Europe beckons

I arrived in France a few days ago to a warm reception by my parents, relieved that I still had four working limbs, and complete sets of fingers and toes. The long summer days of Nice, in the south of France, a contrast to the shorter days in Rio where the winter sun was setting in early afternoon. Beautiful, but a manicured beauty that I hadn’t seen since I had left New Zealand, and that doesn’t exist in the chaos of the Americas. The south of France is the playground of the seriously rich, and the bay’s of Nice are dotted with huge luxury boats and cruise liners chugging lazily back and forth. Suddenly everything changes… again.

Goodbye, America.

I flew out of Bogota on the 20th of June for Brazil, sadly leaving my bike in Medellin. Destination: Rio, Brazil. The plan was to spend a week there soaking up the sights, sounds and women before heading to Europe to seek fame and (hopefully) fortune. My connecting flight to Sao Paulo was through Lima, Peru… lining up to board the flight, the attendant asks everyone for their yellow fever certificates. Uh oh… my certificate had gone missing 4 months earlier (during the passport saga).

“Is there any way I can get on this plane?”
“No.”

Bugger… but a silver lining. The next flight isn’t till tomorrow night, so the airline is going to put me up in a hotel. I climbed into a cab around 2 in the morning, after sorting a new certificate, expecting the cab to drop me at a motel type thing. We arrive at the Hotel Sheraton. Hell. Yes. After 5 months worth of camping, cheap sex motels and cool (but cramped) youth hostels, this was worth losing one day in Brazil. First thing I did was pull 3 beers from the mini bar, and run myself a bath. Bliss.

Rio was a blast, I spent my time chillaxing on the beautiful Ipanema beach, taking in the sights. Mmmmmm.

Hey big guy….

… Onward Joshua

For Josh, the journey continues. I’ll still drop by now and then, to maintain the website (a labour of love to update ever since I built the thing way back in 2006) and to post a few little stories about our times on the road together

I’d like to thank so many people, but a special few stick in my mind for making this trip a possibility for me. My parents, who supported me even tho they raised their eyebrows in ‘yeah right’ fashion when I told them of my intentions. Bob and Julianne Stokstad for introducing us to the kindest, most helpfull riders group in the world. Torsten and Tineke, who put us up in their home in San Fran, gave us garage space, tools, and advice which I will never forget. Pat Moriarty for helping us out so much in preparing the bikes. Big Dave Burden for radiating awesome from ever pore. Randy and Carol in Baja for some awesome hotcakes. Lauren G and Timmy for providing some awesome times at carnival. Tim Morgan for being possibly the nicest guy I’ve ever met, helping us fix Joshes bike when it got vandalized, and being a great travel buddy.

And a big thank you to the readers that continued to check the site, and for leaving all those comments of encourgment. There are many more that made my travel time special, you all know who you are. Please, please stay in touch… I have emails on bits of scrap paper shooting out of the pockets of my travel pants. Love you guys.

And thats it! Europe beckons for me, and I’m already looking at the prices of good second hand bikes for some road tripping. For those watching our website, thinking to themselves “I’d love to do something like that”…. do it man! This trip has been the best thing I have ever done. Ever. I’d had 6 months experience riding motorbikes, and only an NZ learners licence, before I threw myself on to a plane. If anyone has any questions about the trip, feel free to leave a comment or flick me an email… happy to help where I can.

Dreams are funny things… there will always be someone out there to try and pull your dreams down, belittle your ideas, make you think they are unachievable, citing a veritable bingo sheet of discouraging terms such as ‘reason’, ‘reality’, ‘danger’ and ’syphilis’. Always someone to tell you it’s too dangerous to go someplace, even though they have never been and have no idea what it is actually like. But the thing is… YOU own your dreams. You decide what you will do and what you wont, don’t let anyone make your decisions for you.

Love you all.

Signing off… Peace, Jah love,
Jonno

Posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 12:51 am in Jonno's Journal.
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