The Trip

For longer than I can remember I’ve wanted to take an extended motorcycle trip. And for some reason, probably just because I like the sound of the name, the destination in mind has always been Tierra del Fuego.
Sometime around three years ago, our very good friends, Marita and Kyle, let us know that they were building a home in Panama and that they were going to live there as ex-pat’s for at least six months a year. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but it must have planted a seed, because over the next year or so a plan slowly emerged. At first Rosi and I thought of just flying down to visit them but that evolved into me riding a motorcycle down and her joining me there. So, in Oct of 06, Rosi and I joined my best friend Kevan and his wife Karen for dinner in Duncan. For this to work I needed someone as adventurous (or as crazy) as me and Kevan naturally came to mind. I agonized over asking because I was so worried he’s say no. Instead, before I could talk about the trip, one of those weird coincidences happened that really do make you sit back and consider. Kevan pulls out of a bag the DVD series Long Way Round. He says he watched it from start to finish and thought I just HAD to see it – after cautioning me that it was a very dangerous video for a middle aged man to watch because of the craze idea’s it would put in your head. By the time dinner was over the plan was hatched. Kevan and I would ride to Panama in Jan 2009 and Rosi and Karen would fly down to join us. Since then the plan has morphed into four of us going this Jan (08) We’re going to ship the bikes to Phoenix next month and we’ll fly down in January to pick them up and start from there. We figure it’ll take us four weeks as long as we don’t have any mechanical problems, but we’ve given ourselves five just in case. In Panama we’re not sure what we’ll do with the bikes – sell them or maybe store them for a return trip later on – and we’ll then all fly home.