Run down by three trucks, leg in plaster, not a good first day… So begins septuagenarian Simon Gandolfi’s ten-month ride on a pizza delivery bike, from the tip of South America to New York. This epic exploration of thirteen countries takes Gandolfi across desert and over mountains, through the Amazon forest and the length of the Appalachians. Guide books may warn of thieves, bandits, corrupt police and border officials; Gandolfi writes of the remarkable kindness and generosity he encounters. Courtesy, patience and good humour are his passports while hurry is his anathema. Whether in village or city, his joy is in leisurely conversation. Gauchos, oil workers, peasant farmers, officials, owners of vast haciendas, Venezuelan revolutionaries, students at Texas A&M – all excite his curiosity and he faithfully records their opinions while submitting his own thoughts, beliefs and fears to an often merciless inspection. Above all this is a jubilant chronicle of hope and understanding, of new friendships, glorious country, sublime architecture, good food, and ultimately, an old man’s determination to surmount his years. Outrageously irresponsible and undeniably liberating, Gandolfi’s travels will fire the imaginations of every traveller, young or old.
Flash wheels and support vehicles are for wimps, as 73-year-old Simon Gandolfi proves as he rides a Honda 125 –The Guardian
An epic, amazing, and frankly mind-boggling journey -and trust me, that description barely covers it –LondonBiker.com
Gandolfi has a pleasingly robust attitude to guide books and pays little head to warnings to keep to the safe tourist trail. –Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
Simon Gandolfi is the author of a dozen books and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. He is tri-lingual, has travelled widely through Asia and the Americas and resided in a variety of countries before settling with his wife, Bernadette, in an ancient cottage with views across village cricket fields, to the hills of his native Herefordshire. He plans to one day get his full motorcycle licence…
Prologue: TIERRA DEL FUEGO, TUESDAY AUGUST 7, 2007 I got hit by a truck today – three trucks if you count the two trucks on the main truck’s trailer. An attention grabbing and humorous start. Writing the full truth is less easy. Firstly why would a reasonably sane man in his mid seventies, overweight and having suffered two heart attacks, set out to ride from Tierra del Fuego to New York on a small motorcycle? Fear of decrepitude has much to do with it. My wife is younger by almost thirty years. I fear her reaction should I become a doddery old man; and I suspect that our late-teenage sons find me an embarrassment. I am mistaken for their granddad – or an old vagabond. So an attempt to prove to myself and to my family that I can hack it? Or simply an escape from the Me that grows grumpy and geriatric in a Hereford cottage, mediocre writer, inadequate lover, out-of-touch and out-dated dad. Of course there is the positive side: that I have always relished travel through foreign lands and find liberating the escape into a foreign language. When speaking English I am marked as a product of private education with an accompanying presumption of conservative opinions and prejudices. I become classless when speaking French or Spanish. My voice lightens. I smile more readily, am more courteous, more patient, less given to irritation. My steed is a Honda 125 Cargo built in Manaus, Brazil – the classic pizza delivery bike, single seat, single cylinder and kick start. I bought the Honda new two years ago in Veracruz, Mexico, and rode south 16,000 kilometres through Central and South America to Ushuaia at the tip of Argentine Tierra del Fuego where the bike has been in storage for the past six months. I fly from London to Buenos Aires and take the bus south. The distance is 3,000 kilometres. Bed seats on the lower deck are occupied by mature citizens. We frown at occasional bursts of upper-deck jollity before retiring into hibernation from which we stir fatalistically at pit stops to refuel on water, coffee and empanadas. Departing Buenos Aires Wednesday evening, we reach Rio Gallegos, capital of Santa Cruz Province, early Friday. A connection departs immediately for the Magellan Channel and on across Tierra del Fuego to Ushuaia. Ushuaia grew from a Silesian mission founded in 1893 on the steep north shore of the Beagle channel. Timber and sheep estancias fuelled growth into a muddy slum of weatherboard bungalows, sheering sheds and lumber mills. Bungalows and sheds rotted in the rain or surrendered to the frequent gales. The modern town is an unplanned concrete ribbon. Nature is the redeeming feature. Views south across the channel to the white peaks of Isla Navarino are magnificent. The Cerro Martial Mountains behind the town offer an adequate ski resort. Cruise ships sail for Cape Horn. Paulo’s workshop is a haven where bikers collect on winter evenings to sip maté round the stove. Paulo services my Honda and fits fresh tyres. Late July and the pass above Ushuaia is snow and rutted ice – impassable to motorcycles. A truck driver will deliver the bike 200 kilometres north to Rio Grande. The driver is sure that I can ride safely from Rio Grande to the Chilean frontier, then west for Puerto Natales and the ferry that sails the fjords and islands north to Puerto Mont. Ahead will stretch a road journey across thirteen nations…
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