if you are looking at going to South America on your motorcycle and you live in North America
you have no excuse here's how you do it go out your front door start your bike head south it's
as simple as that if you live in Europe do the same. and you can do the same in Africa
and you are laughing at me and you're saying oh yeah you're privileged you have a lot of money
this and that i tell you anybody can do it it's all up in your head. welcome to MOTOTREK. i'm
Helge Pedersen and in 1985 i traveled with this cargo ship all the way from Oslo to Buenos Aires
came to Buenos Aires in the fall of 1985 and headed straight down to Ushuaia since my first
trip to Latin America I've been back several times I've ridden central America down the
Pan-American highway I've been in Ushuaia five times now it's kind of funny to see
the picture from the first to the last time but these times I've done it leading tours
if you want to see patagonia sit down and it will all blow by you
i was sitting there on my bike and just hanging on for my life but i finally made it down to
Ushuaia and everything changed mountains beautiful pine forests lakes and i happened
to got the job and the reason i wore looking for a job was i want to learn some language
i was very lucky because i got to work with Mario and Graciela and we were clearing a path
off to Lago Fungano and we ended up staying there for two months it was tough it was summer January
i mean we wake up to like an inch and inch and a half of snow in the morning but the biggest
problem we had we worked our way up and we used up all the food we had i was so starved after
that experience I've never been that starved in my life but what an experience it was usually for
that reason is a very very special place and I've been back many times later and i love it
so when you travel in Patagonia you have to go on a Ruta 40 and it's in famous for its brutal
gravel roads it was tough with the Patagonia wind and you are going in this deep rooted gravel
and the worst is usually when you have a grader coming through because then it's extra deep and
you're just dancing there and hanging on plus you've got the wind and then you meet
the truck and it's like usually i would then just stop and park myself and head on after
in Patagonia you have to go and see mount Fitzroy came there parked my bike picked up my tent
couldn't see it couldn't see it three days went by and i said okay enough is enough it was just
caked in in fog so the following day i was going to take off and just forget about it
was kind of disappointed really i looked forward to it look out my tent i couldn't believe it it
felt like i was right at the foothill and there is this majestic mountain just reaching for the
heavens it's just like a rocket when you travel the best currency you can have with you is time
don't let time press you out of a situation that could be a beautiful experience take your time
when i came to the border towards Peru instead of crossing at the seaside i headed up the hill
and i tell you that's a steep hill Olga, my bike, was like oh this is getting very tiresome now it
was just i lost one horsepower two horsepower it was really weird because as i climbed up
i could see the horses falling out of the engine kind of it's just less oxygen and i need to stop
and change my main jet in the carburetor in other words give the engine less gasoline so it would
more proportion to the amount of oxygen that was in the air that came in to feed the engine
i stopped at a little cafe and i'm not kidding about three or four steps into the cafe and
i'm almost fainted i thought oh there's not much oxygen up here it took two or three days
and started to get back to normal but in the beginning there it was more brutal than on me than
on the bike you will find yourself on sea level one day and then all of a sudden you're up to
14, 15, 16,000 feet and you feel it on your body and you have to prepare
and the best thing you can do sorry to say but no alcohol you need to hydrate and alcohol is
not good for that even though you think so and the best is to take it slowly going up and west
i met some journalists in Lima, Peru and i always like to meet these people because
i learned so much and they can tell me stories and they were talking so
Helge going to the Darien Gap how are you going to do that one? i said what do you
mean i don't even know what it is oh no it's the missing link between Panama and Colombia
they showed me an article about the Upton Expedition they interviewed them when they
came down to Lima after going through successfully they used several years for that a lot of money
so i thought wow that sounds like fun and i really had no idea what i was talking about
so when i come up to Colombia i looked into alternatives well i could fly over
or i could take it both around but flying or taking a boat would cost money and i want a
strict budget so i thought well if they can take a jeep to it darn it i can take my bike
i met this beautiful girl at the bar and she said oh you need to meet this guy
he guide the tours through the gap and he done it several times you need to talk to him so i met him
we sat down we talked about the route and made sketches and stuff and at the same time i met the
miserable German guy Joaquin Querenheim he'd been robbed in Colombia he lost a lot of money with
some police affair in Venezuela and he just had had so bad luck on his travels he was a backpacker
so i convinced him to go with me into the jungle and without him i could never have made it we got
supplies we got 40 meters of rope, pullies this and we were going to follow Rio Tulia
and we were going to cross it eight times in other words it goes in zigzag and you go over like this
and it was tough it was really tough going one of the first big hills first we go with machete
make it clear then i start the bike and ride up and i were going a little too hot into it
pop the wheelie lost totally the bike threw it to the side because i didn't want to be crushed
and my hand went right on the rock so you still have the brake here fortunately for
me i didn't know i broke in my hand but it hurt like really bad and it was swollen up
i couldn't even take my glove on i just had to endure it got used to the pain
every day we woke up early in the morning cut the trail sometimes we were not sure where the
walking trail were because this is a seasonal trail you have to remember the Cuna Indians and
amber are indians go through there and they cut the trails so we had to track that down
a big tree fall over we have to use the machete the cat get the bike over carry the luggage
it's like clearing that path 300 yards riding it or walking it and then we come to a steep hill
go as far up as you can i just threw it down and then we take a rope secure it use the pulleys with
the rope get it up like that it took hours to get up some of these hills we were totally exhausted
and the engine works also i actually got what we call i learned later "vapor lock" it got
so hot that the gasoline was just boiling in the carburetors and it wouldn't run and i was afraid
of losing my battery so i used the kick starter and eventually i also took out the air filter so
it could cool the whole system a little better and that's the only way i could ride the bike without
the air filter and just kick starting it every time i need to start it and then we got attacked
by bees Africanized killer bees and they are very territorial so when you start cutting they will
just come for you you stop sometimes we could sit and eat and we were peaceful they come and
check you out they wouldn't bite you or sting you but they would just be all over sometimes
i couldn't see my arm or eating kind of had to brush them away it was like psychological mind
game then we take up a little root with scorpion under there so you have to be careful with that
but perhaps the worst of all was the ticks
we go all day working got ticks on us probably all day and then at night we were sitting there
like monkeys you know picking off the ticks and one day we counted i think it was 156 or something
that Joaquin had picked off and in the morning you will discover more that gone into groin or
under your arms and it was full of blood and that's how i got the infection in my legs too
so as you understand it was no picnic it was tough going and eventually we ran out of food
we had been in the jungle now since we left Turbo which was the last village of city in
Colombia and we were almost at the Cuna village in panama we come to the border
no border crossing just a little plaque said that we were entering Colombia (* leaving Colombia)
no people two weeks we didn't see people and then we had to leave the bike because
the three-week supply of food had been eaten up in two weeks because we were just burning it up
we were working like crazy to get this darn bike there so got into Paya nice to see people and we
could eat all we wanted and then we went back got the bike and the last part of it was much much
easier because now we were around people we got help from people and we got down to what they call
Yavisa and then we were back on the Pan-American highway and could continue into Panama City
the whole trip through the Darién Gap 80 miles took 20 days two weeks or 14 days
we didn't see anybody else we would just buy ourselves struggling to get through
I'd come to Panama City went to the doctor he confirmed I've broken my
arm a broken my ribs but the worst was the infection in the leg he said you need some
antibiotics here so he sent me to the pharmacy and there's a big lady shot it in my buttocks in the
morning and i had a nightmare about her every night for 10 days i had that and eventually my
legs that was just full of infection came down to its normal size again i could continue my travels
if you are looking at going to South America on your motorcycle and you live in North America
you have no excuse here's how you do it go out your front door put the key - or your FOB
start your bike head south it's simplest at that and you're laughing at me and you're saying oh
yeah you're privileged, you have a lot of money, this and that i tell you anybody can do it
you can take a street bike go all the way to Ushuaia
it's not about the money sure you have to have some money i took off from Norway with $2300
to my name i was gone for two years and then i continued for eight more years after that
i made money on the way i wrote articles sold them to magazines it's about your
attitude it's about your creativity and trust in yourself that you can find something you might be
a programmer you might be able to film and do some videoing you go to a hotel say "hey your website
really looked terrible i can help you" and make a deal with them continue like that you get so much
more out of it than just having a lot of money and just passing by and taking a picture here
and there you embed yourself in the culture by being there so many people are hooked up
and that big bank account you have to have to do all of these things it's all up in your head