending me to Buenos Aires, I decided to leave and dash for the capital city.

The wind blew from the Northeast and it was a tail-wind until I reached the crossing of the Ruta 3, the highway that runs North/South on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. This is where things started going from bad to worse. I’ve ridden this motorcycle for so long that I know its every move, every flaw and every handling glitch, and I was confident that I could ride it in any weather on any continent. And I have. I’ve ridden it in snow, in sand, in the mighty winds of southern Wyoming and New Mexico, the Dempster Highway in Yukon, the floods of Central America, and the high mountain roads of the Andes, so my confidence wasn’t from a macho ego; it was based on the hard-earned experience of thousands of hard miles. But there was something different about this wind. It was constant.

It pounded me hour after hour without mercy to the point my neck was hurting from the force of the helmet pushing on my head. Every little hill I passed was a dangerous wind-stopper as it stopped the wind for one or two seconds and unleashed its full furry on the other side all at once. Every truck that passed me on the opposite side promised a mighty blow and trashed me about the road. Sometimes there were three or four trucks passing me simultaneously and that was the absolute hell on earth. I stopped at every sheltered outcrop of rocks to catch my breath and relax my aching arms. I tried a few time to light up a cigarette and only once I succeeded. I took one puff, and the cigarette burned almost halfway with the wind.

And the land was flat. No shelter to pitch a tent or even a tree. I was sure that my tent would withstand these winds as it’s a four-season mountaineering tent, but the problem was pitching it. It was impossible for one person to hold the fabric down and erect the tent in this wind. I was ready to dig a hole and go underground if I couldn’t find a place soon as the wind intensified by the minute. The wind wasn’t just killing me; it was killing my precious fuel in a land that gas stations are more scarce than hen’s teeth. I could see the fuel gauge needle moving towards empty, but there was nothing I could do. I kept on rolling the throttle and hoped for a gas station, or I would be doomed.

In a distance I saw two giant hills and a wide open valley after that. I had a feeling I was going to get hit hard there as the valley dipped very low, and I knew it would be a disastrous wind tunnel. I just didn’t know how bad. As I entered the hills the wind stopped, but I could see a bridge over two small ponds down the valley that looked horrifying. The shallow water of the ponds had one foot or bigger white-caps, and every bush and tall grass was flattening to the ground. It was too late to stop, and I emerged out of the shelter of the hills. The gale hit me on the left side and brought the 800lb hunk of iron traveling 60mph to a halt. I had the throttle wide open and kept down shifting for a hope of getting out of this tunnel, but the bike came to a stop a few feet before the bridge in the middle of the road and stalled. I held on to it with everything I had as I knew if I dropped it, I would never be able to pick it up in this wind. I was at a 45 degrees angle with my left foot on the ground and trying to save the bike from blowing away.

I heard a loud honk from a truck coming at me from behind, but I couldn’t move. I tried to start the bike, but to no avail so I stayed put in the middle of the road motionless. The truck swerved hard to pass me and his blast hit me even harder than the wind. I had to get off the road but my legs were trembling and the bike wouldn’t turn on. Pushing it was out of the question as the wind was hitting me straight on from the side and front. I opened the choke all the way, and the bike rumbled to life. I ushered it to the shoulder with the kickstand down. Even with the kickstand down I still had to lean on it to keep it from toppling over.

I was pinned in the worst place I could possibly be, and I couldn’t move. So I waited. I started to see a pattern in the gusts. The wind blew a steady 90-100kmh and that was manageable; it was the gusts that made it impossible to move. The gusts weren’t short, they would last 15 seconds, and then they would calm down for 10 second before hitting again. For about 5 minutes I studied the wind and waited impatiently as my fingers started to get numb from the cold. The temperatures were well below freezing, and the wind-chill was intolerable.

I counted 1, 2, 3, 4,… and on 10 I made a run for it full blast on to the bridge to other side. I rode like a bat out of hell and finally stopped behind another hill to catch my breath. I kept the bike running this time. The temperatures were so cold and the wind so fierce that it cooled off the engine in less than two minutes where I was pinned down on the road, that’s why I had to choke the bike. I was scared beyond belief. If someone gave me a bus ticket in exchange for my bike on that bridge, I would have happily done so, but now I was coming out of the shock. I kept telling myself that this was stupid. It was suicide. I saw a building that looked like a gas station in a distance. I ran for it. Later I learned that two motorcyclists died that very same day on this road in the wind. I was very lucky to be alive. My heart goes out to their families.

Out of gas

I rolled into the quiet gas station and was disheartened to see a sign on the pump: Out of gas. I noticed two other motorcycles parked in front of the building and a guy who seemed to be one of the riders came up to me to give me the news. He asked me how much fuel I had left and when I shook my head, he said in perfect English: “Well, you’re fucked brother.” There was no gas anywhere for another 100km.

Jorge Zmud or “Tati” as his friends call him is an Argentine who lived in Florida for 10 years. He and his friend Fokundo rode their 125cc Yamaha’s from Mar del Plata, Argentina to Ushuaia and were on their way back. They had a close-call as well on the bridge with Fokundo being blown over and falling. Tati told me they were going nowhere in this wind and they were waiting it out. That sounded like a smart decision so I joined them inside for mate and empanadas. The weather turned for the worse with snow flying horizontally and temperatures dropped even more. In the meantime, we sucked out 4 liters of gas out of their tanks to put in my gas-guzzler four cylinder engine to enable me to get to the next station.

Tati called his girlfriend, and she updated us with good news; the wind was supposed to die down in a few hours and we had a clear window to ride out of hell. While we waited, a group of Brazilian motorcyclists joined us with their disbelief of the wind and empty gas tanks. We waited for three and half hours before we could ride again. I wore everything I owned and still shivered as I walked outside of the building. Tati, Fokundo and I rode out north to the next gas station and from there we decided to travel together since we were going to the same town anyway.

These guys were heaven-sent as they knew the area and knew the language. They were both good lads with lots of stories to tell and they traveled the same way I do:  camping and cooking their own food. We became fast-friends in no time. We camped the first night at a campground which turned out to be free since the guard wasn’t there. The next day we covered 500km to the coast on the Atlantic. The weather started to warm up and mercifully, the wind was almost gone. Occasional gusts shook the bikes but nothing we couldn’t live with. Our plan was to stop at Punta Tomba, the biggest penguin reserve in Argentina (top three in the world) to see the giant flightless birds. I saw the penguins with Cynthia in Beagle Channel, but it was so cold and windy that day that I didn’t care for them too much. This time we would see them in much better weather and on our own pace.

The tire dilemma

My rear tire started to get really bad to the point that the cotton threads holding the plys together started to show. It was scary riding on it, but I had no choice. We kept pushing towards Comodoro, the biggest city closest to us and the tire kept getting worse. After calling around for almost two hours, we located a no-name tire that fit. It was wider than the original, but the same height and size, so I went for it. In México City, I purchased four new Pirelli MT66 (they are awful, think twice before handing your money over for this garbage), two fronts and two rears and used three out of four. The one leftover was a front tire which I didn’t need, but didn’t want to leave behind either. I hauled this garbage tire all the way with me and in this town, I found a customer for it. A guy wanted the tire so I sold it to him for 400 pesos. My rear tire was 350 pesos and installation was 30 pesos. I scored 20 pesos which I tipped to the tire guy. Life was all good again. We stayed at a municipal gymnasium for free that night, thanks to Tati’s fast-talking, and treated ourselves to a hearty camp dinner and cheap wine. We crashed like logs.

Amongst the penguins

The road to Punta Tomba took us through the countryside with nothing but deep gravel. The roads were new with no potholes so we unleashed the bikes 60mph on deep gravel, occasionally sliding and skipping, but we just gave it more gas. In 100km we didn’t see any cars, and we rode Dakar style on the pegs over the rolling hills. It was a much needed joy run, and I was impressed with Tati’s dirt riding skills. I chased him for an hour to catch up with him, and when I finally did, he was slowing down because we were at the end of the road. There’s only one secret to dirt riding: being fearless enough to give it more gas when the bike goes where you don’t want it to go. I think most people who fall and hurt themselves dirt riding are those who are scared of going fast. This 28-year old road bike was nothing short of a KTM on these roads, it just lacked the suspension travel which wasn’t important anyway since the road was as flat as a mirror.

We reached the penguin reserve at dusk and were informed that there was no camping allowed anywhere, and it was closed until 8am the next morning. So Tati got to work and after talking to the park ranger for 10 minutes, we even got invited to stay inside the ranger’s house with steak dinner. I don’t know what he told him and I don’t care, but I’m loving this guy. The dinner was exquisite, and the company a typical warm Argentine camaraderie. The admission fee was 35 pesos each which they waved, and we were the only people walking with the penguins for two hours.

This reserve is packed with over a million penguins and they are as fearless as they come. They walked right towards us, and some even poked their beaks in the camera sunshade. The penguins I saw in South were lazy and stupid looking, but these guys were lively and cheerful. This visit was the most amazing experience of my stay in Argentina to this day, and it will be hard to beat.

The disaster

The weather kept getting hotter, and we started to shed off our long johns and ski gloves. We camped in a beach town the next night, and it was almost too hot to sleep in the tent. At 8am I ran out of the tent with sunburn as the tent turned into a solar oven. We cooked some eggs for breakfast and decide to leave after lunch so we can do some chores around the camp: cleaning helmets, chains, checking the oil, tire pressure, mending clothes and socks and of course drinking mate. Around 1pm, we finally got on the road and made 200km before stopping for fuel. I told the guys to go ahead as I would catch up with them on the road. I wanted to get my MP3 player hooked up so I could listen to some music. I got back on the road maybe only 15 minutes after they left and cruised about 70 to 75mph to catch up with the slow pokes on 125cc Yamahas. And that’s when the bike broke down.

The engine was so hot that I couldn’t keep my face close to it to see where the oil was coming from, and one small try to restart the bike (after adding oil) disheartened me. It sounded like the pistons were scraping the cylinder walls and I stopped. I was frying in my protective gear in the full sun, so after taking off my jacket, I tried pushing the bike. I don’t know what I was thinking, but after 2 inches of hard push I gave up. The bike wasn’t going anywhere.

I tried to stop some small pickup trucks but I soon realized that there was no way of getting the bike in the bed of a pickup without ramps and even with ramps, it would take a few people to push this monster up there with no power. The search for a pickup truck towing a trailer turned out to be futile, and as the sun blazed on my head, I got more nauseated. I flagged down a semi truck and he stopped. With my 50-word Spanish vocabulary I got the message across that the motor blew and I needed to get to the next gas station where the guys would likely be waiting for me. The semi was empty with plenty of room, but again there was no way of getting the bike 6 foot high in the air to load it in the trailer.

Thinking the unthinkable

Only one option remained as I was as far from any civilization as could be: to tow the bike behind the semi with a tow strap. Towing a motorcycle is illegal in the United States and for a good reason; it’s extremely dangerous. What keeps the motorcycle upright is the power of the engine to the real wheel which allows it to maneuver with accelerating and leaning under power. When it’s towed, the leaning becomes obsolete as the tow rope passes between the forks and the power is coming from the tow vehicle. The rider has to sit down on a death-trap and follow the tow vehicle with no control whatsoever and if anything goes wrong, the bike and riders are sure to be dragged behind the truck until the driver realizes the mishap.

I had no other choice. I wrapped the orange strap carefully around the frame and tethered my life to the semi truck ahead of me. The problem was that the strap was too short, and since I was riding behind the trailer, the driver had no way of seeing me. He asked me how fast he should go and the only high number in Spanish I remembered was cincuenta (50) so I uttered it with fear. He shook his head in agreement and started to pull me off. The strap tightened and off we went after a couple of jerks. The gas station we were trying to get to was 58km away and I think I lost just that much weight in pounds sweating and cursing at the driver as he sped up to 80kmh, well beyond my comfort zone. I held on for dear life and didn’t blink so I could take the slack out of the tow line every time he slowed down with gently using the rear brake. Every truck that passed us on the opposite way blasted me, and I shivered at the thought of losing control. Mile after mile, I sweated and held on for the safety of the gas station which seemed to be on the far side of the moon. Finally the truck started to slow down, and I kept a tight rope between us as he pulled in the station. From the corner of my eyes, I saw my biking buddies coming over camera in hands snapping pictures of the stupid scene.

Tati came to my rescue one more time as he worked out a deal with the driver to take the bike and me to the next town, 170km away so we could figure out a way to fix it. He agreed on 150 pesos but one problem remained. We still had no ramp. We rounded up a few hefty guys and as I watched in awe, they lifted the heavy beast 6 feet off the ground and into the back of the forty- foot trailer. We strapped it down and headed out on the road again, due north.

We stopped at a truck stop right before the town to figure out what we could do as Tati and Fokundo had a reunion to attend at 5p.m. the next day 450km away. Tati suggested taking the bike to his ranch, about 40km from Mar del Plata where I would have a place to work on it, and I could stay as long as I needed to for free. Again, I had no choice and his offer was hard to resist, so I agreed. The truck driver would take the bike to a transport company in the morning to be shipped and I would catch a bus to the ranch to meet the guys. I bought dinner for the very helpful truck driver and my new friends and we slept at the back of the semi-trailer that night next to rotting tomatoes and cabbages. The next morning, we shipped the bike for 450 pesos to Mar del Plata, and I got on the bus for another 150 pesos myself to meet it. The day after tomorrow is a holiday in Argentina so I have to wait another day to pick up the bike from the trucking company. Then, I have to rent a small pickup truck to take it to Tati’s place 40km away and find out what’s actually wrong with it.

As I’m writing this very long post in the bus station, I’m grateful for all the help and suggestions anyone can offer as I’m in a pinch here. This bike is my only ride and what I have on it are my only worldly possessions. When I started this journey back in August of 2009, I sold everything and I donated every piece I had left including this bike to our non-profit organization. If I can’t fix it here, I’ll have no choice but leaving it behind to cut the losses. Purchasing another motorcycle would be extremely expensive in Argentina as every imported thing is taxed 200%. An old shaggy Kawasaki KLR costs around $8000 USD here, and I honestly have no more money to afford that kind of spending. If the heads and cylinders are beyond repair, shipping the parts from United States will be outrageously expensive even if I can find the parts for free. Cross your fingers and wish me luck as I’ll try my best to get this old gal back on the road.

I’m not giving up, bike or no bike, I’ll continue this journey. Donkeys are cheap down here so stay tuned.

Chris Sorbi

Ecuador is one of the smaller countries in South America, but it was an interesting point in my journey. The equator passes through Ecuador and that means that by reaching the equator, I traveled from the furthest north in Yukon to the center of the earth. Crossing into Ecuador was by far our easiest border crossing in the whole trip as the guy we met in Pasto, Sebastian Moreno, a former Colombian Formula 3 race car driver, accompanied us to make our lives easier.

As we suspected, Ecuador was still in a political chaos from the president kidnapping incident of the week before. This time the president dismantled the police force so it doesn’t happen again. Instead of the regular police, he appointed Special Forces and the military to be in charge of security of the country. These guys were armed to the teeth and were the most formidable looking police force I’ve ever seen outside of the United States. But they turned out to be as menacing as puppies and a lot of fun.

They took it upon themselves to protect and serve us as we drove towards the capital city of Quito, and they never failed to entertain us. Right at the border I made some friends with some of them (distributing American cigarettes never hurts) and in return they took me shoe shopping, opening the way in the busy streets with M-16s. At one point, they pulled over in the countryside and loaded their guns for us to shoot at some plastic bottles while they stopped the traffic for the festivity. As Claudio puts it “It’s always good to make friends with the guys holding big guns.”

Upon reaching Quito, we settled into our hotel with the plan being to leave in 2 days for Peru, but the craziest thing happened (beside another flat in the crappy Pirelli MT66 rear tire.) The RGE team had a press event at the university the next day, but they had partied all night and were still a little tipsy in the morning. The normal presentation involved going really fast and braking hard to demonstrate the amazing braking power of the SRzero electric car, but this time, Nick Sauer, the RGE guy who was driving the car for the demonstration, forgot to brake a little earlier and the SRzero crashed into the wall in front of the TV cameras and the few hundred spectators, just missing Clemens and Claudio. A cheer went up from the crowd, and with that we got stuck in Quito for 5 more days while the guys fixed up the car.

I always thought that Ecuador was a tropical place and since it was on the equator, it was warm. Man, was I wrong. It was mountainous and snow-covered peaks loomed everywhere you looked. It was quite cold, and it rained on and off. I took the time to change the oil on the bike, flushing the brake system with new brake fluid and complete some other due maintenance. Ecuador also turned out to be a really long country as Claudio and I had the longest riding day of the trip trying to get to the border. We left at 6:30 am with only a few hours of sleep and reached the border town at 11 pm, after 17 hours of riding through banana plantations, deserts, mountains and tropical patches.

As we got closer to the Peruvian border, the once nice and clean countryside turned into pile of garbage. There wasn’t a pit stop that we didn’t mention what a shithole it was. If the garbage and the foul smell wasn’t enough, we met our most vicious predators: dogs.

These dogs hunted in packs and somehow they evolved to know that speed bumps are the best place to hunt for innocent motorcyclists. They hung around the giant speed bumps, and as we slowed down to go over the small hill, they attacked us from every side. Claudio and I kept our legs up, and I rolled on the throttle as they lunged at us with bared teeth.

Into Peru

I was really looking forward to seeing Peru, especially western Peru and the magnificent Andes, but as it turned out, our route was going nowhere near the Cordillera. Instead, we hugged the Pacific Coast on the Pan-American Highway and went nonstop through the country. But that didn’t mean that we didn’t like Peru.

In fact, the very first night we got to Peru, Claudio and I stopped for a cup of coffee as the rest of the team were behind at least an hour (the GS850 was unstoppable on the perfect Peruvian highways at sea level and clocking 100 to 110 mph was not uncommon) so we walked in a restaurant to kill some time.

The first thing I saw was a charcoal grill the size of small swimming pool with a giant pig roasting away above the embers. Claudio suggested that we eat there so we walked in to the back where a band was playing. I literally stepped one foot in the room, and I was handed a beer from a semi-drunk guy at the next table. Long story short, we downed 6 bottles of beer (the beer in South America comes in two sizes, the small bottle which is a normal 12oz and the big one is a 40oz like Old English) courtesy of our two new Peruvian friends and settled down for a long conversation which none of us could understand. They spoke only Spanish, and between Claudio and me, we spoke six languages, but none even came close to Spanish.

One thing that they did manage to get across was that we are all brothers no matter where we come from, and they welcomed us to Peru. They were both bikers, and I suppose a loaded motorcycle was enough to bring out the hospitality. We had an amazing welcome to Peru, thanks to our new friends and Crystal, the fine Peruvian social lubricant.

Western Peru is dry. In fact we didn’t see a drop of rain the whole time we were there. Since the climate is so dry, nothing really grows on the coast, and the food staples are chicken and fish. Fish come out of the ocean and the chicken farms are set right on the beaches. In fact, chicken must be the national bird of Peru as it’s served everywhere and is the specialty of the country. One night Claudio, Cynthia and I went out to town for dinner, and we honestly couldn’t find any restaurant that served anything else besides chicken. There are thousands of chicken farms right on the beach as you travel down the coast highway and with every breeze, chicken shit smell filled up the air.

We visited a very poor town and got to hang out with some volunteers and the children that they were working with. After lunch (chicken, of course!) we set out for the town of Huacachina in the Ica region of southwestern Peru, which boasts an actual oasis. The landscape changed from coastal sands to full-fledged desert and it looked much like Sahara. Sand dunes piled up to 1000 feet, and every gust of wind shoved a little more sand into my helmet. The oasis was a fascinating place straight out of Lawrence of Arabia with an emerald green lake surrounded by palm trees sheltered by sand dunes as high as mountains. Cynthia, Claudio and Paul ventured up the biggest dune to take pictures and film while I slept like a baby, glad not to be in the 100 degree heat outside.

The Nicaraguan border crossing was somewhat peaceful, but the rain almost closed down the border. The black skies and wind were telling us that something was coming, but what came unleashed was in a league of its own. In less than five minutes, the ground turned into a lake, and 50 gallon garbage cans got filled to the rim with rain water. Everyone at the border huddled under a canopy which was about to collapse. Even the dogs joined us to get out of the rain. After all the rain, we proceeded to the next station to get the bike fumigated. They sprayed the tires and chassis with some sort of chemical which stinks to high heaven and when it hits the hot engine, it makes some nasty fumes and leaves a stain forever. Somehow they believe that the chemicals kill the bugs and keep the noxious weeds from spreading over the border. Maybe they’re not aware that most bugs can also fly or walk right over the border. Well, it’s their way of keeping themselves busy I guess.

It wasn’t really a drive to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, as we almost sailed into the city with the bike tires deep in water. Despite my high-tech rain gear, I was soaked again. When I took off my boots, there was water standing in the bottom, and my pants pocket where filled like fish bowls. Cynthia was dry and happy in the van, but when she opened the van door, her clothes bag fell in the water, and all her stuff got soaked as well.

At the Seminole Hotel in Managua, the night staff adamantly told us that there is no washer/dryer at the hotel. However in the morning, we tried talking to the manager to plead our wet clothes plight. They sent someone to get our wet clothes which we told them we needed by 10 a.m. After breakfast, we asked for the clothes to be brought back as it had been over an hour and we needed to pack. We were told that they dried them, but they were still a little “damp. The clothes weren’t “damp!” They were in the exact same condition we sent them down. No amount of yelling in English at the manager got me anywhere, so with no other choice, we packed up our wet clothes and started out to the border of Costa Rica with the all too familiar police escort again.

The vision I had of Central America quickly turned into the wettest dream of my life. Not only did we not see a thing in Nicaragua, I don’t even remember the currency. Very few bikers ride to Central America during the rainy season, and out of those few, I guarantee you that none will ever travel at night. From the US border to the Panama Canal, I rode pretty much every night, in one of the wettest years in Central America. Many people died in the floods and mudslides, many houses got destroyed as the rivers overflowed into villages, but we kept on pushing on.

Light bulb after light bulb went out on the bike as the water kept finding new ways to get inside the lenses. One headlight relay fried when swimming in the water, and finally I bought a tube of silicone and sealed everything. The seat cover ripped after 29 years of faithful service, and the water kept the foam wet, day and night. Every time I sat on the saddle, there was always a squish. My clothes were wet for at least two weeks and finding a dryer became my number one mission in every town we stopped. At every hotel, we asked for an extra hair dryer, and Cynthia set to work drying our drenched cloths with hair dryers and irons. But it was hot. The temperatures stayed in the high 90’s whether it rained or not. I kept humming the Beatle’s song, “Here comes the sun,” but the sun was nowhere to be found.

We left El Salvador amidst warm farewells from our new friends and with a police escort arranged by KPMG. Before we left, Edgar gave us a blue flashing police light, and I mounted it on the left front box. It’s fascinating to see how the traffic gets out of your way with a $6 light, and no one questions your identity. The rain made its customary appearance for part of the trip but abated by the border. We had made good time and were eager to do the border crossing and get to our destination. However, with all the good border crossings and encounters with police that we had so far, it was only a matter of time before we ran into one unscrupulous border agent. The mention of the word “embassy” (The RGE Team has letters from the British Embassy) didn’t seem to settle well with this guy who proceeded to detain us for 5 hours while everyone else was blithely passing on through.  Of course, as with any stop we make, the SRZero and the bike were immediately surrounded by curious little and big people wanting to know about the car and bike and take pictures with their cell phones and cameras.

While waiting at the border we met some raw-food vegan cyclists from the US who were pushing to get to Panama on single gear bikes! They had no saddlebags, no tent or sleeping bag and what they wore was what they had. They slept at gas stations whenever they couldn’t stay awake to bike anymore and ate nuts and fruits to stay alive. I don’t know how they do it as I would die if I didn’t eat meat for one day. We wish them a safe and successful journey. Cynthia got a warm welcome to Honduras by a zealous bee, and while that sucker stung, the welt it left wasn’t any bigger than that of the monster mosquito bites she had acquired.  In the end the whole delay at the border was solved by a “deal” between our overly friendly, conveniently English-speaking “fixer” and the grumpy border patrol man. Of course this deal involved paying some wads of cash.

We started not liking Honduras from the very start, and it kept getting worse. When we were “allowed” to cross the border, it was already dark and our destination was 200k away. The rain came down lashing again, and the roads turned into Swiss cheese. The potholes got bigger and bigger to the point that it was hard to go any speed higher that 25mph. I radioed back to the SRzero and the van with directions on how to avoid each pothole. We got stuck behind a long truck line, and as I tried to pass, I sped up and entered the other lane and there it was: an abyss as wide as the road. I broke hard, but it wasn’t enough, and we hit the hole with full force. The headlight went black, the front brake caliper jammed and the suspension bottomed out to the point that I heard a crack on my spine.

We limped to our destination about a mile away, and I started assessing the damage. The front rim was bent, sticking out about an inch. The right caliper was jammed, and the brake rotor was almost red from the heat. The headlight was busted, one fog light was out and a marker light lens broken. I started by dumping water on the rotor to cool it off and took the caliper apart. One of the slides was bent from the knock force, and it caused the jam. I hammered the slide back to shape and filed away the burrs, and it worked. The rim was more serious, and it took some precise banging and bending to get back to shape. When I got done with it, it was almost unnoticeable.

We ended up staying at the Lufassa power plant which provides approximately 33% of the Honduran electricity. We were hosted by Juan, the manager of the plant who took us to dinner at a seaside German restaurant. Juan was a very nice guy, and gave us a tour of his power plant which was impressive.

We left early the next morning to get to the Nicaraguan border, but as we entered the town of Choluteca, the rear tire went flat, our first flat of the trip. To my astonishment, the RGE team couldn’t be bothered to wait for us and left us there with no help and continued on to have their lunch and cross into Nicaragua! Thankfully Juan came to our aid and had one of his guys go tube hunting with me. Finding the tube was the easy part, and we proceeded to a tire shop to change the tire. I took the wheel off, and the shop changed the tire for $5 USD. Juan arranged our own motorcycle police escort to the border, and we were home free. I’m still amazed that after helping the RGE guys out so much through these potholes, night after night, in the rain and in the middle of the night, they could just leave us there. I’m not doing this for money, and I can take care of myself just fine, but their lack of consideration made me uneasy. Claudio ended up having to yell at them and stop them at the border to at least wait for us.

Is it destiny that makes our course or is it the path that dictates our fate? Many follow their fate, but a few write their own. Sam Hawkins is such a person. Two weeks after we met this incredible man, he had a misfortune and while opening a bottle of chemicals, it exploded in his face and resulted in second degree burns from the neck up. When I received the news I was in shock as to why such a calamity could happen to such a saint-like person.

At age 71, Sam is as young at heart as any child. The twinkle in his eyes, his enthusiasm, his cowboy boots and thick Texan accent set him apart from the Salvadorians, but if that wasn’t enough, at six foot and some change, he stands out in the middle of the short Latin American crowd. Sam and his lovely wife, Julie, came on a church mission trip to El Salvador years ago during the civil war.  But it wasn’t the church mission that changed him; it was a little malnourished baby boy, abandoned in a sugar cane field that made Sam who he is today. Sam and Julie took the boy in, cared for him and after long nights of struggle, he made it. Twenty-two years later, he’s alive and well and residing in Bangor, Maine and is getting married in a few months. They named him Eric.  Since Eric, Sam and Julie made it their life work to open their door to every malnourished child they could find, and they have treated and saved over 1200 malnourished babies to this day. They made El Salvador their home and as Sam puts it, “I’ll never leave El Salvador.”

We met Sam through Claudia Aguirre who arranged the meeting at her office. We met Sam at 8 am and talked for hours before heading for the baby house. Before we left, I took him out on the bike for a ride and he loved it. His eyes were lit up like a little boy, and he hung on to me for the dear life as sped up through the tight streets of San Salvador. He really wants a motorcycle, but his wife Julie is very apprehensive. With a funny/sad face he said “She won’t let me.”

The baby house was incredibly clean and bright. Apparently Sam worked out at the gym next to the richest guy in El Salvador, neither of them knowing what the other person did. They talked about everything and anything but work. The guy finally found out about what Sam did and he donated the current baby house for the cause before he died. We met Julie at the baby house and she had no less enthusiasm than Sam. They are a perfect couple and they work together in perfect harmony. We played with the kids, got the tour and were amazed at their generosity. Over lunch, Sam told me about his other work. He started to visit prisons trying to rehabilitate the Salvadorian gang members. The government just puts more pressure on the gangs, shooting them when they can and treating them brutally when they get their hands on them (and they probably deserve it), but Sam’s way is the love way. The gang members actually listen to him, and no one bothers him. He created this program which he signs out prisoners and brings them back to society. He trains them, gives them the means and opportunity to have a job and education. They make handmade boots which they sell at the market and reinvest the profit back into the program. That’s why Sam is so proud of his boots.

We spent the night at Sam’s house, and after a delicious breakfast with Julie, we bid them farewell and got back on the road. It is heartwarming to see that there are still a few good men left who do everything and expect nothing in return. Get well soon Sam and thank you for being who you are. If you like to help out in his mission, consider making a donation of any amount, and we will forward it right to him. He has a nonprofit organization called the Love Link, but the website is not up to date and is hard to use. If you like to get a hold of him directly, contact me and I’ll provide you with the information.

Thanks to the wonderful KPMG staff, our stay in El Salvador was a memorable one. Salvadorian hospitality is hard to beat and this country will always stay in my memory. I hope I can make it back one day. Next stop: Honduras.

I was still in recovery mode so Claudio took on the riding task with Cynthia going as pillion. I got lucky as the second they took off, the monstrous rain started again, and this time it rained so hard that small rivers started forming on the road. We left Guatemala prematurely and headed flying for the border of El Salvador. The border was pretty impressive. One side was Guatemala, other side El Salvador, and a raging river separated the two land masses. The border ordeal was a typical one lasting several hours. A million signatures, 200 copies of every document and at the end getting a license plate number wrong and having to do it all over again.

El Salvador is a different country and you can tell the second you pass over the border. Every house and I mean, literally, every house is protected with a tall fence plus broken glass and barbwire on top. Armed guards are everywhere, from gas stations to even a simple doctor’s office or pharmacy. Our hotel in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, had a guard with a chopped-off shotgun and a Glock, and this was a very good neighborhood to begin with. The capital city looked like an American colony with the only difference being the language. From Wal-Mart to Pizza Hut and Starbucks to Subway, the streets are filled with American brands and American- made cars. The currency is even the US dollar, and the government is rightly accused of being an American puppet.

El Salvador has one of the biggest gang problems in Latin America which is not surprising, and is home to the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (the MS-13 gang). It came out of a bloody civil war which took 13 years and left more than 75,000 dead on both sides of the conflict. Many families fled the country and the majority landed in the United States. Many El Salvadorians kids grew up in the US during the war and when they returned home (in most cases deported because of their criminal acts), they had nothing in common with the locals. These very same young men started their own US influenced gangs and started killing each other for lack of better things to do. Most of these gang members speak perfect English with an American accent and not so much Spanish and are covered in fierce tattoos from head to toe.

El Salvador, like Guatemala, struggles with food security and has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in Central America. The problem starts with poverty and combined with a lack of education, creates a horrific result. To compound the situation, Latin Americans are mostly devout Catholic, and one thing the Catholic Church promotes and never condemns is having more babies.

In rural El Salvador the men are typically found passed out on hammocks outside of the shacks, while the women do every hard labor chore imaginable. These very same men take many women, and some have more than 12 children with no income to speak of. Women are forced to raise the kids on their own. The mothers are often malnourished themselves with no breast milk to speak of.  Coffee and tortilla, the only two food staples at hand, are made into a mush to feed the babies. In three weeks, the babies are so sick and skinny that many of them die in the jungles before reaching their first month. The government figures of the fatality rate for children in El Salvador are inaccurate as most of these babies are born without ever having a birth certificate let alone a death certificate.

To make it worse, the malnutrition programs are run by the government and when admitted to the hospitals, eight out of ten babies will never make it out. The governmental hospitals typically only treat the presenting illness but do not treat malnutrition nor provide any education or help to the families.

While in San Salvador, we were hosted by a super nice Salvadorian family and they showed us the utmost hospitality.  Claudia Aguirre and her father run the KMPG office in San Salvador. (KPMG is a global financial institution in a nutshell). They put us up in a hotel and drove us all around the town for our every need. Over the mealtime, when they found out that we are raising awareness for world hunger, they arranged for us to visit their friends who run a malnutrition clinic (the report on this visit will be in the next post). El Salvador is a beautiful country with wonderfully hospitable people. So far on the trip, El Salvador is the place that has felt most like home.

We arrived at the Guatemalan border to find out that we should have gone to the customs 40 minutes back in Talachupa to process the cancellation of the Mexican registration/import permit.  Apparently, if you don’t cancel this permit before leaving the country and don’t came back into the country before it expires, you will be charged $500.00, plus a fine if  you try to enter into the Mexico again with a vehicle. We tried to see if we could sort this out by email or phone but were told that no, each car had to go back to La Garita or else potentially be charged $500.00. The RGE guys contacted the British embassy to see how negative the ramifications would be if we didn’t go back. They said it would mostly likely be ok and that they would call the custom for us from the British embassy.

We barely went a few meters out of the border queue and ended up mobbed by a crowd and unable to move. The police were quick to respond, and they guarded us guns in hand and offered to escort us all the way to our destination at Guatemala City. We had a long delay at that juncture as we worked on sorting out the temporary importation status of the vehicles. Apparently, we had gone to a different place to cross the border than where we had originally planned to cross which is partly why things didn’t go as smoothly.

With a throng of people around us, we waited around and made conversations with the locals. All the tropical rain had washed off my shoe polish so I got the best shoeshine of my life from a little boy who worked on my shoes as if I was the president. For one dollar, my combat boots were as shiny as any General’s. A lady gave Cynthia a Rombego (a local fruit) to try for free as we didn’t have any cash, and later a girl approached us and gave us a whole bag of the spiny red fruits. On the inside they look like a large peeled grape and turned out to be succulent and delicious. We shared some with the kids and the police, and the girl invited us to her mother’s store and they gave us a picture to remember our time there and gave Cynthia a keychain. Once again, we have been impressed by the kindness of people to complete strangers.

Finally around 6 p.m, the border ordeal was over, and we started out on the road to Guatemala City. The road was lined by palm trees, banana plants, and many other lush plants. We passed grazing cows, chickens, muddy rivers, and many people walking along the road or riding in bike-cart taxis. After a gas station stop to fuel up for the bike, it was a bit surreal to see how the police with their guns stopped traffic for us to merge back onto our route for no apparent reason other than they could! By now it was dark. Almost immediately we started to encounter potholes of a size and frequency that made me feel like I was trapped in a video game. Trying to avoid them and radio back to the SRZero was quite a feat and took all my concentration. It was pouring as well, naturally. The hours of riding in the rain didn’t help. When we arrived to Guatemala City around 4 a.m., I was more sick, hypothermic, tired and ready for the bed.

Our stay in Guatemala didn’t turn out to be what I envisioned. I wanted to stay at least a month in Guatemala since this country is in the grip of a protracted food insecurity crisis, and the current situation of food insecurity is worsening what is already one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world (affecting 43% of children below five years of age). We highlighted a malnutrition clinic in Guatemala a few post back. While it was our wish to visit this clinic personally, we were disappointed that my illness prevented us from being able to visit there or other clinics. Needless to say, this is a country with tremendous needs.

I also had a few contacts and a motorcycle club I wanted to visit while there which we had to skip as well. We stayed in Guatemala for 2 days and I honestly don’t remember a minute of it. I was down with high fever and the next thing I remember is getting back on the bike heading fast for El Salvador.