A friend is in danger. I postponed the motorcycle touring indefinitely.

A friend in Peru has suffered a medical emergency and has asked for my help. I read the 'Help' email one hour before leaving, after kissing Grandma on the cheek, hugging the family dog, and packing stray junk into the bike that would weigh it down an extra 140 pounds for the run on Baja. Water bottles were packed with ice, a special lunch was on top, and I only needed to put on the helmet and start the ignition, but here was a trip-ending crisis.

I tried to ignore her plea but it needled my conscience.

Here is the road to Tecate. A bunch of Border Patrol were watching those hills. When I stopped to ask them directions they tailed me afterwards and ran my plates. They must have been taught in the 'criminals always ask cops for directions' school of thought.

image
See that little hill just above the motorcycle? I camped to the right of it. There was a quarry nearby. During the night I heard about 75 yards away what seemed like a drunken man running through the brush with tin cans strapped to his legs. I stood up and shouted "Hey!" and pointed the flashlight in the direction of the noise, but it had left.

After 150 miles, and two Tecates in the "Old Highway Cafe" talking with a retired private eye, this quarry campsite seemed fine. While lying in the desert night only six miles from the Mexican border, I mulled over my friend's message. Mosquitos dusted my chin. It was clear that although I could wait to tour Baja later, I couldn't pack up my friendship as dispassionately.

In the morning I treated myself to a huge scrambled eggs breakfast, then called a close friend from a gas station phone. I spoke with him about turning around. Doing the right thing all too often means sacrificing something beautiful for greater good. Shortly thereafter I turned around, in plain view of the Mexican mountains, and headed north.

Those mountains may have been as distant as the moon, for they were as beautiful. We'll touch them far in the far future. Until then, I will be in South America sooner than expected, with an airline ticket, working, caring for my friend.

I will continue the journey someday, perhaps many years from now. Until then--hasta luego, y bienvenidos a Peru.

Ethan

Somewhere waiting
Go and find it
Go and look beyond the ranges
Lost and waiting for you,
Go!

Kipling

Being a new Deputy Sheriff, I couldn't wait to go put troubles out and serve the innocent. Sure, there'd be boredom and paperwork at times. But there'd be moments beyond the routine, when the principles I fought for became clear.

After graduation in July 2006, I wrote "Anything But Jail" in caps across the top of my assignment form. I was going to excel, right? Mile and a half in 8:52 minutes, Spanish proficiency, college degree, push-up champ; but then the news arrived from the academy commander, standing prim and tall in front of our spit-shined class: you've been assigned for a year to the local jail.

Jail is part DMV, part submarine, and part dog pound.

I worked scrubbing fecal matter from air vents, in a never ending quest to make every day of operation as flawless as the last. The place stank of feet, urine and vomit. I chained and unchained inmates for court, searched child molesters' pants for contraband and counted food trays, while friends from the academy on patrol knocked down doors to high class cathouses and sped with lights and sirens to 'shots fired' calls.

I turned in my badge after four months.

Prepare to confront the unknown with the few tools you carry. If failure stalks, stalk it back. Live, standing, as a man, and fall when you are done.

While mulling this over I'd go on runs for ten miles up my favorite desert canyon, here in California. Night would fall halfway, and the coyotes would come out in the underbrush and call to each other as I felt my way through thickets and deep sand. I would return to the trailer exhausted but blissful, and sit on the cinderblock front steps and pop a beer, and contemplate the dark mass of Martinez Mountain under the stars.

The angel said
"If we fail this time
It'd be a failure of imagination."
Then she placed the world
Gently into the palm of your hand.
---unknown author

All writers suffer from the urge to explain themselves to an uncomprehending world. Travel writers are like war correspondents. They drink tea with chaos, chat up disaster, all to bring that great crazy endless war that is life to the reader's front door in the morning. Ahh, you say sipping morning coffee, Kabuchikan has attacked Kerjukistan again. I'm glad our man is there.

All good trips begin with loss. This was no exception, but it was only a license plate. One afternoon I went outside and Poof! Gone. Better it happened in California than in the outskirts of Cupavaca, Mexico. It was probably stolen.

I went to Berkeley, California, to test everything and make sure it worked.
I followed the Pearblossom Highway through rolling hills and high desert from Palm Springs around Los Angeles to reach Highway 1, that famous trail up the coast. However, night fell and left me stranded in the coastal mountains on the 166, with a burger in my belly and half a bottle of water. There was a sign for a campground off the highway: 6 miles.
The road was patched and strewn with gravel. From darkness loomed shapes at 15 mph--cows. Up I went, past an empty power substation lit against the neon sky. Soon the road curved into a tree-filled hollow, where the sound of rushing water filled the air. The campground! I put on my highbeam and surprised a deer which, with shining eyes, sprang into the woods. A chill ran up my back--was I the only one there?
Something didn't feel right, despite the fact that I've camped often by myself. Maybe I shouldn't have read that book about the Zodiac killer right before leaving? I puttered around on the soft leaves in the darkness, but felt eyes on the back of my neck all the while. So, moving on, I found a winding dirt track into the National Forest 45 miles down the road, where I set up camp on a moonlit promontory a mile from the highway. At 5 AM a GMC truck blasted around the corner, waking me from a sound sleep next to my bike and giving me a dose of fight-or-flight, but it passed in a haze of gravel and exhaust. Still, there is no worse feeling than being surprised in a strange place while sleeping rough.
When I got up at six the view was breathtaking. Down below a graceful bridge spanned the valley. Oaks perched on the hillside and birds played in the grass. A place never seems threatening once you've spent the night there. That dark shape that looked like a crouching mountain lion?--A bush.

I followed the 1 up the coast to Berkeley, but dropped the bike on the side of the road when juggling my camera.

As a silver crown victoria passed I jumped up from scrambling in the roadside gravel and looked casually seawards, as if having the motorcycle on its side was the most natural thing. Then, once the car drifted around the corner I jumped back to my ant's labor.

Berkeley means eavesdropping on graduate students' conversation at Cafe Strada and wandering the campus in the afternoon. (I promise I'll return. I fell in love with you a long time ago.) From their apartment my cousin Jonathan and his girlfriend Lauren watched with me the sun sink to San Francisco as we drank grasshoppers and ate fried trout with seasoned rice.
image

On the return trip I followed the 25 past Pinnacles National Monument.

The road turned into one lane.

I didn't see another vehicle for an hour. Instead, quail, vultures and rodents scattered from the dry grass at the road's edge.

Then I got lost in some badlands, after dark, led astray looking for a place to eat. If there had been a trail of breadcrumbs I would have followed it. The road turned to dirt. A small sign said "paved road, 6 miles". Behold, there was a paved road, but it wasn't marked. Red eyed dogs jumped out of the night. I could see no porchlights, only a ghostly valley lit by the rising moon. I passed an oil spout flaring in the night, then finally emerged on a dry plain where several small oil towns strewn with floodlights belched fumes. It was a long ride home.

Operating under the premise that motorcycles and trucks are male, and cars female, I have decided to christen the motorcycle.

Motorcycle does not
Start
Push it down the
Road
Plead with engine's elves
"Make it go!"

Hello, my name is Ethan Applegarth and I am about to head south on a bike I barely know. Let me introduce myself: I like spicy eggs rolled in steaming hot tortillas and feisty women who like to dance. I'm carrying more books than clothes, including "Don Quixote", "Notes from the Underground", and more clothes than spare parts, including some gear oil, wrenches, coolant, and a couple of fuses and spark plugs.
I will not be wearing anything colorful made out of velcro or spandex. My entire life savings would not even purchase a used BMW or Dakar-styled machine. GPS? Gravel, Puke and Snow. I'm wearing my old boots and using a map and compass to plot the way. If it rains I get wet. If it's cold I shiver. If I get mugged I chase 'em with a tire iron.
For two months now the imminent departure has been "two weeks away". Family and friends grumble as I wait for the last mail-ordered items and motorcycle title to arrive for my old maroon and silver Kawasaki 500 LTD. "I'm leaving, really, I am."