Close to the Sun and Always Wet: Snapshots From Bogotá, Colombia's Biggest, Baddest City

September 22, 2018 Diana Juarez

The constant juxtaposition of the old and the new here. Nuns in full cream and black habits glide past heavily graffiti’d walls. Hip restaurants, crowding in amongst the ubiquitous fruterias and salones de onces, offer Colombian interpretations of high-low cuisine—waffles, mac n’cheese, and artisanal burgers. At small batch coffee roasters, principled baristas proffer beans ground to order to your olfactory organ before brewing.

Those who are born cicadas die singing

July 15, 2018 Nathan Sharp

Three months after arriving in Colombia, we finally finished editing a short Central America video.

A few pointers on riding in Central America

June 25, 2018 Nathan Sharp

What do you need to know before pointing your tires towards Central America? Last summer, we scoured the internet for basic pertinent information on riding south of the border. We honestly didn’t know a lot about the area beyond the infamous corruption, crime, and poverty. While there are plenty of guides for backpacking travelers, there were a number of questions pertaining specifically to motorcycling for which we struggled to find answers.

Where are we going to so fast? My thoughts on the Royal Enfield Himalayan

June 11, 2018 Nathan Sharp

Nathan and the Royal Enfield Himalayan dress to kill

From the moment the bike was announced, I was smitten. In its graceful profile I saw an unabashedly romantic motorcycle that embraced the aesthetic simplicity of the golden age of machines that hadn't yet been given minds of their own. It harkened back to the early days of adventure motorcycling, when BMW was just beginning to experiment with setting a big bike loose in the sand dunes of Dakar. Then, the motorcycle was a humble beast and the rider, her master.

Because Ted Simon Didn't Have a Period: Tales of a Wandering Womb

May 24, 2018 Diana Juarez

Because Robert Persig Didn't Have a Period

Truth be told, women have long been rolling up their sleeping mats and climbing on motorcycles and bicycles and sailboats and airplanes and horses and pogo sticks and adding their voices to an adventure genre that is nevertheless dominated by the voices of men. I've had the honor of sharing coffees and couches and swimming holes and mountain roads choked with dust with many of these women. I live in awe of them, and I think it's fair to observe that they, along with most women, are accustomed to the act of keeping many spinning plates in the air.

A Lesson in Persistence

May 17, 2018 Diana Juarez

Wasn’t this one mistake enough to worry about? And why had I come here if I had already decided that it was hopeless? There’s no way to talk about this without sounding cheesy. But it was true. There was no point in being there⎯⎯in putting a whole sea between myself and my companion⎯⎯if I didn’t manifest the belief, in my thoughts as well as my actions, that I would achieve my goal.

Fuego Fireworks

May 13, 2018 Nathan Sharp

I am currently slogging through our hours of footage from Central America. I hope to get a video together for your viewing pleasure in the next week or so. But in the meantime, I cut this short teaser of Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego erupting.

About the Pig

May 9, 2018 Diana Juarez

So, now that we’re all tucked in and waiting for winter in Patagonia to pass, I suppose it’s high time I tell you the story of “Our Last Night in Nicaragua and the Pig”.

Watch Horus Learn to Sail

April 30, 2018 Nathan Sharp

For our third and final installment in the Darien Gap miniseries, I present the video edition. Maybe this will give you a little bit of a feel for what our voyage was like, although I guarantee there was more sea sickness than is shown in the video. Enjoy!

Two if by Sea or Sailing the Darien Gap with a Motorcycle

April 23, 2018 Nathan Sharp

We never entertained the formidable challenge of crossing the Darien Gap overland so we had three options to get to Colombia.

Meeting the Darien

April 22, 2018 Nathan Sharp

From a map of the British Empire in America, 1746

The Darien Gap, “the world’s worst roadblock”, is sixty-six miles of untamed jungle isolating South America from Panama. Despite the continuous landmass that forms the American continents, only the brave and the foolish can cross it entirely by land and without the help of boats or planes.

Touched by Celestial Creatures

March 31, 2018 Nathan Sharp

The cause was unclear, but no sooner had we bounced over the tope fifty yards back than I felt the unmistakable sad slushy wobble of a deflated rear tire. An old man watched us blankly from behind a tumbling pile of scrap wood across the street. He didn’t strike me as hostile but there was nothing notably friendly about his behavior.

Volcano Wonderland

March 22, 2018 Diana Juarez

I wonder what it must be like to have grown up with volcanoes nearly always within sight; what force they exert on the imagination. Perhaps I can only speak for myself of the force they exert on mine—to make my daily trips to the market, to think, to be thoughtless, in the shadows of volcanoes.

Staying Safe in Central America

March 18, 2018 Nathan Sharp

There are stories that I don’t want to be able to tell and already we had written the first line of it. ‘We went for a walk alone at night on the beach in Nicaragua…’

Charging Failure in Chichicastenango

March 4, 2018 Nathan Sharp

It wasn’t the first time that we have had bike problems—in fact, these setbacks have become somewhat endemic of our trip—but before now we had ample time to adjust our itinerary. As we approach Panama and our sail to Colombia, however, our time is becoming much more precious. There is no shortcut. There is no finely paved toll-road. There is no circumventing the time-intensive border crossings. We had to confront the fact that we were not visiting the ancient city of Tikal and we were not swimming in the natural jade-colored pools of Semuc Champey, we were headed to the clogged streets of Guatemala City.

Watch Two if by Land - Mexico

March 2, 2018 Nathan Sharp

Watch our video chronicling our journey across Mexico from Baja to Chiapas.

Rambling Roads

February 20, 2018 Diana Juarez

What I want to share often seems so much bigger than my own particular slant, and behind my desire to relate experience in a way that seems authentic and immersive is the bare hope that someone is listening. For we all want to be heard. Rarely, though, do we know the peace of telling a worthy story without some grappling, without visions of pulling a dazzling fish out of the blind seas with only one’s hands.

Enter Guatemala

February 15, 2018 Nathan Sharp

Lake Atitlan and her volcanoes from the dock at Hostel del Lago

I have a recurring feeling of a trip just beginning. All the evidence to the contrary, the worn out tread on the rear tire, my slowly improving Spanish, the constant clicking of the odometer clock (recently surpassing the 50,000 milestone), my beard grown out, the wild coconuts, bananas, and coffee beans that burst jubilantly from the brush all around us, is unconvincing.

Exit: Mexico

February 10, 2018 Nathan Sharp

There are as many routes as there are people to take them. Looking back on our time in Mexico I easily become distracted by the places we did not visit.

Oaxaca to Chiapas

February 4, 2018 Nathan Sharp

Sunday evening, as the sun cast long shadows over the deep valleys of Chiapas, we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas. We had expected to stop short of the city in a dirty hotel in a nameless mountain pueblo, but the roads were smoother than we expected and straighter and we made good time. We began our day on the beach and ended it at 7,200 feet.