Yamaha Journey Vol.12

It sounded like a crazy scheme, and I don’t think anyone in the office really believed me. After all, I had a perfectly good job, a cosy home in London, not to mention a recently acquired boyfriend. But sitting in the office each day, I would find myself staring out the window, watching motorcycles whizz by. It was as if these machines were calling out to me to ‘Come hit the road, see the world!’ I was 29 years old, had recently passed my motorcycle test and as I commuted to and from work it struck me that THIS was the way to explore our great planet. Within a matter of months, I had resigned from my job, squeezed my bike, a Yamaha XT225 and a few belongings into a crate and shipped it off to Alaska. From there I planned to ride 20,000 miles to the tip of South America, a place called Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the world that can be reached by road. Beyond that, I had no plan – and that was the magic of it…

Life on the road was intoxicating. I had never known such freedom and the majestic landscape of Alaska only added to the sense of wonder. I had arrived a little early in the season and there was still deep snow on the ground. The vast white peak of Mount Denali loomed tall in the distance – I was awed by the sheer scale and breath-taking beauty. But although I was all alone in this incredible landscape, I was excited rather than fearful about what each day held. I admit my heart skipped a beat the first time a black bear appeared out of the bushes just a day after leaving Anchorage, but it seemed unconcerned by this strange Englishwoman on a motorcycle and I became used to the bears after a while, viewing them as a daily reminder of how wild and magical a place this was - and how I had found freedom from the grey office life I had left behind.

Many of the Americans I met thought I was crazy for travelling south of the border alone, but just as I was beginning to wonder if I was making a terrible mistake, I met a Dutch motorcycle traveller coming the opposite direction from South America. He said ‘It will be the best thing you ever do - there is nothing to fear’. His words were the confidence boost I needed and it was uplifting to experience the camaraderie of the worldwide community of motorcycle travellers, to know there were others out there with the same crazy plan.

The USA had been a blast, the ultimate free-wheeling road trip that I had always dreamed of. I could have stayed forever, singing along as I rode through towns with their song-title names (yes, I do know the way to San Jose). But Mexico was just down the road now, calling me ever southwards. It was time to make a break for the border…

I am often asked to name my favorite moment of the trip. It’s a difficult question but my mind always returns to the day I crossed the border from the USA into Mexico. It was here that my adventure truly began. On the other side of this famous frontier a whole new world opened up – the great desert of Mexico’s 1000 mile Baja peninsula. I spent my days weaving through forests of Saguaro cactus while my nights were spent camping on the beaches of the Sea of Cortez with its warm turquoise water swirling with brightly-patterned fish. Finding myself in these faraway, exotic locations I would often think about the life I had left behind in London, and marvel at how my motorcycle had brought me here, to these magical places. Everything was a source of wonder to me; the climate, the language, the people, the food. This is what I had come for, for discovery.

Riding through southern Mexico, the fields of blue spiky tequila plants gave way to dense green jungle and the air turned steamy and tropical. At a small border crossing in the shadow of the peaks of the Sierra de Madre de Chiapas, I entered Guatemala, marking the beginning of the isthmus of small Central American countries, each border manned by uniformed guards with a multitude of rubber stamps and a pile of forms to fill in. The language and architecture of the Spanish conquistadors had formed the prevalent culture in this part of the world but each nation still retained its own unique character, with subtle variations in dialect, currency and cuisine. The bountiful produce of the jungle was on sale at every roadside shack, where I feasted daily on sticky fried plantains, spicy bean stews and sweet guavas and passionfruit picked fresh from the trees. Every morsel exploded with flavor and freshness, like no other food I had known. Deep in the tropics now, I was aware of being a long way from home. Parrots and monkeys screeched in the forests, and every day an afternoon downpour would turn the road to red mud.