If you dare to dream.

In the beginning It’s hard to know sometimes where to begin as this may well be somewhere other than at the start. So it is with this newsletter in many ways. We say this as we fell off the circuit for a little while on our return from a journey which saw us covering 26,385 miles through 5 continents and 31 countries on an 18 year old motorcycle. Due to the fact that no blind person had ever done such a thing before there was a hollerbaloo of media coverage which kept us going for some time. Much like you would expect, it died down after our, relative, fifteen minutes of fame and we went back to our lives to begin writing the book which had always been planned. Unfortunately, much like life itself sometimes, fate intervened in the best laid plans of mice, men, Bernard and Cathy. Perhaps an extract from the book is the best to be said on the matter: ‘It was as I was struggling to adapt back to ‘normal’ life in those early weeks that Cathy was diagnosed with cancer. From this point onwards my own petty struggle ended. If you have ever cared for someone with a life-threatening illness then you will know, without hesitation, what this means as you throw yourself into whatever is required. Over the subsequent months the illness and treatment she had to endure all made riding the world seem insignificant and unimportant’.  Thus everything to do with the journey faded away for quite some time while other battles were fought within our own emotional fortresses. Now what? With Cathy slowly returning back to health after nearly two years of treatment we eventually returned to writing the book we had always planned since the very beginning. Along with this aspect came a hundred other things which were still outstanding including sorting through thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of video along with updating the website. It is only now thus are we able to fully engage in what was achieved. What Next? With our return to ‘normality’ and the foray out into social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, we received a lot of support from the many people who became aware of what we had done prior to Cathy’s illness, As the book started to take shape many people also said kind things about its content and from this we drew considerable support. It got to the point where Bernard took early retirement to concentrate on finishing the manuscript and this was completed a few months back. The early feedback from several well known authors in the field has been more than positive and to date it is being well received by publishers. At the moment we are considering options about which way we can take the book forward. For all those blind and partially sighted people who followed us through the world we say thank you and for everyone who contacted us over time we say welcome to our full return. Our very best wishes to you all and aways remember: If you dare to dream. Watch this space for further details concerning the the future publication of: A Blind Woman, Two Wheels and 25,000 Miles. To follow some of the Radio and TV publicity please see our You Tube channel at the following link.

Friend us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Read our blog Forward this to a Friend CONTACT US information@worldtour.org.uk SHARE THIS EMAIL                     CONNECT WITH US Follow us on Twitter Friend us on Facebook

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | read our blog | forward to a friend

The worry involves meeting her again after so long. With these thoughts come the doubts over how she will react. Will she remember? Will she have become so attached to the home and people she has known for the last year I am, somehow, ‘unwelcome’ in a vaguely doggie sort of way? The thoughts leave me unsettled and uncomfortable. I push them aside as there is little I can do. Only time will tell.

Over the following days we discover motorcycle insurance is easier to arrange everywhere apart from the most developed country in the world. To be fair, it is easy if you are a Mexican citizen doing a bit of nipping across the border in a pickup truck. This is even true if the vehicle would be instantly condemned as unsafe by anybody apart from a blind police officer.

Meanwhile for a UK (taxed and tested) motorcycle it proves to be something akin to trying to find an instant solution to the worldwide financial meltdown which rages across the planet leaving ordinary people battered and bruised. The subsequent days pass as we traverse American motor regulations. Hours and hours pass hunting for the elusive piece of paper which will forestall us being hauled off the bike by a mirror-sun-glass wearing, gun totting, deeply tanned Highway Patrol Officer. We role play the:

‘Insurance Officer? Do we really need it? Is there some way I can pay you for it here and now?’ (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

We discuss at great length whether American Law Enforcement Officers collect for their children’s school uniforms in the same way as their Costa Rican brothers, or the Thai Police in their search for retirement funds? In the end we discount such an approach. After three days we solve the problem by paying a ridiculous amount for one month’s insurance (at three times what it would cost an American for a year). Sometimes we long for the countries where insurance is an optional extra as they seem to get by fine without it.

Over our time we discover why America is the obesity capital of the world with planet sized plates being delivered to our tables overflowing with food before we eventually settle on the ‘Over-55’s meal’ as even the children’s menus prove too much for our stomachs.

“Do you want to Super size it?” people ask.

“Could you possibly downsize it please?” Bernard responds while they laugh at our bewilderment with the dustbin lid portions and “Good God man that’s not a drink, it’s a swimming pool” at his first encounter with an American Coke. Meanwhile people waddle back to the dispensers to top up the small buckets as we struggle through the smallest cups they have. Watching some of the people around us Bernard tells me he is putting on weight just being in the same room as them. We make a quick mental note to stock up on cholesterol bashing tablets at the earliest opportunity. We may well need them to keep our arteries circulating precious life fluids.

Wandering into a petrol station looking for maps Bernard tells me that, yes it is true, everything is bigger in America. In nothing like a hushed tone he tells me of the Extra Large condoms in every colour and size imaginable (apart from small and extra-small he points out). My admonishment of the information he is gleefully, and loudly, imparting to me (in a busy garage) leaves him with his innocent little boy voice. He points out he is only describing the display. “America truly is the land of the car. Something for the drive home Sir?” he giggles as we leave the garage quickly with the heat rising in my face.

We sink into the morass of trying to arrange the shipping of Bertha back to London and after ten hours of phone calls and emails it transpires 9-11 has left this country with a serious aversion to shipping things by air. Freighting from such places as Kathmandu we had, naively, assumed the land of the free and the brave would not represent a problem. Particularly, we had thought, when we were shipping an English bike home to the land of green hills and three lions. How wrong we were.

One company wants to put Bertha in a truck and subject her to a four day drive to New York (3000 or so miles) as they say The Los Angeles Customs Officers are unable to stay awake for anything longer than five minutes. The spluttering which greeted the 2500 dollar price tag convinced them it was not exactly what we, or our diminished wallets, had in mind. Across several conversations with Air Freight Companies we also find out the “Not Needed” Carnet (according to US Customs at the border) is indeed necessary if you want to export the vehicle from the USA.

Bertha heads back to the border with this information where the morning is spent office hunting through puzzled officials who are completely puzzled by what we need. During our wanderings we, accidentally, stumble on the reason why a wall of noise is so important to Harley Riders all over the world. It turns out to be an essential Health and Safety feature, according to one officer, with his two-wheeled house parked nearby:

“A car driver can say they didn’t see you when they pull out, but they sure as hell can’t say they didn’t hear you! The louder the better.”

Ah, that explains it then. It seems Harley riders have discovered the answer to a universal sentence which exists in all languages, that of ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you.’

By the time you hear this you are, generally, laying on the ground pulling gravel out of your navel. Lying in a crumpled heap you often press the slow motion replay of the last few minutes before you hit the ground to explain what happened. “How could they not see me?” you ask yourself.  Now you know. They didn’t hear you.

Eventually we find our way to the office of Chief Larkins who, thankfully, understands completely. He duly fills everything in while promising to inform his unit that a foreign motorcycle, in order to be exported from the states, does indeed need a completed carnet to smooth the process.

Over the days we meet Vietnam War Veterans, salesmen clutching laptops and people from all over the USA as we wait for the great shipping debate to be resolved. They shake their heads (and our hands) while proclaiming it to be ‘amazing’ and ‘unbelievable’ what we have done; on our own “out there alone” as they put it. Many cannot believe we are having such problems getting home as our enforced stay at the hotel is, by now, demonstrating. Our puzzlement is rising as we can understand the reticence of flying stuff into the states, but not out? Unless, of course, the states are protecting everybody else from a rampaging 20 year old bike with two ageing passengers? Perhaps it’s because we haven’t told them Bernard’s socks are now clean, ready, willing and able?

The land of the free is the worst so far in terms of getting simple things done as our frustration rises at the level of bureaucracy. In Istanbul, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, and Sydney we completed everything inside three days and often it was all solved within a single day. Here it has taken three days to solve a ‘simple’ thing like insurance and it seems a week will pass before we arrive back in the UK.

Killing time, and frustration, we spend lots of ‘quarters’ scrubbing and degreasing Bertha at a local car wash until she looks pristine. Not since she was given a good going over by four Bangladeshi lads in Kuala Lumpur has she looked so well.

Four days pass by before we leave Nogales resplendent with our shiny motorcycle and clutching our new insurance certificate. The shipper we eventually talk to in LA is expecting us in two days time. We cannot wait to cover the 500 miles.

Mentally finished we find the last few days have ground through our system, dragging, never ending. Strange feelings wash over us as we get back on the bike. It is an effort and not what we want to do anymore. We do. But we don’t. Irreconcilable emotions drag our psychology around the mental space inside our heads as we start the final leg. One final barrier stands before us. The Arizona Desert.

After riding through India, Pakistan and the heat of Australia we thought nothing could be hotter than the Atacama Desert in Chile. Then came Arizona. A whole new planetary experience of heat sat waiting for us.

Imagine turning on your hairdryer at maximum heat while holding it close to your face, and every other part of your body. Then imagine turning the heat blast up to 70 miles per hour. Crank up the thought into standing behind a 747 jet engine taking off while you idly smear factor 50 sun cream on any exposed part. Double whatever you are thinking about heat. Now you have something approaching Arizona. It made the Atacama Desert in Chile look like the North Pole.

The heat builds and builds and when you think it cannot possibly get any hotter, more degrees are notched up. The gauge on the dashboard gives up its unequal struggle with accurate information at 50 degrees as the sun hammers down under a clear blue sky. It has run out of puff. No more. Thank you very much. The End. It sits straining against the stop with not a flicker of downwards movement. You have no perception of sweat, no sensation of little rivulets marching downwards due to gravity. If it does break into the open it is instantly gone. Dangerously so.

We pull over at every opportunity to take on board fluids. It doesn’t matter if it is only thirty minutes later when another small petrol station, café or bucket of liquid appears. We stop. At one such place the staff cannot believe we are riding during the day. It seems most bikers travel at night and avail themselves of the ‘specials’ which we see as discounted rates on Motel billboards between 5am and 5pm. So it is that people sleep during the day and travel at night to escape the heat.

“We’re British, we ride in all weathers” Bernard laughs – when he has enough saliva to get the words out. The staff shake their heads and say “Man, you gotta be careful out there. People don’t travel during the day!”

“We’re fine thanks, could we have 345 bottles of cold water please”.

Bertha cools down under whatever shade we can find as you can burn your hand on any metal part it comes in contact with. Even the seat is ferociously hot when you first climb back on. Within 15 minutes of starting off again you feel thirsty. The new water we buy and take with us rapidly becomes too hot to drink as it gentle simmers away in the sun. At every stop Bernard reaches for the sun cream, insisting it is applied to any part it can reach in terms of exposed flesh.

I can feel the sun’s power against my body and the term ferocious does not do it justice. It is beyond ferocious and completely on another planetary scale as the miles pass by. 350 miles later we’ve had enough. Our heads are bursting and little people are inside my skull stabbing their way out from the confines with sharp axes. It comes in nauseous waves. Gratefully we pull into a motel and stumble off the bike dizzily with people gathering and saying “My God, you’ve ridden through the day?”

“Yep” was the croaked word which comes out of Bernard’s throat before two bottles of cold water lubricated him enough to talk properly.

Standing in the shade our body temperatures cool down as further drinks are downed while we hide from the sun and talk in the way of motorcyclists all over the world. People wander past, stop, and then spend time with us. It is based on the common ‘bond’ which exists, irrespective of language, religion or any other national difference. It’s what turns a complete stranger into a new friend. Two wheels.

Later on Bernard peers at me over the top of his plate of food which appears on the table in front of us at ‘Denny’s Diner’. We toast the crossing of the hottest place on earth we have ever encountered. The day would have left Lucifer reaching for his sun shades and looking to turn the thermostat down several notches. We pass out on a bed which envelopes us in its marshmallow softness and drift off to sleep talking of our feelings of how tomorrow will be the last day Bertha will be ridden on foreign soil.

Chomping our way through the continental breakfast in an empty café the next morning it is obvious people have deserted the hotel before the sun came up. We had pondered rising in the dead of night – like everybody else – to take advantage of the coolness but we are not good at early starts. The only time we availed ourselves of this option was in India and it was driven by pure fright and the need to get out of towns before the level of chaos reached Armageddon-like proportions.

Climbing on the bike we soon settle into the normal routine of petrol stops and liquid intakes. Pulling off the highway we stop in Pine Springs. White washed and painted picket fences greet us, War memorials and people lazily ambling along under the brightness. It is all so quiet, so ‘homely’, that it reminds us of picture postcard images of America, even down to the empty roads and ‘have a nice day’ responses. The air settles into noisy stillness with the only sound being the occasional vehicle as we fill Bertha up for her final tank of ‘gas’.

“Where yawl from?” comes from behind the counter in a rich American accent.

“The UK” we answer in unison like two book ends.

“My son went to the UK for 18 months, couldn’t understand a word he said for months when he came back” the female attendant replied laughing.

“His father used to tell him how funny it sounded when he spoke.”

“Do we sound ok?” Bernard asks with a hint of humour in his voice.

“Yawl sound like Brits on the TV, so it’s ok”.

People stand listening as we talk of America, Britain and our journey home as we stand under the air conditioning unit cooling down. I feel sure there must be steam coming from the two of us as we hog the cold downdraft.

“Yawl have a nice day” they chorus in unison as we pay for more bottles of water and head back towards the highway.

The hours pass amongst signs which denote the lines drawn on a long go map denoting where American Indian Tribes could live after centuries of wandering where they liked. A few square miles in small geographic squares (as it must have seemed to them) while huge juggernauts now roll past the rocky and boulder strewn mountainous landscape. We pull past signs which wave in the direction of San Diego. Others loudly proclaim an altitude of 4000 feet while we reminisce of a small Peruvian girl sat on Bertha as we froze above the clouds and waited for the road to open. Small things. Memories of people and places stream through us more now as The End beckons us forward.

Five hours later we plough through 8 lanes of traffic as Los Angeles appears. Signs for John Wayne Airport flash past as people drive at a furious rate, on our left, on our right, but all in their own lanes and with scrupulous discipline. Everything travels quicker than we are used but we settle into the flow, finding our way to meet Rene the agent with whom we have talked while we sat in Nogales looking for a way home.

Reaching the office and climbing off the bike we stand in silence as we realise this is it. The End.

“I can’t believe we’ve made it” Bernard sighs as he reaches for a cigarette.

“Thanks to you” I reply quietly “Thanks to you.”

“I never thought I’d be able to do it” he went on. “With the roads, hassles, borders, language problems, breakdowns and everything else. It seems weird to know we’ve done it and we did it by ourselves.” He stands silent apart from the inhale of nicotine.

I squeezed his arm gently.

Rene sits behind his desk and we arrange to come back a few hours later to start the paperwork for the final freight of the journey. The way home.

The Hotel we book into is within walking distance and once we shower and grab a quick bite to eat Bertha is unloaded of all our bits and pieces. It is a well tried and tested procedure as cameras, laptop and various other bits and pieces are consigned to the two pieces of hand luggage for the trip home. Our heads are saying ‘Home soon’.

Two hours later Rene comes out of his office and he is clearly stunned when he sees Bertha. After travelling for two days to get here the first thing he says is:

“I can send the bike, but nothing else”.

“Yeah, I know, we’ll sort out tickets for our flight” Bernard answers puzzled.

“No, you don’t understand, no personal possessions can go with the bike” he goes on.

We stand in silence.

“What do you mean personal possessions?” Bernard asks slowly.

“Everything but the bike” he answers.

“You mean the panniers and back box?”

“Can’t go with the bike unless they are empty.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, since 9-11. Customs will not clear all this stuff to fly in cargo.”

“Clothes?” Bernard asks

“With you” Rene responds.

“Bike helmets?”

“With you”

“Tools?”

“With you”

“Bloody hell.”

“It’s also far bigger than I thought” Rene measures from floor to top of windshield.

“The price will have to alter.”

Bernard cuts:

“The measurements I gave you are the shipping measurements.”

“Can’t be done” our (nearly) new found friend wisely pronounces.

“It’s been done several times in the last twelve months” Bernard goes on, “The windshield comes off, the front wheel is dropped, the back box comes off and is packed left side and strapped onto the foot peg. I’ve done this several times.”

“Can’t be done at those measurements” Rene dismisses the idea as he measures back to front without listening to what Bernard is saying.

“I’ve just told you it has been done, several times” Bernard insists, “It flew from Istanbul to Pakistan, from Nepal to Thailand, from Malaysia to Australia, from Australia to Chile, from Colombia to Panama. But anyway, that’s not the point right now, how do we get our gear home?”

“Excess luggage” Rene suggests “it cannot go as cargo even as a separate shipment. If it’s personal possessions then they have to fly with you”.

By now the conversation is telling us that Rene was not at all interested in providing any solutions or real ideas. He seems to have completely gone off the idea of shipping the bike anyway.

“New York?” Bernard suggests?

“Same as here, it’s nationwide” shatters that idea despite the ‘we’ll put the bike in a truck and move her to New York’ shipper we spoke to in Nogales as everything is ‘easier’ than in LA.

We let the enormity of the information settle in as Bernard’s vision of his pipe and slippers starts to fade. Saturday night premier leaguer football fades along with warm beer and cold rain. The reunion with Biscuit my guide dog is growing fainter as we stand silently. I know Bernard’s brain is furiously searching through options.

“We need some time to think about it Rene”.

Bernard lights a cigarette as Rene disappears back into this office leaving us to ponder. The sun beats down as we stand in the car park and go though our options.

Perhaps we could buy several huge suitcases and pay the excess luggage charges? We work out it would take three or four large cases to ship everything. With the weight of our gear we discount this as it would be prohibitively expensive. Should we ditch everything we posses and empty the bike completely? Not an option really. Back to Mexico and fly from Mexico City? On towards Canada?

We talk about Canada and Bernard thinks it would be considerably easier in many ways (roads, language and costs). Importantly, it suites his mentality. It will be going forwards. Never backwards. He knows about the Toronto option and tells me it is possible to fly overnight; in the USA it will take nearly two weeks to get Bertha home.

Several cigarettes later it is 4.30pm and the options are disappearing one at a time until we are left with only one viable alternative. Drive to Toronto.

“How far is it?” I ask dreading the answer.

“About 2,500 miles” he quietly states after checking the maps.

“God” I mumble “how long do you think to it will take us to get there?”

Bernard ponders.

“On these roads? We could do it in five to seven days. All being well, probably five if we do 500 miles each day. Ten or twelve hour days at an average of 50 taking into account stops, petrol, food and no breakdowns.”

We go back into the office and tell Rene we surrender to the post 9-11 paranoia which has paralysed common sense. We are off to Toronto. He appears a little phased we have chosen to drive to Canada. By our calculations, which we share with him, even accounting for seven additional days of food, petrol, accommodation it will still be cheaper than shipping from LA. He completely losses what little interest he had in us and turns back to his computer monitor wishing us ‘good luck’.

Back at the hotel we sit stunned as our mood drops onto the floor and burrows southwards looking for the end of the psychological freefall we both feel.

Bernard:

I walk up and down the stairs carrying everything back down to the bike, repacking everything into familiar places while dazed. It might sound strange to people reading this. You have to understand neither of us have ‘enjoyed’ the recent weeks hammering through countries. The clock is beating us into submission and all we see is petrol stations, white lines and hotels. There is no real ‘enjoyment’ anymore. It’s true that many people get a real kick out of doing 500 mile or even 1000 mile days. The ‘mileage junkies’ as I call them. They get a ‘buzz’ out of doing mileage for the sake of mileage itself. To me it’s not what motorcycling is about. I’m not criticizing this type of riding, I’m truly not, but it is not for me unless I have to ride like this. To Cathy and me, countries are about people and if all you do is fly past them you may as well not be there. It’s not about watching the milometer notch up tenths of a mile all day. The days have always been about the stops and the people you meet on every occasion. It’s a combination of The Road, The People, and The Differences experienced every day. One out of three does not work for me. A road is a road is a road. Without the other two factors as well, there is little point in continuing. We are now on completely the wrong side of America and the whole country has to be crossed within 7 days to stand any chance of getting home within a reasonable time-frame before we return to work.

Eventually the bike is packed and it is only then we realise the Hotel is organized around all things Japanese. We were so focused on organising the bike and ourselves for departure we had not noticed all the bowing attached to levels of social status. Neither had we noticed the blaring TV in reception full of appropriate programmes for people’s ‘home-away-from-home’ experience. We sit in the restaurant and it dawns on us The Torrance Hotel serves nothing but raw fish, seaweed and Tofu. To be fair, there are a lot of different raw fish dishes but none of them quite hit the spot for us. We make a hasty retreat from the chop sticks and little bowls. Blind people and chop sticks? I don’t think so!

The hotel staff very kindly lay on a car for us when we ask where food can be gathered for two intrepid travellers which do not give off aromatic odours of the sea. It whisks us to a very posh, and expensive, Delhi bar called Jerry’s where burger and chips set us back a month’s food budget in Central America. I always know we are in a city when the increase of asthmatic gasping from across the table tells me the bill has arrived.

In the morning Bernard tries to cheer me up by a constant battery of humour. It does not work. I know he is trying to make the best of it as he does not want to drive another 2500 miles and is as floored as I am. We had never even considered the ‘personal’ possessions aspect and it smacks of the typical over-reactive response to a specific problem. It makes no sense to me when I consider in Colombia they searched every nook and cranny of the bike before pronouncing us ‘fit to fly’. At airports, customs posts, borders, and lines between zones all over the world some degree of investigation into our possessions occurred. In America they just said no. Perhaps we are missing something which a good search of our goods, or thoughts, would reveal. Perhaps we are just depressed.

Los Angeles stretches before us like coiled loops of spaghetti and it is daunting to have eight lanes of traffic whizzing past on both sides as we start the long journey North. Huge semi’s thunder past as we gently work our way through the myriad of roads, underpasses, overpasses, on-ramps and off-ramps. It takes 45 minutes before we see the light of day and the outskirts of the city.

Heading north the I91 comes and goes, transforming into the I605 which takes us NE before the East Bound I210 joins the Northbound I15. We start to feel better as the day passes and remembered lines of songs come through my helmet from him in front as he snatches me from my melancholy thoughts.

“Always look on the bright side of life” is sung with much gusto complete with (deliberate) out of tune whistling to accompany the snippets of the famous “Life of Bryan” film. Before I stop laughing it changes to Billy Ocean’s “When the going gets tough” complete with hummed saxophone solos and deep chesty rumblings as words are exaggeratedly conveyed through the speakers to my ear drums. I cannot help but feel better as the miles mount. We start to talk our way through how many people would willingly change places with our ‘disaster’ of having to ride across America at the drop of a hat. Then off he goes again with wildly exaggerated voices and snippets of songs all demonstrating ‘Can do’ mentalities, over coming adversity and every shade in between the theme of ‘we can do this.’ The world feels that little bit brighter as the miles mount up.

The 25,000 square mile Mojave Desert appears in front of us. Even though it contains the lowest and hottest place in North America (Death Valley) it does not feel as hot as Arizona. No doubt this is helped by the fact we are several weeks ahead of the over 50 degree temperatures which can be reached. The one thing we do know is it is highly unlikely we will need our umbrella to shelter us from rain as the gentle pitter-patter only occurs to the volume of 10 inches a year.

Descriptions flow through my helmet consisting of words such as ‘Burnt’, ‘Desolate’ and every shade of beige colour imaginable. Signs for the Mojave National Preserve pass us by on our quest for mileage as we hustle through the landscape in our new ‘mileage junkie’ mentality.

The Mojave river tracks us on our right and suddenly out in the middle of this burnt landscape Las Vegas appears and we are driving down Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra drive. From beige and gold to green in an instant as if some invisible line has been drawn across the road. Hotels and casinos flank us as we cut straight through the middle of the city. Caesar’s Palace with its Romanesque façade appears and I tell Bernard of the Formula one race track which meanders its way around the grounds. As we trundle through the gaudy town of glitz and tinsel we lament the fact we do not even have the time to let our jaws drop at the OTT buildings. People come from around the world to sample the delights of the city, the razzmatazz, the shows, while we power through it as quick as possible. It is not a destination for us, it is in our way and we have to leave it behind us.

The Moapa Indian Reservation and the small town of Mesquite look more our type of stop if we had the time but we have to eat miles through California,even as the signs for Death Valley appear before us. I can hear the grinding of teeth coming from the front as we pass it by rather than stopping and taking the detour into the most inhospitable place on earth, or so people say. We pull over at a rest area and a man leans out a car saying:

“I thought it was a joke!” pointing to the logo on the panniers which declare “A Blind Woman, Two Wheels and 25,000 Miles”.

“Then I saw the two of you!” he goes on and asks where we are from, where we are heading. He whistles loudly and asks “Had an mechanicals?” as we reel off all the things which have gone wrong across the months. He laughs and comments “Nothing serious then!” We too laugh and have to agree. Nothing serious then. Keeping it all in perspective, it is true. All the mechanicals have been fixable, although tedious regarding time lost in getting the parts.

He smiles and records the web address on the side of the bike as we stand talking in the sun sipping our ice-cold drinks under the blue canopy of the sky. “I’ll check you two out when I get home for sure” as he shakes our hands and sets off back onto the highway. We wander around the rest area and look back to where Bertha draws crowds of people all snapping away at her with their cameras. They clamber off coaches, out of cars and everything in-between to stretch their legs. We hunt shade and settle in the coolness as people stand talking about the bike 60 feet away.

Hours later we pull out of another petrol station where a Sikh attendant is so pleased we know about Amritsar and the Vatican-like centre of the Sikh Religion, the Golden Temple. He tells us of his six months in the UK before he was driven out by the cold and the rain, of how he found himself twelve miles outside of Cedar City in Utah and of the passing of the years as the only Sikh in town. We part as friends and wish each other well even though we have only just met.

Several hundred yards down the road Bertha makes horrible noises from her gearbox and our hearts fall under the weight of the noise. It sounds serious and a potential hammer blow to our schedule with all the heavy mechanical grinding which pours out to our ears; like several parts smashing around in a kitchen blender. The sun beats down as Bernard investigates. Screw drivers are placed to ears and then placed to engine casings to amplify the sound. I too listen, perched on one knee in the dust to hear the whirling, grinding mechanical noises which indicate mayhem about to occur. When the clutch is pulled it stops and Bertha chugs, rocking happily but all this tells us is it is either clutch or gearbox. We ponder and decide to head for Cedar city and stop for the night.

Bernard listens to the noise, the deep metallic rumbling which penetrates above all else as we set off. It stops when the engine is under load and everything sounds normal by the time we pull into a hotel. It is puzzling and worrying at the same time. We keep our fingers crossed it is some mysterious gremlin which has worked its way through. We are not hopeful however as, usually, sounds like this indicate some terminal cataclysmic outcome in terms of whirling mechanical bits.

The next morning Bertha does not have any form of mechanical indigestion; despite the previous day. There seems little else to do but keep our fingers crossed and go on.

The drizzle descends as temperatures fall with a blanket of greyness above us much like an English summer sky. It is not what we are used to. The black clouds threaten a torrential downpour in the dry season of Utah and the local radio stations all agree with our forecast. Rain. However, it was gratifying the America weather forecasters are about as accurate as their British counterparts, including ourselves. It never materialises but merely threatens without ever succeeding.

Breathtaking scenery passes by as canyon after canyon appear with red rock ravines baring the scars of the stone cutting machines which have forged a path through the landscape. Beautiful rock formations appear left and right and Bertha moves in response to my swivel headed rider who seeks to find new superlatives and descriptions for each and every outcrop. Like ‘collapsed packs of playing cards’ is my favourite description of one mountain which shows huge slabs of rock hundreds of feet high tilting crazily in the nothingness of the tinder landscape. Massive rock outcrops with folded and pleated cloth-like shapes, tops of Lego block formations complete with missing pieces where they have collapsed down onto the fold below are described in ever increasing descriptive ingenuity. Small canyons along the route merge into huge areas with magical names such as ‘Devils Canyon’ stretching far off into the distance.

The sky clears and we peel of a layer of waterproofs as the temperature rises on perfect roads which go past at 70mph. Our mood is elevated as now we have come through where we lived for the miles since leaving Los Angeles. Now we are back into ‘the zone’. Even Bertha joins in and does not grumble, or rumble, or cause any missed heartbeats with sounds of chaos from the gearbox. We consign it to the our mental list of ‘another puzzle for another day’. The Gods of Motorcycling seem to be smiling on us. Long may they continue to do so. Please make it so.

Other motorcycles start to appear. Goldwings and Harleys are the bike of choice and you can see them miles before they become distinct due to the layers of chrome which shines from the sun. Glinting in the distance they flash past in the opposite direction with waves and flashing headlights from their riders. When they travel in the same direction they pull along side us and passengers take pictures of the two Brits trying to get home. We wave back and smile in their direction and when the picture is taken with a twist of the throttle they leave us to meander onwards.

Petrol stops are now hurried affairs and we do not hang around. We need to be always further ahead than we are. We stop in Utah where an attendant tells us that Colorado is about 40 miles ahead but ‘there is nothing there but jack-rabbits.’ Everybody laughs. People in New York had said there was nothing in Arizona but rattle-snakes and Lizards. As we settle back onto the bike we recall how each state in Australia said the same about their neighbours.  Further a-field Turkey was ‘dangerous’ (according to the Greeks), Pakistan was even more so (according to the Turkish). By the time we arrived in Pakistan people were saying India was to be the next hot bed of lawlessness. And so it went on around the world as people warned us about the next country or made jokes about their neighbours.

Soon Utah is a memory as Colorado leaves us entranced with its beauty. It finds Bernard, unusually, struggling for words. From collapsed mountains to winding gorges with vertical walls either side of us, the Colorado river rushes past on our right throughout the day.

A huge sudden Bertha wobble is accompanied by a loud yelp which leaves me deafened as Bernard tells me he has taken an Exocet missile in the face at 80mph. He pulls over rapidly in a howl of screeching tyres, nearly leaving me sitting on his shoulders. Leaping off the bike he examines his already swelling face in the wing-mirror while retrieving a long barb complete with nether region still attached. The rest of the critter is probably lying on the road several miles back groaning “I can’t feel my legs, where’s my legs?”

Meanwhile Bernard hops from foot to foot in the way of men all over the world as he seeks to convince me that ‘yes, it does hurt.’ He rips off his helmet to survey the damage.

“Imagine how the poor insect feels” I consoled him in my feminine way. ” Worse than you no doubt”

He is not mollified really but content with the fact that running into an English head was the last thing it ever did. “That’ll teach the bugger” he mutters while peering in the mirror and describing how his face is swelling up even as he looks at it.

“You’ll be fine, you still look good to me, have a cigarette and lets get going.”

Sympathy? No, not really.

“I’m deformed!” he grumbles at me. “I look like the elephant man and it’s hardly consoling that a blind woman tells me I look fine is it?” After two cigarettes he feels better. We set off again once he squeezes his huge, so he tells me, floppy head back into his helmet.

We knew America was big but it seems endless as we push ourselves across the miles. We cross state lines and see signs for capitals which involve distances bigger than many of the countries we have passed through.

The weather is glorious and it does not have the blast furnace waves sitting in the wind waiting to mug all the hydration out of you. Day two of the ‘race across the landscape’ sees 542 miles of the map covered in 10 hours inclusive of stops. Over the two days 1000 of the 2500 have disappeared behind us.

Five hundred miles becomes our signature tune with snatches of the Proclaimer’s song occurring throughout the day. With covering such mileages every day we become aware of a mental and physical shift; your aches and pains fade away as the mileage increases. It is like going through a barrier. One minute it hurts and then it does not. We talk to people at gas stations who ask where we have come from. We name some distant town and they come back with “God it’s hard enough to drive a car for 500 miles, never mind a bike” while a second person joins in with “Never driven 500 miles in a day in my entire life!”

People always notice the foreign number plate first when we stop, and then the white stick. Assumptions follow quickly; we have flown into the states and are touring around on holiday. Bemused is the best word which describes their response when they ask, pointing to the stickers on Bertha, “Have you really come through all those to get here?”

Each sticker tells its own story.

“That’s a real long way! Well done to the both of you.”

Colorado becomes the land of snatches of John Denver songs wafting through my ear pieces. ‘Rocky Mountain High’ changes to ‘Grandma’s Feather Bed’ which merges into ‘Fly Away’ in his optimistic voice as the landscape drifts past with an urgency which even Bertha feels; she smothers all sound of grumbling for another time and another place. We tilt and glide our way through the mountains as the Colorado river washes past in its muddy brown way down the hills we follow.

Signs for Aspen appear but there is no snow on the slopes and we coast to a halt at Copper Creek. It is cold and I am shivering. Pulling into an out of season resort Bernard baulks at the 150 dollars plus taxes (of course) for a room for the night and so we move onto Frisco. Here he jokes with the Moldavian receptionist of how 100 dollars is expensive for a snow less skiing hotel.

“Normally it is $190” she jokes back with him in all seriousness.

When we find the room has two single beds instead of the regulation huge double the reception comes to a stop and the staff all laugh when he points out:

“We actually like each other so why would we want two single beds? When we hate each other we’ll have two beds. For now one will be enough!”

Standing outside unpacking Bertha a family come over and talk while asking our thoughts about George Bush. Bernard, the diplomat, says he doesn’t know the man and so he couldn’t comment on him as a person. They grudgingly agree before saying they have had enough of “Eight years of his bull-shit.”

Bernard amuses them with the question every Pakistani asked when we crossed the country  “What are your thoughts of George Bush?”

“He has half a brain and his dad had the other half” he always responded.

Often when it had been translated laughter welled from the armed people around us. The people of Pakistan liked the answer. Importantly it forestalled any problems which may have occurred by way of our seeming to agree with the decision of the President of the USA to fire missiles into the North of their country. “When in Rome” Bernard would mutter in his diplomatic way when difficult questions came at him in situations he would define as making us ‘vulnerable’.

Leaving our snow-less ski resort, Colorado fades in the wing mirrors as we cross into Nebraska before the state line into Iowa appears and profound scenic changes occur as the mountains lead to prairies. Miles and miles of green flat landscapes and across which the wind whistles and buffets us as miles continue to mount up. The wind is not the gusting battering type but a constant resistance rather than the sideways hammer blows of times and countries gone by.

We pass, and are passed by, so many Gold Wings and Harleys we lose count. Often they are fully kitted out with everything which can be squeezed on a bike. A wave of music accompanies them through the on-board speakers as passengers recline is luxurious comfort in plush chairs complete with arm rests. Behind them twin aerials attached to suitcase size back boxes flutter the American stars and stripes in the wind. Many of them tow massive trailers behind their 1500 cc six cylinder bikes on the lawn-like smoothness and perfectly straight highways.

Three wheeled trikes are everywhere glistening in the sun with brightly glossed paint jobs and murals of figures clutching huge swords or macabre Halloween type montages. Canary yellows, cobalt blues, deep reds all seem to be the preferred colours of choice with everything on the bike designed around the paint scheme. We look scruffy compared to the glistening and glossy ‘cover paint job weekly’ machines which thunder past us. They trail their left hand out, slightly behind their body in greeting. We wave back in true Brit fashion like two excited teenagers; which we have become recently. After all it is not everyday you get to cross the states is it? We had forgotten this simple fact in our urge to get home. We had lost the faith which declared ‘enjoy each day as it comes’.

The land of consideration and politeness (as America now seems to us) extends to hotels and streets. People often leap out of our way apologising if they have not recognised my blindness within a fraction of a nanosecond. Before we even get to the kerb, the appearance of the white cane leads cars to just stop in the middle of the road. Patiently they wait while we cross and Bernard’s hand crosses to his heart in thanks. They nod back to him as if to say “no problem”. Many times over the days we wander from hotels to cafes, meeting the same patient consideration; even if the traffic lights are on green for them to proceed.

Hotel rooms are spacious and where ever we stay voluminous beds and perfect facilities abound.

Wandering through a local Wal-Mart we move from an isle containing baby goods into one which has enough ammunition to start world war three. Boxes and boxes of every calibre conceivable, or so it seems to us being two gun-shy Brits. High powered catapults, cross bows and automatic air rifles sit next to the camping equipment.

“Bloody Hell” Bernard exclaims “They worry about speeding but sell enough stuff here to start a war!”

It tickles him when he reads a sign by the boxes of ammunition which declares:

“In order to be fair to all our customers, each may only buy six cartons per day.”

By-the-way, each carton contains 100 bullets. Ah well, that’s ok then. Six hundred today, six hundred tomorrow and so on. Should be enough? What do you reckon honey?

America is sneaking up on us and we are really starting to like it.

The people are so friendly when we get out of the anonymous cities. Stopping for petrol we drink coffee while old men talk to us about hunting, fishing and all things family. The weather, grandchildren and cars all figure prominently in the conversations. Huge cartons of drinks are consumed as plates of food the size of Everest gradually become whittled down before dessert is ordered. How they find space for it all is beyond us.

Generally we use three tanks of petrol a day with speeds of 70-80 mph. Twelve dollars a time as 500 miles comes and goes. Our average speed maintains at 60 and sometimes India and the twelve hour days it took to cover 100 miles seem so long ago. When we think of over an hour to cover 6km in Colombia it is another world as the landscape now whizzes past. Another time, another place.

The Iowa wind disappears along with the prairie dust as we pass the boyhood home of Buffalo Bill Cody in the valley of the Wapsipinicon River. I-80 runs not far past the farmhouse which was built in 1847 by his father (Isaac) and Bernard’s teeth can clearly be heard gnashing again at not being able to stop.

Bernard…

After reading about him as a child and seeing so many stories, films and books it was sad we did not have the time to even stop. We put it down for one of things for ‘next time’ as we both surely feel there will be such an occasion. The bug is well and truly in place nowadays. It will be impossible to go back to what we once were. ‘Next time’ has become our motto and it keeps us going when so much passes by on the side of the road. So many opportunities lost. Next time.

The wind blows for virtually the whole day as Iowa changes to Illinois.

In Illinois we pass signs for magical song titles such as Rock Island which spawned the Lonnie Donegan song in 1955. It didn’t matter to Bernard the song is about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad; some distance from where we are. Blasts of remembered words come through the headphones as we travel:

The Rock Island
Line is a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line is the road to ride
The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road
If you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line

Every road or sign post seems to trigger a lyric from some song of his past. It doesn’t seem the same somehow in the USA compared to the UK. Imagine the latest band in the UK singing about Warrington, or some small place in the Lake District, the land of eternal water dropping from the sky (well, it is the LAKE Distinct after all). Somehow, we don’t think it would have the same world-wide appeal as singing about New York, New York or Galveston (ok, can you hear the songs in your head?)

We pass signs for Indianapolis as Illinois becomes Indiana and we fly past the location where the famous 500 mile race is held. Huge warning signs insist you pay head to the simple message; if you hit a road worker ‘you go straight to jail for up to 14 years, without ever passing go’. The same severe penalties exist in Australia and people certainly seem to respond to the imposed speed limits!

Petrol stops lead to the handing over of 2.60USD per gallon (about £1.65) and everything is done with credit cards, apart from us as we use cash. Bernard trundles off to stand in the queue, hands over 20USD, comes back, fills up, and then goes back to stand in the queue again to collect the change. It seems such a nuisance after every other country where you just fill up and then pay.

Bertha hums her way along through the days with no sign of the worrying noises and she sits rock steady on her Michelin tyres, discovered by accident in Turkey when they were the only ones we could find. Fabulous things they are and renewed again in Australia. They have coped with everything from India gravel to Ecuadorian mud.

The newly installed 80 USD Radar scanner sits in the dashboard beeping away at signals of Mr Plod’s presence with his mobile speed cameras hiding in the bushes or amongst the myriad of advertising hoardings. The strength of the radar signal determines how loudly it screams and thus how close the ‘problem’ to you is lurking. In the UK they are illegal to use although they are not illegal to buy? Now there’s British logic for you! It’s like saying you can look but not touch, or you can buy a beer but you have to leave it unopened. Yeah right!

The proclaimed thinking of this illegality is it will encourage lawlessness, speeding and general mayhem amongst the car using public of the UK. With average road speeds falling in the UK to the point where pushbikes pass you on both sides due to the congestion it doesn’t really stand up, at least according to my head scratching friend in front. So the law was introduced to stop people behaving like hooligans, barrelling around corners on two wheels while knitting or texting on a mobile phone as they steer with their knees. Bernard meanwhile finds it makes him more aware of the speed rather than less. Personally he thinks it’s unfair the Police can have all the latest toys, hiding behind bushes before leaping out like closet commandos to collect even more taxes for the UK Government. All is fair in love and war, he comments. When we return to England he declares that, of course, he will uninstall the unit to comply with the law. Of Course I believe him. Nearly.

The rain comes in downpours the further north we go and the roads become puddles as we enter Michigan where rivers of water are fired at us by passing cars in sheets of spray. Bertha signals her protest. She stops charging. Again. The voltmeter sits stubbornly on 12v instead of 14.5. So we find ourselves back to Malaysian riding; gear changes instead of brakes, sparing the lights and indicators with the road a grey mush of sheet rain.

Today is our last day before crossing the border to Canada and we are infuriated that, with a single day’s riding to go, another mechanical problem occurs. Splashing our way onwards we nervously ponder the voltmeter readings across the 300 miles still to cover to the Canadian border. When we stop for breaks the engine is left running as each and every press of the starter motor drops the reading by ½ a volt. Every volt is now precious and it leads to hours of careful riding before the bridge spanning the border at Port Heron appears. Canada sits just out of reach over the St. Clair river, at least until we hand over the 1.50 toll charge to enter our 31^st , and final, country.

The toll booth attendant smiles and tells us the border formalities are over the bridge which we slowly trundle across finding, yes it is true, the Canadian formalities are there but not the American. We need Bertha stamping out of America and so, after a little negotiation, we are allowed to turn around and head back across the bridge again (paying another toll) to re-enter America which, technically, we have never left.

The queues are huge to enter the states and Bernard ‘innocently’ heads for an empty lane which declares itself to be the ‘Nexus’ rapid entry route. The customs official is not impressed at us using the ‘pre-paid and pre-cleared’ vehicle lane. “Awfully sorry officer” he innocently answers “But the sign posting is unclear and we, you may have guessed, are not even from this side of the world, never mind the bridge!”

Radio signals squawk between the booth and control room before we are let through and directed to a secure customs post. We are descended on by several officers before the wheels have stopped turning. Surrounded on all sides Bernard asks them to step back so I can climb off the bike without the risk of kicking a federal officer. They step back warily but then everybody instantly changes when the white stick appears. In a single stroke we are downgraded from a grade one international threat to two ‘Brits’ on a bike and one of them blind to boot! Carefully and gently shepherding us into the offices Bernard is relieved of Bertha’s keys as ‘it’s standard practice’.

The keys jangle their way to a board full of keys which belong to the dozens of people being questioned about wanting to enter the good old USA. We slowly shuffle forward to meet more officers. When we explain what has happened, including the several bridge crossings, they start laughing and joking with us; receiving us like long lost friends. All the normal questions we have been asked hundreds of times accompany the completing and stamping of forms as we work our way through Bertha’s official exit paperwork. Other people nearby, meanwhile, are not so lucky as they are grilled over hot coals and have their finger nails pulled out. Not really, but some intense questioning is going on in harder toned voices. It is obvious some answers are not well received by the border officials and the people are not going anywhere at the moment.

More officers join the conversation with the two Brits in bike gear as all the formalities are completed before we are lead back to Bertha. Black uniformed border staff mill around us (complete with mirrored sun-glasses) as we are brought back to the compound and keys are returned. We hold our breath as the starter is pressed and she slowly turns over before firing up. Across the bridge  we again pay the 1.50 USD to go back to Canada where the officials laugh and joke about our crossing and re-crossing the bridge. They direct us to the immigration offices for another round of paper bashing which are all completed with the minimum of fuss.

Bertha shows 11volts as she starts first time but we know the end is coming in terms of starting on the button. We have perhaps two or three more attempts before the engine will slowly groan over like the asthmatic old lady she is fast becoming. Not for the first time my friend laments the lack of a kick starter on a motorcycle. “A bike without a kick starter is as much use as a chocolate fireguard” he groans as we wonder whether motorcycle headlights are required to be left on in Canada. We set off with no headlight showing and the ready ability, if we are pulled over, to act like two innocent Brits abroad, with me ready to wave my white stick to get the sympathy vote.

Heading for Toronto airport we manage to find a hotel just as systems are shutting down due to the lack of voltage to run them as the battery flattens. Within earshot (!) of the flight paths it is close enough and within easy commuting of the final gateway to home. With some prompting from me Bernard asks the receptionist whether there is a ‘senior’ (over 50) rate.

“You certainly don’t look it!” she answers as we confirm that, yes, our decrepitness is a sign of advanced age and nothing at all to do with completing over 25,000 miles perched on a motorcycle for a year.

The room she shows us to is cavernous and as I orientate, the door opens and closes as Bernard trundles in and out. Wash bags, clothes, computers and anything else we might need are unloaded as we plan our final assault on, hopefully, getting home before we qualify for the advanced ‘severe old age’ discount. We take a taxi to find a solar charger as poor Bertha’s battery has descended into ‘I’m not starting as I’ve had enough and you cannot make me.’ An hour later we are back at the hotel clutching our life giving panel with assorted leads. We pray Bertha will fire up the following day and she does us proud as the sun works its magic by the morning.

Phone calls lead us to Air Canada and eight hours after we turn up all the paperwork is done. Bertha comes in at 330 kg weight, a very nice ‘Dangerous Goods’ certificate is extracted from a lovely man who even came in on the National Holiday of Canada Day to sign off the bike. The petrol tank is checked, battery looked at and he talks Health and Safety to Bernard.

After all the joys of shipping a bike by air so many times on the journey it is apparent we are all talking the same language and he declares himself happy. Our constant companion (the Carnet) is stamped up by a customs officer who tells us how he has always wanted to take his Harley around the world. “It’s never too late to give it a go” Bernard replies “All it takes is the will to do it.” We shake hands and he comments “Jesus, you make it all sound so easy” as he asks about the journey and how we have solved this and that problem.

“It is easy” Bernard replies “If you really want to do it.”

Pakistani and Croatian security staff wander over to talk to us as we ready Bertha for her final flight and they ask how we found their countries. Holding my breath I wait for Bernard to say something like “Head East from England” but he resisted his inclinations and tells them how much we loved them. The Croatian has not been home for many years and he is interested in how his fledgling homeland is developing after the darkness of the war which split families and people along ethnic and religious lines. We tell him of all the hotels and how it is obviously a tourist haven for Italians to nip over the water which separates the two countries. “And Pakistan?” the second officer asks quietly. Of all the countries we have visited this is the one which presents the most questions from all over the world as people thought us mad even going there. Bernard responds:

“We loved Pakistan, we truly did. The people were lovely and everybody, and I mean everybody, was so helpful.”

The officer is pleased with our thoughts on his home country. His voice gave his feelings away. Pleasure, pure pleasure came through very clearly as we talked about where, how and when we had passed through this troubled country. We told him how we wished the Pakistani people and the country nothing but peace for the future and good things; echoed by his Croatian colleague. With a nice touch Bernard finished with the Islamic term “Inshallah” or ‘God Willing’. It is our wish for the ordinary people of Pakistan and for people everywhere in times of trouble.

Three hours later we are standing at Toronto airport trying to work out how to pay for the 11.30pm flight with our credit and debit cards locked out by the UK banks again; the fourth time on the trip so far despite telling them where and when we will be anywhere in the world! “It’s for your own good” they keep telling us before leaving us stranded in India, Chile, Australia and now while trying to get home.

In the end we complete an extremely complicated transaction (losing a lot in the process) with a Bureau De Change. It was probably in the Bureau’s best interests to help us out otherwise I’m sure Bernard would have destroyed their ATM with his frustration. 11.20pm finds us sitting on the Air India flight to London and heaving a sign of relief and we settle in for the way home, weeks late and with a malfunctioning bike (again). We start to reflect on The End. So much has happened to us. Good times, bad times, and every shade in-between float along our thoughts as the plane rises into the sky. It has been a journey of start, stop, go, start, stop go. Periods of both intense activity and inactivity as we looked for ways forward. Ways to keep moving onwards.

We recall shivering for three weeks in Eastern Turkey waiting for the Iranian Visa Refusal saga (Yes, No, Yes) to be resolved and of how my 50+ friend had, somehow, become a threat to Iranian National Security. From bank lock outs (4), to breakdowns (5), with each stop and delay causing the leaking of time and money. The haemorrhaging of finances struck us even harder as the pound went into freefall and the international financial meltdown hit the world. It often left Bernard holding his head in his hands as 20% of our budget disappeared in exchange rates while he ruminated on the chance of it happening right now; after two years of planning and 30 years of waiting.

My thoughts shift between shocking roads through to all the wonderful people we came into contact with. We sometimes marvel, no that’s the wrong word, we are more ‘incredulous’ over how two people can traverse the planet on a twenty year old bike, and seemingly so simply. Barriers which appeared before us were broken down as we encountered them.

As we sat in the UK and planned the journey we wanted to spread the thought that many things are possible if you have the will to face an adventure. Within this journey it cannot be anything else but true that you have to face your own fears, hopes and beliefs. It is also true there can be no sense of adventure without risk. They do not appear by sitting in the comfort of security. If you stay in this zone then it can never show how a blind person, with the right assistance, can be capable of fantastical adventures. The same is true whether disabilities are involved or not. Through it all, the assistance I received from the man on my left (who is now fast sleep) is incalculable.

It is so far beyond most people’s perception of what it involved (and even my own at times) that it must pass largely unnoticed. It is the way he prefers it to be as he shrugs off what has been accomplished. He set out to fulfil a life-long dream, to see if he could do ‘it’. He wanted to find out if he was made of the ‘right stuff’. Now he knows. He is that. Along with much, much more. Only a very small number of people would have ever contemplated this joint venture and many people questioned his sanity for taking a blind woman on such a journey. He shrugged his shoulders when he was asked and merely said “Why not?”

Over the miles we were to become two people blended into one and even as he stressed about being able to fix the bike or his ability to ride the roads we encountered, never once did any thought cross my mind than ‘confidence’. It is a rare state of mind indeed given everything we have encountered.

Nepal - Chitwan National Park riding elephants on Christmas day 2009

In all the time we spent together, the 24 hours a day for a year, the greatest compliment we can remember is of how people noticed we liked each other. And more. Much more. Bernard has always said that liking somebody is not the same as loving them. You can love without liking and you can like without loving. We are truly fortunate in that we have both sides of the coin. A year has reinforced these thoughts even more.

My mind replays images as I sit beside my sleeping co-conspirator, feelings and emotions flowing through my mind which sees me climbing elephants in the jungles of Nepal, stroking tigers in Thailand and cuddling Koalas in Australia.

It relives meeting wonderful people from all around the world, many of whom work with blind and partially sighted people and often under difficult circumstances. From Bruno of Swiss Guide Dogs, to George Abraham in India, from ‘Seeing Hands’ in Nepal to Vision in Australia. They all appear in my mind.

Across the miles places have become linked to the everyday people we have spent time with, from Slobodan in Montenegro to Hector in Peru with his ‘Meester Smith’ greetings. Glen in Australia reappears in my head along with the three hours he sat in the dust of the Nullabor as Bertha was repaired. I think of his upset at the end when he realised I was blind. I wanted to hug him and tell him it was alright. Voices echo through my mind in memory of so many of them. Strangers who became friends with our brief passing through their lives. Indians, Pakistanis, Greeks, and people from all over the world settle onto a Scottish wagon driver called Gordon whose advice we heard many times in our heads when we were lost; ‘follow the wagons’.

My legs relive harsh mountain climbs and my body feels events across the world as images continue to flow. The jolt of bad roads, the feel of the bright sun, the dryness of my mouth, the feel of the wind, the noise, the worry, the ecstasy, the fear. All collide in a welter of emotions as I replay and work through what it all means. If that is ever possible.

Our friend Bertha is battered and misbehaving although, basically, she is intact as we wing Eastwards for the seven hour flight. Over the miles only once did we fall off. For that we are truly grateful as we walked away without injury. We have stood amongst the clouds in the mountains of Peru at 15,000 feet while struggling to breathe.  Shivering in the snow and gasping in the heat we endured each and every day with humour while travelling roads which have been mud, gravel, rock and tarmac, sometimes all at the same time. Clattering and rattling across landscapes for which Bertha was never built, objects were dodged be they cattle, Kangaroos, chasing dogs or trees which had fallen blocking our way. We have encountered routes blocked due to protests, turmoil, and political instabilities the likes of which we have never before experienced. It is a small wonder many people try to come to our own homeland when you understand how they struggle to live their daily lives while others wonder how they get the latest gadget or ‘life accessory’.

While life is undoubtedly hard for many people in the countries we have passed through we met nothing but kindness across our travels. Even the poorest countries and, in many ways, the poorer the people the greater had been the welcome. It seems to be a universal truth.

“Inspirational”. It’s a funny word when we think about it. ‘To inspire’ is to motivate people to seek change. It is the whole purpose of ‘motivational speakers’ as they stride platforms all over the world ‘inspiring’ people to change their behaviours, attitudes or beliefs. The overwhelming message they send you is of the possibility to do ‘something different’ with your life. Sometimes you just need the opening, a crack in a doorway which calls you through the entryway to another place. In many ways it was one of the purposes of the journey, to show that many things are possible.

When we try to write about it people who do not know us may think it is pompous or self-important to talk of such things. To us it is not. We know we are lucky. We had the opportunity; all the planets lined up, all of the ducks were in a row. It became possible to set off despite the hundreds of barriers in our way. We wanted people to know many of the possibilities if they believe and have the courage to step through the doorway. Sometimes it is only this final step that people lack the will to take. All the opportunities in the world mean nothing without the courage to grab them.

Sometimes we have this aim affirmed as whispering traces reach across the world to where you sit. It was brought home to us when we hear of an Australian who talks to a fellow passenger on a train to Liverpool.

Mike tells of how he was sitting in Australia reading about a blind woman going around the world on a motorcycle. The next day he went to the bank and withdrew 3000 dollars, bought a backpack and got on a plane thinking “If a blind woman can do it……..” He used the word ‘inspirational’ to his fellow passenger much as the media of that vast country did when we arrived.

Meanwhile on the train the fellow passenger listened and smiled as it rattled its way onwards. Eventually Mike’s companion confided he knew the two people concerned in this mad adventure as he was father to one of them. Of all the people on the train Mike could have sat beside he chose the seat next to Bernard’s dad. Sometimes the word ‘coincidence’ does not sum up the odds of such an event. The world can be a very small place as we sat pondering this curious twist of fate.

Against this backdrop Panama appeared gripped in the paranoia of Swine-Flu which is sweeping the world.  Face masks issue muffled voices as we make our way through the airport. Presenting ourselves to the immigration department we are asked.

“How long do you stay in Panama?”

“About a week” comes Bernard’s reply.

“I will give you three months” the smiling Immigration Officers says “you may like Panama for more than one week!”

The thump of the stamp signals our official entry in Central America.

Twenty eight minutes after landing we are walking into our hotel after a bus ride. After spending two hours trying to escape Perth Airport weeks earlier, the Australians could learn a great deal by shipping their officials to Panama. Here they could learn about airport procedures involving more than two people thumping passports while the waiting queue stretches from Perth to Moscow.

Our room at the hotel is cool due to the constant hum of the Air conditioner as Bernard falls asleep in seconds while I listen to the final chapters of the Da Vinci code by Dan Browne. My eyelids follow his soon afterwards.

It was so good to wake up and just rest.

No packing and repacking the bike, no playing the “where am I going to find space for this” game. No sorting through roads and routes while trying to find if there is tarmac ahead. These things can wait for another day or so. After leaving Tumbes in Peru, crossing Ecuador and Colombia in six days it is a relief to lie still and just listen to the hum of the air conditioning. The days have taken their toll and we are both tired after mountain passes and pock marked roads with holes big enough to swallow Bertha. With a leisurely day ahead of us we relax until Bernard can contain himself no longer, maybe 39 heartbeats after waking up. A phone call discovers Bertha has landed and we can pick her up tomorrow.

The next morning arrives and we oversleep despite two alarms being set, a brass band playing and world war three breaking out. It’s not that we are tired you understand. It’s worse than that. Much worse. Somebody has stolen our will. They must have sneaked up during the night and made off with it. Lethargy is the new name for ‘energy’. The both have a somewhat similar ending to the word but we are content to wallow in the former rather than the later.

Gradually we rouse our self into action and find our way to the cargo office where Carmen takes us under her wing. She has been telling everybody, when she stops laughing and smiling, of our immanent arrival. The whole office stop work to watch the arrival of ‘”The Blind English Woman on the big motorbike”. Her English is excellent and she loves our “authentic” voices as she calls colleagues so they too can come and listen to a “real English accent.” We are not sure what they made of our Lancashire (me) and vaguely Liverpool (Bernard) accent but they all seemed to enjoy everything we said immensely. If they understood us at all that is. Waving cheerily to us, Carmen gives us instructions of where to go to get the various bits of paper stamped she passes over.

As we walk back in the heat to the front gate where our first stamp is achieved, we practice our very finest English until ‘The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the British Isles’ sounds convincing.  An officer at the gate realises my blindness and issues orders in staccato, machine gun like Spanish. Within seconds we are bundled like sardines into a four-by-four with Bernard straddling the gear lever. He nervously twitches every time a gear change is required but manfully refuses to admit it. His voice, however gives it away as it drops several octaves whenever he spoke.

Arriving at the police hut, officers wear their shields on lanyards around their neck like the best American export movie characters. One of them tries to engage us in Spanish before shifting to halting English which Bernard compliments while apologising in terrible Spanish about his own poor Spanish. The officer is obviously pleased with the compliment and he knows of the arrival of “The English Moto”. We have heard the term all through the compound and even when we arrive at the gates the guards had said “Ahhh, la moto Englaise”. Bertha’s fame precedes us as always.

The two officers come to a rapid realisation about my blindness. It seems to have become connected with my legs without me realising it. Orders are shouted, and another four-by-four is summoned to chauffer us back to the cargo offices due to my sudden inability to walk. Fortunately Bernard is not required to perform the splits across the centre consol and so his voice remains normal during the drive.

Carmen is stunned at our speedy entrance with everything completed. Her puzzlement drops away as Bernard explains the lovely customs and police insisted on driving us everywhere. Then he finished off with a rousing chorus of “We love Panama”. The office staff smile as he says this. Flatterer.

People hold doors and step out of the way as we hand over the $25 dollar fee (compared to $400 in Pakistan) before walking the short distance to the warehouse. There she is “Bertha the Boxer”, “Bertha the (semi) Invincible” – resplendent in Ecuadorian and Colombian dust and muck – but looking great, at least to Bernard.

Due to the mad exit from Colombia and the ineffectual agent, Franklin-the-probably-wifeless by now, we have not disconnected the battery nor completely drained the petrol. A few swift pumps on the Nepali hand pump and the tyres are inflated fully. She fires up and exits the warehouse where all work has stopped; people appear from all over the compound to watch events.

The Colombian drug search has left our gear all over the place – like Bernard let loose in a Hotel room for several days – so we decide to bung most of it – along with me – in a taxi back to the hotel while Bernard follows on the bike. A manager over hears the taxi driver ask for $15 dollars and he pounces on him with rapid Spanish. “Pay him no more than $10, and even this is too much for the journey.” It confirmed our view the $15 we paid to get here from the airport was indeed excessive.

Whenever a new country appears on the horizon we have found it very helpful, at least for the locals, to reach into the left pannier and rummage around until we find the rubber stamp marked ‘mug’. We then apply it firmly to our foreheads. We have found this avoids any confusion for the locals who may not recognise a huge red motorcycle baring gifts. They all run off sometimes searching the undergrowth and looking for Rudolph as, obviously Santa has ridden into town.

So it is we struggle to understand relative values for a few days as the sound of sleigh bells echo around us. We play catch up and then feel fools when we come to understand how much things really are. Hindsight is always a wonderful tool as early days involve getting stung several times before you acclimatise.

When we arrive back at the hotel parking Bertha in a disabled bay (she has the sticker) everything changes – no longer are we two anonymous guests. Suddenly, as always, we are something different, something exotic, something unique. The same attendants who have watched our coming and goings suddenly come over to talk. Bell-boys who smiled now stand looking at Bertha. We are no longer invisible as we repack the bike in preparation for departure tomorrow.

In and out of the hotel we wander throughout the afternoon as all the various oils are checked and bits of this and bits of that are tightened down. A massive crack in the windshield from the recent shipment is glued together after Bernard convinces a very nervous hotel caretaker it is ok to drill a hole through the Perspex. This, he assures me, should stop the crack continuing its, inevitable, route upwards like a snail’s meandering trail. The poor man is nervous at what he is being asked to do despite being urged on by my companion! The glue is liberally splashed all over the wide crack after the necessary dental activity. The Black and Decker drill is consigned back into the hotel as is the 100 foot lead carrying the power across the entrance where people gathered to watch.

Colombian, Ecuador and Panama stickers find homes on the luggage boxes, tire pressures are checked and the afternoon disappears before Bernard pronounces himself satisfied. People wander over and ask if they can take our pictures while others snap away as we work throughout the afternoon.

We relax and wash clothes while reflecting on how funny it is that for the previous nights nobody connected with us. Now, with Bertha outside, Americans come over and say things like “Good to see two people having a good time” along with the ‘inspirational’ message which many people have attached to us. Often the Americans then go onto tell us about their motorcycles sitting at home and how they would love to do such a journey.

Sitting at breakfast hands gently appear on my shoulder and American accents wish me ‘Good morning’ as Bernard loads up a tray from the self-service array of offerings. It is so nice and the whole experience of Panama seems to be very, very aware of Visual Impairment. Perhaps it is the influence of the USA with the many holiday and business people who frequent from the lands of the north? Waving to the assembled staff collecting at the front door we pull away.

We stop for our first petrol of Panama and it costs 2USD (£1.30) for a gallon and again we are reminded of the £1 per litre of England where draconian taxes are levied making petrol 400% dearer than anywhere. It is a sobering experience to realise how petrol has become the cash cow of all British Governments as we have travelled the world within landlocked, none oil producing, countries at a fraction of the cost.

Toll booths come and go as we wind our way across the long causeway which cuts across the muddy bay towards the city itself. Panama is a city of sky scrapers as is the way of all small countries where buildings go upwards reaching into the sky due to the premium commodity called ‘land’.

It is hot sweaty stuff even at 8.45am and the road is missing huge drain covers big enough to swallow the whole front wheel without even a burp. Cars dive left and right to miss the subterranean entrances to the Panamanian underworld while we weave around in the same manner. Some of the holes are so big people probably go fishing in them during the rainy season according to my ever-faithful, and exaggerating, companion.

Getting hopelessly lost in the city we drive round and round looking for some indication of the Pan American before blasting across the Panama canal on a bridge full of signs declaring dire consequences if you stop to take photographs. Huge signs declare this fact and Bernard notes the size of the signs are related to the seriousness of the penalty for ignoring them.

The roads outside the city are good compared to our recent experiences in South America and the suspension easily absorbs the rough surface. Progress is made along the C1 as towns drift past and we start to clock up the mileage towards the Costa Rica border which stands 350 miles away. Penonome (94 miles) changes to Santiago (at 155) before Tole appears at 218. Our speed climbs as good stretches allow Bertha to stretch her legs as the landscape changes from flat fields full of cattle, horses and goats to jungle which closes in on the single lane road.

Bertha’s ‘leg-stretching’ rises to such a point a very nice Panamanian Police Officer introduced himself to us – along with his very shiny new radar gun – by the side of the road on a particularly beautiful sweeping downhill left hand bend.

In the ensuing conversation – conducted, as always, in Spangalese – he maintains we are doing 120kph in a 100 zone. Bernard punches buttons on the dash board and shows the recorded 107 top speed on the satellite navigation system. The police man laughs and agrees with the speed – recorded on his own offending item – before license and ticket are both discussed. Needless to say there is no paperwork involved for the 20USD ‘fine’. The crisp single note is passed over for the return of the International Driving Licence. He then reinforces the speed limit before giving us the run down on the road ahead, the speed traps, the Drug Enforcement Agency road blocks, bad bends, dangerous places, petrol stations and where the Martians abduct locals along the route.

In many ways it was money well spent as we find there is no petrol for 100kms after a town called David.

He was a really nice man and philosophically we accept if you do not pay people enough money then they will supplement their income somehow – it is the way of the world. We can just imagine him talking to his wife – yes he was married with two children – that night.

“I met a lovely English couple today”

“Did you love?” she responds as she prepares dinner.

“Yes, they were really nice, she was blind and they were both on a big motorcycle. Huge thing it was. They were both very happy people and even thanked me after I fined them. Shook hands with them and it was all laughing and joking. I do like the English. They are always so polite. By-the-way, here’s twenty dollars towards the kids new school uniforms”.

So it is Bernard has now fallen foul (twice) of the Turkish Police, The Thai Police (twice), the Australian Police (once) and now the Panamanians; all in the name of charity, if you catch my double-edged drift.

Ah well. Such is life or as the French say “C’est La Vie”.

Waving to our new found – and slightly richer – friend we set off again and discuss how Bernard actually prefers this than the silly system in England where marginal infractions can lead to three points on a license. Three strikes later and you’re out! Even draconian fines would get the thumbs up from my friend in front as he always maintains it is just so easy to make a ‘simple’ mistake while driving. This mistake always, inevitably, attracts our friends in blue, or green, or black depending on what country you are in.

It starts to rain as we enter David and we shelter under trees and wait for the torrent to pass with the gauge showing 30+ degrees. It is too hot to climb into ‘boil in the bag’ waterproofs. Eventually we push on to Conception and find a small hotel. Just as we arrive the heavens open in a tropical monsoon which turns the roads into rivers and pyrotechnic patterns are traced in the sky as Thor the Norse God of Thunder strikes his hammer in the heavens.

Water cascades down roofs , trees and everything else as we unfold our umbrella from Bertha and splash our way to the café where enormous mountainous meals, wines, beer and coffee is consumed for the price of one gallon of petrol in England.

All the time the rain beats a staccato pounding rhythm on the roof causing voices to be raised as water rushes down in gushing streams outside the windows with a loud ‘whooshing’ sound. Four hours it rained in such a way as we sat, watched, talked and listened. All the beautiful green landscapes now made sense as the waitress explains it will rain for three to four hours like this and then stop. Thor must have been listening to her as four hours later it stopped; like a tap being turned off. One minute buckets of water falling from the sky and the next minute nothing at all. Based on Bernard’s description of the stern faced woman who explained Panamanian weather to us Thor must be a very sensible God not to make her out to be wrong.

Walking back up to our room it has rained so heavily we find a family of large frogs sheltering on our porch. They hop out of our way as we cautiously navigate without disturbing them as they wait for the torrent to stop sweeping down the paths. I can imagine them talking to each other in a vaguely anthropomorphic manner as they stare disconsolately at the sky:

“God it’s lashing down” the wife comments in a Northern Panamanian accent.

“Ai lass” her dutiful husband responds.

“Not fit to be out in” she goes on hoping for a conversation with her snoozing partner.

“Ai lass” he mumbles from beneath heavy eye lids.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” she prompts

“Ai lass”

Her eyes scan the horizon as she wanders where it all went wrong. Perhaps.

Bernard offers to retrieve one of them for me as he swears they are as big as his foot but I thank him for his offer while declining. As I fall asleep with heavy eyes I can hear them talking to each other outside our door and the last thing I think I heard was “Ai lass”. At least that’s what it sounded like to me.

The morning brings the border between Panama and Costa Rica where we discover we do not have a ‘vital’ Panamanian document for Bertha to be allowed out of the country. Various people make that dreaded ‘sucking in air’ noise which represents an insurmountable problem. Huge gales of air are displaced at this missing document. We vaguely recall we should have got it as we were chauffeured around the cargo compound. Meanwhile, there is much huffing and puffing about its lack. Eventually two United States dollars solved the dilemma and everybody is happy. The gales of sucking noises magically disappear.

On the Cost Rica side we begin the three hours of paper shuffling involving photocopies and even more photocopying of documents. They even throw in the obligatory charge for soaking the bike in ‘disinfectant’ in an attempt to bring death and destruction to our recently acquired insectoid – but much splattered and already dead – companions.

Meanwhile all the dead bugs friends and relations merrily fly over the border under their own steam. We laugh as we picture the bugs jumping off saying “We walk from here” while clutching their ‘Equal rights for Panamanian Insects’, and ‘Say No to disinfection’ placards.

Standing in a puddle of sweat in queues – where the white stick does not work its customary magic – people in shorts and tee-shirts fan themselves with papers while we dissolve inside our bike gear. We shuffle forward leaving a soggy trail and 25 minutes later reach the first window where a credit card proves you are solvent and have enough money to be allowed to enter the country. “Ahhh American Express, that’ll do nicely!” Thump goes the stamp. Part one done.

The whole world tilts for my companion as the next window does not want to know about the carnet – despite Costa Rica being indicated on the back of the document. A sheaf of Spanish forms appear from under the opening. It is also obvious several more photocopies are needed as I walk and Bernard stamps back to the photocopy office (again). Twenty minutes later – and several pounds lighter with the heat – we take station back at the window with Bernard still muttering. I point out he should try to imagine a Costa Rican trying to get into England; they would probably need a letter from a divine authority according to people we have met on the road. He relents and agrees I am right.

The forms go under the glass panel, come back at us, more is filled out, backwards and forwards they go in a perpetual game of ping-pong until the young lady is happy. We know we are making progress when she starts entering data and dot matrix printers clatter as pieces of paper spew out of the thirty year old machinery. Three offices later (and another 16USD) the very nice customs officer proclaims herself satisfied with the bike – without even looking at it; definitely not Colombian trained we guessed.

While restocking on vital fluids a waitress asks “Donde?” (where are you from and going?). She stares wistfully at our answers. According to Bernard, her face is full of longing and some regret as she, perhaps, dreams of such a journey while serving tables in the dust bowl of the border.

We set off and manage a whole three hundred yards before we are waved down at a check point where we have to produce all our paperwork. Off we climb, unlock the panniers, get the papers out to be minutely examined before being stowed back into the pannier and off we go again.

After seeing little of police for so long (apart from our school uniform collecting policeman with his new toy) we trundle through police check points every few miles on our way from the border. They wave us through apart from one who simply wants to see our passports.

The roads are a patchwork of tarmac, gravel, sand and soil as we bash our way across the surfaces like true professionals. Coming to a junction we discuss dropping off the Pan-Americana as it seems to go a long way around, climbing some serious heights where we know wagons will be dragging themselves up like inebriated broken legged insects.

Bernard laughs as he asks me which route we should take after explaining what he sees in front of him along with his guesswork. To me the 34 ‘felt’ right rather than the Pan-Am.

“Here I am in Costa Rica taking directions from a blind woman about which road to take!” The sound of laughing comes through the speakers in my helmet. He made the turn and we head down the 34. A blind navigator? A new first? Next stop professional rally navigator?

So it is we drop down onto the 34 and head away towards the coast. Miraculously the road is far, far better than the main highway and it soon becomes obvious why. The coast is full of newly built ‘tourist’ destinations, hotels and houses built where the Pacific Ocean crashes onto the Coast of Riches (Costa Rica) named after the red fertility which the soil represented to the Spanish when they arrived.

Interestingly it is also one of the few countries who do not have an army as the country gave it up in the 1940s. Great idea really as now they spend the money on looking after its people; it’ll never catch on!

Soon we rejoin the Pan-Am and climb into the Cloud Forest where the mist, drizzle and occasional deluge brings cold and wet for hours as we cross the mountains. Visibility is poor as the drizzle sticks to Bernard’s visor which he wipes every few seconds with the realisation the weather is not a passing event; by this time we are soaked all the way through. The road through the mountains twists and turns so much, is so narrow, we do not even stop for a cigarette; it is too dangerous to pull over on such narrow roads.

We know people come from all over the world to see the cloud forest but, to be honest, there is little to see in the big scale of things unless you like grey cloud and sheet rain. Bernard amuses me with his observations that, probably, people are rushing through the forest with their butterfly nets, or photographing some exotic species of something or other while we splash past going “Please God let this end soon”.

Give us both the warmth as we have not been this cold since Erzerum or Peru at 15,000 feet with a closed road. We have not been this wet since the M5 was closed in 2007 due to ‘The Great Flood’ where we slept on a roundabout wrapped up in survival bags as England became one big lake for the ducks to happily play in.

Eventually we drop down into Cartegeno and with the altitude drop we leave the clouds and the rain behind us within the 27% protected land area of Costa Rica. While we laugh and joke about the ‘bug spraying’ operations it all makes perfect sense. The habitats and ecology are all very beautiful in the mountains. It is so worth protecting. Once beauty has disappeared it is gone forever and can never be replaced in the same way. Beauty should be built upon layer by layer and defended to the utmost of our abilities.

As we potter into the outskirts of the town we see the El Guarco Hotel and gratefully climb off the bike after 10 hours and an average speed of 19mph. Sitting in our room we hunt information on Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. They are all coming at us so quickly. By the time we shower, eat, check mileages, write journals, check routes it is 10.30 and eight hours later we start all over again. We wouldn’t change a thing in the world despite the tiredness, aches, pains and the cold which takes hours to shift from our bones.

Bernard is tired the next morning and responding like the proverbial ‘grumpy old man’. His mood is not helped 25 miles later when I quietly tell him I have left my stick at the hotel. The bike pulls over and after several seconds of silence we turn around and travel 25 miles back to find the stick standing patiently waiting for us behind the front door of our room where it had been parked for the night. Twenty five miles later we are back at the same point again. This time however, we find the right road instead of the (un) guided tour of San Jose we had experienced earlier.

We catch a large group of motorcycles following a brightly painted and mural covered pick up truck as they shatter the silence with their open bore exhausts. Handlebars reaching upwards make the riders look like they are raising their arms to the sky in celebration of something. Harley Davidson’s predominate with the chrome glistening in the sunshine. Cut-off denim jackets covered in badges and chapter ‘colours’. We carve our way through the Hell’s Angels cavalcade, picking them off a few at a time until we leave them behind at their sedate 50mph.

Perhaps they are out to cause terror and mayhem in the Costa Rican countryside? Then again, with all the friendly waves, horn blowing, flashing headlights and big thumbs ups coming at us perhaps they are simply out for the inevitable cup of cha. Then they will return home, climb back into their business suites in the morning, pick up their briefcases, kiss their wives and children goodbye before taking the train to work? Who knows? What you see depends on what you are looking for.

The roads narrow into single lanes, trees close in on both sides and over our heads, forming a canopy thus bringing welcome shade from the heat. It is cool and we welcome the change as we blast along for mile after mile towards the Nicaraguan border. Black tarmac stretches in front of us and we hammer along the good surfaces with another large group of motorcycles appearing in our mirrors. Soon they are passing us in ones and twos – mixtures of street machines and semi-chopped bikes all chrome and polish making us look like two tramps in comparison to their sleek leather clad riders.

They dip and dive past the Sunday drivers in the hills we climb and we tuck in behind them to break the monotony of the drive. Bertha dives into corners, up and down the gears as we pass everything on the road; including all of the bikes. We hurtle off into the distance like a V2 bomb on a mission while Bernard’s brain pulses and becomes infused with adrenaline and testosterone. At one point I am sure we have stumbled, accidentally, onto the starting grid of a Grand Prix. After several miles of roaring speeds down leafy lanes with Bertha about to explode every gasket she has – yes they do have leafy lanes in Costa Rica – my errant friend’s blood pressure returned to normal, his brain stops pulsing. He pronounces himself satisfied, honour and ‘credibility’ (on a twenty year old heavily laden bike I pointed out) has been satisfied and a lunch break is called.

Within seconds we are surrounded by people from the roadside café and fifteen year old Ian translates the questions and answers backwards and forwards, becoming firm friends within seconds after Bernard tells him Ian is an English name. Leaving Ian to dream of road trips and large motorcycles we ride on.

Pulling up the border, no sooner has the side-stand dropped than hordes of ‘helpers’ appear all proclaiming the process will take hours to exit Costa Rica.  By the nature of their insistent voices it seems we will be stuck here without their help for at least a week. We decline the offer and a very nice fully gold toothed Aduana (customs) officer (the job must pay well) stamps and signs off everything without a Colombian strip search of either Bertha or ourselves.

Slowly crossing the border time goes into reverse in decades as the road suddenly stops, being replaced by gravel and hardcore. Shoddiness radiates all around in the dirty, once white, grey buildings as Costa helpers are replaced by their Nicaraguan brothers. They too proclaim it is harder to get into Nicaragua than into England for an Afghan refugee. Somehow we think they doth protest too much.

Handing over three USD Bertha is drowned in disinfectant (along with everything we posses) and in return we receive a very nice certificate from a very bored looking young lady in a booth.

The word has gone around to every ‘helper’ that there are two naïve ‘gringos’ abroad in their territory. Feeling like the pied piper (or in the heat the ‘fried pipers’) we quite take to one of them and accept his offer (after first checking the price!)

Anado is about forty years old and speaks English very well (always a help) and he gently leads us from pillar to post and from office to window. Health check forms are duly signed declaring that, no, we do not have sore throats, coughs, colds or any other rabid like or death dealing symptoms. Bernard indicates the only sore throats we get are from talking; actually he indicated me much to the amusement of the staff sitting behind their white face masks.

Anado leads us past lines of American bus tourists revisiting Nicaragua openly (unlike some of their military in the past) and we hand over dollars for the cost of stamping a passport, bike insurance (try claiming for anything with it), and a stamp from the customs officer having his shoes shined by a bare footed boy kneeling in the dust.

Meanwhile American tourists are busily snapping away at Bertha and proclaiming “Oh my God, you’ve come all the way from England” as only the Americans can sound. At this point the heavens open and the dust becomes a white mud as we stand under the porch of the health check area sheltering from the sudden onslaught.

We are joined by all the local wise boys who suddenly appear looking for ‘free money’ and as we move from porch to tree and tree to porch they follow us. It seems Nicaragua abounds with free money but especially from white gringos – even if you are not a white (American) gringo. Being English Bernard merely snorted when they demanded one dollar for their help earlier as they had pointed to a building when asked for the ‘Pasaporte’ Office. As they become more insistent Bernard’s snorts get louder and louder. Eventually they give up, if only to save being blown over by the gale coming from beside me.

After guzzling several cold drinks, and packing half a tree of paperwork into the pannier we set off. Maybe five heart beats later we are pulled over for a document check. Perhaps it was ten heart beats but the outcome was the same. Off we climb, unlock the panniers, and retrieve copious amounts of paper. Personally we both think they just want to look at the bike as most of the documents they asked for were in English. With Bernard manfully practicing Spangalese it is obvious English was not their fifth, never mind second language. But they were happy with everything and who are we to deny officials their bit of excitement to liven up the boredom of looking at blowing dust all day?

Heading for Riva twenty two miles away we pull into a ‘resort’ by a lake which nestles under the shadows of volcanoes and a blue heat haze. The armed guards on the gate carry the weapon of preference (pump action shotguns) and wave happily to us as we bounce down the pitted entrance road. The resort is empty with the floors and reception a graveyard of midges. Ankle and elbow deep on every surface they testify to either (a) the diligence of the staff in exterminating them or b) the indolence of ‘bugger it’ by the cleaning staff. We guessed b) was the correct answer as the, eventual, receptionist showed us to a 70USD room.

Every step we take is met with the sounds of Bernard blowing loudly to save ingesting the clouds of midges whom have turned up to welcome us. Despite questioning whether the 70 dollars was actually 7 dollars the receptionist did not take the hint. Since we had left our jungle nets at home (‘we won’t need them’) along with our thermostatically controlled survival suites, we declined her very kind offer to be a meal for the black cloud which followed us everywhere.

Rivas appears and it is a town where poverty shouts from all around as people stare at our passing. The level of the destitution makes Bernard nervous as we ride a Christmas tree full of goodies; as Bertha must look. Lots of men are sitting around sharpening long machetes, standing on street corners with the light glinting off the razor sharpness of their jungle cleavers. Darkness is beckoning and we need to get off the road but end up tiredly driving another 40 miles to a blacked out power poor Jinotepe where we manage to find a nice little room for 25 USD.

Two parrots declare control of their kingdom to all and sundry in the café next door as they wander around the floor while we sit in the dark (midge free) open air munching on Rice, pancakes and other things we can only vaguely recognise. Needless to say Bernard recognises the beer and happily quaffed several cans of, would you believe ‘Heineken’ while noting, with some justification:

“Well it has been really, really hot today. I have gathered a terrible thirst and it needs sorting before I can sleep properly.” Funnily enough, sleep is one of the few things he never has any problem with.

A young boy sneaks up behind us as we eat while keeping out of the sight of staff. He asks for free (gringo) money “For my hunger.” He sits on the floor and repeats the same thing several times as we offer him (untouched) food off our plate. Suddenly his hunger seems cured. Don’t get me wrong. Compared to many unfortunate people we are Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, the leprechauns at the end of the rainbow with a pot of gold and every other bringer of good fortune all rolled into one shiny red metallic parcel which Bertha represents.

It is also true it is hard to say no. It truly is.

Before we even left England Bernard told me it was the way it had to be. Once you start giving there is no end. Every day it is the same. You also have to wonder what distinguishes one person’s poverty from another’s? You can talk about poverty in terms of ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ to the end of the world but it doesn’t help when a ten year old boy sits two feet away from you.

Is poverty worse amongst the one billion people in India? Is it worse in a Nicaragua ravaged by conflict for decades leaving a country with few natural resources but many shiny machetes. Why give to one person and not another?

We try, in our own way to ‘overpay’ people at times for something. Sometimes you know you are overpaying and sometimes you do not but often it doesn’t matter. Free money does not exist anywhere in the world. Somebody has to pay somewhere along the line. In terms of this journey the wise young lady behind the Hotel reception in Santiago in Chile noted it had taken Bernard ‘a life time of work’ to get this far. Somewhere along the line life teaches us that nothing is free. Everything costs something to somebody. Eventually the young boy wanders off. He looks back reproachfully.

The morning brings a quick exit as food at 6.30 am is as scarce as free equipment from trans-global bike manufacturers.

The capital, Managua, leads us round and round until we are dizzy and sweating profusely. Hopelessly lost in the dust and potholes of the capital we pass through shanty towns of cardboard and black plastic covering the sides of the road in the same way as India. It is a world away in distance and time but not in appearance or sentiment.

People sit amongst the squalor with empty eyes staring ahead, lost in thought as they focus on the sound of Bertha, locate us and then brightness enters their eyes for a few seconds. They smile. Then we are gone and Bernard wonders if they return to the vacant look they all seemed to share prior to our passing.

Without a map or working satellite system – it has gone functionally Absent Without Leave again – the compass is called into play to find our way forward. Eventually we work our way through the rubbish strewn streets and climb out of the obstacle course our route has taken us back towards the CA1.

Stopping for petrol we fill up with our 3USD per gallon petrol which keeps the roads quiet due to the expense of it in an economy grinding along in desperation. Stray cows and pushbikes on the tarmac keep us alert as we come round corners to find football matches taking place between barefooted players. The game stops to let us pass before Maradonna passes the ball to Rooney who slots it home between the piles of stones which indicate the post. Such is the game played all over the world as people dream for a few seconds, taking themselves to somewhere they would prefer to be.

Exiting from Nicaragua is quick and (financially) painless, quite unlike the entry to Honduras where an hour later we are officially mugged for 45 dollars for this and that and end up with useless (expensive) insurance. Another Brazilian tree is eventually deposited with a hefty thump into the right hand pannier as the bike strains to take the additional weight.

Five times in twenty minutes it all has to be retrieved for road blocks where each and every piece is meticulously examined for the dotted i’s and crossed letter t’s. In the end I clutch all the papers in a plastic zippered wallet as we ride along as, no doubt, around the next bend will be (100 yards away) another road block of bored soldiers or police looking for something to fill their day. We smile and try to make conversation while they just want to stare at everything we represent and carry.

Soon the Villa Margarita appears and we are lured into its bosom by its modern appearance and cheapness. It appears like an oasis in a sea of psychological hopelessness pictured in the dead expressions of the people we pass. Somebody obviously thought it would be a good idea to build the complex close to the border as ‘there will be lots of passing trade’. Obviously.

The swimming pool is meticulously clean and the 5-a-side football pitch is immaculate as are the fourteen three roomed apartments. The whole site rattles with the quietness of the three guests, of which we count for two. Bernard comments it is going to be hard to get a game going on the pristine pitch with one guest and a blind woman. He gives up the idea when I point out we do not carry a ball with a bell inside. My demonstration of the famous ‘shimmy’ and of being a female Michael Owen will have to be put on hold for another day. At least I’ll put off being injured by kicking a ball I cannot see. He ponders about going back to the border and trying to arrange an international between the two neighbours. Eventually he gives up the idea and checks internet maps instead while muttering “I’d love a game of football, I really would”.

Our progress through Central America is now so quick we are running out of information about where we are (sometimes we even forget which country we are in) or where we should be heading for (often we have no real idea without maps).

The next morning we leave the empty site where the staff out number the guests by three to one and suffer six Police check points in 30 miles. Each one involves smiling people asking everything and anything about the bike. Spangalese is now our official language although sometimes Franco-Spangalese slips in. Personally I think Bernard is just showing off as it does not get us any further forward.

We pull over for petrol and Bernard hands over 20USD for the 236 Lempira at an exchange rate of about 20 to the dollar. Forty Lempira appears in change. We wait. The attendant smiles. We still wait. He smiles again and waves us off the pump as cars pull up behind us. Bertha sits impassively ticking as she cools. Eventually another 100 Lempira is pressed into Bernard’s outstretched hand from the smiling attendant as if to say “Well if you don’t try?”

We talk of how tiring it is when everybody seems to be ‘on the make’. It wears you down and makes you distrustful. It is a bad feeling and it happens more in central America than anywhere else. It leaves us feeling tired. Every transaction is fraught with the feeling you are being eaten little by little by Piranhas. Nibbled away a fraction at a time. Nibble, nibble, nibble. Munch, munch, munch.

Pulling up on a deserted road several miles later Bernard lights a cigarette and within seconds a one-legged man on crutches comes out of the jungle. He moves quick for a one legged man on crutches, according to Bernard, as he hones in on us and asks for money by holding his hand out. Nibble, Nibble.

A form of fatigue settles over us during the length of a cigarette.

It is obvious Bernard’s Spanish cuts no ice as he stands and stares at us while repeating over and over again, ‘dollars’. He becomes more and more insistent in his requests, in the end, virtually demanding we give him money. Weariness settles like a pall on our hearts as listen to the mounting aggression in his voice. It unsettles me as we sit on the road side. The voice changes and echoes in my head, changing into Indian voices saying ‘Rupees, rupees’. It feels suffocating and painful. We pull off leaving him standing at the road side with our ‘Buena Suerte’ (good luck) echoing emptily in the brief space of time we occupied with him.

The exit from Honduras is as chaotic a crossing ever encountered as we are surrounded the very instant the bike stops. Money changers and fixers of every size and age appear. I cannot shake the feeling of India now that it has reappeared. There is no space to even climb off the bike or even breath, so close do they press in on us. Everybody wants to ‘help’ Mr and Mrs Santa Claus on their red sleigh. They are, obviously, now expected to distribute goodies to all and sundry.

Bernard refuses to be drawn and he discounts the legions of helpers instantly.

“I’ve done 26 borders so far, thank you” his voice declares to the English speaking ‘fixers’.

I know he is exerting control and bidding his time, seeing how things pan out before CHOOSING somebody rather than being catapulted along by others.

The whole place is chaos as we wander up to the border control and some semblance of ‘assistance’ is forthcoming at the white stick’s appearance. ‘Runners’ are sent to photocopy relevant documents at the most expensive photocopying machine in the world (nibble) and a passport stamp (nibble, nibble) is issued for the bike while a Honduran flag appears it (nibble, nibble, nibble). It is hot, unbelievably so, as we shuffle from place to place while people gather around the bike which Bernard watches warily – for the first time in many months.

We are oozing liquid from every pore as we stand in the mid-day turmoil of sounds and activity all around. After being consumed by all the Honduran nibbling possible we are spat over the bridge onto the El Salvadorian side. A cursory view of our passports and directions towards the Customs post three kilometres away followed. Relieved we set off.

Sometimes life has a wonderful sense of humour. When you think it cannot get any worse, up pops another barrier. The barrier came after the designated three kilometres in the shape of a moustached sun-glass wearing Hitler. Pressing Spanish forms into Bernard’s hands, he wears an evil grin.

“Houston, I think we have a problem” comes the muttered voice beside me as the customs officer rattles on in fast paced Spanish and he cannot be dissuaded. Now we know what the English make people feel like sometimes as he started to shout the instructions at us as if we are both hard of hearing and complete imbeciles. The penny drops he is going to have some fun with us when Bernard replies:

“There is no point in you shouting at me in Spanish and repeating the same thing over and over again, I don’t have a clue what you are saying”.

At this point I had visions of him going red with rage as it was obvious something snapped in him. People all around us start laughing. It is obvious he was having lots of fun at our expense. It didn’t feel funny at all. Far from it. Why is it you can never find a fixer when you need one? Bit like a bus, a policeman or a starter motor in Peru?

With the help of Louis, an El Salvadorian truck driver, we manage to fill out all the Spanish forms (in English) only to have all the answers crossed out by Mr Hitler (we thought if we called him Mister it might help) as he replaced all of our English with Spanish answers – after an hour waiting.

Bernard…

I knew he could speak English. Something told me by watching him he knew precisely what I was saying at first encounter. He was making a point and it was very, very uncomfortable to be around him. The temperature is in the high 30s and the sweat was dripping onto the forms while he found every excuse to avoid dealing with us. He was a real bugger and was exercising every bit of authority and power he had over us as we slowly dissolved in the still airless heat.

People came and went as we waited. Trucks pulled up, huge cavernous trailers are inspected and searched. As we wait they depart while we sit with a motorcycle and three boxes. The puddle of sweat gets larger as we sit on our two plastic chairs. Bernard is despatched up the road several times to gather photocopies before coming back clutching sheaves of paper which he would eventually deem to scan. After two hours we heave a sigh of relief as we depart holding tightly onto new papers only to find, when we pull up at the Police check point, they are the wrong ones.

The Police take pity on us as Bernard tells me they have seen us, and him, going up and down for two hours. They want to wave us through but Bernard refuses to cross as he doesn’t know what will happen when we come to exit El Salvador if we do not have the correct paperwork. So it is we have no choice but to go back and face the mirrored sun-glasses again.

Mr Gestapo is very clearly having a whale of a time when we reappear again. His face lights up with a big smile although he is also clearly aggravated by the phone calls from the Police who, probably, have told him to get his (wrong) form 39-PTFY sorted out from his (correct) 68-HYT.

He descends on us but this time we have out-smarted him.

Paolo our fixer is in tow (who assures us thirty minutes and ten dollars to fix the problem will be all he needs). We feel confident. Nearly. We found Paolo lurking by the police barriers and he seems as genuine as a British Politician’s word.

We settle back onto our seats and wait as a great battle commences between the forces of good and those of evil. Empires rise and fall on the strength of these battles. Universes of meaning are constructed by the intellectual merits of those engaged. In the meantime Bernard pulls his baseball cap over his eyes and says “Wake me if anything happens”.

Three hours later I wake him and tell him the thirty minutes Paolo promised has passed. One hour to exit Honduras and five to enter El Salvador has gone by and we guess Tourism isn’t big on the El Salvadorian political agenda – at least in terms of civilian tourism.

We felt as welcome as leprosy, swine flu, or George Bush in Baghdad. We consoled ourselves with the fact at least we do not need a bullet proof car to go everywhere.

Anyway, a whole country nearly became tainted by the trivial acts of one minute person on a speck of dust on a huge planet. Sometimes it helps to be philosophical about events like this as Bernard commented:

“He probably drives a very big car.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask in all innocence.

“Well you know what they say about people who drive big cars don’t you? It is a compensatory action for inadequacies in other, more physical departments. He must feel the need to drive something really, really big.”

Then he starts laughing.

Actually this is as close as I can get to what he actually did say. It would be impossible for me to record the precise words on a printed page. If this was done then we would fall foul of the print or thought police and so end up on a top shelf somewhere between hard and soft core publications. I’m sure you get the idea of the real words he used.

Before we left Bernard searched him out and waited until he was beside a very, very senior officer who spoke English. He marched over and shook hands with our tormentor saying:

“You are a very, very, naughty man for playing such a long joke on two guests.”

He had smiled standing beside his senior colleague without responding but clearly understanding. As we turned to leave the last word, as is often his wont, came from Bernard:

“By the way, the name is not gringo as you called me earlier. To you, as a public servant, it is always MR Gringo.”

I swear he could not have walked more upright along the loading bay while leading me back to Bertha.

The border guards all applaud as we reappear hours after leaving them and with a flourish they raise the barrier and wave us off onto the road to San Miguel. We find a home for the night surrounded by American voices as the sun falls from the sky while Bertha sits outside in one of the two disabled bays which the staff insist we use.

The frustrations of the day – and previous days – eventually boil over in the evening as tiredness and waves of aggravation sweep through Bernard. He lashes the written journal across the room in a rare show of temper as we sit in bed trying to recount the days through his tired brain and fingers when all we want to do is go to sleep. Ever meticulous in recording details it boils over when neither of seem to be able to recall very much through the fog which seems to have descended on our brains. Fleeting thoughts without substance are the only things which come to us.

I see the book in my mind as it flutters to the floor like a broken butterfly. It sits waiting for him to retrieve it and fix the wings before the story can go on. The story of two people doing, for some have thought, impossible things within an impossible journey.

The simple image of a broken butterfly reflects the self-image I have of us at this point. They are ragged versions worn away with the constant rushing and tensions of multiple borders within short periods of time. Bernard and borders equals stress. There is no getting away from it. He is what he is. In many ways he spent the day not letting it get to him by keeping it bottled up, even feigning sleep to send the message “You cannot get to me.” The act of lashing a book across the room is a form of release of all that pent up pressure I know he feels. He is careful to hide the pressure when it is important to do so, like today.

I wait for the storm to pass as it surely will. He can be no different than the person I fell in love with. It is impossible for him to be anything else.

Silence falls on us for the first time in months as tiredness, irritation and anger flashes across our peaceful world like a hurricane. We both wait for it to subside as it surely will. Neither of us is inclined to be anything else but the people who were attracted to each other so long ago. After listening to the tick of the clock he climbs out of bed and mutters “Damn book has split.” There it is, the opening, the start of normality.

“Probably the wall that did it” I respond.

“Could be” he laughs quietly.

“We’ve got tape haven’t we?” I ask.

“Yep” he climbs back into bed and retrieves his pen.

“It’ll be fine then” my voice assures him as he settles back down.

We start to write about people with big cars and butterflies with broken wings. As the words pile up on the page the last dark cloud fades from our small room; the sound of pen on paper soothes us. The world we now inhabit is one we recognise and are comfortable with because we are both together again. The butterfly no longer has a broken wing. I know we are now ready for another day.

We pull out of the hotel the following morning and head for San Salvador following the CA-1 signs for the Pan American. The traffic settles, if that is the right word, into rush hour London traffic except it keeps moving at more than 6mph. Actually if you put several zeros after the six then you have the approximate speed. People hurtle along like mission pilots on a bombing run over enemy territory. It must be something to do with their history where everybody drove fast to miss the snipers.

Trucks and buses push out dense clouds of black smoke which Bernard needs a knife to cut through so he can see where we are going. I shout helpful thoughts to him like ‘are we having breakfast yet” or “Can I breath now?” after holding my breath for ten minutes as we carve our way through the volcanic like eruptions coming, it seems, from every vehicle. Not to be outdone by the dense smoke and diesel fumes he chirps away cheerfully with all thought of moods which reflect the colour of our faces (black) gone from the previous night.

Inexplicably we lose the CA-1 signs as they become as invisible as maps of this country. Pulling over we ask the petrol attendant which way. After putting on his sunglasses to protect his eyes from the fully gold-toothed smile Bernard heads off in the same direction we had been heading. Ten minutes later he stops and again people wave their arms like windmills which, we think, indicates go backwards although it could be sideways.

Reverting to our ‘follow the wagons’ rule we end up hopelessly lost in San Salvador with not a sign for Santa Ana on the horizon. After the customary cigarette stop in times of severe stress, or not, the compass is called into play and an hour later we find the mythical CA-1 again. This is after hitting the most enormous pothole which suddenly appeared from underneath the wagon in front. Our progress down and into the hole shattered several electronic gizmo attachments in the dashboard. Thank God for Gaffa tape as the dashboard ended up – twenty minutes later – looking like an advert for how not pack a post office parcel. Once my feet returned to the foot pegs after being launched so far up into the air we set off again.

The traffic thins out as Bernard starts to describe the small open pick-up trucks which act as the local taxi / bus / purveyor of the people. Leaping onto the still moving vehicles, hands reach down to grab new passengers so that they are not swept under the vehicles which follow in the ever onward motion.

We pass through small villages and towns as the Pan Americana, or Inter-Americana as many call it, narrows and threads its way past the market stalls selling everything from fruit to tee-shirts. Buses suddenly stop and people leap out of the doors (front, side and rear), falling from windows and leaping off the roof in gymnastic displays which would have judges reaching for their perfect ten score boards. Children wave as we slowly meander past and people turn 100 yards in front as Bertha announces her presence with the distinctive rumble of her engine – “Probably the gear box” according to Bernard, “Something is getting noisier”. A problem for another day we hope and talk louder to overcome the noise.

The road holds good and soon we are climbing the hills through emptiness towards San Cristobal and cutting down the mileage towards the Guatemala border crossing. We hope Mr Gestapo has not been transferred across the country. If he has we vow to turn around and take to the jungle, winching the bike up mountains and down ravines in order to avoid him. Pulling down towards the border we – well Bernard – scans the post for anybody goose-stepping or for any indication of mirrored sunglasses. All he can see are smiling faces and this makes him nervous. The border guards all smile as we pull up and park Bertha. Are they lulling us into a false sense of security?

After handshakes all around we do not find a single goose-stepping guard. One of them even walks us towards a hut where he fills out all the paperwork. Within ten minutes we are done. Bernard sniffs suspiciously (or he is developing man-flu) but it seems it is true. El Salvadorian border guards do not all chew on broken glass. Our faith is restored once again by digging beneath the uniforms and finding people.

Walking down to the Guatemalan border the female officer examines each and every one of our passport stamps; all 27 ins and 27 outs to date. We pull up chairs and prepare to wait as she makes several cups of tea while examining each and every page. Fifty four stamps later a new thump indicates Guatemala is winking at us saying ‘Come on in the jungle’s fine’.

Felipe is a young man who, amongst all the border ‘touts’, stands out. He is thin, smiles in an easy going manner, and seems very gentle. We like him straight away and even more over the next hour and a half as he smoothes the ripples in the Guatemalan paper pond. So it was he led us from office one (Guatemalan Customs) to Office 2 (El Salvador Customs) to Office 3 (Photocopy everything) to Office 1 then office 2 and then office 4 to hand over the 5USD administration fee. Back to office 2 for more paper. And so it goes on as we follow the paper carousel in its endless circle.

At some point an urgent cigarette is needed so we leave Felipe to perform his lonely mission. People may wonder why Bernard gets stressed but I think he just gets dizzy more than anything as we perform the ‘swirling dance of the forest’ – most of the greenness of Brazil has probably disappeared into our panniers at one point or another. Then again, we can be thankful we are not Guatemalan motorcyclists trying to enter the UK. Old age would probably strike us down as we waited.

Rock music blasts from a café nearby as Bernard gives a running ‘I’ll name that artist in one’ game of ‘The Chilli Peppers’ or ‘Led Zeppelin. He sighs loudly when I ask where the Mariah Carey or Celine Dion is. “In lifts all over world” he answers. “May as well ask where the birdie song is” came his dismissive reply. “I like the birdie song” I tease him “It always fills the dance floors”. He puffs on his cigarette in silence and does not deem to answer. “By the way” I add naughtily, “Didn’t Led Zeppelin make a balloon?” I’m sure the heavy exhale of air has swirled the dust on the floor as I picture him shaking his head in mock disgust. Sometimes he is so easy.

Felipe shares a cold drink with us as Brazil has finished suffering for another day while Bertha is proudly displaying a new sticker in her windshield. She is now totally legal and an official tourist bike of some repute, we like to think.

We have 166km to do to reach the capital as we wave to Felipe and pull off into the countryside full of suicidal cows lazily lying in wait for passing motorcycles. On hearing us they amble up onto their feet and wander across the road playing chicken with 350kg of metal. Our old friend the subterranean pothole leading to the centre of the earth also makes a dramatic reappearance.

A powerful motorcycle howls past and Bernard describes how he is straightening and lifting the bike, dropping into the corner, then straightening in a series of jagged movements. “it’s as if he’s frightened of the corner” comes through my helmet. Bernard demonstrates what he is trying to explain. It is so disconcerting to feel the bike move so much in a corner, quite unlike how it feels normally, smooth and measured with no changes in line; unless something suddenly appears in our path.

The undulating and bumpy roads pass us by until the Turicentre Los Esclavos appears after passing through places with little more than cafes, garages, and waving children. We turn around to have a second look after flying past it first time. The rooms are basic and we find it nestles on the side of ravine where the river rushes past several hundred feet below. Three large parrots shout ‘Ola’ as we walk past their open-air cages while lightening flashes in the sky, followed soon after by the rumble of thunder. We sit by the small empty pool sending text messages to people in England and Ireland worrying about us passing through places like El Salvador and Guatemala.

At times like this we know people worry about us and we try to calm their fears through the wonder of technology. This sees messages winging their way up into the sky, around the globe and then landing with a thump, or a blast of song, before burrowing into circuits to be displayed or read on a small screen. Even when we tell them we are having a whale of a time with our one-handed texting (because we are so good), they worry. While we laugh and wing our way through most of the world, they worry. The funny thing is if we nipped to France for a bit of biking they would probably say “Enjoy, bring us back a few bottles of the red stuff.” It is the name of country which triggers fear beyond our own, very real, experiences.

Reading motorcycle books his whole life Bernard tells me how riders often report ‘the dangers’ of riding in countries such as Ecuador, Colombia, the whole of central America and our old friend Pakistan. They fill their books with Foreign Office Advisory notices supporting the view that the road they are about to take from X to Y “is dangerous. Under no circumstances should foreign Nationals drive between X and Z”. The FCO notice then goes on to say if a) you have several truck loads of local militia with you, b) at least two local fixers, and c) your own helicopter doctor then it may downgrade the danger from terminal to critically life threatening.

In order to further reduce the risk we add some further advice:

1. Contact Doctor Who to arrange to borrow his invisibility cloak.

2. Go to Japan and spend two years doing a crash course in Ninja studies. Included in this should be the compulsory option of advanced meditation. In this option you can learn to stop breathing for several months so even the local wildlife cannot hear you as you pass them by.

Often the writers then go on to describe the shootings, kidnappings and barely conceived mayhem they may experience. Needless to say they ride the road and conceal their disappointment as. Nothing happens. Danger sells stories whether it is real or imaginary. The only time we have felt truly frightened was in India. It wasn’t the people, the crushing crowds, the (frighteningly) hot curry or even the head nodding which means yes / no / maybe/ I haven’t got a clue what you just asked me. It was the chaotic and lawless driving culture. If anybody knew the rules of driving they were keeping it such a well guarded secret that even a well trained psychic would struggle to understand them.

Sometimes it is true you can just read too much.

You can plan too much.

If we had read about La Linea (the ferocious mountain climb in Colombia) we would have stressed about it instead of just doing it. The one time we took notice of people we spent hours panicking as we crossed darkened mountains in Ecuador. Sometimes information overload, accurate or not, hides the truth of the people, the road, or the experience it purports to inform about. Sometimes being naïve and open is to be innocent in a guilty sort of way.

“Will the two defendants please rise. How do you plead?”

“Guilty as charged your honour but with mitigating circumstances as we’re both technically insane. Me more than him though your Lordship as I’m supposed to be the sensible one while he’s always been completely loony tunes. He just hid it for years until he paid the mortgage.”

So we send our text messages and call home when we can and hope people do not worry too much. It’s not worth worrying about two people who are often in bed at 7.30 and asleep by 8. Our witching hour has had its clock turned back four hours due to advanced decrepitness and terminal tiredness. Isn’t age a wonderful thing!

As we sit bleary eyed eating breakfast the next morning a gaggle of bikes pull into the courtyard and fifteen bikers stomp into the large open area. It is obvious they are buzzing like a wave or excited bees by the increasing swell of noise which signals their arrival. Immaculate Yamahas, Ducati’s, Kawasaki’s and GS BMW’s adorn the frontage as Bertha is surrounded by bikes and people. As they clump in several of them head for us and one asks a barrage of questions and then translates for his friends. Eyes widen and soft whistles come in harmonies of sound as they talk amongst themselves at the distances we have covered. The level of noise increases even more as the group of ‘growing old disgracefully’ bikers order huge breakfasts and continue with boisterous good humour.

They pull off shortly before we go in the opposite direction as we head for the Mexican border at La Mesilla 250 miles away. An hour after waving farewell to our Guatemalan friends we are approaching Guatemala City. Before you see the sign posts you know you have arrived.

The stench of petro-pollution wafts over the horizon’s hazy dome as buses and every other vehicle seem to belch out black smoke with gay abandon. Reaching for our oxygen masks we plunge into the smoke which should carry Government Health Warnings saying “Do not enter.” It is a good job we did the advanced Ninja course on meditation and (the compulsory) holding breath techniques otherwise we would not have made it through the day. Where is a good Foreign Office Warning notice when you need one?

Apart from both of us holding our breath for at least three bus lengths every 100 yards, the signs hold good and the traffic is more ordered than the usual jungle survival of the fittest. It is well-behaved and the three-laned CA-1 leads us gently up the hills on the other side of the city. Road works come intermittently and our progress slows dramatically as tarmac disappears and becomes hard packed dirt, loose soil or gravel. Road teams are everywhere, flattening soil, laying concrete or even, heaven forbid, spreading tarmac. We slither and slide and the back of the bike slews sideways like a snake as we make our way forward with revs and slipping clutch to keep the bike moving. Sharp twitches of the back remind us at times that the distance between our soft delicate bodies and the hard surface may be shortened at any second. Coming through several such sets of thoughts we come through unscathed and start breathing again.

Continuing climbing the temperature starts to drop as we cross 10,000 feet and up through the clouds before descending the other side with Bertha’s side stand scraping loudly on left hand corners. The recent rise is side-stand scraping seems to have occurred after I promised Bernard he can have a day off riding once we get to Mexico. Scrape, scrape.

Several years ago – or should that be days? – we puttered through Panama on a Friday. Saturday we coasted into Costa Rica, Sunday we briefly visit Nicaragua, on Monday Honduras beckoned, Tuesday we did battle with El Salvador (well with one person anyway, everyone else was lovely), Wednesday we galloped into Guatemala. We think that’s where we are now – at least we’re pretty sure at the moment. Who knows in 5 seconds time we will probably appear confused about which country we are in? The country side is often a blur – well it is to me anyway and Bernard seems no better, worrying as he’s the one with the working eyes.

Speed humps the size of mountains threaten to leave Bertha’s oil spread all over the road amidst the shattered aluminium shiny bits of her engine. At the slightest excuse they appear; cows munching, chickens crossing, a lamp-post or a poster of some politician nailed to a wall. Traffic virtually stops when they appear. Even the regulation four-by-fours crawl slug- like over them on their huge mountain busting tyres. With the road conditions (or lack of them) and thirty speed humps per member of the population, it took us eight hours to roll into La Mesilla’s main street where we dodge the market stalls and duck under the hanging tee-shirts.

The (not so) Gran Hotel appears complete with peeling paint and air conditioning which is turned off at 7.30pm as ‘it is cool now’ according to the receptionist. In the intervening period we leave trails behind us like snails as we slowly liquefy in the heat. After several attempts to explain there will be nothing left of us without something passing as oxygen in our airless box an electric fan is delivered to our windowless room. The satisfying whoosh of the blades moves the hot air around. Throughout the night the fan oscillates in time to the fading power supply before the morning light appears. Rise and shine, go to work on a groan (at least from beside me).

As we decant the contents of our room back to the bike Bertha is retrieved from the barricade of vehicles erected around her. This was deemed necessary in case anybody was brave enough to consider trying to move her without the aid of several years studying an Arnold Swartzenegger keep fit video.

We pull out onto the packed 7.30 am streets completely breakfastless as breakfast in the hotel starts several years after we have probably retired. The street is already packed with people and the tee-shirts have already been hung up again in anticipation of our arrival so that Bertha’s windshield can be cleaned as we pass underneath them. It’s very nice of the Guatemalans to think such nice thoughts about windshield cleaning of a visitor.

Within minutes of arriving several hefty thumps signal Guatemala is no more. We putter onwards as we weave through, and around, what we think is the road. Some of the stall holders may well disagree as our tyres run over some very nice jumpers, posters held down with bricks, along with ‘everything else on the ground one Peso’.

Four kilometres later we enter an oasis of calm where we end up with a Mexican transit Visa for La Frontera Norte (Northern Frontier) along with zillions of various stamps. They kindly appeared after we had (unkindly) decimated another section of forest somewhere in the world on the photocopier. This was located in the shop on the road, over the hill and up the steps on the left. We were there so long Bernard developed an even swarthier tan from the passing white light of the copier. One and a half hours later Mexico welcomes us into its bosom with a warning:

“Don’t put the registration / insurance sticker in the windshield of the bike as it will get stolen” or something like this came our way in the ever forging forward of our new language skills:

“Keep it safe for La Policia.”

Fair enough we said as Bertha’s suspension settles under the weight of the newest Mexican paperwork. This had been largely completed by copying the very helpful El Salvadorian versions which were all in Spanish. Thank you Mr Gestapo, we salute you with a sharp stick in the eye.

We eat cornflakes with cold leche (milk) and bananas as we lose thirty percent between the official exchange rate (1:13) and the unofficial roadside version (1:10) with the USD. As we sit with a satisfied and smug feeling the staff do a spot of domestic cleaning by using a hosepipe and yard brush to wash the toilets. Don’t you just love Cultural difference?

La Trinitaria becomes Comitan before Amatenango appears and is left for San Cristobal which fades into Tuxtla. Along the route the heat changes dramatically as you fry like sausages in the pan of the lowlands before feeling pleasantly cool in the higher ranges of 6000 feet where, at 90kph, the air feels cool. It even feels hotter than the Atacama desert in Chile; hot enough to fry an egg on Bernard’s glasses, not that we tried. But it would have.

If we thought Guatemala had a predilection for speed humps then we retract all previous comments. They are mere ripples, pieces of rope lying on the road, a child’s play thing compared to Mexico. Here grappling hooks and spiked tyres are needed to climb their slopes. Mexico is infested with them along the 190, the major highway. It is the Pan-Americana, the life’s blood route through the country – at least at this point. The humps sit with evil grins on their black faces as we hit them at the speed limit.

The really sneaky ones are those you find lurking in the darkness by the trees. Several heart beats after you are still adjusting to the gloom from the piercing brightness of the Mexican sky you smash into them.  Several hours later you find yourself sitting in a tree nearby looking down from a thousand feet up. Reaching for his binoculars Bernard declares “Yep, it was a speed hump in the shade of the trees.”

“Houston, we have lift off” becomes the new warning through my helmet – when he could see them (often too late). They appear by anything and everything.

Many seem homemade and, mysteriously, they appear by road side cafes. Perhaps the owners, in the dead of night – while clutching a torch in their teeth to see their evil deed – think once people slow down they will nip in for a cup of cha? “It’ll be good for business” the owner probably declares as Eiger-like mounds are heaped onto the surface.

At least when there are speed humps there is usually a road as otherwise we resort to the ‘holding the breath’ game as we become enveloped in the white dust clouds and the game of ‘let’s rip off the whole road surface and leave everything for the year 3 million AD before we fix it.” Bernard describes the Skeletons who lean on shovels as we pass road works, so long ago did they remove the surface. We have a sudden pang of homesickness at this thought.

Ahhh the M6 motorway, the never ending traffic cones set down so long ago that generations of spiders have reared their young. The thoughts of home sickness are viciously suppressed with a hefty psychological backhand which sends it tumbling into the dust.

As we drop down to the level of the frying pan again even 100kph does not lead to coolness. We start to worry about whether spontaneous combustion is really possible for people? “We’re British” I chant through the headphones and with another (left-handed) swipe the thought is gone.

Entering Tuxtla Bertha follows a taxi all by herself as we are led to The Maria Eugenia which has parking for her. This she has found out from a passing taxi driver. The hotel came after various prompts to let the driver know her passengers are too old for hammocks, sleeping on concrete floors, or anything remotely likely to add to Bernard’s feeling of getting too old for this journey. Being kind to him (Bernard, not the driver) I agree with Bertha and direct her to find the best she can. I will go along but only to keep him company. Really. Personally a nice cool floor would have sufficed what with the dollar – Peso exchange rate. If you believe that then you will believe anything.

The underground parking soon fills with curious hotel staff as the familiar “La Moto” story circulates through the local grapevine and, not for the first time we wonder if we could charge admission? It would certainly off-set some the costs of the journey.

The evening appears and a very nice red wine is listed on our evening bill at 750 Pesos for the bottle. Hang on a minute. 750 Pesos? That’s 60 Dollars. Quick mental note. That’s £40. Can’t be right that can it? It’s not even a Chateau Asda, or Tesco Merlot.

The manager is summoned.

Bernard; “This cannot be correct.”

Manager: “Yes it is sir, 750 pesos”

Bernard: “We have bought wine in countries where it is illegal and it was half this price!”

Manager: “Yes Sir.”

Bernard: “Is it illegal to sell wine in Mexico?”

Manager: “No Sir.”

Bernard: “Is it illegal to drink wine in Mexico?”

Manager: “No Sir.”

Bernard: “When Jesus changed water in wine he wasn’t in the Holy Land at all, he was in Mexico and he couldn’t afford to buy it.”

The whole restaurant comes to a grinding halt as he insists his precise words are translated to the manager. Several loud laughs echo from other patrons as Jesus is discussed at some length while I suppress my own laughter. He marches forward in full flow. Needless to say the manager capitulated under the twin onslaught of Bernard and God’s favourite son.

Tuxtla turns out to be a city of chemists, opticians and shoe shops, oh and the home of the Zapista Army of National Liberation (ZANL).

We find this out quite by accident one evening as we wander around the place like the two inconspicuous people we are; with Bernard wearing his crocodile Dundee hat and me with my long white cane. It was after we, generally, had stopped all the traffic we thought something was amiss. We also noted Spangalese didn’t seem particularly helpful here, discovering most of the population speak Mayan and tend to kidnap Europeans for a bit of a hobby. This hobby is further aided by the Mexican Army who avoid the area as if there is an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Mass desertions occur when they are about to be posted to the region. Medical Officer’s lists suddenly fill up with soldiers too ill to travel. We hear it is called the Zapista flu or something suchlike.

Meanwhile we merrily wander through the town and learn Mayan so we will at least be able to talk about the weather (me) and football (Bernard) with our, soon to be, kidnappers. Not. Actually the only kidnapping during our three day stay in Tuxtla was to our dirty washing. It was held in the underground bunker beneath the hotel by the Zapista Auxillary National Laundry Scheme.

You see, shortly after our arrival most of the staff had started to wear face masks and we, in our innocence, had assumed it was due to swine-flu sweeping the country. Little did we know it was all caused by our dishevelled and well lived in clothes. They demanded an upfront payment before its return and we surrendered immediately and handed over the money; the thought of Bernard wearing the same socks for days was beyond me even after all this time on the road. His boots resided on the balcony for the full term of our incarceration while passing birds fell from the sky if they came too close to them.

Soon the promised stop is at an end and Bertha has been mollycoddled with a change of all her vital fluids, nuts are tightened down (again) and everything checked.

Leaving Tuxtla the days pass in a blur of white lines and petrol stops as we bash up through this land which is over twice as long as the British Isles. The heat generally builds until you feel you are riding into a furnace with its door wide open. There is nothing on the road as it stretches emptily away into the long distance in front of us. Soon we are crossing a gorgeous set of lakes at Pres Netzahualcoyoti; try saying that quickly. The road weaves between the small islands of red soil sticking out of the water as Bernard describes the sun bouncing off the lakes, drawing pictures for me of them being lit up from underneath with giant floodlights.

Ever North we travel on the 180D until our wheels turn Westwards and place names readily spring off the tongue such as Coatzacoalcos and the lightly easier El Colorado. We take shelter under bridges, trees (when we can find them) and passing bits of paper (when we cannot). Where there is no shade we unfurl the umbrella which we have carried permanently since we left home stretched across the back of the bike; it has been reincarnated several times on the journey, the last time in Malaysia.

“You English and your umbrellas” many people have pointed out and started laughing across the thousands of miles.

Bottles of water get so hot you can drop a tea bag in them and have a nice brew by the next stop. Without tea-bags the water tastes hot and arid.

The ‘D’ system of the road indicates ‘Disgustingly Expensive’ as the tolls mount up and we give up wondering why the highway is empty. Money is handed over to toll booths virtually every hour but we consol ourselves with the fact we are covering mileage quickly and so are saving on accommodation costs. Sometimes other roads appear alongside and trucks and handcarts fight for space as they crawl along while we disappear. In the UK politicians have been resisting the political suicide they will commit if they introduce tolls for roads built on the backs of four thousand taxes already written into what it means to own a vehicle. Many people would willingly pass them the sword to fall on if they introduce tolls. In one day ten amounts are paid and it adds up to about £40 or 60USD. Nibble, nibble becomes a massively loud crunching noise.

Cordoba appears and we decide to call it a day as it has an underground car park which is accessed by a concrete take off ramp which leaves Bernard suffering vertigo as he looks down it. In the morning we unload the panniers before attempting to bring the bike up the ramp. It is so steep he is worried about getting a nose bleed and asks staff if they have any spare corks to stem the red flow. The staff think it is really funny as they stop the traffic and right on cue Bertha explodes out into the daylight. Everybody laughs when Bernard points to the Pizza Hut across the road and explains he thought he was going to end up on its roof as he appeared missile like into the daylight.

We climb into Mexico City with even more pollution and smog. Spaghetti-like systems of roads eats bertha’s gear lever as we grind to a halt. Tools are spread out as traffic thunders past while repairs are made and we can go onwards. Single roads explode into 35 directions at chaotic junctions like fireworks while we miss turns, cut across lanes and generally cause British mayhem by using indicators to let people know where we are aiming for. Sometimes we even get there. It is a relief when we get through the 60 km area the place represents and climb the hills on the other side.

Morelia appears and negotiations occur between the manager of a Quality Inn and Bernard with all the usual “Is that for the year?” over the nightly rates. Eventually he gives in and drops the price by 20% and honour is satisfied for both sides. This hard bargaining from the man who once could not get 10 Nepali Rupees off the 200 a British embroidered flag cost in Pokhara. How times have changed.

We are dog tired, if there is such a thing, and pass out two hours before our old witching hour. There is absolutely no hope for me anymore. My carriage will never have the chance of reverting to a pumpkin. We go to bed far too early for this to happen.

It is at this point we realise, mentally, we are finished. We just want to go home. No matter how many times I backhand the thought, it will not go away.

The final miles until crossing the USA border cannot come quickly enough for either of us as there seems little point in being here if we cannot see anything but white lines and petrol stations. Fantastic archaeological ruins from people long gone flit just out of our reach down roads we cannot take. Our clocks run on a faster time than we are used to and we no longer have the luxury of being calm and sitting still.

Each day is a succession of 600-700 kilometre dashes where we hammer along all day before reaching places we cannot name and where the main highway drops you into maze-like towns. One minute you are on a good highway and then you are driving through the middle of a market place. The same thing happened in India and it took us a long time to realise a lot of countries are not big on bypasses, underpasses, overpasses, or any other form thereof.

Many times we used to think we had taken a wrong turn before retracing our steps to end up at exactly the same place. Mexico is like this. Suddenly after hammering along at 100 you are surrounded by people pushing handcarts across the road, stall holders shout to you in passing while pedestrians outstrip you for speed.

Through the passing miles the roads remain empty and it is not surprising really when two good meals, several beers and many cold drinks will set you back 160 Pesos while you shell out 800 in tolls for the day. We fill up with petrol without ever getting off the bike.

All moaning about tolls stop when we take a wrong turn and end up on the 15 instead of the 15D where we grind along a lunar road surface surrounded by trucks and buses on the ‘libre’ (free) road. Our speed drops from 110 to 60. After 12kms we find our way back to the 15D and gleefully hand over the toll with a wide grin on our faces. We have had enough of riding amongst metal carnage just waiting to happen.

By late afternoon Bernard has a piercing headache with the sun and brightness in his face all day, we have little water left and it tastes foul – even with tea-bags – so we detour to Acaponeta; paying another toll for the privilege of coming off when we have only just paid to come onto it.

We find a small hotel with a central courtyard and eat Mexicana (spicy meat, rice and salad) while heavily armed Police laugh with us outside the nearby police station. Rows of Police bikes going back generations, showing the development of the mighty 150cc engine as they fall into dust, sitting neglected in the sun. Nobody seems to know what to do with them now they have retired and so they sit unhappily on flat tyres as they become home to the local wildlife.

Everyone gets excited as we cross the road causing several Police officers to stop the traffic of three donkey riders and the local bus to let us do so. Long lines of children follow the guitar carrying priest to the white church which dominates the square as we cross. The tolling bells indicate something but we know not what.

When we arrived the whole square had ground to a halt to watch but now people merely smiled and nodded as we wander through small town Mexico; the only Martians in town. Teenagers tease each other and promenade under the watchful gaze of adults sitting under trees which provide shade from the heat and glare. Perhaps later they will steal a kiss with pounding hearts the same as they do all over the world. The whole square is alive with people of all ages as the sun starts to set. A bandstand in the centre is occupied by teenagers who in England would have the older people ‘tut tutting’ as they exchange loud banter, listen to their music and engage in gales of laughter and chasing. We wonder where their life will lead from this innocence as they start the road through it. We hope they will be happy.

The ceiling fan gently turning in our room barely moves the air as the night passes in sweat and humidity as I listen to its gentle propeller like progress. Even when it is set to Chinook helicopter settings (Warp factor nine Mr Sulu) the air is unbelievably hot. The bottle of cold water is now so hot I reach for another tea bag on the bedside table (“Earl Grey Madame?) and at 5am the sound of cars starting welcomes us to another new day. We rise to join the people setting off before the heat reaches magna proportions.

Stopping to pay tolls every five feet over the hours we get lost and it takes two cigarettes and unrolling the prayer mat, finding the compass, and locating Mecca before we eventually pull back onto the 15D. We have decided to change the ‘D’ from Disgracefully or Disgustingly Expensive to ‘Deserted’ but then again, at about 10£ per hundred miles it truly is not surprising.

We consume our water at every opportunity as we blast along all day between 90-128kph. Ten hours soon passes with an average of 75kph as we munch biscuits in-between petrol stops (three) where we meet two other bikes.

Both are from the ‘I’ve just been born into the BMW stable’ and they shine as they recline beside a very battered Bertha; covered with dead Ecuadorian insects and very hard Guatemalan mud. The riders tell us excitedly of how they have read about us in ‘Motorcyclists of America (MOA)’. It just goes to show you think you are invisible, anonymous and just a speck on a road while people are reading about you somewhere. It did cheer us up to find this out as we had left England to a deafening wall of disinterest from manufacturers, the media and even the charities we were collecting for. Wishing us luck, they record the web address on the side of Bertha and then pull off in the opposite direction.

Every few miles we come to barriers and armed people looking for something. When we only declare Bernard’s socks they wave us off happily. You too would be happy to wave off Bernard’s socks I can assure you. They certainly have not improved with age, or the high thirties temperatures which rise to something beyond fusion when his feet have been sitting underneath the two enormous engine cylinders all day.

At one check point he is asked where we have come from and he happily replies ‘Inglaterra’ only to be met with “Este Mañana?” (this morning). “Where have we come from Cath?” he asks.

“No idea” comes my reply as officers wait and the cars build up behind us.

Taking out the map we have recently acquired he tells me his finger is tracing where we think we are and where we have come from. The name ‘Acaponeta’ springs to life. The Police seem happy and wave us on through while they dismantle cars in the bright sunshine.

The whole world has become a blur to us and we reflect at how sad it is we couldn’t even name where we have just been. We console ourselves with our new phrase “Next Time!” We use it now when we realise a whole new world is being lost in warp speed travel involving, ride, petrol, eat, shower, sleep, before the whole thing is replicated day after day.

The wind blows from the West (left) as we ride further North causing the bike to lean crazily to compensate. It reminds us of the Nullarbor in Australia when the afternoon brought hard wind. It is the same here.  Our helmets are battered by it.  Noise thrums and my neck is constantly under pressure from the force as eardrums hum loudly for hours after we stop. Like an annoying tune you cannot name it sits in your head long after the source is gone.

All the romance (?) of what we are doing is further added to by the aching which starts in your derrier (bum to mortals) before spreading to your back, up your spine and into your shoulders. It is as if there is a dotted line which becomes joined up after 10-12 hours. ‘Good afternoon Mrs Headache’ let me introduce you to Mr Neckache, how are you, my name is Mrs Everything else is hurting as well. Move over please, this body is big enough for us all to exist’.

At this point you walk like you have been riding a horse all day and you need to put a hefty deposit down on a Zimmer Frame. Make mine a Delta Flyer, the one with three wheels and shaped like a stealth bomber. We feel our age. Loud groans occur at every stop as seized knees are flexed back into, something like, normal movement. Loud cracks threaten to cause an earthquake in the local area as people in seismology labs nervously watch their gauges. As the needle twitches across several pages of paper a colleague comes over to look only to pronounce “It’s ok, it’s just those two English Lunatics on the old bike”. They all then settle back down to read the latest issue of ‘Shake, rattle and roll’ which is subscribed to by such people.

At points like this my every faithful companion, my Amigo (my Spanish is getting good now) pronounces “I’m getting to old for this.” In order to protect those of you reading this who suffer from a milder disposition I have missed out several other words he actually uses. Shall we say they are ‘colourful’ and leave it at that.

Considering we left Tumbes in Peru 3 weeks ago, crossed several mountains and distant planets, arranged an airfreight, went mountain climbing in Colombia carrying Bertha on our back, we have not done too bad really. At least not bad for two oldies. Actually make this three oldies as Bertha has to be counted as well although she resists the fact with all she has done so far. She goes on to proclaim loudly:

“Actually these roads are what I was built for you know. I was made to sit sedately doing 100-120kph all day and everyday. I am a mileage eater. Never was it thought you would take me through Pakistan and India (I nearly ate my air filters in them). As I bounced through Nepal, Peru, Ecuador or El Salvador I kept reminding myself that you were both just daft. I was made to destroy German Autobahns mein Fuhrer and to Conquer British Motorways; when they are not closed for road works.”

So it is she mutters her way along while reminding us she is as stable as a rock only much, much prettier. She also she points out, she is running better than ever as if it has taken 50,000 miles to run in properly; as her speedometer now shows. Road crews give her the ‘V’ sign which she now understands to be for ‘Victory’ and she rears up proudly and carries us to Navahoa where we find a hotel for 60% less than we paid in India, although ten times better.

We feel beaten up and tired after covering 753 kilometres in 40 degree heat, drinking eight bottles of water, four bottles of juice. Listening very carefully, not a slosh can be heard from either of us – there is a slight squelching sound but Bernard confirms it is coming from his boots; he promises to leave them outside the door of our room. We reach for the cold drinks in the chiller of the lobby and top up even more before collapsing on our beds.

The impact of America is clearly visible now all around as the streets are wide and littered with billboards advertising this and that ‘must have’ commodity. American cars fill the roads as they pass ‘glitzy’ hotels so unlike small town Mexico. Tomorrow we cross the border with America at Nogales and it feels very strange. We are almost finished. ‘Finished’. A strange word and it leaves us with mixed emotions. Joy, happiness, sadness and relief. The more we think about it, the more it settles into the over-arching feeling of sadness.

Tiredness greets us the next morning and we are quiet as the three thousand or so kilometres of the last five days have suddenly overwhelmed us. A psychological barrier seems to have descended on our normally happy disposition. Each kilometre seems to take forever and we have 600 forever’s to go to cross the border to the USA and the ‘finish line’.

Bottles of water are consumed every hour and we then spend the next ten minutes resisting the urge to urinate. We both know the feeling will pass as we will once again become two dried out husks in an hour which will signal another drinks stop. More cigarette stops than normal are called into play as Bernard wrestles with his feelings as I wrestle with mine. The heat is oppressive as is our mood although we fight our way through it and a new expression has come into play.

At every stop Bernard now asks before pulling off:

“Are you ready?”

In as broad a Lancashire accent as I can muster, which is pretty broad I respond:

“I was born ready!”

Laughing we pull off and the world feels just that little bit better.

As the final miles mount up we talk about our return to work and how the trip has wrought changes in us and to such an extent we think people will be taken aback at our directness. We construct scenarious to cheer ourselves up and to keep us talking. One such picture involves my work on the National Helpline of one of the charities we have been doing the trip for. It involves listening to a very long tale of problems by a telephone caller before I wisely pronounce:

“Sounds like you’re buggered then doesn’t it!”

At this my manager will pull me to one side and, kindly and very nicely inform me:

“Cathy, that was hardly an appropriate response was it?

“Why not” I answer “They are buggered”

“That may well be true” he will gently chide me “But you should not tell them that really”.

Meanwhile Bernard responds to something in his role with:

“God will you stop whinging. Tough? Hard? You have no idea about tough. Try riding a 350kg bike two up, in Ecuador, in the dark, in the fog, on Gravel, 12,000 feet up while watching for Snipers who want to snuff out your miserable life. That’s tough. We are only talking about a missing piece of paper here, it’s not life or death you daft sod.

We begin to wonder how much social security pays these days in England as the miles pass us by and Nogales appears along with the rain.

Bertha is de-stamped out of Mexico, Pesos are exchanged for USD and we head for the USA side of events which bristles with surveillance equipment. There is so much we think they have probably deconstructed our entire physiology and biology, recorded our genetic code, disassembled every molecule and DNA strand as the rain falls. And oh boy does it fall. The last time it rained this heavy Noah did a good line in carpentry. Within seconds we are completely drowned. And we start laughing.

Real, genuine, heart-warming, laughter as the water rushes past our feet. Birds are knocked from the sky and the world disappears in a wall of rain which would shame even Malaysia – they say the Americans do everything bigger. Perhaps that includes the rain as we sit with our boots filling up with water and Bernard unfurls the large umbrella to cover us from the waterfall descending on us.

Car drivers gape and laugh when they see us giggling away under its cover, inching forward three millimetres at a time as the American Border patrol do their American Border Patrol thing.

“Do your worst, we’re British” causes the two of us to rattle Bertha with the laughter.

Bernard talks to the car driver beside us as he comments:

“You two guys must be Brits, only the Brits would carry an umbrella on a motorbike”. The comment leaves us with stitches in our sides as he looks at us completely bemused as if we have escaped from some asylum down the road. Other car drivers take photographs of the same two lunatics, using their mobile phones and cameras as the water rises around Bernard’s feet. People continue to smile and nod (and photograph) as we inch forward to be met by two Border Officials who ask:

“We were just wondering what it sounds like for an English person to speak Spanish?”

“No chance lads” Bernard answered.

“By the way, was it the umbrella which gave away where we are from?”

They laugh and ask where we’ve been (it took a long time to explain) and we’re we are going (a very short time). Bernard declared the only dangerous thing he had with him was me and my stick before adding, we were both the cause of all his troubles.

“I can pull over there officer and you can pull the whole thing apart. Even the Colombians did not find anything and boy did they try. You are more than welcome to give it a go if you want!”

“Naw” they respond “Welcome to America!” waving us through.

Twenty minutes later we have a very nice 90 day Visa waiver (because we are British) stamped into our passports. This occurs after we swop 12 dollars, fingerprints, and black faced photographs with our new found 30^th country friends.

Outside we stand watching the rain as Bernard puffs away on a cigarette six inches away from a large ‘No Smoking’ admonishment while looking at another big sign which says “USA this way”. A big arrow indicates the route to America proper. We stand shivering with the cold and soaked to the skin.

It’s funny when you have done something which has taken so long to plan and then struggle to do.

When a dream is finally realised, as it has been for Bernard throughout his whole life, it is hard to process the achievement and what it all means.

The border of America was always our official register on the Richter scale. It was the final doorway we had to pass through before we can say ‘Yes, we have done it’. We stand waiting for the earthquake of our own recognition to strike. Instead the rain continues to fall in noisy splashes as we stand in silence contemplating what it all means.

Lost in my own thoughts a set of arms encircle me and bring me out of my own reverie. A quiet voice whispers in my ear “Well done, you are now officially the first blind person to ever circle the world on a motorbike.” I recognise the arms and feel their gentleness.

They are the same ones that have been with me all along, guiding me through mountains and areas of the world people told us we should not have been, nor should have even attempted to go. They have manhandled a bike and been responsible for repairing the shattered world represented by those long years alone. “If you dare to dream” he told me as my arms encircle him.

We merge into one another, motionless, listening to the rain as we come to realise we have crossed the world.

After riding a meandering motorcycle for 300 days it is a foreign concept to think so rigidly as we appreciate both time and roads are not infinite but must soon end. The pull of reality and the return home is something we resist as it flits in the recesses of our minds. We wonder where each of the 432,000 minutes of our journey has gone? Some countries now feel like distant memories, as if different people rode the roads of Greece or Thailand. The travelling, the whole journey itself, has become something else.

We struggle to put the ‘something else’ into a nice neat bundle.

The only word we settle upon is ‘normal’. It has become ‘normal’ to ride in the barren empty places. It is what we do and what we have become. It is what we are. The words ‘normal’ and ‘alien’ have swopped places for me as I recall how the early part of the trip was ‘alien’; struggling as I did to adapt to what is effortless now. The miles have made the two of us into something else; Gypsies, constantly moving on and looking for the ‘new’. How others see us makes everything different as we view ourselves in the mirror they represent. Our world has become altered through small incremental steps of change.

A whole new set of values emerge where I now wear the same clothes for days on end until I can wash them. Importantly, it does not concern me to be this way as they are simply replaced when worn out. It is so unlike who I once was. At home I put on fresh every single day, opening wardrobes where racks of ‘things’ hang in neat rows, all ironed. I cannot remember the last time I ironed and Bernard laughs at this random thought when I tell him. Now my previous ways have become alien to me. Transition. Change.  It is as if we, and the journey, have become something else. It has become ‘a life-style’. We settle on this term as it expresses everything in a nice neat hyphenated word. It feels ‘right. It is a ‘life-style’. We feel well within it.

Under clear blue skies we enter a land where earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes and floods are common; where people tell us it is ‘dangerous’ to travel alone, much as the Peruvian bell-boy who became a person called Hector told us on leaving Tumbes.  We do know Ecuador is a major transit zone for cocaine which originates in a country we have just come from (Peru) and a country we are heading towards (Colombia). It is a country where drug traffickers use the dollar economy to launder their booty under weak banking laws and legislation. We head towards the Northern boundaries where drug trafficking and Colombian insurgents both exist. They have fought and shot it out with the Government for 38 years. We ride on.

We still hold onto the thought that everywhere is ‘dangerous’ according to people in the previous country. It is the way it is when people view their neighbours with suspicion without ever having met them.

Black smoke is belched into the air by ancient buses as we cut a swath through far more cars than we are used to. The roads are good however and by 4pm we are a hundred kms off Riobamba; our destination for the night. Thirty kilometres away from our destination lives the highest peak in Ecuador, Chimborazo. With an elevation of 6,268 m it can be seen from 140 km away on the coast. We too can see its snow covered peaks even at this distance. As we ponder distances and time we know the light fades about 6.30 pm and we decide to push on to reach Riobamba.

It will be our first major mistake on the journey.

At El Triunfo we start to climb and soon the road deteriorates as the tarmac disappears. According to our maps the ’60′ is a major highway but the surface soon looks like a lunar landscape and we are back in India, Nepal or parts of Peru. Potholes are so deep, so packed together, we have little choice but to bash through them. Huge channels have been cut in the road surface from left to right. They have been in-filled with loose gravel and sand. Bertha shudders as our average speed drops to 20km. Even this feels too fast. We pull up as the road is closed for repairs while we chew our nails at the delay.

Frustration and worry both start to appear as the sun weakens while Bernard watches the sky nervously. We realise time, and daylight, are slipping away from us as the road reopens. We set off a little quicker but within twenty minutes it is closed again with more crews operating on the sick patient the shattered surfaces represent. Two hours later the light is virtually gone as the sun drops lower and lower; we become increasingly concerned. People have warned us of ‘the bandits’ who operate on these very roads; 12,500 feet up in the dark. The voices of people we have met echo in our heads with the warning “Don’t drive at night”. We ruefully chant rule number one we left home with “Don’t drive at night.” We fret our way through the gathering darkness with Bertha’s headlight and spot lights feebly lighting the way. With fifty kilometers to go night drops completely. We are surrounded by total and utter darkness. The road falls into ’nothingness’ as it winds itself across the mountain, up through the clouds.

I can tell Bernard is ‘feeling’ his way forward with the bike moving at little more than walking pace, his feet down and dragging along the floor. We ride for a long time with the sound of the engine growling in low gear. I have nothing but the shifting swerving feel of the bike to keep my own anxieties company. The silence of Bernard tells me everything I need to know. We pull over and his voice comes through the intercom. It is heavy with concern. A long time ago, in Pakistan, I heard the same voice when his confidence was nearly shattered in his ability to keep us both safe in the darkness. Worry and tiredness flows from him, feelings he cannot mask.

Bernard…

I can see maybe two feet in front of the bike Cath. The potholes just appear out of the mist and cloud and I can’t miss them – I don’t even know they are there until we hit them. I could be riding straight at a rock or the edge and I wouldn’t know. It’s too dangerous but I cannot see any alternative, we can’t stay here. I need a break to think this through. Give me a minute.

The click of his lighter and inhale comes through the speakers in my helmet as we sit. He ponders. I leave him to think before suggesting:

“Wait for something to pass you and then follow them.”

He laughs quietly, responding: “I was just thinking the same thing myself, India driving; use them as a shield in front to protect us. We’ve been together too long with all these same thoughts!”

So we sit and wait.

Eventually a wagon grinds its way up the mountain and we take station twenty feet off its lights as it passes by slowly.

Bernard feels better as now descriptions come through my helmet as we bounce along. No longer does he ride in his silence; he has warning of what is in front. Our progress is slow but we do not care as huge truck floodlights light the way; if anything comes towards us we now have our barrier, our safety shield; the wagon. Over the next 50 kilometers we traverse the tremendous bangs which shake the bike as the weight hits holes and surfaces for which she was not designed. We are cold with wearing only the thin suites which allow air to pass through the fabric. My hands hold tightly onto the panniers and fingers go numb with both cold and tension.

The time passes slowly and painfully until we pull into Riobamba at nine o’clock at night. As we sit on a street corner it dawns on us it has taken five hours to cover 100km. Five hours of stress. Yes, we have been concerned or worried before when events start to, somehow, go wrong. This was different.

Bernard…

I think it felt like ‘more’ of everything was being thrown at me all in one go. The blackness of night, sheer drops only feet away from our wheels, no barriers, dense mist and cloud, atrocious road conditions, fear, the possibility of mountain bandits, all these things combined to shake my confidence. It felt like every kilometer was being fought for one at a time. Every bone in my body was hurting with the pounding. My hands, wrists and elbows are sore from the jolts coming through the handlebars; shock waves reaching from hand to shoulder, from feet to knee. I was aching from head to foot. It would not be an exaggeration to say total relief flooded through me when we dropped down the mountain into the lights of Riobamba. It was over. I felt we had been given an overwhelming reprieve by coming through it unscathed. It was a very profound experience. It really was. As we sit on a street corner my hands started shaking. It took a while for them to stop. When they did, we set off to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Lying in bed later on we spend time going over the day. Talking through how we ended up doing something so fundamentally against THE RULES. The same rules which allowed us to cross the world unscathed. The two of us, alone.

Bernard has always been fond of a saying: “The difference between the fool and the intelligent person is one only makes the mistake a single time.”

So it was we spent time disentangled the day, point by point, examining each part of the sequence of events. Even though we are both seriously tired we have to answer the question ‘Why did we do it?”

Yes, we could blame the misleading information on the road maps; ‘major’ highways which dissolved in goat tracks without warning. Yes it is also true the roads had been ‘good’ for most of the way. This also misled us. The closing of the path on three separate occasions also seriously delayed us. We could even lay a finger on our own ineptitude at, for once, not checking the altitude of the route (12,500 feet). All these factors are true. Somehow they are all wide of the truth as a fundamental component of the sequence, or mix, has been left out.

Ourselves.

The truth is losing three weeks waiting for parts in Peru we had become dangerously time-urgent. It manifested itself in its full power on this day. We could have stopped at 4pm. This was the ‘break’ point but instead we ‘pushed on’ to cover the ‘extra’ 100kms. This decision, alone, caused our problems. If we had stopped we would have coped with the mountain roads the next day, in daylight; no darkness, no fog and clouds, no searching for a ‘shield’ to protect us in the blackness. No worry about ‘bandits’ who are said to roam the darkness.

It was an error of judgment and it was the most serious one amongst the 16,000 miles or so to date.

Perhaps it is understandable when you put everything together. Perhaps. We both know it was an error we can not afford to repeat. Not now. Not so ‘close’ to getting home unscathed.

We fall asleep determined not to wake up as fools.

Bernard’s night is disturbed as he lives within nightmares instead of simply passing out. I lay awake and wonder where he is in the deepest shadows of his mind as he moves restlessly. He sleeps so peacefully usually but not tonight. I wonder at the contradiction he represents as he tosses and turns. One minute so sure, the next so vulnerable. Contradictions within a person who rides goat tracks in the dark and who crossed Pakistan, India, Peru, and countless other shattered landscapes. I calm him several times in his sleep before the morning appears.

The light appears and all the time we ‘saved’ yesterday is lost as the morning finds us ‘fragile’, with little inclination to rise early. Hours later than planned we stand trying to motivate ourselves to set off as Bertha sits covered in a layer of sand and dust from the night before. A fine drizzle starts to fall as we work up the energy for another day.

The morning passes and soon we are through the capital (Quito) before suddenly passing the Equatorial line.

The bike is turned around to visit the solitary female attendant who stands forlornly looking around the empty landmark. She welcomes the distraction of our visit as we walk onto the huge circular stone sun-dial dissected with lines. Standing with one foot north and one foot south of the line we talk of a country in danger of becoming a blur; such is the speed of our passing.

It is the first time we have felt such a thing and it is not a good feeling.

Bernard’s voice displays his frustration and I too share it. We cannot ‘feel’ Ecuador like other countries. It slips between our fingers and leaves little impression.

Leaving the attendant to her empty site we move on. Always onwards.

Three hundred and thirty one kilometers later we pull into Ibarra and Bertha sits resplendent in her dust and grime on an immaculately polished wooden floor as the hotel staff wave and open doors for her to gain entrance. We slip a little as wheels move from tarmac to coated wood but the grins of the staff light up the room, fussing, as they do, over the first foreign motorcycle ever to be seen at the hotel. They become even more animated, but gently so, when they realise I cannot see and their hands tenderly guide me as I climb off the bike. Car park attendants, waiters, reception staff and other guests all gather, asking questions we have been asked so many times before. We answer as if it was the first time.

Feeling stiff and sore from our time in the mountains, we rise early the next morning and head towards the Colombian border crossing of Tulcan which is only 160 kms away. Three hours pass on roads which twist and turn upwards as we slog along behind wagons that cover us in black smoke while your mouth goes dry with the taste of diesel. It sticks to your clothes as we accelerate past one only to be confronted with another labouring truck. The bike bobs and weaves as Bernard looks for an opening to over-take, a twist of the accelerator and we are past. The whole process starts again as we drink in the next set of fumes.

Long before the border a line of wagons stretches back for miles. We drive slowly along its length as drivers leap out of their cabs before standing talking in the middle of the road; staring as we pass by them. The cars move quicker and we filter between the lines of stationary wagons and slowly moving vehicles, making progress towards the demarcation line. The transition from one country to another.

A huge building appears announcing itself to be The Ecuadorian Narcotics Agency. It is a VERY large building and we laugh as, mischievously, we wonder why it is so big! Could we be, perhaps, approaching Colombia?

Ecuadorian Police appear on the roadside and every vehicle is stopped. When our turn comes they merely smile and ask “Colombia?” before waving us on towards a bridge which spans the gorge between these two neighbours. We cross the structure while searching for some sign of where the Ecuador ‘exit’ procedures will occur. The bike stops suddenly before a large sign saying “Welcome to Colombia”.”Damn” comes through the helmet. We have crossed a border – again – without any warning. The bike comes to a rapid halt as we clear the bridge itself, climbing off to work out what to do.

Leaving Bertha on the Colombian side we walk back clutching our documents and hoping for the best. Finding the immigration department, we join the long line for exit stamps on our passports. Shuffling forward, a scuffle breaks out ten feet away as the Ecuadorian Police jump on a bare footed man dressed in rags. When he resists an officer kicks his legs out from underneath him. Four others jump on his back and legs when he hits the floor. His face is pushed into the hard surface by hands which grasp his long coiled hair. He is shackled and unceremoniously hauled to his blackened feet before being led off. So sudden and violent was the confrontation it was over in seconds before many had even noted it happening.

We employ a fixer rather than wait for the end of the two hour lunch break which has only just started. He takes us to a group of heavily armed soldiers checking vehicles coming into Ecuador. Exchanges in Spanish occur before they ask the critical question:”Where is the moto (bike)?”

Bernard…

I vaguely wave a direction and their eyes widen as they ask if the bike is in COLOMBIA? The second wave is much more towards ‘our’ side of the border! I tell them it will take ‘two minutes’ to get the bike without mentioning “from Colombia!” To stop any awkward questions I ask if Cathy can sit while I bring the bike? At this the guns are shouldered, the traffic is stopped, and we are chaperoned across the road to their shelter. A chair is rapidly found as the traffic backs up and other guards move sideways to allow Cathy to sit down. Everyone smiles at us. I look around and one of the soldiers assures me Cathy will be safe indicating the six armed guards who sit near her! I run across the bridge to Bertha thinking Cathy is probably safer there than anywhere with me! Pulling around in a tight circle I manage to stop the whole bridge as I wrestle her around – thankfully out of sight of where Cathy and her ‘companions’ sit. Creeping back over the bridge, around the back of the building, I pull up behind all the officials and guards waiting for my return.

Within minutes all the documentation for Bertha is completed without ever looking at her, our fixer gains 10USD, and we pull back across the bridge to Colombia. There the immigration stamp our passports for 60 days, Bertha’s passport (the Carnet) is completed, again, without ever looking at her and all the time Colombian soldiers wearing American equipment and uniforms step out of our way when they see the white cane.

Colombia

We pull into the first service station once we clear the border and, as usual in this part of the world, there are no road maps. Three stations later we meet the same response. For some reason road maps are scarce or non-existent and we never do find out why. We have crossed whole swathes of South America with little more than compass and good luck but I can feel Bernard’s irritation growing at this ‘unnecessary’ problem. “It’s not England” I chide gently as he mutters under his breath. He goes quiet.At the fourth petrol station they mention a shop in Ipiala and we follow the road signs before spending a fruitless hour trying to find a map. A fifth petrol station has Bernard gnashing his teeth in frustration as the Satellite Navigation system starts to play up before dying completely. After much muttering he takes out an old hand compass and navigates North with a redundant satellite system and no maps.

The road from Ipiala leads onwards to Pasto and it is full of maniacal Colombian drivers who overtake without a care in the world. They hurtle around corners on the wrong side while we absorb more diesel fumes than are good for us. We eat them for lunch and for dinner as the hours go by. The traffic irritates Bernard as he is pushed over by cars that harass him constantly. It seems nobody is driving fast enough for most people; everybody wants to go faster. Some cars are so close I can hear the engine just off our left hand pannier. They hang there constantly, looking for a way past on the snake like roads. As we wait for somewhere to pass the large trucks in front of us the cars overtake and then brake heavily. Either we give way or we will be taken off the bike. Being ever pragmatic, Bernard gives way. There is only one winner in the Car versus Bike challenge and it would not be us.

So it is we are shunted down the pack behind the slow moving wagons as car after car does the same trick. Not for a long time have I heard some of the colourful Anglo-Saxon terms which flow freely through the speakers in my helmet.

Bernard…

I honestly don’t know why I am responding so badly. All the time I try to calm myself down and then, bang, some fool would nearly have us off the bike as they pull across my front wheel. The thing is I know the ‘Latin’ temperament preclude me from demonstrating my displeasure fully. It is not unheard of for people to end up being shot in this part of the world in ‘road rage’ situations. So I boil away inside my helmet and fume impotently as Colombian drivers climb up the ‘bad drivers’ top ten I have constructed across the world. Soon the Colombians are placed at Number two, ahead of the Pakistan, Italian and Serbian drivers. Number one remains unchanged; India.

Pulling into Pasto we pull through a ribboned entrance of a motel and a smiling attendant waves us towards an individually numbered garage. “Looks good Cath” Bernard comments as we pull straight into the garage through the large double doors which close behind us. Bernard waxes lyrically about how our ‘flat’ is upstairs above the bike. “Totally private”, he goes on “our own space and private parking for the bike.”

We climb off and make our way up the stairs from the garage and on opening the front door Bernard goes “Oooops”.

“What do you mean OOOooops?” I ask

“Well……….” he hesitates before going on.

“The ceiling is mirrored”

“Ok, tell me everything else you see” I ask him.

“You don’t want to know!” he replies

“Yes I do, go on”

“There’s a poster on the wall underneath the TV” he pauses for a few seconds as he gathers his thoughts.

“It is a price list” (he finds the words before going on) “of various sex toys. At least everything is priced in two currencies” he goes on helpfully.

I stand still and wonder, once again, at his ability to pull into a country and immediately end up enmeshed in somewhere catering for the sex industry. My fears are confirmed when the first ten TV channels are full of asthmatic ‘performers’ puffing and panting their way through their ‘exercises’.

“My God, that looks painful!” he exclaims as I cut short the description and decide we cannot stay here.

As always, he thinks the advantages outweigh the disadvantages; seclusion and privacy, the personal garage, the whole ‘fact’ we have a self-contained space. He goes down the stairs muttering as I send him off to find out about where we have stopped for the night.

The sounds of banging come up the open stairs as his voice shouts: “Hello, anybody there?”

His calls up to me tell me we are locked in and the banging is met with silence. More furious thumping of the metal doors follows as it transpires there is way in and no way out apart from through the door itself which is locked from the outside. The banging gets louder and eventually the door opens to reveal two Colombian women.

I make my way down the stairs and listen as Bernard starts in English, then Spanish, before switching to French before eventually ending up with Spangalese.

It transpires the price is 22USD which he thinks is entirely reasonable for the facilities. I point out that it will be by the hour, not the day! “Ok” he concedes, “Let’s work on the price” as he launches into negotiating for all he is worth with the two giggling women. His charm offensive is evident as he explains we had ‘misunderstood’ where we had stopped for the night. The girls laugh when they realise our mistake. I pick out his explanation that 22USD an hour is far too much no matter how he would like to be able to claim to need the whole night. They laugh. I step in.

“Never mind negotiating, let’s go”

“But Cath, it’s fine here. The bike is safe, we’re off the road after a frustrating day, the girls seem really helpful. We’ll be fine here. It’s only one night and it’s all very clean”.

I point out a few truths which might persuade him.

“Number one, it’s a brothel or something like. That’s enough in itself to move on but then number two, the girls might be nice but there is nowhere to eat here (confirmed in the conversation). Number three, there is no bar for you to get a beer”. I’m getting sneaky now and leave the coup de gras until the end. “You cannot even get in and out for a cigarette”. I leave the thought hanging. Not to be outdone he ponders and voices his thoughts;” Perhaps I can get them to leave the door unlocked so I can get in and out for a smoke?” I decide to terminate all negotiations with my final “Never mind negotiating, we’re going now.” The sentence ends the matter.

We pull out of the ‘motel’ and he sits outside looking at the entrance through the big rubber streamers.”Motel Eros” he mutters.

“The Greek God of love” he adds for my benefit as we pull away. “I actually quite liked it” he goes on. A gentle punch in his kidney convinces him to drop the conversation.

We pass several such ‘motels’ and the penny continues to drop as we notice their names (‘Cupid’ and ‘Venus’ being two such). Many are painted pink and have huge hearts adorning their walls leading to the gated entrances. There are so many on the hill down to Pasto we know they must indeed be popular.

We wake up in the Hotel Morasurco the next morning and “just another five minutes” can be heard from under the covers. The grumbling comes as my alarm states it is 6.30am. I helpfully remind him that: “You said we need the daylight, we don’t know what the roads are like, we have lost three weeks in Tumbes etc.etc.” Like a petulant child he gets up sluggishly. The amount of sighing and groaning tells me his old frame might be reacting to the constant mountain roads and the pace we are travelling. We breakfast and pay the extorniate bill while the heavily made-up receptionist glares at Bernard when he comments: “I could pay off the Colombian National Debt with the prices you charge for a night. Are you sure this is correct?”

Unlike our previous encounters with hotels, by the time we arrived we are so tired we had stupidly made assumptions it would not be expensive. We query the bill but it proves to be correct. Bernard reflects (loudly) on the fact we seemed to have strayed into the centre of the known universe where only the mighty walk; although the facilities or surroundings did not reflect the level of the bill.

“Should have stayed in the Motel Eros” he mutters as he hands over our precious dollars. I don’t respond but catalogue our error for future reference.

We set off after looking for the autobank  which Bernard assures me has a queue which is ‘half way down the country’. I am sure he is exaggerating but decide to let it go. Pulling out of Pasto we have 7000 Pesos in our pocket and a destination of either Cali (400kms) or Popayan (269kms), depending on the roads we encounter.

The road starts to climb immediately and it becomes obvious our 8.30 start is not going to be early enough to reach Cali as the mountains are full of wagons struggling up and down these small corridors. The smell of them comes in waves of burnt brakes. Our speed drops and drops as no sooner are we upright than the bike is tilted over for another sharp corner. All the time homicidal drivers career around bends without bothering if they can see what is coming.

We wonder if Colombian drivers are all, somehow, fatalists who believe if their time is up then it is up. Perhaps many of them will someday meet the end of their life buried in a twisted pill of metal. In this way they will be reduced to one of the small crosses which dot the corners where fatalities have occurred as a permanent reminder of a life needlessly ended. There are a lot of such crosses and we do not wonder why anymore. The road disintegrates and we rattle our way through sections. At least it is daylight we muse with our refreshed caution about setting too rigid a mileage for the day.

Bernard describes the terrain as we pass through, the gorges with mountains folded like pleats in a cloth surface, of the over-whelming greenness of the surroundings. We discover why it is so green as intermittent monsoon like rain descends leaving water dripping off everything; including ourselves. It runs across the road surface as we noisily splash our way through the traffic. Our final 7000 Pesos is eaten by the two gallons dispensed into Bertha’s tank as they will not take the mighty US Dollar. Now we have little local currency at all and we cannot even buy a drink, much less food. We move on and hope.

The road winds through small towns and villages where people sit in the shade watching go by. Bertha’s distinctive engine noise turns heads hundreds of feet before we arrive. People wave and whistle, giving thumbs up or ‘V’ signs as we pass. Supposedly we are on the Pan-American Highway but we wonder if this is so as the road seems little more than a two lane mountain road with permanent (no overtaking) double-yellow lines, which everyone ignores anyway.

More and more check points appear manned by the Colombian army. They all have the regulation sand-bagged posts from within which young soldiers watch every vehicle. The military presence is even heavier where a bridge occurs. Heavily armed and seeming nervous, they peer out from behind their fortifications as we are waved through without hardly ever stopping. As always, Bernard takes to waving to all and sundry as he mutters;

“You never know, we might need them at some point”. I agree and wave enthusiastically when he tells me. Everybody waves back.

Peaje (pay stations) appear where staff wave us towards a tiny little lane by which mopeds go around the station as bikes do not pay. We pull up at the barrier but the attendant demands we use the tiny lane. It is obvious we cannot get through but he insists. At this point Bernard says “Be it on your own head” as he blocks the whole station as Bertha is turned (“Like trying to turn a small battleship in a duck pond”) stopping all the traffic. Lining up for the lane he proceeds to deliberately jam her panniers between two of the wooden posts while the force threatens to rip them out of the soft ground. Furious and frantic waving comes to him from the attendant which, he assumes, means “Desist, stop!”

In the end they give up trying to get us to use the lane. With even greater delight Bernard snarled up the whole Peaje again as he cheerfully manoeuvred Bertha back to the barrier with a big grin while muttering “Told you so”. They lift the barrier. We move on.

After hours of thumping up and down hills at the lightening speed of 20kph we come around a corner in the middle of nowhere to find Andy and Maya with their Triumph motorcycle side-car combination and a Canadian cyclist (Kurt) passing the time of day talking. We too join in the conversation.

Andy and Maya are in the Americas for 18 months we stand for an hour on the side of the road in the mountains with nothing around us. Cars slow down to look as we swop information and maps. We gain a map of Costa Rica and our Peruvian one goes in the opposite direction; a map which started life in Spain with Jaime and Conti, given to us in Chile and now transferred to its new owners in Colombia. Such is the way of travellers when they meet in the middle of nowhere. They think we have come a very long way in such a short time, crossing three quarters of the world while they have eighteen months to explore one corner, i.e., the Americas. We agree with them. Twelve months is nowhere long enough. In many ways we sometimes feel we have gone slowly as 9 weeks of inactivity has completely derailed our timetable; four weeks in Turkey with Iranian Visa problems along with the breakdowns in Malaysia, Australia and Peru costing us another 5 weeks.

For over an hour we stand in the heat of the Colombian sun talking of routes, roads and ‘love shacks’ as the Motel Eros turned out to be; they laughed at our description. We find out that the 22USD price was actually PER HOUR. It was nice to be right (again!)  We part with farewells setting off in opposite directions as there are only hours before nightfall to get to our respective destinations.

After 160 miles of shoulder wrenching we pull into Popayan and though the gates of a gorgeous hotel called ‘The Monastery’. The Hotel’s former life began in 1570 as a Franciscan Monastery before being converted 350 years later into its current role, sitting at the back of the imposing Church in the square. An oasis of calm descends on us in this city (founded in 1537) as we settle into a converted monk’s quarters. We find out from staff of how the city was heavily destroyed in the earthquakes of 1983, taking over 20 years to restore many of the gleaming white buildings. It truly is a very beautiful city. We could quite happily stay in Popayan for several days but time is no longer a luxury we have. We sit on the balcony as the light fades, each lost in our own, comfortable, silence. We sleep utterly and completely.

The next morning we detour to a small motorcycle shop where they manage to find the elusive 90 grade gearbox oil Bernard has been searching for since entering Peru. Crossing the whole of that country, along with Ecuador and half of Colombia not a single drop could be found of this elixir for Bertha’s internals. With a triumphant flourish they produce a litre of the liquid. As with the previous evening when we arrived in the city, every motorcycle, pushbike, taxi, pedestrian and dog stop to look at Bertha; sitting in the street amongst the stones and gravel of the road surface.

The previous evening little Honda mopeds and small capacity motorbikes had buzzed around us like flies, not quite believing the size of Bertha as we rumbled along.

“I can imagine them all talking tonight” Bernard had laughed before going on to construct one of his ‘stories of a conversation between all the riders later on.

Hernandez: “I followed an enormous monster of a bike today with two engines, one on each side. I swear it was that big. Monstrous thing it was. I passed him like he was standing still!”

Raimundo: “No never?”

Hernandez: “Yes, ’tis true, passed him no problem. I must have been doing 90!”

After several more glasses of lemonade the speed has risen to 120. Many hours later and in a slurred voice.

Hernandez: “……140 and passed him on the inside of a corner, I just dropped the bike onto the footpeg and blasted past him. Ripped the footpeg clean off the bike but I didn’t care.”

A Sober friend who sits listening for a while longer to the developing tale asks: “You told us last week you pulled the footpeg off when you hit your Dad’s garage door? You remember, you said your Dad was really upset with the damage you did to the door?”

Hernandez: “That was (hic) the old one (hic). I got a special one (hic) imported from a Kawasukiyam dealer to replace (hic) it. Fitted it myself only a few days (hic) ago. Took me a whole afternoon”.

The traffic continues to grind to a halt as dozens of small bikes stop and look as we find a home for the container of oil and we pull off waving to everybody. The destination is Ibaque but we do not know if we will reach there before nightfall. The continuous heavy good vehicles slow everything down. Manic car drivers maintain their impression of lemmings as they launch themselves around the road towards possible oblivion.

“Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel can fly” Bernard mutters into the microphone.

We wonder if, perhaps, Colombian drivers have angels who can fly very fast as no accidents occur. None at all. We don’t know how really. We go on to ponder if there is some genetic link between Colombian and Italian drivers? You never know. Perhaps in some dark past there was a relationship forged which gave both these people’s large right feet and an indefatigable belief in their own immortality when they climb behind a steering wheel.

An hour outside of Popayan we hit the first truly decent roads since Chile and we blast along at 90-100kph. Most of the morning we sit on the 25 and happily watch the miles mount up as we begin to hope the worst is behind us and the road to Bogota will be easy. As always when you start thinking this way something is bound to happen. Soon it does.

We cover the 137kms to Cali despite the wall-to-wall trucks on the route which grind slowly up anything remotely hill-like. As the outskirts of Cali appear we pass hundreds of cyclists, all dressed in brightly coloured lycra suites. They are everywhere and are of all ages and sizes. We pass many small groups similarly dressed who zip along on roller-blades instead of pedaling furiously on two wheels. Bright yellow and dayglo orange colours abound everywhere.

We turn off the 25 and head on to the 40 where the surface starts well. Then, little by little, it all descends into rougher and rougher surfaces the likes of which we had hoped to have left behind. While it is rough, it is nothing we have not done before until we hit the mountains and not just any old mountain but the dreaded ‘La Linea’. This mountain climb is known to be a place where there are more accidents than anywhere else in the whole country. It’s not surprising really.

You start off going slowly as you hit the base of the mountain. Then you go even slower as you climb, climb and then climb even more. We pass statues of the Holy Mary complete with people kneeling and lighting candles. They pray for a safe passage on this corridor before climbing into their vehicles and, taking a deep breath, they begin their journey.

As we grind along behind trucks I feel myself being pushed further back into my seat until we are virtually going straight up in the air. It gets so steep I swear we will soon be riding upside down! The road is so narrow and tight that wagons can only go around the bends one at a time. Local people earn a living by standing on the corners waving to drivers to tell them it is safe to come around, so restricted is the visibility. They stand with their hats out for drivers to throw change in as they pass with thanks for their help. Overheated trucks with water pouring across the road from shattered pipes slow everything down as we all struggle to pass. Many drivers sit by the side of the road while mechanics seek to repair the damage of the climb and it is a good place for a mechanic to earn a living, at least for the time being. The plan, however, is to bore a hole through the mountain for a new tunnel – if it ever gets built. The mechanics will weep if this happens.

As we climb up the 3,200 meter vertical helter-skelter we cover barely 6km in an hour so slow is our progress. Often Bertha moves at little more than walking pace in first and second gear. The camber of the road is difficult as it tilts alarmingly and where we are forced to stop Bernard’s feet come down to find one waving in the breeze due to the adverse slopes. Wagons coming the other way give off their overpowering smell of burned brakes as they suffer the reverse problems of coming down such a steep road. For four hours we travel this way. One-hundred and eighty degree, steep, steep corners ever upwards.

The engine growls as the clutch is slipped to keep us moving forward.

As we climb the sky turns black and we pass through this blackness which is attached to cold but we leave both below us in our ever upwards motion. The smell of burning clutch permeates everything around us. Even Bertha comes out in sympathy as first gear is too low and second is too high, so her clutch is slipped in second to compensate. To stop forward motion is to slide backwards and the front wheel slips several times when we are forced to stop. Bernard scrabbles to find footholds for both feet on the worn surfaces; often only finding one as he strains one-legged to support both bike and ourselves on the road which cants crazily.

Reaching the top was a joy but we couldn’t even take a prized photograph of the spectacular views and the road we had driven as it is just too narrow and too dangerous to stop. We happily settle, however, for the feelings attached to reaching here unscathed. Our own joy at the realization of our own vulnerability and mortality is not matched by other vehicle drivers.

Cresting the top of La Linea started an ensuing chaotic, dangerous, missile-like scramble down the mountain. It was pure lunacy at its best as cars and wagons hurtle like Kamikaze pilots around corners on the wrong side. It is pure uncontrolled driving aggression as everybody takes their frustration of the climb up out on the road down. It was astonishing from the descriptions of the mayhem around us that there were no accidents.

As we try to stay out of trouble on the road down Bernard tells me we have been passed by a man on a small cycle wearing bright yellow wellingtons. I think he is joking but in all seriousness he tells me he is not.

The man is dragging his Wellingtons on the floor to act as brakes while passing wagons, cars and ourselves at 40mph. We start laughing as Bernard tells me that must be what the smell is. It is not burnt clutches and fried brakes but burning wellies from our rapidly disappearing friend. We pass him as he adjusts his coat against the cold (or perhaps he was getting a retread on his wellies?). A few kilometers further on he passes us again and Bernard cannot stop laughing; a Colombian workman, on a bike too small for him, wearing bright yellow wellies, has passed us.

He chortles continuously as he explains the braking technique of our Colombian friend; one foot on the floor for minor braking, two for more serious. Again he wishes he could photograph or video the event but it is impossible to even contemplate. People die on this road in horrific accidents. We didn’t want to be one (or two) of them. So we have to let the event go unrecorded in anything but our memories.

Bernard…

It was so, so, funny and just what we needed as it released all the pressures we were both feeling. The laughing did us good as the day had been long and hard. Walking pace biking on bad cambers up horrendous slopes called ‘a road’ with dizzying drops all around. The day had everything thrown in, including a bit of rain for good measure. It was scary, exhilarating, and fantastic all at the same time. To say it was ‘challenging’ from a biking perspective is to understate how it felt. It’s a climb I will never forget.

We pull into Ibaque and, despite stressing ‘Bueno Hotel’ (good hotel) to the taxi driver we end up in another ‘suspect’ place with a serving hatch in the door of the room. Andy told us yesterday this was a sure sign of a ‘love shack’. The hatch is to place various things through (food, drinks or condiments) so the staff do not have to enter the room. For the heady cost of 30,000 Pesos (about £10) we have a room with sheets (but no blankets) but with piping hot water in the shower. Bernard is mildly amused at how he manages such a feat while describing the two female staff outside who wear nurse-like uniforms.”Must be in case anybody gets hurt?” he innocently states before collapsing laughing. I am not amused, well, maybe just a little. He can only do what he can although it is very frustrating sometimes not being able to take part in the decisions of where to stay. I have to rely on what he can see which, sometimes, isn’t very much for a sighted person!

The road outside the hotel threatens us with industrial deafness from the traffic and the continuous shouting of passing people which penetrates the thin walls. In the end I am convinced to follow Bernard’s lead who, by now, is fast asleep with ear plugs firmly in place. The noise recedes into the distance as I slip my own into place and fall into dreams before being ripped awake by loud voices at 5am. A group of men are talking? Fighting? Arguing? From the din going on I can’t be sure what is happening. It is even loud enough to penetrate Bernard’s ears and he sets off to investigate. He comes back to tell me they are merely sitting on a step outside talking.

It is obvious our sleep is over so we are on the bike at 6.30 and heading through surprisingly busy traffic for early on a Sunday morning as we search for somewhere to have breakfast. Everywhere is closed.

After an hour’s riding we are well away from the town and we pull over to experience the best spicy scrambled eggs on the known planet. There may be better perhaps somewhere, but not by much. Forget the fancy hotels with fancy tables and liveried staff. A grass covered roof, plastic chairs and tablecloths, fantastic people and a good cook are all you need. We eat rice, vegetables and meat which have all been steamed within vine leaves while the cook beams from the kitchen at our obvious delight and Bernard’s thumbs up directed his way. The staff carefully place food in front of me as they realise I cannot see where things are located as we go on to drink four cups of aromatic coffee before Bernard buys three packs of cigarettes; still getting change for everything from £10. Contentment reigns as we wave and set off back onto the road.

Ibaque becomes Gualanday which changes to Chicoral, then Espinal, Flanders follows before we take a wrong turn at Giradot and end up on the ‘scenic’ route. Bernard wonders if we have become adrenaline junkies and need a fix of seriously bad roads as things go from bad to worse over the next miles. We turn back. After five days of mountain roads we need no more fixes, but calm easy roads if they are available. We have had enough adrenaline! We retrace our route and find the ‘highway’ just past the petrol station and down a pot holed side road.

Melgar, Boqueron, Chimanta, Fusagasuga, Silvania and Granada all roll by in a relaxed gentle pace. No traumas, no heart stopping moments as the sun shines and we feel good. Stopping for a few minutes to stretch our legs people appear and our rest is lost answering questions while Bernard’s cigarette burns away. The road takes us onwards and we arrive in Bogota early.

Arriving in a strange city is always a fraught affair and nowhere is it truer than when you are trying to find a specific location. Even then, finding something like an airport should be easy. You just follow the signs. Probably true but not in Bogota where they keep the location of the airport a secret. It is such a well kept secret we drive up and down dual carriageways for nearly two hours. After traversing the infuriating roads which do not allow left turns anywhere we find a banner over the road. It flutters in the breeze and proudly proclaims the mythical area of the airport. At least we now know it actually exists as we begin our hunt for a hotel which is close to, but not ‘in’, the airport; these are far too expensive for us mere mortals. Plan A (follow a taxi) is employed but he leads us to one where Bertha would have to go down a ramp with a slope which would be better described as ‘vertically inclined’. Evel Knieval would have happily used the slope to launch himself across the Grand Canyon so steep! Bernard comments about the nose-bleed he feels just looking at it.

We set off, on our own, and it all starts to go badly wrong as we re-enter Bogota with roads which have been dug up (nearly everywhere) and where we become immersed in streams of traffic travelling at high velocities. An extra gallon of petrol goes into the bike as Bernard eventually works out that to turn left you have to find a set of traffic lights where cars are coming from the right to turn left. Then you turn right, do a ‘U’ turn, and come back to the lights to turn left, if that makes sense? It seems everybody is doing it. As we sit and work this out Bernard muses that while the Colombians are related to the Italians regarding physically driving cars, they may also be related to Australians with their aversion to 50% of turns (in Australia they do not like right turns, in Colombia they do not like left turns). Another gallon goes in the bike as we drive around and around looking for a hotel. Three hours after arriving in Bogota he admits defeat and plan A is called into play again.

We eventually climb off the bike outside a well known – enormously – overpriced hotel chain who should blush at their rates per night. Bernard goes into his whole ‘Is that for the week?” and “You cannot be serious” routine as well liveried reception staff look down their noses at him as he stands shaking dust on the immaculate floor. Even I am astonished at the nightly rates which would keep a Colombian family in essentials for a month. “Surely at that rate the bar is free as well?” gets him nowhere. Eventually we relent and it takes forever to sign in as staff constantly interrupt the process by answering the phone. Bernard eventually kneels down at the desk – while the well heeled patrons of Bogota try not to look at him – as he politely asks “Shall I pull up two chairs while you answer the phone?” This seems to work. We sign in and the phone rings unanswered.

The next morning we set off to the airport cargo offices after Bernard gets a round of applause from all the assembled hotel staff where they have gathered at the top of the ramp which leads to the underground car park; they do build them steep in Bogota! It was like climbing La Linea all over again as I am forced backwards into the back box. He spoiled it a little after stopping to adjust something before setting off with the side-stand still down. We nearly separated from the bike with a massive wobble as the stand dug into the ground. Fortunately nothing was bruised or damaged, apart from his pride.

Over the next five hours at the cargo office we complete numerous pieces of paper which are all necessary for Bertha to leave the country before she is strapped down onto a wooden pallet; which creaks ominously as the fork lift truck hoists her up.

The driver proudly shows us pictures of his wife and four year old daughter as we wait for the loading of the pallet to be completed. His voice is full of pride as he pulls treasured images from within his wallet and shows them to Bernard. He beams happily when he hears that his wife is very beautiful and his daughter has the face of an angel. Learning English from MP3 files at home and as he drives every day for the twelve hours he works, he hopes it will help him get promotion and more money. Only then, he says earnestly, will he be able to give his family everything he wants to provide. Such is the way of people all over the world.

We may well have different languages, different cultures, but at the heart of us all is the same fundamental need. To give our families everything we can. It is one of those universal truths which, rather than separate people, bring us all together into one world. The world of our loved ones.

As we leave the building we are warned about the Colombian Customs inspection in the morning. It will be, they assure us, tough due to the search for drugs. We leave Bertha with few concerns as she now resides inside the warehouse – which is bonded and sealed.

Walking over to the Airport we find tickets for Panama on the flight tomorrow before allowing ourselves to be guided into a waiting minibus for a local small hotel. ‘The Park Way’ turns out to be really nice. Recently refurbished, it is small and much more ‘us’ as it is not a cavernous ‘anonymous’ block of flats with hundreds of – overpriced – rooms off corridors. It is a quarter of the price we paid last night and four times nicer in atmosphere.

The staff provide copious amounts of (free) coffee for Bernard while he sits on a wall in the garden smoking a cigarette and savouring our achievement of the day. We talk of how it still amazes us we can pull into a strange city and arrange the shipping of a motorcycle, along with ourselves, to another country all in one day. Sometimes we cannot believe how easy it really all is. It just takes belief. Anything can be possible.

Bernard always says: “There is always a way we just have to find it”.

In effect, he is saying there is nothing which cannot be solved. A stubborn bolt, a breakdown, an air shipment, they are all the same to him. Sometimes you may have to search for an answer but somewhere there is one. There always is. You just have to know the answers to his golden questions of who, where, when, how? One by one, they are usually answered with patience and perseverance.

We sit in bed later with the laptop trawling the internet for information on Panama. We find our way through distance charts, roads and routes for the next leg across this new country; the start of central America. As we investigate we even manage to book a reasonable hotel near the airport. It’s a wonderful thing technology. It truly is. So many streams of information which, for blind people, remained closed for so many years are now open and never will they be closed again. Falling asleep in the quietness we are satisfied with the day’s achievements and are excited about our next leap into the unknown. It no longer concerns nor worries us to land in a strange environment where little makes sense at the outset. We know it always does by the end.

The next morning we take a taxi through the Colombian Grand Prix rush hour where cars hurtle along like missiles and it reminds Bernard of the famous chariot race in Ben Hur. The only thing missing are the spikes on the wheels to chop off the legs of any peasant who will dare to step out in front of the mighty automobile.

We arrive at the cargo office for 8.55am with our check in time for our flight booked for 3pm. Plenty of time, or so we thought.

An hour and a half, and several cups of coffee later, Bernard spits his dummy out. A be-suited female executive is summoned from the deep recesses of the Cargo Company as Bernard goes to town on her.

Bernard…

We spent five hours here yesterday and, so far today, another hour and a half. In all that time you have managed to strap the bike onto a pallet, which I could have done in under an hour, alone. We have a flight to catch TODAY and still have no customs paperwork, nor have you arranged the police inspection which everyone says is ‘tough’ and can take hours. Can you sort this out now?

Within minutes the person who dealt with us yesterday is leading us from the building to the customs house where a lot of head scratching goes on over the export of a foreign registered motorcycle. Despite having all the correct paperwork nobody knows what to do with us. Eventually a very dusty lever arch file is retrieved from a shelf and copies of previous travelers exiting from Bogota are employed to fill out the new forms while changing registration details etc.

Bernard…

At one point they do not want to complete the Carnet for Bertha (the RAC issued import/export document). I point out it has been signed into the country and needs to be signed out. Our ‘agent’ (Franklin) translates their response which indicates we do not need it. He seems happy. I am not. I repeat numerous times the bike was stamped into the country while pointing out the big official Colombian stamps and signatures. The bike has to be stamped out in the same way. Four separate people gather around the person thoughtfully filling out numerous forms in non-carboned paper. It went on forever. Eventually they relent and my documents are stamped and signed. The signature was a little suspicious with the name “pp Manuel” scrawled on it. Maybe it is just me, but it did seem like nobody wanted to own up to the signature if they were ever asked at a future date?

We set off to the police station across the road for more papers to be completed where Bernard lights a cigarette with a huge aviation fuel tank behind his right shoulder; helpfully pointed out by the furiously waving policemen behind their glass screens. “Should have no smoking signs then shouldn’t they” he casually responds as everybody glares at him while he saunters ten yards away to finish the offending item. Three hours have passed as we walk back across the dual carriageway to where Bertha is stored waiting for the police and narcotics inspection.

Franklin takes another call from his wife; the third so far in an hour.

It is obvious all is not well in the Franklin household. It was the same yesterday. He hangs up after a quietly furious row with his better half. We now find everything is shut for the two hour lunch until 2pm. Bernard splutters with impotence as he tells Franklin this could all have been done yesterday or in the time we sat twiddling our thumbs this morning. He does try apologising but it has a falseness about it, like people saying ‘Have a nice day’ when, really, they could not care if you lived or died. He knows he has seriously messed things up and Bernard lets him know in no uncertain terms. It has taken eight hours to get two pieces of paper filled in and Bertha loaded onto a pallet.

Bernard…

Hardly a stunning performance is it Franklin in terms of efficiency?

Franklin stays quiet. He excuses himself and disappears.

For the next two hours we sit on the loading bay as people come and go. Lunch time passes and there is still no sign of the police to do the inspection.

As we wait a car pulls up and on the roof is a large mesh bag which Bernard tells me is moving. It takes Bernard a while to realise it is a large white duck which has been tied onto the roof rack.

The duck is not happy. Come to think of it who would be tied to a roof rack? By the time the car driver comes to untie the poor thing, it is definitely not a happy duckie. It seeks to extract its revenge by biting the owner while, probably, muttering:

“Never in my whole life have I been so scared. You drive like a fool, you fool. When you overtook that truck my whole life flashed before my eyes. I just had to close my eyes, I nearly died of fright.”

It was probably the muttering which led to it being grabbed by the neck before being abruptly shoved into a cardboard box which is tied closed with string. The duck sees its chance to escape as the driver turns his back on the box. The box starts hopping away, making ten yards before the driver notices. The tears run down my face at Bernard’s description of events; complete with voices for both duck and driver. The driver runs over, catches it, and places a brick on top to hold it down. All the while the tears stream down our faces. Another twenty minutes goes by and we are no longer laughing.

There is no sign of Franklin and no sign of the police. Bernard urges the staff in the office “Tiempo.Tiempo, Aeropuerto”  (Time, time, airport) and they get on the phone. Ten minutes later the police arrive and they ask Bernard to unpack the bike.

When I say unpack I mean with a capital U. Everything. The whole lot.

The back box is dispossessed of our carefully compressed clothes which are emptied onto the floor. Each and every item is gone through, knickers, socks, bras, trousers, absolutely everything. The tank bag is tipped out and looked at. Before Bernard has a chance to put anything back they completely empty the right hand pannier onto the floor. The warehouse becomes littered with everything we possess as they sniff the air in the tires which they insist Bernard deflates to prove they are not stuffed with drugs.

I frantically repack clothes as Bernard tells me where things are while he continues to empty what ever they point at. They have a torch inside the petrol tank, underneath the bike, up the exhaust while every nook and cranny is examined in minute detail. Under normal circumstances we would not be bothered at all but we have forty minutes to get to the airport. We start to worry as it becomes obvious this no cursory inspection.

Anybody who has packed a bike for any journey of distance knows it is like putting a jig-saw together. It has to be done in a certain way, in a sequence for everything to fit back in. It’s hard to repack when every little container is being pulled apart and the contents spread all over the floor. In the end Bernard is convinced they took pity on us as, we have no doubt, the staff have told them we have a plane to catch and have been here for two days by now.

Bernard…

The officers pointed to the left hand pannier while Cathy frantically tries to repack clothes into the compression sacks. I unlock the pannier and start to get everything out quickly while talking to Cathy about where her hands can find items. One of the officers stops me and points to the bright red medical kit which is unzipped to show the assorted bandages and medicines. He points to another bag and I show him the shoes in the bag. I start to get other things out and he puts his hand on mine and says ‘ is ok’. I think, by this time, it was very obvious to them we would happily take everything out for them. Perhaps they can tell when they need to keep going while at other times they think ‘ok enough, we’ve done our job’. At the end of the day that’s all they are doing, their job. They were not being nasty or even intimidating. They were doing what they have to do due in the world they work in. Fortunately the ‘ok enough’ came with sufficient time for us to run from the warehouse to the airport itself which we reached half an hour late.

In the end the staff at Bogota airport are fantastic as we, breathlessly, arrive in front of their desk. They treat us like Very Important People (VIPs) or should that be Visually Impaired People? Either way, the white cane leads to an express check in through the first class channel. From there we have special treatment all the way through the layers of airport procedures and security. People could not do enough for me and all with kindness, willingness and patience. It makes me feel secure and comfortable with the world that is South America.

As we sit waiting for the short (for us) one-and-a-half hour flight to Panama, we remember sitting in Buenos Aires before catching the flight to Santiago. People had told us that disability is treated with respect in Latin America and we find it is true. This regard, consideration, call it what you will, has happened on numerous occasions on our travels through South America.

In my mental wanderings over the thousands of miles, I have come to the conclusion it doesn’t matter whether the country is a ‘developed’ or a ‘developing’ country. In our travels across this small planet people have responded with nothing but open hearts. Nowhere was this truer than in South America. It began in Chile, continued through Peru, found us through Ecuador and now sees us sitting at Bogota Airport in Colombia after crossing the country. I met it at this airport and I met it at 14000 feet in Peru as we sat in the rain and snow waiting for a road to open. Little kindnesses amongst different peoples spread across vast mileages.

Our next stop is the start of Central America, a land with a long troubled past. Just to mention countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras is to conjure up images of strife and conflict, bloodshed and wars.

The Blind woman and her sighted companion, however, have no such images in their head as they sit waiting for the flight onwards. We have both seen and experienced too much to draw these pictures. We both see different things but, in many ways, we both fundamentally understand the same fact; what we see depends on what we look for. It is the way it is.