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