Simon Gandolfi - Old Man on a Bike

For Bernadette, my love, my strength, my wife – and for Wei-Ming Ang, best of companions on the road.

Cover

Title Page

Dedication For Bernadette, my love, my strength, my wife – and for Wei-Ming Ang, best of companions on the road.

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Boys on Bikes

Chapter 2: Goodbye Dallas

Chapter 3: The Road to Oaxaca

Chapter 4: Oaxaca

Chapter 5: The Monk and Mister Big

Chapter 6: To Antigua

Chapter 7: Rio Dulce

Chapter 8: Café Conversation

Chapter 9: Flores to Copan

Chapter 10: Honduras

Chapter 11: Nicaragua

Chapter 12: Costa Rica

Chapter 13: To Almirante

Chapter 14: David to Panama City

Chapter 15: Colón and Portobelo

Chapter 16: Holiday Cruise

Chapter 17: Colombia

Chapter 18: Ecuador

Chapter 19: Peru

Chapter 20: Onward through Peru

Chapter 21: Bolivia

Chapter 22: Argentina

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Why would a reasonably saneman in his seventies ride the length of Hispanic America on a small motorcycle – a man who is overweight, suffered two minor heart attacks and has a bad back? Stupidity comes to mind … And flippancy is easy camouflage …

Age has much to do with it. My wife is younger by almost thirty years. I feel old. I suspect that our teenage sons find me an embarrassment; their friends mistake me for their granddad – or an old tramp.

So, yes, age.

And anger.

Though I have lived abroad much of my life, I am very English, probably something of a Blimp. I believed that honour was intrinsic to being English; in public service, we behaved better.

Then came the Iraq War, the disclosure of Abu Ghraib.

None of my honourable English compatriots resigned, not a Minister of the Armed Forces, not our Ambassador in Baghdad, not a senior officer serving in Baghdad, not the Head of Military Intelligence nor any of his senior colleagues.

They were complicit in Abu Ghraib. So am I. That is the strength of Democracy: the Government is ours; each one of us is responsible for our Government’s actions; each one of us is equally sullied.

The alliance to which we are committed is intent on nation building in Iraq … and Afghanistan. The US has been nation building in Hispanic America since President Quincy Adams’s declaration of the Monroe Doctrine (1801). In travelling, I may discover how successful the US has been and discover what opinions the people of Hispanic America have of their neighbours in the North.

US citizens possess an absolute certitude in their superiority. Canadians are poor cousins. Those south of the border are wetbacks, greasers, Latinos – inferior beings. Good ones make good house pets.

Surely we Brits know better?

I visited three high schools in my native Herefordshire. I asked fifteen-year-olds for their image of a Mexican. All gave the same answer: fat, sweating, big hat, drooping moustache, comic accent.

And those from further south? Central and South America?

Drug dealers or crooked cops, corrupt officials.

Such is cultural colonialism – so much is absorbed from Hollywood.

I wondered, as I listened, what those South of the border, the Spicks and greasers, thought of us Brits? Do they imagine that we wear bowler hats, carry umbrellas and drink endless cups of tea? Or that England is a land peopled by football hooligans?

Do they differentiate between Britain and the US?

My wife said, ‘Find out. Ride a motorbike. It’s something you’ve talked of doing as long as I’ve known you.’

‘I’m too old,’ I said.

‘So? Get young again. Get out from behind your desk. Show that an old man can make it. And don’t dare write a polemic’.

Polemic is wifely code for obsessive and boring – our sons are more forthright.

And my wife is correct: I have been behind my desk for too long. Writing fiction, I have been seeing through my protagonists’ eyes, living their traumas. Time has come to raise and risk again my own head above the parapet, see with my own eyes, experience my own adventure. Latin America is tempting. I am obsessed by its history.

I wrote the best part of two novels in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. Two 16th century mansions form the Hostal San Nicolas de Ovando. The manager set a trestle table in the tower. The river lay below. I would imagine those first tiny Spanish ships lying at anchor. I would imagine sunlight flashing on breast plates and helmets, the strike of steel-shod boots. They were small men, the Conquistadors. Most had little education. They were filled with superstitions. How could such men in such small numbers capture vast Empires? I have read modern historians. I find them wanting in explanations. Though what do I know? I’m a high school drop-out. And I admit to prejudice. My great grandfather was a famous Spanish terrorist – El Tigre del Maestrazgo. His mother was executed by firing squad. He conquered much of Spain.

Cortés set out from Veracruz and conquered Mexico. I intend to travel all the way south from Veracruz to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. Cortés rode a horse. A Honda 125 will do me fine. All I wish to conquer are my fears. I have faith in the bike. I am less sure of my heart. Will it cope with the rigours of the Altiplano?

More positively, I may lose weight.

1906: My father sits beneatha thorn tree in northern Kenya. He and his business partner Jack Riddle have been in Ethiopia buying horses. They travel with sixty porters and livestock. Jack is scouting ahead for water. My father writes in his diary a reminder to order a new dressing case from Asprey, a Bond Street purveyor of luxury goods – hairbrushes, clothes brush, beaver-hair shaving brush, cut-throat razors, all with ivory handles. My father will supply the ivory.

2006: I buy a used green shirtand Clancy Brothers sweater at the Age Concern shop in Hereford. My wife asks whether I plan auditioning for a job as a garden gnome. I retort that I am flying to Boston with Aer Lingus and hope for an upgrade.

I fail with the upgrade. However, the immigration officer at Boston’s airport is Irish American and appreciates the sweater. He asks what I plan doing in the US. I plan travelling by train to Dallas, crossing into Mexico by bus, buying a motorcycle in Veracruz, Mexico, and riding to Tierra del Fuego. The immigration officer is two years short of retirement. He checks my date of birth.

‘You’re seventy-three.’

‘So?’ I say.

‘What type of bike?’ he asks.

A Honda 125.’

‘For real? A 125?’ He grins. ‘That’s a pizza delivery bike. You think you’ll make it?’

I have doubts but what else should I do with the last years of my life? Sit at home and watch TV?

The immigration officer stamps my passport. ‘What does your wife think?’

‘She’s pleased to have me out from underfoot.’

My ex is more concerned. We have been separated for twenty-five years. She collects me from the airport and drives me to her home in Providence, Rhode Island. In the car, she says, ‘This thing you’re planning is really dumb. I’ve been talking with people. They all say it’s dumb. I mean, going through Colombia and places. And the roads, the way those people drive. You’ll get yourself killed.’