One year on the road, two more to go for couple biking across world

“Sorry for the delay. We have been on the road, crossing from Peru to Ecuador. Very hot weather now and so we got more tired than usual. Border crossing was a long process followed by a lost phone and more riding in the mountains (that was awesome). We have our last day to ride today to get to our destination, the Ecuador coastline,” read an e-mail from Dos and Wamuyu Kariuki to the Sunday Nation.

The husband and wife left the country on July 2 last year in a quest to be not only the first Kenyans but also the first African couple to travel across the seven continents while riding on motorcycles. The bikers have been in South America for the past eight months, so far covering more than 23,300km since the journey started in Nairobi.

They rode from Kenya down to South Africa and had to apply for an Argentinian visa, which was their first port of call in South America. They got a 90-day visa.

However, no ship was to depart soon enough for them to arrive in Argentina in good time and be able to explore the country within the allocated visa time.

“We, therefore, settled on flying the motorbikes there. The cost benefit on shipping was pretty small and the time we would lose and a possibility of reapplying for the visa was more,” they wrote.

The couple has so far been to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and just entered Ecuador, on their BMW F700GS motorcycles.

“Our biggest challenge was the language barrier, mostly reading road signs, which are all in Spanish. Also, since we are not used to riding on the right, in roads where they have open cross roads, it can get pretty confusing.”

In their opinion, Argentina has the best grilled meat in the world, which they call asado. Due to the Argentines’ generosity, they got invited to so many homes, creating new friends that they are still in touch with. In Chile, the experience with people was similar, but they encountered more of Peruvian food than Chilean.

“We loved the coast and the Atacama Desert. It’s really beautiful and peaceful there,” they wrote to the Sunday Nation.

With only a 30-day visa in Bolivia, the couple could not do much. They spent two weeks in La Paz, applying for a Peruvian visa and, having suffered burnout, to rest.

They did get to visit places of interest like Salar de Uyuni (the world’s largest salt flat or flat expanses of ground covered by salt at 10,582 square kilometres), which is a wonder of the world, and spent a week in Copacabana - at the border of Bolivia and Peru.

Lake Titicaca is found in this area and, at 3,812m surface, is the largest high navigable lake in the world and includes islands that are home to indigenous Bolivianos and Peruvians. They got to quite a bit on Bolivian culture and history.

“Learning how the Spaniards had to incorporate the culture and faith of the indigenous Bolivians into the church to convert them into Christianity was quite fascinating.”

Bolivian culture does not mourn the dead, they celebrate with a feast and a dance, the couple say. They also visit the graves every Sunday with gifts and food to celebrate. They believe the spirits of their loved ones should be let free, so they discard graves after five years.

Dos and Wamuyu loved Bolivia’s grilled chicken (pollo à la brasa) that they ate it every day.

In all these countries, Peru has been the most beautiful they have visited. Riding through the mountains in Cuzco, visiting the Machu Picchu citadel in the Andes Mountain, being on the Rainbow Mountain, seeing the Nazca lines (a group of large geoglyphs formed by depressions of the soil), being at the Huacachina oasis town, all made for the couple to experience the diversity of the country; from wet highlands to desert mountains, beaches and a coast line that is amazing.

Peru is a food hub as well, there are hundreds of different, delicious delicacies if not thousands. They lived with a couple in Lima that took them for a real food fest.

“We tried out as many different foods as we could and our favourite is Ceviche (which is raw fish marinated in lime juice), Chincharon (fried fish that is more like fish fingers) and Chaufa rice.”

Just over a week old in their foray in Ecuador, Dos and Wamuyu feel they have been blessed not to have had any major health or bike problems.

A bad stomach from bad food or water, common cold in the mountains, heat rush in the coast, body aches from long riding days are generally treatable from their first aid kit.

The only motorbike issue they experienced was when Dos hit a rock and badly bent his rim. Crossing borders with their Kenyan number-plate motorbikes has been very easy.

Throughout, they have felt safe and they mostly board in hostels. No Carnet de Passage en Douane (an international customs document covering the temporary admission of foreign-registered motor vehicle) is required in South America.

So far, the cost of maintaining the motorbikes has been affordable. “The fuel range is so good we have never got stuck because of that and the service mileage is good for our pockets. We service after 10,000 kilometres,” said the couple.

However, there have also been bumps on the way. It is costly to travel, especially if you factor that most of their transactions have to be converted from shillings to the local currency. Their visas to Ecuador cost $450 per person. Argentina and Chile were the most expensive countries, including high cost of road tolls. No such fees are required for motorbikes in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

They also got to visit Antarctica briefly, which they describe felt “like being out of the world to a whole new planet”.

It is so clean and preserved that they had to carry a urine bottle with them every time they got off the ship since there are no toilets anywhere. Due to cost, visiting Antarctica is highly elusive for a lot of people but they felt it was worth every penny.

Currently, the two are behind their scheduled time because they spent longer periods in countries than they had predicted.

With the weather changing in the north, it will soon be winter. Their next stop is Colombia, before they move through Central America to Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. They will then get into the US and head to California.

The couple feels privileged to be able to tell the Kenyan story abroad. One year down, two to go for the daring couple.