Lois Pryce - Lois on the Loose

Contents

About the Book

Lois Pryce has one big passion in life: motorcycling. This is the story of how she threw in the day job and followed her dream of escaping. But she didnt escape a little bit. She rode her motorcycle from the northernmost corner of Alaska to the southernmost tip of South America. Alone.

Armed only with the Spanish words for caution and cheese, Lois was rather under-prepared for multiple bear sightings, bribing her way through borders, spending a night in a Mexican brothel and crashing her bike in the wilds of Patagonia.

She most certainly got the adventure she craved. Her hilarious, brilliantly written travelogue will appeal to everyone whos ever dreamt of jacking-it-all-in and running away to see the world.

About the Author

Torn between the career paths of two illustrious relatives, Max Born, the Nobel Prize Winner in Physics and his granddaughter, Olivia Newton-John, Lois Pryce abandoned her interest in Quantum Theory at the age of 16, left school and spent the next couple of years as a carrot picker, painter and decorator and failing an audition as a kiss-o-gram before bowing to the inevitable and going into rock n roll. After various underpaid jobs in record shops and as a product manager in the Beeb, she decided to jack it all in and ride her trail bike from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Her on-line diary of her journey became a cult hit and led to her first book, Lois on the Loose. She is currently writing her second, about her trip from Tangiers to the Cape of Good Hope. When not on her bike she is at home on her houseboat with husband Austin.

Also by Lois Pryce

Red Tape and White Knuckles

To Austin, my real-life superhero

Acknowledgements

My trip was made a whole lot more fun and successful, thanks to the generosity and kindness of many wonderful people, both back home and on the road. I hope I get the opportunity to return all these favours one day.

At Home

Infinite gratitude and love to Austin for his unstinting support during the trip and the writing of this book; my brother Nat for hours of excellent webmastery, without which this book would never have happened; Mum and Dad for never telling me anything was dangerous; Gerald Vince for the welding and luggage prep; Paul Mules for his patience and good humour on those early trail rides; Richard Baird (RIP) for crate-building assistance; Sarah Crofts for her wise words; Tiffany Coates for advice and tips from the road; Chris Scott for publishing my stories in the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook (and for writing such an inspiring book in the first place); Angie and Trundle for last-minute tinkering; and to Lisa Hall for her warm welcome home.

On the Road in order of appearance

Mike at Delta Air Cargo in Anchorage for going the extra air-mile; Gordy and Lee Woodley for taking me in off the street; Vito and Heather for their heart-warming hospitality; Grant and Susan Johnson for tea, advice and for creating www.horizonsunlimited.com which has helped many a globe-trotting biker; Yvonne Regehr for taking me trail riding in BC; Karen and Rob for showing me a good time in Vancouver; Susan Barber for helping me after I fought the law (and the law won); BSA Barb and Rory for a great welcome to America; Eric and Erin Sowle for a week of fun, trail riding and crazy golf; John in Portland for helping with the kick-start; Jerry and Nancy for some good ol American hospitality; Rick and Erica for a wonderful night in their special houseboat; Kaaren and Toby Boothroyd for Californian luxury and goat-wrangling; Johnny and Lynn for good times in Oakland and for getting this whole book thing rolling; Eli and Rob for providing a corner of England in SF; Pete and Melissa for a great night out and top yarns; Karen and Lola for a wild night on the town (hope you havent lost your car again); Marc and Darlene for being old friends amongst strangers; Linda and Ted Lazarus for their spectacular hosting in the lap of luxury; Nino, Leo and Helen for motorcycle maintenance and real tea; Christine and Brian for hospitality, a haircut and moral support at the tattoo shop; Joe and Lara for putting up with me for so long, for letting me change tyres in the living room and a million other things; Rachel Delavaud for turning up when she did and being a top travelling companion; Juan Carlos Ibarra for calmness and civility in a strange land; Aiza Gomez for giving me a pair of socks; Edgardo Loo Berroa for kidnapping me in the nicest possible way; Carolina in Bogota for taking me in at a moments notice; Ricardo Rocco for livening up the proceedings and for being an all-round good guy; Sjaak for passing on his tips from the road; Willem, Zoila, Jessica, Johan and Maurets in Cuenca, who welcomed me into their home on the spur of the moment; Jeffrey Powers for all his help in Cuzco getting my bike sorted; Dieter for being a nice Swiss chap; Robb for helping sort out a horrible mess; Frank and Ann likewise and beyond; Ziggy for coming to the rescue; and finally, to all the people who sent me words of encouragement and offers of hospitality while I was on the road, it really made a difference. Oh yes, and another extra thanks to Rachel, as I know how much she enjoys these lists.

The Book

Much gratitude is due to my super-agent Faye Bender for her perseverance, professionalism and encouragement; to the unstoppable Jenny Meyer for getting this book published in various corners of the world; to my editor, Oliver Johnson, for his steady encouragement and wise words but, most importantly, for just getting it; to Charlotte Haycock at Random House for her dazzling efficiency and attention to detail; to Eleanor for the fantastic cover design; to Charlie Boston and Simon Radford for their sanity-saving office space and generosity; and to Simon Kennedy for his sage editorial tips.

ONE

THERES A MUCH-QUOTED line from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that says travelling by car is like watching a movie, but riding a motorcycle is like being in one. As I rode my bike onto a home-bound ferry after a fortnights holiday in France, I pondered this idea and decided it was wrong. Motorcycling was much much better.

But sadly, a return ferry journey is never as exciting as the outbound voyage. Rolling off a boat on a motorcycle into a foreign land is one of the most exciting experiences I know. No matter where it is in the world: freewheeling down the ramp, the metallic clank that marks your arrival, and your first glimpse of a strange land. Everything looks different, sounds different, even smells different you feel different.

The Pride of Portsmouth gave a mournful hoot as she chugged out of Le Havre docks into a reliably grey English Channel. In just a few hours I would be pounding the familiar tarmac of the M3 back to London. I looked at my watch and noted that at exactly this time tomorrow I would be clocking in at the office again, sitting at my desk, ploughing through two weeks worth of yellow Post-it notes and pointless memos.

How can I hold on to that just-rolled-off-the-ferry feeling? I wondered. How can I make it last? It was time to come up with an answer.

Returning to work after a holiday is rarely a pleasant experience, but it can be made that little bit more bearable if something interesting, or preferably gossip-worthy, has happened in your absence. On this occasion the heart-sinking tedium of once again clocking in at my BBC job was only slightly redeemed by the excitement of an office refurb, or paint job to you and me. Where once there was grey, now there was beige. Predictably, there was even a celebratory memo about it on my desk but the colour, apparently, wasnt beige, it was taupe. All part of the fresh contemporary feel that was being rolled out across the corporation. It translated roughly as Forget your bonus, weve spent it on paint. The Management. Other than that, things seemed pretty much the same; the office plants were still either slowly dying or fake a description that could be applied to most of the staff too. This wasnt what I was after; Id set my hopes on the news of an office affair, a dramatic resignation or at least a good old-fashioned sacking in which the employee in question was escorted off the premises. Why do they do that? I wondered idly, as I trudged up the stairs. Maybe in case the redundant worker freaks out in the lobby and makes a violent lunge at the Investors In People award?