.jpg)
The Riding the Spine guys are incredible - as is their route!
This article is one in a series of interviews with long-term international bike tourists. This time I talked with Sean from Riding the Spine to get his take on things.
World Bike Touring Examiner (WBTE): Would you please explain a tad bit about where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Sean: Our group, Riding the Spine, started on our bikes in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska back in July of 2006. It was our dream to ride down the entire length of the Americas using only dirt-track roads whenever possible. Our destination was and still is Tierra del Fuego, but the more important thing for us has always been to avoid main and paved roads.
WBTE: I know there are plenty of wonderful days when the sun is shining and you’ve got the wind at your back. But there are also days when it’s raining or you face a headwind or you’re climbing a hill that just won’t end. How do you get through those days? What keeps you going?
Sean: For one thing, mountain biking the entire way was appealing in its promise of fewer cars (and fewer cars means less exhaust and noise pollution which in turn equals healthier living). It is also far more challenging to ride dirt track, since the roads are rarely graded and are often laden with jagged stones, thick dust, and deep pits of mud. In much of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the constant torrential downpours of the rainy season completely eliminated sections of the road from existence (leaving us the dreaded option of hiking our bikes and equipment - each in turn - over incredibly steep and narrow mule trails. While these obstacles can prove to be nightmarish realities, they also impart on us a sense of undeniable accomplishment. You sit nearly comatose at camp, passing the scotch bottle around to your friends and reflect: "My God, I can't believe I managed to move all my crap over that crumbling mountain side."
These obstacles serve to satiate my sense of adventure and pacify my general inquietude. By contrast, I find that riding long flat stretches of highway (particularly in hot climates) is absolute torture. My body sets into this redundant rhythm of motion, but my mind does not easily submit to some temperate state of cruise control. Flat sections are hideously boring to me, and when a million cars are whizzing around me I start to lose that conviction that bikes are the superior form of transportation.
WBTE: As hard as it is to pick out one or two highlights – would you, could you? Tell us about a couple of those incredibly wow-ing, drop-your-jaw experiences you’ve had.
Sean: For me, the most amazing part of our trip was actually kayaking around the Darien gap through the San Blas archipelago. We strapped our giant bike frames to the top of our kayaks, shoved all our equipment in the tiny haul space and paddled over two hundred miles from Panama to Colombia. Along the way we encountered some of the most unique and stimulating people of our entire trip; the Kuna comarca. This indigenous tribe exists as a sort of separate entity away from the Panamanian government, and subsists mainly off the lobsters and shell-fish of the Caribbean Sea. Every time we'd wash up on a beach somewhere, we would instantly be surrounded by hundreds of curious people that took us in with an air of astonishment. Some, of course, thought we were completely mad and couldn't be easily convinced of our genuine desire to travel without motors.
We spent over three weeks in our kayaks, camping out on mosquito infested beaches, eating octopus pulled fresh out of its rock garden, and it was certainly the longest we went without contact with our families or having the sensation of being in a relatively safe and familiar environment.
One morning our camp was surrounded by a patrol that goes after drug running operations. There were some men with ski-masks and machine guns, but not wearing any noticeable uniform that would allow us to decipher their affiliations. They could have very well been the drug runners or members of the FARC looking for hostages to take for ransom for all we knew. It was a very frightening moment of uncertainty, but we were soon taken to a town on the coast and made to explain ourselves in front of a council of Kuna Elders. After making a little "donation" to their community, everything was smoothed over.
A similar scenario took place just outside of Batopilas (a town on the edge of the Barrancas del Cobre - the Copper Canyon of Northern Mexico). This was the time when the Mexican government had begun to up the anti in its war against drug growers and traffickers. The military was all over these remote lands, burning crops of marijuana and getting into fire-fights with vengeful barons. One night we were camped in a discrete location off to the side of a river. A car transporting bails of marijuana got stuck at the river crossing, and soon after the military arrived and started arresting all the men. We observed for a while, trying to keep quiet, but then suddenly we heard guns being cocked and a voice yell, "Levanta sus manos!" It was the military, believing we were part of the drug operation. But one look at our pale white mugs made their heads spin. "What the hell are you doing out in the middle of nowhere, gringos?"
There have been so many of these jaw-dropping moments - some life changing really - that I'll probably soon write a book.
WBTE: Any special tips or advice to wannabe tourers?
Sean: Don't be scared of Colombia (unless you hear of more political upheaval). Everyone in Colombia loves bikers. People in Colombia are some of the most generous, fun, and good willed people. We seemed to always run into the most outrageous characters... or just people that wanted to help us out.
Always treat your water, and regularly take supplements of probiotics or grape fruit seed extract (something to help your digestive track fight parasites). Giardia and amoebas leave you in a terribly foul and wretched state.
Don't rely on local people for the ultimate word on directions. More often than not they have no idea about which road leads where, but their ignorance won't stop them from giving advice anyway.
*******
If you enjoyed this interview, you might enjoy these other interviews with world cyclists:
Comments