RIDING A LARGE motorbike, alone and for eight months, from the bottom of South America to the very top of North America, 45,000 kilometres of road, rough and smooth, through deserts, mountains, jungles and cities, isn’t something one does on a whim. And yet, it kind of was.
I retired from The Irish Times in April 2019, somewhat reluctantly. Being a newspaper reporter was pretty much all I ever wanted to be and the thought of giving it up, even aged 66, was a bit unsettling. To put it mildly.
Practice picking yourself up off the floor, the Pilates lady told a pre-retirement class I attended. Do it now while you still can, she urged us, because further down the road, when you are older, you are going to have to do, and it may not be so easy then.
‘Jaysus’, I thought. ‘I have seen the future, and it sucks.’
I didn’t want to stop working; I loved the buzz of my working life — the daily excitement of chasing stories, engaging with people, finding things out and then writing it all up. But all good things must, if not end completely, then at least change somewhat. Old farts must make way for bright young eager beavers who want to make their own mark. So, OK, I had to retire from formal, full-time employment because, in the bigger scheme of things, it was the right thing to do.
I knew that I wanted to mark this enormous change in my life by doing a few big things. One of those was long nurtured plans to ride my bike, a BMW R1200 GS Adventure, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, to a place named, appropriately enough, Deadhorse.
I wanted to do it because I reckoned I could, or at least I hoped I could. I rode motorbikes in my late teens but not again until my mid-50s when I rediscovered the freedom biking gives you — you can go anywhere, usually with great ease, the wind in your face and without feeling cut off from the landscape through which you are moving. That sense of freedom is hugely attractive to me and always has been.
I didn’t put too much planning into it. I would stick to the western side of both South and North America, get through Central America on whatever route seemed to make the most sense, when I got there, and probably go up the eastern side of Mexico into the US. I had to work out how to air freight the bike from Dublin to Buenos Aires, what vaccinations to get, and to make sure I had enough loot (and access to it) to last the journey.
I thought it would take seven or eight months; my wife was convinced I’d be gone a year.
I started in February 2020, but Covid got in the way, and I had to abandon everything in southern Chile and return home – stymied for two and a half years. But I resumed in 2023, staying along the way in hostels or camping, and marking my 70th birthday.
I met hundreds of people and saw places most people can only dream of — the Andes, massive, raw and humbling, with roaring rivers, shimmering lakes and glistening glaciers; the Galapagos Islands with their funny-looking blue-footed Booby birds, sea lions, giant turtles and sharks sleeping in submerged lava tunnels; tropical jungles full of howling monkeys; and the huddled masses of fleeing migrants trying to get to North America and make better lives for themselves.
In the end, what appealed to me most was the wide-open vastness of north-western Canada, the Rockies, Jack London’s Yukon and, of course, Alaska – where I celebrated by diving into the Arctic Ocean. I fell off the bike a few times — slewing on gravel and tottering over, almost in slow motion while barely moving at five kilometres an hour. So, no injuries, just feeling like an eejit and having to lift the bike upright again. It never broke down, which is amazing given what I put it through, but I used up three sets of tyres.
So, what did I learn? Well, I think by the time you hit 70, you kind of know a few things and so while there were no great revelatory moments, a few things were confirmed for me;
First, people in places very, very far away and often from cultures and backgrounds very different to my own, are just like the rest of us. They have hopes and dreams a lot like ours, and they are as much interested in you as you are in them.
Second, ask for help when you need it and accept it when it is offered. The overwhelming majority of people are kind and decent and are happy and eager to help when asked.
Third, being open, showing warmth and not fear, is repaid in kind. I found that with the poor of Peru and Colombia. In the US, people with values very different to mine (gun fetishists and hard right libertarian politicos) were simultaneously kind and generous, even when they espoused views that disturbed me, to put it mildly.
Fourth, don’t over plan; take each day, each road, as it comes and when something interesting, something unexpected presents itself, just go with it.
Fifth, don’t delay. If you wait too long, you really won’t be able to pick yourself up off the floor . . . let alone lift up your toppled-over bike.
Peter Murtagh’s book on his adventure, From Tip to Top, is out now and published by Gill Books.
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