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2003: A motorcycle fan goes on one hell-raising bike adventures
2003: A motorcycle fan goes on one hell-raising bike adventures
Lois Pryce was a rising star at the BBC but unbeknownst to her co-workers, she lived a parallel life as a biker babe with an overwhelming sense of wanderlust. So she packed in her career to ride her motorcycle on her own from the northernmost tip of Alaska to the southernmost tip of South America. Alone. Armed only with the Spanish words for ‘caution’ and ‘cheese’, Lois was rather under-prepared for multiple bear sightings, bribing her way through borders, spending a night in a Mexican brothel and crashing her bike in the wilds of Patagonia.
She most certainly got the adventure she craved!
“My route took me down the West Coast of the USA to California, from where I would cross into Mexico at the notorious border town of Tijuana, before striking out for Central and South America. As far as I was concerned this was a fine plan, but not everyone shared my enthusiasm – almost every American I met bombarded me with horror stories of death, drugs and violence south of the border.”
I gunned it down a deserted southbound Pan American Highway, hoping to make it to the Guatemalan border before it shut for the night. My heart quickened as signs for la frontera appeared and once again, I felt that stomach-churning excitement of a new country to discover and the thrill of the unknown ahead.
Ushaia.” I said it aloud to myself. Id never heard of it before, but this little town at the end of the world was to become my sole focus for the foreseeable future. I studied the map for a long time, examining this vast land mass that would become my temporary home.
I traced a route down the West coast and discovered that my journey would take me over 16,000 miles, across mountains, deserts and jungles and through Nicaragua.
“Just reading the map gave me a thrill; names like Easy Money Creek and Dalton Cache stirred romantic images of the 1850s Gold Rush while the Indian and Inuit names were even more intriguing; Aniyuyaktuvik Creek for example, which I discovered means “a place where wind has hardened snow so that a snow house can be built”
Destination: Alaska, South America Author/Guide: Lois Pryce Departure Time: 2003
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