South America and back on a 250 Super Sherpa Minimalist Adventure

Hi John,

I know you've spent time before in the Latin American countries, but I was wondering how your spanish has improved by total immersion for an extended period. I can speak a little spanish, but like many Americans, my spanish is like baby talk...

Me gusta su ride report mucho!

Regards,
Harry

Juanito,

Maybe you have plans all ready, but if you need a place to stay in OR, don't hesitate to contact me (gresham, outside of Portland).

Hi Jim. There must be something in the spelling of that link. I'm getting "www.bikswop.org no ha sido encontrado."

Ahhhh..... you must mean http://bikeswap.org/ ?

@OnandOff,

Sorry, - yes you are right www.bikeswap.org was my intended target.

In the UK we "swop" stuff not swap, hence my Senior Moment!:eek1

J.R.R. Tolkien from Silmarillion:

But the delight and pride of Aule is in the deed of making,
and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery;
wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care,
passing ever on to some new work.


i think about this on every new woodworking project, but it seems to fit your trip. John.

What!? That really sucks!!!

It's set up as a venue to share experiences. If solicitation were allowed, the site would be rife with it, and many of us would dread taking part in it.

The most beautiful thing about memories is you have the most amazing diary ever. You should replicate it all onto you blog and then folks can find you and fund you there (for the next trip).

Well, I want John to keep riding forever!

Oh, he will.
In his heaven, he'll be on an ethereal Sherpa that runs without gas, makes more power the more he twists it, has perfect traction on all surfaces, and is never uncomfortable.

Hi John,

I just love those words. Doing always what society expects one to do only yields the mediocre results we all know and expect. By large that may not be bad, but fulfilling isn't either. Fear is the only thing between thought and action.

I once had a cat in my apartment who we never let outside. Living on first floor with window open, at night he was attracted by the choir of vagabond cats in the street making all the cat noises right under my window. I could see him tense, his whole body shaking, and watching their every move from the comfort of the home, torn inside by the desire to join them, standing right on the edge of jumping outside. But he usually didn't do it. Except for one night when another cat jumped on the window ledge and they were right next to each other. The rest is history. I saw him weeks later rummaging through the trash cans in company of all other cats, dirty but so happy! He eventually returned to me to spend more years before finally being relocated in the country side in a more natural habitat.

Kindest regards,
Vic

JD,
I think you might be onto something with your T-shirt idea. I would think there would be some graphic designers lurking on this site - perhaps a little design competition for a tshirt depicting your travels. I'd buy one. Anything to help you ride on. I'm enjoying every bit of the report and have made it my morning staple for weeks. Here to the end.

Hey Vic, interesting observation. I forget how Einstein supposedly worded it, but great ideas will be met with violent opposition from mediocre minds. I see it all the time. And look at the condition of our country. It beats us into submission so we hold back our ideas. Part of it is ignorance and part is selfishness/envy. They don't want to share us and they don't want us having any fun they aren't having. Our inactions may be due to a fear of alienating the people we care about, and to that of the unknown. But the fear of the unknown is also where we get a lot of the adrenaline rushes pleasantly associated with travel.

That's funny about the cat. It's the animal instinct. It's present in us all. While it's clearly destructive for us to exercise that instinct unrestrained, our society has been conditioned to try to suppress it completely, at least publicly. I suspect it creates a stress of internal conflict and that there's a better balance we could attain. Perhaps we could mitigate some of our propensity for disease if we learned to allow greater expression of our internal instincts, ones which didn't injure other people.

People are often dumping cats out here in the natural habitat of the countryside. You'd think it's be easier for them to simply dump them at the SPCA in town. They end up meeting the same fate but at least at the SPCA they are fed in the meantime, and stand a fleeting chance of being adopted by a little girl or sumpin.

Hi UncleR,

I'm going to look into alternative methods of helping out ride reporters while I'm home this summer.

I certainly am no genius when it comes to ADVriding. Before now I just saved my money like a normal person and went riding when I had a few thousand bucks. Nothing wrong with that method.

Although I've been riding for decades, this is only my second ride report on ADVrider. I really was curious to see if the paypal thing would work once people here showed me how to set it up. Which is why I started reporting back how much I spend and how much was donated each month. Nobody reports back how that has worked for them. It has really saved my bacon, especially when the Sherpa got smacked coming off the boat out in the Darien. You guys haved helped me keep this ride report going probably three months longer than it would have through your financial help. The only problem is, according to the ride report rules here, cash donations are frowned upon. But it's okay to have a link to personal website where you offer things for sale as long as you're not doing this as some kind of business.

I really want to find a way for financially strapped riders to get on the road. I know I have donated to others. It's an expensive deal taking off from work and riding around the world. I want to document ways for financially limited folks to take off and get some kind of support so they can fulfill their dreams. What works. What doesn't work. That sort of thing.

I will look at all creative solutions for riders that I can and report back what I find. Right now I am down to my last few hundred bucks and will be heading back home next month to reload and come up with fresh ideas.

This whole live ride reporting deal has been great! I have met so many great folks and gotten so many great riding tips on fun roads, places to see. The live daily feedback is more interesting reading than what I'm doing currently. It's better reading than most books since you never know what's going to happen in this story from day to day.

Saludos,
Juan Periodista

Hi Vic,

The hardest part of taking off is jumping out the window, or in our case getting out of the driveway.

People project their fears on you wherever you go. Always telling you stories they have heard from friends of friends about how dangerous the world is.

Don't listen to them. Just because they are afraid to leave their driveway doesn't mean you have to be. It turns out that having your bike coast to a stop in the rain at night in the middle of Colombia with a dead motor is kind of fun. And looking down at the smashed front end of a bike in the middle of the Darien isn't such a bad thing. What looked initially like the end of my ride turned out to be a great way to meet new people and make new friends.

Plus, you gain an incredible amout of self assurance and personal satisfaction when you test yourself and come out on top. I would have to say you gain a new perspective on the world and renewed faith in humanity when you travel around and find out it's not the scary place the news media has been portraying. Positive and uplifting news stories don't sell advertising. I am doing my best to balance that out by reporting what I find down the roads less traveled. It isn't that bad out here as far as I can tell. I'm still looking for the scary stuff people back home warned me about. Haven't found it yet.

Saludos,
Juan Viajero

Hi Dooga,

The problem with personal blogs is that nobody finds them. The beauty of posting a ride report on ADVrider is you have an imediate following of thousands who offer such great feedback and ideas on where to ride. When you're on the road it takes a fair amount of time to keep up with just the one website.

Heck, I have a hard time responding to all the questions and comments here. Not that I mind. I have time since I travel solo. And especially here in Medellin where I am helping out with improvement projects during the day and have plenty of time in the evenings.

Ride reports make great reading when you get home. After several months you forget where you've been. I have to go back on this ride report and check myself from time to time when people ask me questions.

Saludos,
Juanito

Hi Beerguy,

I agree completely. I enjoy making beautiful things for other people. Whether it's building a stone fireplace or yesterday removing all the pictures in Al's Pub and putting dozens of them all back up with more motorcycles
in an esthetically pleasing collage:





or painting diagonal stripes of the Irish flag on the outside of the pub (not that easy on rough stucco):



or writing a ride report. I enjoy doing my best and standing back and viewing the work before moving on to the next project.

I imagine you are much the same.

Saludos,
Juan Decorador

Like Antihero says in his ride report (another i have been following since day 1);

"Adversity is just the precursor to growth".

Everyday lurker here who is following how you did this closely. I hope to do similar soon.

Be safe.

Hi Noisymilk,

Glad to have you following along. Hope to see you down the road some day. I'll have to read Antihero's ride report when I get some time. He sound's like my kind of ADVrider.

Saludos,
Juanito

Amen, bro. I'm a quality over quantity guy also. We owe it to ourselves to do our best.