I’m now back in Vaplariaso, Chile, just to the west of Santiago to ship my motorcycle. I’ll be loading the bike into a crate then the crate will go on a boat to NYC. From NYC, it will go to Houston to a warehouse where I will put the front wheel back on and drive the bike back to where I started.

This blog entry was going to be one of those “Final Thoughts” messages where I sound like a pretentious traveler and pontificate about how the world is a small place and how people are friendly. Maybe I’ll do it just a little… try not to be pretentious though, I don’t really have the qualifications for it.

But really, the best parts of the trip were the people. The moments I reflect back on the most aren’t the beautiful mountians or natural wonders that I saw while riding on the motorcycle, but the interactions with the people I met while driving around 17,000 miles (27,000 km) through 15 countries.

Unfortunately, the story that I know I’ll tell the most about the trip is being robbed at gunpoint around Lake Atilan. It should be noted that I try to follow up that story with the fact that a friend who I met only a few weeks before drove nearly 2 hours each way to look for me to see if I was OK the next day.

But other memories were starting the trip with two good friends escorting me to the Mexican border crossing the Rio Grande with a hang-pulled ferry, the friend I made in Belize lent me one of his motorcycles and customs official who invited us to his BBQ, speaking DaveSpan for hours to locals who have the patients to listen and speak s l o w l y to me, dropping my bike as I crossed a mudslide in front of 50 laughing Guatemalans who quickly helped me pick up the bike, hanging out in Antigua, learning that Mañana doesn’t really mean tomorrow, being the translator for my good friend and riding buddy’s charity project in Bolivia, fixing a border guard’s computer in Chile, and of course, spending Christmas with 15 other motorcycle travelers at the end of the world. How’s that for a long sentence? That’s my blog version of a montage. You can turn off the music.

Great times. Really. Why not do today what you could do tomorrow? Whatever it is.. This trip was originally planned as a “30 year old crisis” trip, but I didn’t want to wait any long because you never know if you’ll have the time or resources later. Really, why not?

I had set a few goals for myself at the start of the trip including learning Spanish. While I wouldn’t say that I’m even close to fluent, I am MUCH better than I started. I am comfortable in most situations and can have pleasant and semi-intelligent conversations in spanish if the person I’m talking to is patient. Outside of the MAJOR tourist areas, people in Latin America don’t speak English. I’ve developed a few friendships where we only spoke spanish. Thats much better than I ever thought that I could do as someone who struggles with foreign languages.

My other goals were really kinda stupid and generic. I don’t know why I put them there in the first place. Some of them I really failed like not riding more than 6 hours a day. I think my longest days were around 13-14 hours. Not that I was doing long mileage days, but sometimes there really isn’t anywhere to stop. I’m not even going to address the other ones as I don’t even think they are meaningful at this point. Well, I guess I am happy that I kept up with the blog. Of course there was a significant taper the longer I was on the road, but that is only normal. The blog is going to be something that I’ll keep for the rest of my life– keep it as something that I read and remember the good times as well as realize that I realllly shouldn’t have hit the publish button on a few of the stories and pictures =] Its been fun to write and share the trip with my friends, family, and fellow moto travelers. I know that the reason why I thought I could start this trip was through reading about other peoples’ experiences online. In “normal” life, you just don’t meet people who have the time and interest to sit on a motorcycle for half a year.

Anyway, I look forward to returning the US. Strangely, I really miss my job and of course I miss my family, friends, and flauschig puppy!

If all goes well, I’ll be in Houston at 9am on Thursday. I will then have a couple of weeks to get my life back in order before I start working.

Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting!

dg