Great news, after all!!! Hope yo get in contact with him, then you can rest from this nightmare...

Nicolas Holzem
 

Hi all,

yes, this is positiv news. Nicolas will be somewhere in the Bolivian lowlands on a finca working or just volunteering, completely off the internet grid and unaware that we have been looking for him for three months now. We had some witnesses, unconfirmed, reporting to have seen him a market just two weeks ago.

Catherine spend two months here in Bolivia looking for him, she did all she could, also in Luxembourg ... really a lot ... to get the message out and talk to witnesses and the police.

I met her in Santa Cruz twice for dinner and I was impressed not only by her organizing and language skills, but also by her analytic approach to the search and dealing with the sometime conflictive information. Also her way of dealing with the locals, the police and the biker community here in Bolivia impressed me.

She told me, that she will be looking for a new job soon, maybe in Australia. I can tell you, if had a company I would hire her as a manager or an analyst.

So, this is it for the moment. I assume one day Nicolas will just walk into the local bar La Boheme here in Samaipata and I will invite him for a beer and tell him to phone his daughter.

Bolivia itself is at very difficult time in history with the general strike turning violent and some places running out of fuel and food.

Thank you all for your support and your thoughts.

mika :mchappy:

If the guy walked into a bar i was at, not only would i not buy him a beer, i'd likely tell him to his face what a rude, irresponsible jerk he is. it's one thing to go on an adventure and experience life the way you chose. it's a completely different matter to leave your family in the dark for MONTHS, in an age where communication is easy and free.


if my brother did that to me, i'd kick his ass.

Exactly! If this is true and his total lack of consideration over several months has caused a lot of people to waste a lot of time and tears, then he deserves more than a swift kick up the bum.

As I already said, I'm really glad he appears to be alive and just spending "some time off the grid".


I also share these quoted sentiments too. How hard would it have been for Nicolas to send a quick email/ sms/ WhatsApp message prior to his disappearing act to let the family know his plans?

After Mr Storm Nye's drug-fueled walkabout in Peru and Chile at the end of last year ( https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...ker-peru-96508 ) and now this, I sincerely hope the travel community will still try to help if genuine misfortune befalls someone on the road.

Folks who are tempted to pile on the supposedly-lost biker might consider the poor example set by those who previously piled on his family. In other words, we don't know much at the moment, and any criticisms are based wholly on what we imagine might be true.

Again, it's not really about you, me, or our desire to find someone to blame...and it's definitely worth considering the possibility that our imaginations might be leading us astray. Probably we'll all know more about what actually happened in due course.

My US$0.02 (at current rates of exchange for any stable currency).

Mark

Another £0.02 (soon to be on par with your US$0.02, considering the current ebbs and flows on the FX markets) of mine.

“Piled on”? “Imagination”? If you’re preemptively warning people not to get too heavy on the missing man, fine. If you’re suggesting the 3 posts above yours are “piling on” or based on a too vivid imagination, hardly.

They are based on what the man’s sister has found out: He’s apparently alive. He was seen by several people in different parts of Bolivia over the past months and most recently in mid-September (3 months after radio silence began in mid-June). He hasn’t been in touch with any family or friends.

Unless all this behaviour is under duress, hubb users voicing criticism for him apparently wasting many people’s time (including mine) and, much much worse, causing his family huge anguish, just because he was unable to send a quick message of “I’m fine, but I just want to take some time out” isn’t connected to piling on anything caused by an overly fertile imagination.

@ teevee
 

Hello Teevee,

thank you for your post. I disagree completely with what you said.

Its not up to me (or anybody outside his family) to judge him for his actions. As I dont know exactly what happened with his family, and I also dont want to know, as it is none of my business, there is no way that I will judge him when he walks into the bar here.

I helped his sister, because she asked for help in my home country. And it was only about finding her brother and not solving family problems/issues.

Teevee, I think you should show more respect for somebodies private life and not just demand that everybody does things the way you do, without knowing anything about the situation. Thanks for listening.


@markharf: Well said, thank you.



My 2 cents worth today.
mika :scooter:

Thoughts 2 cents+
 

When we find out about missing riders, we all HOPE, he is getting lost and off the grid. After following and worrying and hoping, we find out that he indeed is purposely, we get pissed,

Personally I would rather say to him “Hi, how are you?”. Sit down with him, maybe share a drink or two, listen to him and make sure that he is OK - but without prying. I don’t know why he disappeared off the grid but people rarely do it for no reason. I don’t particularly want to dig into the reasons - if he wants to share then fine, but he probably won’t.

I guess those that helped did so for a few reasons - I suspect that most did it because they would want someone to look out for their family in similar situations by trying to help them. Giving him a load of grief is not going to change anything, it could push him back into a dark place - one thing as sure as eggs are eggs is that it will not do anything constructive for him or his family.

this is a public forum and when one posts here, they make whatever they post about public and open it open to public opinion.



you and others have the right to voice your opinions about this and anything else you care to share, as do i.


my comments were not so much judgemental as they were opinion. in my opinion, anyone--adventure rider or otherwise--that leaves family in the dark for months on end is a jackass. if they are suffering from some mental derangement they may be excused, but only when proven.



maybe you should consider that every so often stories like this do not end well. harry in mexico, the poor fellow that apparently died of a heart attack next to his bike in peru, and others i can't recall at the moment. we riders and family members perusing this and other fora are aware of these stories, and when someone comes along and posts about yet another missing rider, we all think and feel stressed by the possibility that things won't end well.


all because some guy made a conscious decision to go dark. sure, we don't know the whole story: maybe he got into a huge fight with his family and his sister "neglected" to tell us. but since we don't know that that occurred and she didn't say anything of the sort, we can only presume that it didn't and his lack of communication was intentional, inexcusable, and just plain wrong.

This story makes me feel like a parent whose kid has finally showed up back home, hours late, after midnight.

Deliriously happy that he/she (for me it was a daughter) was safe and sound, followed by anger that she put me through so much effort and worry.

I guess the responses to the thread mean that we as fellow travelers care quite a bit about other travelers.

Remember that the next time you think about disappearing for a while...

https://i831.photobucket.com/albums/...steryTK006.jpg


.............shu

well said SHU!

Would it be a good idea that a member of Nicolas' family updates the Facebook "HELP! Missing Person In Bolivia!" group page? That Nicolas is apparently alive is news that should be shared there.

I assume the Bolivian and Luxembourg police been informed of the latest developments.

Guys, I appreciate @akosiwa feels he alright but as quoted above there's no proof of this.

So whilst I hope she is right, it might be better for us to not make assumptions as to his safety and especially not start arguing between ourselves.

Many of you have been extremely helpful on here and whilst I've only been watching the discussion, it makes me proud to be part of such a community.