An overnight pit stop in Joshua Tree National Park—a tent utopia as it goes—saw us once again ensconced in its ecological melting pot, lined by a jumble of stacked boulders and walls of imposing granite. The convergence of two great deserts: the Mojave and Colorado, blended together in a barbed landscape adorned in Sonoran flora and […]
The prospect of coming home after 33,000 miles through 21 countries on my motorcycle, was a welcomed and warranted one. Taking temporary leave from living out of panniers and a roll bag for two years short of a quarter—to being lavished in comfort at my mum’s house was beyond appealing—hand washing will only get you so […]
Ahead of us lay open country, reddish-grey, studded with cacti. Arizona was the first place I have been for a while that turned out to look exactly like I’d pictured it. As we rode along the blindingly bright highway, I felt happy and charmed. Nestled at an elevation of over 1,500 metres amongst the State’s […]
Wheeling up to the US border at Tecate was more of a ‘Triple Whopper with fries but better make that a diet coke’ drive-thru experience than the usual cacophony of queues—left, right and centre—about the Latin American customs and immigration offices. The familiarity of my old, comforting Latin American life was about to leave me […]
Intense light fell from a vaulted powder-blue sky that offered here and there a cloud so fat and dense-looking, it might have been full of milk. A monied seafront gleamed as much as the ocean. The coastline was lined with an assortment of majestic marine figurines, spotless sidewalks and restaurants with menus on which we […]
The morning after the night before Mexico Independence Day was akin to Boxing Day in a rural corner of England. The highways were deliciously quiet, deserted even and the streets had become all but bare. Riding down the empty roads gave rise to revelling in a deep quietness. For a moment, I imagined what it would be […]
How soft the jungle air at Las Pozas was, after the molten lava of Mexico City, as soft as dusting powder, the coat of a puppy. The night sky was a sapphire blue and strewn with stars, a shower of gold dust. The pristine purity of the rambunctious, wild place that was Edward James’ secret […]
The snaking road was silver in the morning sun. It was a perfect day for riding a motorcycle. And the moment we got going, the miles ticked away under the wheels. “Feels good to be back on the bikes, eh Jase?” I uttered down the helmet’s intercom enjoying the normalcy of a moving life. And […]
Striding with a hopped-up buzz back to the US Embassy to collect our visa-stickered passports, what were the odds of bumping into the clerk who’d approved the travel permits just four days previous—within five minutes of stumbling across the Romanian chef whose restaurant we’d breakfasted in that same morning—along the same street? Too uncanny! My emotions […]
An opening sequence of sweeping panoramas of metal-and-glass skyscrapers glinted in the sun, people in sharp suits carried briefcases as they vanished into revolving doors, the endless rush of traffic sped on sunlit freeways. Welcome to Mexico City. Every building had its own character and street its own identity. Peeling back the gloss, I was […]