Motorcycle Explorer April 2015 Issue 5 | Page 76

HAS INTERNET STERILE? Old Skool travller Graham Field asks the question I ’ve been wondering on this trip, should going off on an overland motorcycle journey be easy? Should it be challenging? Should you discover unknown abilities, find your limitations? Grow, learn, experience, gain knowledge, wisdom and if so how do you get those qualities? I'm seemingly old school, that’s the knowledge I’ve gained on this ride, I appear to be making it deliberately hard for myself. It must be my unwillingness to do research on forums, it’s all out there, where to stay, what roads to ride to get there, and what to see on the way, border procedures, maps and layouts. I met a German 4x4 at the bottom of Mexico whilst eating bbq chicken for breakfast from a road side vendor (I’m sure I ordered eggs, clearly the vendors’ Spanish was worse than mine). The occupants of the 4x4 had driven down to the Guatemalan border, sized it up and decided to do more research and wait until tomorrow to cross. I continued on into a Sunday afternoon, and what do you know? An open border that caters for the people crossing, simple, straight forward and efficient. The only delay was the fact a tourist bus had just spewed a load of lost looking gap year backpackers into the immigration office just as I was putting my bike on the side stand. Like turtles with tumours they bumped their way around the