The boy who knew only Europe
First of all, a sort of apology. The next few posts will all be written some months after the events have happened due to my (and Tibet’s) chronic lack of time to write about our experiences of escaping the corporate world. The apology is for all of the mind blowing witticisms and profound thoughts that I have had over the last four months that I promptly forgot, denying you the not inconsiderable pleasure of reading them. You and I are sad both. I will do my best to recount the trials and tribulations that we have had during the preparation for this trip.
While Tibet and I both went to the same college at Cambridge and even overlapped by a couple of years, we never actually met until we both landed at the same Formula 1 team in 2014. One weekend in 2015 we were coincidentally both visiting the mothership when I introduced Tibet to one of my favourite pubs from when I was a student — the St. Radegund at the top end of King’s Street. This tiny pub has lost a lot of its character since it last changed management; it used to be a consummate old men’s boozer with regulars’ tankards above the bar, IOUs pasted all over the walls and old RAF autographs written in candle smoke on the ceiling. Just my kind of place. However, one item in the pub sparked my imagination more than most — hanging on the wall was an old map showing Europe, Asia Minor and the Indian subcontinent. On this map was drawn the winding paths of various regulars that had taken entirely unsuitable cars overland to India. Sadly this map is no longer in the pub and as I explained it to Tibet we lamented that it would not be as simple as it had been back in the 70’s; choosing between the luxury single-estate cold brew cereal bars of Afghanistan and the sour dough avocado pop-up restaurant extravaganza that almost certainly awaits us in the tribal areas of Pakistan is not a trivial matter. Later in the evening we discussed it again at a room party in St. John’s gesticulating wildly over a world map, somewhat without concrete intention for me, but for Tibet a plan was forming in the badlands of his unruly hinterface.
However, this plan was unknown to me for some months. Apparently it started with Tibet and Didier (who had done an adventure cycling through the Baltics some years previous) taking 50cc bikes through to Iran or something similar. The problem with this was that there is a mind bogglingly large amount of admin to contend with. This did not sound fun to Tibet and so it was canned in favour of doing something in South America. By the time that I heard about this, the two of them had found an American expat called Toby who had grown up in Peru and makes a living running tours on motocross bikes with a sideline in kitting out bikes for idiotic tourists such as us three. Anyway, one day Tibet mentions to me that he is considering doing a trip after shutdown and casually asks if I would like to come along, under the full understanding that I would obviously say no.
I, along with my girlfriend of 10 years have recently bought our first house on the outskirts of Oxford, on the back of having stable jobs after finishing our Ph.D.s with a long term contract. I guess these are hallmarks of settling down and most likely getting cracking with the rest of life’s checkpoints. This, along with the fact that I’ve never properly been outside of Europe (Anywhere Easyjet flies does not count, and Maine is about as European as it gets outside of Europe) maybe gave Tibet the idea that I would probably like to stay within a few hundred miles of Shropshire forever more.
My instant response of “Yeah, go on then” was not taken very seriously at all — I don’t event think I was being particularly serious at the time. However, over the next few weeks in the glass box (this is more literal that you might imagine) at work it sounded like a better and better idea (to me anyway) and so eventually Tibet had to break the news very gently to Didier that a person whom he had never spoken to before would like to tag along. He still didn’t think I was serious at this point. I get the feeling that this was a bit of a headache for Tibet, but he obviously handled it marvellously.
As time progressed, more and more of our time at work was taken over by researching kit and the route (to the chagrin of our boss), with the excitement building we reached the point of no return — spending actual money on flights! I think 700 quid later Tibet and I realised that this was actually happening and so it was full steam ahead. The notice was handed in shortly after and I was soon to become a professional bum.
So here we are four months later, bags full of kit, body full of antibodies, wallet full of soles, on the other side of world (actually outside of Europe in case there was any doubt). Three proud owners of new top-of-the-range Chinese dirt bikes ready to tear off across the Peruvian Andes tomorrow morning.
