Waiting, and therefore patience, is not one of my fortes. Actually I suck at it. I am more the “come on lets get going” type. I think this comes from my father, another man not well know for his patience in certain matters, and the fact that with prolonged waiting comes fear, apprehension and procrastination. No, I would rather “just on with it” as the British saying goes
Now a healthy dose of fear is good for you. This keeps us from doing stupid things, like say parachuting – oh right we did that J. Ok it keeps us from doing truly stupid things like going parachuting twice. But fear is one of those things that must be recognised for what it is and then dealt with in such a manner as to control it so that it can be used as a form of motivation. Fear should not paralyse you to inaction but motivate you to take action.
I have had many friends ask me if I am afraid of going on the trip. The simple answer is yes; but cautiously so. I fear failure – as in not completing the trip. I fear letting my fellow companions down by my lack of physical or mental stamina. I fear the separation from my wife and children and how that might affect me emotionally. I fear, after a year and half of planning and training, of being hit by some little old lady in a Cadillac in Phoenix on the way to the Mexican border!
What I am not afraid of is being robbed or physically assaulted while in CA. So many people who I have spoken to about the trip have expressed their fear that I will get mugged or shot or something. I have had numerous people as me if I am taking a gun with me! This is Central America not Bagdad.
I am at much greater risk of being robbed or shot in any major North American city than where we are going. Remember in the southern USA it is legal to carry a handgun so long as it is not covered up. So every Tom, Dick and grandma in Arizona, Texas, etc are all carrying pistols for “personal protection”! Now that is a dangerous place to be !!
I have apprehension of the day-to-day living on the road: finding adequate lodging nightly, the food, how my health will stand up (I am an asthmatic and “worry” about how I might react to some of the physical environment) driving an busy narrow roads. There is apprehension about dealing with border crossings with my limited Spanish. There is some apprehension about dealing with corrupt cops and officials wanting a bribe of some sort – actually I am sort of looking forward to this.
As for procrastination – nope. I just want to get going. I feel like the actor portraying one of the original astronaut in “The Right Stuff”. The astronauts in the rocket strapped in and ready to go. After years of training and numerous false starts they again cancel the rocket launch. The astronaut gets on the radio and tell the control centre “ to hell with the engineers just light the fuse on damn thing and lets get going ”.
So lets just light the fuse and get this trip under way !
Friday, December 14, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Details, details
Death is in the details.
Who would of thought. Who would of thought there was so many things to do prior to leaving. The list, although not endless, sure seems it sometimes.
The basics are things like decide on make/model/year of the bikes. Then purchase said bikes. Then go over the bikes mechanically to make sure they are, hopefully, up to the trip.
Two of our group did not have their motorcycle licenses when they decided to go on the trip. They had to take the rider’s training, the three different examinations and then finally get their full licenses.
We all had to get inoculations for the various fevers, endemics and other nasty bugs that we could catch on the trip.
There was the insurance. Travel insurance, emergency medical evacuation insurance, special Mexican insurance for the motorcycles, etc. I have never had so much insurance.
Then there was my fitness level. I am a pen pushing, computer using, middle ages desk jockey. Although not in “pending heart attack” physical condition I sure as hell am not in anything that resembles good condition.
Yes I walk the dog about 4 kms every morning but I have not done a sit up or push up since Trudue was Prime Minister. Well Mulruney at least. I was doing my back exercises to strengthen my upper back and neck area due to a long standing injury issue that caused massive headaches but I was not getting into what one my call “shape”.
So when we moved the dates up from January 2009 to January 2008 in September of this year I went down to see my old buddy Dr John Yim, a local and very highly respected naturopathic physician. He put me on a “cleanse” for about a month – a restrictive diet while taking the proper supplements to clean out the bad stuff in my body – and then more supliments to build up my immune system. He also helped me with nutritional information to help modify my eating habits to get me to eat healthier and maybe get some weight off. The biggest thing he told me was that I had to get “hot and sweaty” for at least 30 minutes three times a week. I looked at Karen, smirked and winked, but that was not what he apparently meant.
So in mid September I went and started taking Bikram’s Hot Yoga. For those of you who do not know what this form of voluntary torture is imagine doing yoga moves, 26 different ones, over a 90 minute period in a room with the temperature between about 98 degree F and 110 degrees F. On top of that the humidity might be between 10% and 50% depending on the day. I makes you sweat like you never before.
The idea of going to this form of yoga was fairly straight forward. It would get me used to physical exercise in a high temperature environment so when I am riding a motorcycle in Central America in 30+ degree weather it wont kill me. Plus it might help me lose some unwanted weight.
So I went to the first class by myself. I was afraid to go with anyone I know just in case I passed out, vomited, or generally made an ass of myself. Amazingly I survived without doing any of the above. So being the generous person I am I enlisted participants to joint the “fun”. I convince Dwayne and Mark to joint me. Misery loves company. Thanks guys because I know I have gone some nights strictly because I know you guys would be there and I would feel guilty if I did not show up.
Who would of thought. Who would of thought there was so many things to do prior to leaving. The list, although not endless, sure seems it sometimes.
The basics are things like decide on make/model/year of the bikes. Then purchase said bikes. Then go over the bikes mechanically to make sure they are, hopefully, up to the trip.
Two of our group did not have their motorcycle licenses when they decided to go on the trip. They had to take the rider’s training, the three different examinations and then finally get their full licenses.
We all had to get inoculations for the various fevers, endemics and other nasty bugs that we could catch on the trip.
There was the insurance. Travel insurance, emergency medical evacuation insurance, special Mexican insurance for the motorcycles, etc. I have never had so much insurance.
Then there was my fitness level. I am a pen pushing, computer using, middle ages desk jockey. Although not in “pending heart attack” physical condition I sure as hell am not in anything that resembles good condition.
Yes I walk the dog about 4 kms every morning but I have not done a sit up or push up since Trudue was Prime Minister. Well Mulruney at least. I was doing my back exercises to strengthen my upper back and neck area due to a long standing injury issue that caused massive headaches but I was not getting into what one my call “shape”.
So when we moved the dates up from January 2009 to January 2008 in September of this year I went down to see my old buddy Dr John Yim, a local and very highly respected naturopathic physician. He put me on a “cleanse” for about a month – a restrictive diet while taking the proper supplements to clean out the bad stuff in my body – and then more supliments to build up my immune system. He also helped me with nutritional information to help modify my eating habits to get me to eat healthier and maybe get some weight off. The biggest thing he told me was that I had to get “hot and sweaty” for at least 30 minutes three times a week. I looked at Karen, smirked and winked, but that was not what he apparently meant.
So in mid September I went and started taking Bikram’s Hot Yoga. For those of you who do not know what this form of voluntary torture is imagine doing yoga moves, 26 different ones, over a 90 minute period in a room with the temperature between about 98 degree F and 110 degrees F. On top of that the humidity might be between 10% and 50% depending on the day. I makes you sweat like you never before.
The idea of going to this form of yoga was fairly straight forward. It would get me used to physical exercise in a high temperature environment so when I am riding a motorcycle in Central America in 30+ degree weather it wont kill me. Plus it might help me lose some unwanted weight.
So I went to the first class by myself. I was afraid to go with anyone I know just in case I passed out, vomited, or generally made an ass of myself. Amazingly I survived without doing any of the above. So being the generous person I am I enlisted participants to joint the “fun”. I convince Dwayne and Mark to joint me. Misery loves company. Thanks guys because I know I have gone some nights strictly because I know you guys would be there and I would feel guilty if I did not show up.
Well I will tell you that Dr Yim was very correct. Now going three times a week to yoga and sweating my nuts off – actually not figuratively because you sweat an amazing amount from places I did not know you could sweat from – I have dropped about 25 lbs. My cardiovascular is much better, my “man boobs” are shrinking and I noticed that I recover from the work outs much faster now. I actually have veins in my arms and shoulder that I had not seen for years. Maybe there is something to this exercising thing :)
So to Dr Yim my greatest thanks for making me sweat so much. Thanks to Dwayne and Mark for keeping me motivated. Thanks to the gang at Bikram’s Nanaimo for their support and for not laughing at me while I try to do some of those physically impossible poses.
Death is in the details but dealing with all the small details now, and not while on the road, is what hopefully will make the trip all that much more enjoyable.
Friday, November 9, 2007
"WildHogs"
“Wild Hogs”. I am going to fucking scream if one more person asks if the trip is going to be like the movie.
Yes I have seen the movie. No we are not like the fictional characters in the movie. No we are not riding Harleys. No we are not wearing black leather. Yes it is a funny movie.
Think of this trip more like “Long Way Round” on a budget. A small budget. We are not riding BMW’s, we are riding 25 year old cheap Honda’s. We do not have a support crew, corporate sponsors or cameramen following our every move. We don’t even really have a budget unless you call my Visa limit a budget.
What we do have is four friends heading out on an adventure of a lifetime. Our adventure, our way (cheap), to see part of the world we are really interested in.
So if you want to compare us to someone, or something, thing “Long Way Round” and not “Road Hogs”. BTW if you have not seen “Long Way Round” rent it. It may change your life as well.
Yes I have seen the movie. No we are not like the fictional characters in the movie. No we are not riding Harleys. No we are not wearing black leather. Yes it is a funny movie.
Think of this trip more like “Long Way Round” on a budget. A small budget. We are not riding BMW’s, we are riding 25 year old cheap Honda’s. We do not have a support crew, corporate sponsors or cameramen following our every move. We don’t even really have a budget unless you call my Visa limit a budget.
What we do have is four friends heading out on an adventure of a lifetime. Our adventure, our way (cheap), to see part of the world we are really interested in.
So if you want to compare us to someone, or something, thing “Long Way Round” and not “Road Hogs”. BTW if you have not seen “Long Way Round” rent it. It may change your life as well.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
65 days to go but who's counting
Two months to go. Actually 65 days to be exact. Not that we are counting or anything J
Dale is heading off this weekend to drop the bikes down to Phoenix. Once that is done we are in a holding pattern for things to do. We there is lots to do but the intense part is done, for me at least. The bikes are as ready as they can be. Spare parts and tools are selected and packed. Riding gear has been cleaned, repaired as required and sent down with the bikes to Phoenix.
Well there is always more trip planning. We have been going over itineraries for months. This is Dales area of expertise. He and Brad have traveled through much of Mexico and Central America so I am leaving some of this to their expertise. That said I am still poring over maps, travel guides and vacation brochures for ideas of where to stop and visit.
There are some of the basic things to see: Colima the classic Mexican colonial town, Atlin volcano, Antiqua, Costa Rico canopy tours, etc. Then there are the beaches, resort towns, the myriad of small rural town along the way. But what we are really searching for, in my mind, are the people.
Whenever and wherever you go it is the people who make the difference. Yea you will take the photos of the ruins and the sunsets and of the motorcycles parked somewhere but it will be the people you will remember. The people you meet; the people you interact with in the hotels, the customs officials, the police – hopefully not to much – and the other travelers. It is meeting people like ourselves but from another country and culture exploring the similarities and differences.
It is also the people who make you look at your own life and try to put it into some perspective. Perspective regarding how we live our lives, both materially and culturally. Will we come away from the trip changed individuals? Will it make us “harder” or more cynical to the world around us that is not of our culture? Will it make us more open to idea and ideals? Will it make us appreciate our family and friends more and maybe make our ubiquitous North American quest for material things less important. I guess these are some of the things we are going to find out for ourselves.
Or we could be a bunch of middle aged men looking to ride motorcycles, eat interesting food, drink beer and not have to answer a cell phone for 5 weeks. Guess we will find out
Dale is heading off this weekend to drop the bikes down to Phoenix. Once that is done we are in a holding pattern for things to do. We there is lots to do but the intense part is done, for me at least. The bikes are as ready as they can be. Spare parts and tools are selected and packed. Riding gear has been cleaned, repaired as required and sent down with the bikes to Phoenix.
Well there is always more trip planning. We have been going over itineraries for months. This is Dales area of expertise. He and Brad have traveled through much of Mexico and Central America so I am leaving some of this to their expertise. That said I am still poring over maps, travel guides and vacation brochures for ideas of where to stop and visit.
There are some of the basic things to see: Colima the classic Mexican colonial town, Atlin volcano, Antiqua, Costa Rico canopy tours, etc. Then there are the beaches, resort towns, the myriad of small rural town along the way. But what we are really searching for, in my mind, are the people.
Whenever and wherever you go it is the people who make the difference. Yea you will take the photos of the ruins and the sunsets and of the motorcycles parked somewhere but it will be the people you will remember. The people you meet; the people you interact with in the hotels, the customs officials, the police – hopefully not to much – and the other travelers. It is meeting people like ourselves but from another country and culture exploring the similarities and differences.
It is also the people who make you look at your own life and try to put it into some perspective. Perspective regarding how we live our lives, both materially and culturally. Will we come away from the trip changed individuals? Will it make us “harder” or more cynical to the world around us that is not of our culture? Will it make us more open to idea and ideals? Will it make us appreciate our family and friends more and maybe make our ubiquitous North American quest for material things less important. I guess these are some of the things we are going to find out for ourselves.
Or we could be a bunch of middle aged men looking to ride motorcycles, eat interesting food, drink beer and not have to answer a cell phone for 5 weeks. Guess we will find out
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
2 steps ahead, 1 back
Well it has been decided. We go January 12, 2008 and return February 15, 2008. Five weeks in, hopefully, paradise.
So we are booking air line tickets, buying spare parts, updating our riding gear, some of us are getting our driver’s licenses. You know the good stuff. The stuff that makes the trip seam more real every day.
After reviewing all of our options we have decided to bring the bikes to Dale’s house in Penticton and he will drive them down to Phoenix in a U-haul. He will drop then at his dad’s place or a mini storage then we will fly down and pick them up in January. Talk about dedicated to the trip !!!. Way to go Dale !!
Other plans are coming together. Buying maps and poring over them. Looking at interesting travel spots in Nicaragua and Cost Rica. Looking at various travel routes trying to make sure that we don’t use any “seasonal” roads or truly secondary roads down there. Did you know there is an active volcano just east of our route in Costa Rica ? I think I may have to check it out.
So we are booking air line tickets, buying spare parts, updating our riding gear, some of us are getting our driver’s licenses. You know the good stuff. The stuff that makes the trip seam more real every day.
After reviewing all of our options we have decided to bring the bikes to Dale’s house in Penticton and he will drive them down to Phoenix in a U-haul. He will drop then at his dad’s place or a mini storage then we will fly down and pick them up in January. Talk about dedicated to the trip !!!. Way to go Dale !!
Other plans are coming together. Buying maps and poring over them. Looking at interesting travel spots in Nicaragua and Cost Rica. Looking at various travel routes trying to make sure that we don’t use any “seasonal” roads or truly secondary roads down there. Did you know there is an active volcano just east of our route in Costa Rica ? I think I may have to check it out.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
The beginning
All great adventures start the same way. Someone makes a dumb suggestion; say “lets and climb Kilimanjaro” or something to that affect. They one of us says "sure why can’t we climb Kilimanjaro". Next thing you know you are looking at trekking holidays on line and you have just booked your airline tickets.
Well it happened in the late summer of 2006 when we met our good friends Dale and Rossi for dinner one night. I had just bought another old Honda Goldwing and Dale, during dinner, asked a few suspicious questions. They were like: “ so if you were going to ride to Central America when would you go, what type/size/style of bike would you take, what route, etc”. Very suspicious questions. For Dale at least.
What it turned out to be was a friend of his was building a new house in Panama and Dale had, unbenounced to me, had a life long desire to ride a motorcycle on a great adventure. In the 20+ year I have know Dale I did not ever know he had any inclination to ride a motorcycle, let alone one 10,000 kms through Central America.
So what started out as idle dinner conversation between friends ended up into a year long session of planning, purchases, multiple trips between Dale’s house in Penticton and our house in Nanaimo. Something to remember is back in August 2006 when we had dinner and hatched this plan Dale did not even have a motorcycle license or had ridden a motorcycle for 20 years !!
Well it happened in the late summer of 2006 when we met our good friends Dale and Rossi for dinner one night. I had just bought another old Honda Goldwing and Dale, during dinner, asked a few suspicious questions. They were like: “ so if you were going to ride to Central America when would you go, what type/size/style of bike would you take, what route, etc”. Very suspicious questions. For Dale at least.
What it turned out to be was a friend of his was building a new house in Panama and Dale had, unbenounced to me, had a life long desire to ride a motorcycle on a great adventure. In the 20+ year I have know Dale I did not ever know he had any inclination to ride a motorcycle, let alone one 10,000 kms through Central America.
So what started out as idle dinner conversation between friends ended up into a year long session of planning, purchases, multiple trips between Dale’s house in Penticton and our house in Nanaimo. Something to remember is back in August 2006 when we had dinner and hatched this plan Dale did not even have a motorcycle license or had ridden a motorcycle for 20 years !!
We talked on the phone and emailed back and forth numerous times. We took our spouses and went to the big Vancouver Motorcycle Show to look at bike and buy new riding gear. Dale signed up and took the motorcycle training course to get his license. Things are looking up !!
We decided one of the best inexpensive and durable bikes for this type of adventure would be an old early 1980’s Honda Silverwing. Ugly, overweight, with about as much power as a Singer sewing machine the Silerwing was best known for it’s durability, ease of maintenance and ease of riding. Besides you can buy them cheap.
Cheap is good in our books when we were looking for motorcycles to take to Central America. See there is no insurance down there and the laws are base on Napoleonic statues where you are guilty until proven innocent. This means that if we get into an accident of any great magnitude we can just leave. If the bike breaks down and cannot be repaired in a reasonably short period of time then we can just abandon them wherever they might be. Also they are not a target to thieves as who the hell would be caught dead steeling a Silverwing.
NOTE: This is not one of our bikes. Our bikes are nowhere as nice :)
We picked the fist of the bikes for Dale in mid January and I rode it home in a snow storm from Sidney. We it back to my place so that I could have a chance to go over it mechanically to make sure it was ok. Think we paid $1400 for this one.
Dale’s bike was name Flurry as is seamed every time I rode it, it would snow. Even when Karen I took it over to Penticton in April for Dale so he could start riding it snowed on the Crownest Highway on the way to his place !
Since then I picked up nice bike and recently so did Brad. We had a great Saturday here last weekend working on Brad’s bike and then having a great salmon dinner prepared by my wife. The rest of the night was spent poring over maps and travel books trying to make travel and route plans
We now have four of us going. Myself, Dale, his step son Brad Marchant and Dales bro-in-law Steve Debouski. Steve is the only in the group not riding a 25 year old Honda. The bum went out and bought an new Kawasaki KLR 650 for the trip (one of my favorite mid size adventure touring bikes)
The bid challenge right now is how to ship the bikes from here to Phoenix. Dale’s dad live in Phoenix during the winter and it makes sense for us to make that our starting off point. The challenge we are having is the cost and the logistics. Apparently it is not that easy to ship a bike across the USA border when it is privately owned. So we are looking at options of driving them across the border and then shipping them from Bellingham or Seattle. Or maybe Dale driving them down to his dad’s place in a rental van, etc.
Stay tuned we will let you know
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