ANCIENT OVERWEIGHT TOAD HITS SEVENTY-EIGHT

Thoughts when in bed this morning whilst Bernadette wrapped my birthday gifts - each gift a romantic treasure: firstly how blessed I am in Bernadette and in my four sons, my daughter, my daughters-in-law and out-of-law, my son-in-law. And how truly blessed I am in my divine grandchildren (of whom Shane is baking a chocolate birthday cake which he will eat as I am home in Herefordshire UK, and he is home in Duchess County NY).
SHANE AND GRANDPA OOPS

Second thought: 78 seems so much much older than 77.
Third thought: 79 will feel old old old. However 80 will feel young again (if I make it), a new beginning. Hopefully I will be completing the final lap of a planned celebratory circumnavigation of the planet - probably on a Honda 125. So here is a Happy Birthday to me, Brmmmm Brmmmm!

HEART ATTACKS, ALTITUDE AND FEAR

NOREYA VALLEY: MARCH 31
The road turns uphill – or up-mountain – once more into tea gardens. The ascent is steeper than any I encountered in the Americas. At one point the road tunnels under itself to begin a 360o turn. I was sweating in my wind-proofs by the river. The sweat is chill now and I must fight a stiff breeze on my shoulder or be thrust toward the road's outer edge. How steep is the drop? How far is the drop? Don't know. Don't dare look. And what of the pain on my left side high under the ribs? Heart, muscular or too vivid an imagination? Scared? Yes. Having suffered a couple of heart attacks does that to you. Calmness is essential. I breathe slowly and draw comfort from memories of the first pass I crossed in Mexico, a climb from 60 meters above sea level to 3200. The pain was the same as were the fears – though with one added. Would the Brazilian-built Honda 125 fail? I rode 65000 kilometers through the Americas. I have ridden 12500 kilometers through India. Believe me, Honda 125s never fail...Not so the four-wheel-drive pick-up.

FAT QUACK AND WIFE

NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
A grossly fat couple enter the chai shop. He is a doctor and boastful that his weekly visits to these uplands are an act of charity. His wife waddles behind the counter and helps herself to a packet of biscuits. The chai-shop daughter serves them bowls of vegetables and dhal, plates heaped high with rice. The fat couple stuff their faces and leave without paying. As for us, down and down and down to a river gorge and a narrow village where tour agencies advertise white water rafting. We cross a bridge and back track along the river. White water foams through the gorge. Two inflatable boats rest on a gravel spit. Tourists exchange tales of valour. How do I know? Been there, done that – though in Ecuador.

FREE WOMEN AND MOMOS

NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
I have escaped the harsh heat of India's plains. Wisps of thin cloud or mist drift across the narrow road. Time to pull on waterproof over-trousers and a light wind-cheater. We stop at a tin and brick shack. A woman serves us sweet milk tea and momos (stuffed crescent-shaped dumplings) steamed by her mother on a wood fire. The women are of a different culture to those of the south. No humility here. These women own themselves, freedom apparent in every movement and in the openness of their smiles and chatter.
I urge the driver of our pick-up to eat more. He is thin, young, married a year, first child born. His wife teaches in a private primary school – monthly salary 1500 Rupees. The driver earns 3000 Rupees plus 100 daily for food when away from home. A monthly family income of 40 pounds Stirling, little wonder that he is under-weight.

TWO ROADS TO DARJEELING

NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
Two roads lead from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The direct route passes through Kurseong. We take the westerly road that climbs close to the Nepalese border. The beginnings are a gentle climb through almost flat tea gardens. Women pickers wade waist-deep amongst the deep emerald bushes. Shade trees guard the lanes to tea factories and manager's bungalows. We cross and recross the narrow gauge railway that takes Darjeeling's toy train north from Siliguri. Then up and up and up...

INTO THE HILLS

SILIGURI: MARCH 31
Help Tourism develops tourism within the community. They have built a camp in the Noreya Valley. The Siliguri office manager comes to the Cindrella Hotel in a four-wheel drive pick-up truck at 9 a.m. He has been instructed to transport me and the bike in the truck. I prefer to ride.
“The road to the camp is not possible.”
“So I will ride while the road is possible”

YE OF LITTLE FAITH

SILIGURI: MARCH 30
I lay the laptop and charger on the workbench. The non-newspaper reader regards it with deep suspicion. “It won't charge,” I say.
He pokes the charger with one finger. Nothing happens. I say, “It's not a bomb.”
Relieved, he opens the laptop.
I tell him that it has a Linux operating system.
Possibly he understands.
He plugs the charger into a wall socket. The charger falls out. He strips the ends from two lengths of copper wire, wraps the prongs of the charger with wires, no insulation tape, and prods the other ends into the socket with a couple of skinny ballpoints. Inserting a diagnostic probe into the cable end that connects to the computer produces zero. “It isn't charging.”
“Right,” I say.
“Do you wish me to mend it?”
“You can?”
“It is possible,” he says.
If only he sounded more confident.
Prying at the charger with a jeweler's screwdriver achieves nothing. A short discussion with my guide and the newspaper reader ensues before he takes a rusty kitchen carving knife from a drawer.
To me, “You wish me to open it?”
“You're the surgeon.”
Fifteen minutes with a soldering iron and the charger works. 300 Rupees. Old Man of little Faith...

WE SET OUT TO HAVE AN ADVENTURE

SILIGURI: MARCH 30
Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? Last night the camera disaster. This morning the laptop won't charge. An underweight young man sits on a plastic chair in side-street shop that advertises lap-top accessories. The shop is the size of a small shoe-box. No accessories. Does he know of a computer mechanic? Yes, indeed. He pulls down the steel shutter on his empty shop and mounts the pillion - a right, a left, another right, a further left, each street marginally narrower than the last. I park in the courtyard of a three-story concrete building the builders of which had never met an architect. A side door opens to a squash court sized workshop, low ceilinged, no windows. Two apparently indolent male thirty-somethings are drinking tea. One of them has tilted a spotlight to illuminate a newspaper. I suspect that the bits of computer and computer shells have found a permanent home on two work benches at right angles to each other. At such moments I remember the mantra with which my companion of Hispanic American travels, Ming, met all dangers and difficulties: “Simon, we set out to have an adventure...”

PUNCTURED PRIDE FOR A DOUBTING THOMAS

KOLKATA: MARCH 17
I suffer from the sin of pride. Not always, but on occasion. You know? Hey, I'm nearly eighty and look at me, Brrrm Brrrm on a cafe racer round India. Wow! Some guy. Fearless...
Kneeling on the gas station forecourt is an act of humility.
The pump attendants and a few drivers and bike riders watch as I waggle the eight inch nail out of the tire. The tire is unpunctured. Not so my pride...
Such is the punishment for my momentary lack of faith.
Remember, Old Man, Honda 125s never never never break down.

HELL AND DAMNATION

KOLKATA: MARCH 17
Tacka tacka tacka fires the machine gun as I creep into a gas station. Hell and Damnation...
I come to a halt and rev the engine. No machine gun, so the engine is OK. It must be the gear box. I dismount and heave the bike onto its stand. I look at the gear box. My knowledge of gear boxes could be written on the point of a very very thin needle and looking doesn't help. I touch the gear box tentatively with a finger tip. Touching tells me nothing. I look at the two gas pump attendants. Surely one of them can wave a wand?
The smaller of the two grins and points at my rear wheel. An eight inch nail sticks out of the tread. I put the bike into gear. The rear wheel spins. The nail strikes the rear mudguard: tacka tacka tacka...

TACKA TACKA TACKA

KOLKATA: MARCH 17
A rattle of heavy machine gun fire erupts directly under my butt.
HELP!
I slow and the rate of fire slows.
I speed up, the rate of fire increases.
I pull in to the curb and the firing stops.
I am riding a Honda 125.
Honda 125s never break down.
This article of faith supported me on my exploration of the Americas - sixty-six thousand kilometers.
It has supported me on this journey through India - eleven thousand kilometers.
Fear hits.
Real fear.
Or belly emptying anxiety (which is fear, surely?).

CONFESSION

I have never taken a UK biker driving test. I have never ridden a bike in the UK. The weather has put me off. Our youngest son, Jed(19), claims that my car is his car. He has been working this winter at the Hotel Belles Piste in Araches la Frasse (Haute Savoye). Most days he snowboards from 10 am to 4 pm. He returns home at the end of April and will want my car to drive to mountain-board meets. Rather than argue ownership, I shall get a bike. A Honda 125, naturally. I am booked with the DSA to take the new test the first week in April. Monday I begin practicing. I am extremely nervous. Jed will mock the hell out of me if I fail.
So will Bernadette....
The photograph is of Jed out of his head. He calls it having fun. Mad...!

CHRISTIANITY OR THE DEVIL'S WORK

spring flowers in sunshine


LOUISIANA: MARCH 25
Massive trucks roar east on Interstate 10 from Beaumont to Baton Rouge. The Honda 125 is a flee. I am a plump tick on the back of the flee. Flee and tick quiver in the slipstreams. We escape north on State 165 towards Alexandria and Natchez. Louisiana is as flat as Texas. However fields are green and the road runs for mile upon mile through loose woodland. Broad leaf trees are faintly powdered with emerald green. Wild flowers edge the road. Brilliant splashes of deep pink azalea mark houses tucked amongst the trees. Trailer homes are common. Many are old and shabby; backs broken, they sag at each end as do old wooden ships beached on the mud.
And, of course, there are churches.
Christian churches painted in gleaming white serve or are served by a bewildering assortment of congregations. Is there a true difference between the dozen or more Baptist sects? Enough over which to divide a small rural community? Or merely sufficient to keep a pastor in food. There are Methodists and Independent Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists and Lutherans; best of all, the Church of Christ. What are the rest? Such exclusion, such splendid arrogance of faith...

TWO MORELIAS

MORELIA: FEBRUARY 29
Forgive me, Morelia. I walk your streets and sidewalks of gray pave. I try to admire your great buildings, gray granite, perfect in proportion. I am reminded of Scotland's oil capital, Aberdeen, cold in its Victorian grandeur, built to impress and dominate. I feel no love. This is Spain of the Inquisition.
I park the Honda in the patio of the Hotel Colonial. I find a restaurant on the main street. Downstairs is dimly lit (romantic?). I need light to write. A waiter leads me to an upstairs dinning room where I sit in solitary command of windows that open to the twin towers of the cathedral. Yes, they are marvelous, impressive, beautifully lit.
I take joy in another Morelia high in Spain's sierra Maeztrazgo. I visited on my return from Tierra del Fuego in 2006 as the guest of the city. We were celebrating the bicentenary of my Spanish great-grandfather, Marshal Ramon Cabrera, Marques del Ter and further enobled as Conde de Morelia for blasting a massive hole in walls that are now a national monument. Twenty or more of my Spanish cousins attended the celebration. I was required to make a speech. The Spanish are polite. People clapped.

HERONS OR CAVALRY OFFICERS

UP THE PACICIC COAST: FEBRUARY 21
Salinas de Cruz is twenty Ks up the coast from Tehuantepec. An oil refinery brought investment. New construction lines broad streets of what was recently a village. Tehuantepec has charm because it is forgotten. A little of the old ways remain. People are open. They forge friendships. I am privileged – as I have been throughout this journey. I want to stay a further week, watch Adela unearth her roots as she interacts with Fernando and his wife. And I would enjoy talking with Boris in the evenings. I could test my thoughts regarding the Conquest. Instead I ride towards a small community that was at risk when I traveled south in May of 2006 (see archives 05/21).
The road climbs and plummets through hills of scrub woodland with glimpses of sea and beach. In May of 2006, I left Tehuantepec at sunrise. The rains had come. The air was fresh and clean. Hills glowed emerald green. White and yellow blossoms splashed the canopy as did cascades of blue and crimson climbers. Vultures and hawks sailed the sky on dawn patrol. Today I leave nearer midday. Heat is oppressive. Trees are stripped of leaves and brittle. Hills are pale smoky gray.
Rivers have shrunk to a few muddy puddles. A lone white heron stands frozen in green shade. I spot a second in the next river, then a third. White herons or greater egrets? Narrow heads and long spindly legs make for cartoon cavalry officers. Do herons philosophize?
I pull in at a small restaurant. Venison stew is dish of the day. Is this the last deer? Should I refuse? What difference would refusal make?
I am a lone old man on a bike. At most, an ecentric. Influence? None.

COLOMBIAN GREASEBALLS

TEHUANTEPEC, MEXICO: FEBRUARY 17
Boris Corredor prefers working as an editor to teaching. He is a short, square, vital man, hair thinning, eyes very much alive. We drink beer together, discuss the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Cuba, Hollywood images of Hispanic America, US publishers' choice of Hispanic American literature, the Magic Realism of such writers as Marques and Allende, politically anodine – safe.
I prefer Salman Rushdie. Rushdie has courage. He pierces his victims with an epe, slices them with a saber and finishes them off with a lead weighted cudgel – all in magnificent prose. For superb political invective and imagery, read his denunciation of Iran's Khomeini in the Satanic Verses.
Boris agrees. Or is polite...
Colombians are polite - though this isn't the Hollywood projection.
Hollywood Colombians are swarthy Greaseballs. They deal drugs and destroy America's youth.

VERITABLE BODECIAS....

TO TEHUANTEPEC: FEBRUARY 17
Teenagers suffer from facial spots. Mexican roads have speed bumps. Sleeping Policeman is the traditional English term. The Mexican term is Topes. Some are painted yellow, others in yellow stripes. A majority have no paint at all. Drivers may be warned by a series of lines across the road or by road signs. Inevitably the traveler misses a warning. Braking hard as he hits forces a biker's pants into his crotch.
A long day in the saddle is a pain in the butt.
Today is a short stage. I am heading up the PanAmerican highway to Tehuantepec.
Tehuantepec is famous for fierce and strong-willed women (infamous to the macho). The women wear long skirts and stand upright as they ride the streets of Tehuantepec in motor-trikes. Veritable Bodiceas...

A CELEBRATORY BEER - OR THREE

TAPACHULA, MEXICO: FEBRUARY 16
Saturday evening and I drink Corona beer at a sidewalk cafe in Tapachula. Tapachula is celbrating the half-century stage and screen career of the city's best known actress. The juvenile male-lead in a popular soap opera drones praise for thirty minutes. He is followed by a procession of male songsters. All wear Hollywood Mexican dress: big hats, embroidered jackets, gun belts, boots and breaches.
Readers inquire why I never mention music. Because Latin American pop is a crime against humanity.
Sure, salsa or meringue is fun background for a short holiday romance. Be bombarded for four years with its repetitive rhythms and you pray for silence.
As for Brazil, I suffered four days of musical hell whilst traveling by boat down the Madera River to Manaus and Rigaton is Central American rap.
I loathe rap. The beat is offensively aggressive, My son, Joshua, argues that I should listen to the words. He should write them down. I will read them.
As for the poetry of Mexican folk pop and Argentine tango, I prefer a bad book.

THE KIKUYU

the kikuyu


DANLI, HONDURAS: FEBRUARY 2
I save money by staying at the hotel beside the Esso station. My guidebook recomends it as clean, with TV and parking. The parking is true.
I find an internet cafe and am recomended to a Mexican restaurant. The food is OK.
The Kikuyu serviced my bike in 2006. My editor asked why I called him the Kikuyu. I know him by no other name. I rise early and ride to his shop. He embraces me, checks my bike, tightens the chain an unecessary milimetre.
Brave, I ask, "Why do people call you the Kikuyu?"
He shrugs: "It is a bad habit people have."
A pickup arrives towing a trailer loaded with trail bikes. The Kikuyu is their support.
He and I embrace again, wish each other good fortune and head our separate ways.

COSTA RICA IS FOR SALE

TO QUEPES, COSTA RICA: JANUARY 26
Costa Rica is for sale. The country would be beautiful minus the billboards advertising subdivisions and condominiums, spas and country clubs, serpent farms and butterfly farms, horse ridding, surfing and canopy trails, plus every other type of crap that might gull a tourist into an investment.
I head into the hills a way in hope of escaping. No such luck- and I switch off the engine to make certain that I haven´t run a bearing. The screaching is cicadas protesting at billboard encroachment.