So this is it. My last post. I’ve been back in England for a month now and life is… well life is normal I guess. One thing I can say though, is that riding across the high-desert in Peru feels like a lifetime away when you’re caught trying to steal someone else’s pushchair outside your nephew’s nursery. William, the little rascal, assured me that the pushchair was his but promptly bailed on me when the real owners walked over and politely informed me that I was making a mess of their pushchair. The situation was made slightly more embarrassing in that not only was I taking the wrong buggy but I couldn’t even assemble the damn thing. In the end the ever so helpful (and slightly smug) victims of my attempted theft had to help me erect my sister’s pushchair; something that proper parents appear to accomplish with only a flick of the wrist. Rather than stand by his uncle as events unfolded, my ‘sweet little’ nephew pulled the old crying trick and took shelter in the bosom of a nursery teacher. Whilst I’m hurt by his treachery I’ll let him off this once as he is only two and a half. In fact, the more I think about it the more I admire his quick thinking and resourcefulness. Smart kid.
The long awaited reunion with my motorbike was emotional but not in the conventional sense. No misty-eyed embrace between man and machine. More along the lines of: “Surely you can’t charge that much to dispose of the crate? You thieving b@stards! Oh, if you put it like that I guess I’ll have to. Here you go.” Followed by installing the battery the wrong way round, thus unknowingly blowing the master fuse, and then worrying that none of the electrics worked. It took a while to realise that the battery could have the + and – terminals switched and after doing this it took another 10 minutes or so of frantic key twisting and calling the RAC breakdown recovery service before I thought to check the fuses! Replacing the master fuse brought back the electrics. Unfortunately this didn’t appear to be enough to make up for over 7 weeks of neglect and the infernal machine refused to start. I think the engine finally caught on about the 20th push start so I cancelled the RAC call-out. And then as one final test I had to pump up both tyres from 4psi to 30psi with my mini-now-broken-foot-pump. Why hadn’t I just ridden the bloody thing into the sea in Brasil and left it at that! Thankfully my sister was there to take the luggage home and of course my nephew provided moral support with the occasional helpful statement like: “Ollie. What that?”; “Ollie motorbike broken” and “Mummy, I need wee, wee.”
Before:
After:
With both bike and rider finally back on British soil I feel that my Latin American motorcycle adventure has come to an end and although the bike needs a lot of love and my right ankle still occasionally aches and bruises I reckon we did ok. It’s good to be back and I’m actually looking forward to knuckling down to a bit of normal life for a while. I’ve even started to make a living…
However, whilst the wanderlust is quelled it is by no means extinguished. In a previous post I mentioned a couple of ideas for future travels and I’m pleased to say that my dad is up for one of them so we’re looking into it. If we go ahead with the idea I’ll produce and online resource for others that wish to do the same (as I did with www.greasysprocket.co.uk) and will also keep those that are interested up to date with a blog. I’ll post links to the online resource and blog here. The planning and preparation involved will be considerably more than that needed for riding a motorbike across a couple of continents so I can’t guarantee that we’ll make it. I am fairly sure though that father and son travelling over strange lands in a confined space will be anything but uneventful. If you thought I was absent minded at times you should meet my dad!
Here’s the PLAN.
If I can learn how to do this…
… and we can take this…
…we’re going to try and fly here.
Got to go now as I have quite a bit of work to do. Thanks for reading and good luck in any future adventures of your own.
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