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Concept
shakedown trip
A shakedown trip is a practice run. You ride first to see if everything works—your bike, your gear, and your comfort—before you go on the big trip.
Car
Honda VTR 250
The Honda VTR 250 is a smaller Honda motorcycle that’s easier to handle than bigger bikes. People often start on bikes like this because they’re not too powerful and are good for learning how to ride.
Term
panniers
Panniers are side-mounted luggage bags that attach to a motorcycle’s frame or rear rack. They’re commonly used for touring because they keep weight low and spread it across both sides of the bike.
Car
CSC RX 3
The CSC RX 3 is a small motorcycle (around 250cc). The point here is that the rider chose a relatively affordable bike for a serious solo trip.
Car
Zong Shen 250 CC
Zong Shen is a Chinese motorcycle brand, and here they’re talking about a 250cc bike. A 250cc engine is smaller, so you typically ride it more patiently than a bigger 650cc+ motorcycle.
Term
hard top box
A hard top box is a solid storage case on the back of a bike. It helps keep your belongings dry and protected.
Term
rack
A motorcycle rack is a mounting framework (often metal) used to attach luggage, panniers, or bags. It spreads load and provides secure attachment points for long-distance travel gear.
Term
waterproof bag
A waterproof bag is a bag that keeps water out. That’s useful on trips when you might get caught in rain.
Term
crash bar bags
Crash bar bags are small bags attached to the protective bars on a bike. Those bars are meant to protect the bike if it tips over, and the bags use that area to carry gear.
Part
clutch cable
The clutch cable connects your hand lever to the clutch mechanism. If it breaks, you can’t use the clutch normally, so riding becomes much harder until it’s fixed.
Term
footpeg
A footpeg is where you put your foot on the motorcycle. But it’s more than a rest—your boots push and steer through the pegs, so the peg design can change how well you control the bike.
Brand
IMS products
IMS products is a company that makes aftermarket motorcycle parts. In this segment, they’re talking about IMS footpegs and how the design helps your boots grip better and stay planted off-road.
Term
IMS double staggered tooth design
“Double staggered tooth” refers to a specific footpeg surface pattern that uses two offset rows of raised traction teeth. The goal is to grip your boots more securely for better control, while still being designed to avoid excessive wear or harshness on your footwear.
Term
release mud and debris
Off-road, mud and dirt can build up on the footpeg and make it slippery. A design that “releases” mud helps keep traction so your boot stays grippy.
Place
Peru
Peru is the country where the rider started their trip. Where you start can change the kind of roads and conditions you’ll deal with right away.
Term
gravel
Gravel is loose rock on the road. On a motorcycle it can make the bike less grippy, so you have to ride more smoothly to avoid losing control.
Place
Malditos
Malditos is a rough, unpaved road area in Patagonia. People who travel there say it’s famous for being difficult—especially when the weather is windy.
Term
slippery moving rocks
That phrase means the rocks on the ground aren’t fixed—they move when your tires roll over them. That makes traction unpredictable, so you have to be extra smooth with your inputs.
Term
Gringo route
“Gringo route” here means a popular travel route that many foreign tourists follow. The speaker is saying that travelers on that route usually hear about Malditos.
Term
stator and rectifier
Your motorcycle needs electricity to run lights, fuel injection (if equipped), and charge the battery. The stator makes the electricity, and the rectifier turns it into the right kind of electricity the bike can use.
Term
spark plug
A spark plug is a part in a gas engine that makes the “spark” that lights the fuel in the engine. If it’s bad, the engine may stumble, misfire, or not run smoothly.
Term
wind gusts
Wind gusts are quick, stronger bursts of wind. They can make a motorcycle feel unstable, especially if the bike is light or has less weight on it.
Car
1200 GS
“1200 GS” refers to a BMW adventure motorcycle. It’s built for long trips and rough roads, which is why it gets mentioned when people talk about riding in tough places.
Term
400 CC
“400 CC” is a way of describing the motorcycle’s engine size. Bigger CC usually means the bike can make more power, but it’s not the only factor that matters.
Term
160 scooters
“160 scooters” means small-engine scooters, around 160cc. They’re usually easier to ride around town, though they can be less comfortable for longer or faster trips.
LIVE
Lala Barlow has probably ridden in more varied conditions in extreme places that most riders
will ever get a chance to experience.
She is the real deal, an adventure motorcycle traveler.
But this wasn't the Lala Barlow that her friends and family knew.
I mean, her parents were literally shocked, jaw-dropped when a motorcycle arrived at the
house when she started to ride, blindsided, you could say.
Because the Lala they knew was an actor, musical theater, performance, additions.
That was her world.
It was the life that she worked hard for.
And after a bunch of years of struggling, as people do in the acting trade, things were
finally starting to happen.
I mean, she was about to step on to the big stage, make it real big when COVID shut it
all down for her.
And that's not a small thing.
I mean, that's the type of business that you identify with.
And when you identify with the whole world and it suddenly is gone, it leads to leave
just a huge empty space.
But somewhere along the line, something started to appear for Lala.
She kept coming across images of motorcycles, mountains and Patagonia.
And she didn't know anything about any of them.
She didn't ride a bike.
She didn't have friends at road.
But Serendipity kept presenting her with pictures of Patagonia, mountains and motorcycles.
It was just a theme she couldn't shake.
In fact, she didn't want to shake it.
She loved the idea of it.
But of course, when you don't know anything about motorcycles or motorcycle travel, where
do you start?
Well, she did what she had to.
She got a bike.
She learned to ride.
She researched a trip.
She did a shakedown trip, which was, wait till you hear the shakedown trip.
I think most people will call it an adventure, sort of one step at a time through a very
steep learning curve, but she never let go of that goal.
Patagonia alone, alone.
That was along with those images that she's seeing of Patagonia riding in the mountains
and imagining doing that.
She was imagining doing it by herself, exploring by herself.
So in this, you're going to hear her feelings of what it was like for a first solo trip alone
in a foreign country where everything is strange and getting help requires trusting
strangers and being vulnerable.
It's an interesting thing that she's had to deal with.
And she had some experiences that are, that are quite interesting to hear.
We're also going to get into something that we probably don't talk about enough
because in this industry, a lot of people would just say, just go, just motorcycle
travel, just go.
And there's certainly truth in that.
Obviously at some point you have to just go, but a big journey is a huge undertaking
and there's a lot to do to get ready for it.
There's the dream of it.
And then there's the actual work behind making it happen.
And for Lala, that took years of preparation before she ever reached South America.
It isn't as easy as you may imagine.
If you just listen to just go yet, it's not impossible.
And in this episode, we're going to get into what it actually looked like for Lala,
the planning, the fear, that big test ride across Australia.
Then getting into South America, riding alone, dealing with the language.
And there's all your environmental stuff, the altitude, the weather and the
breakdowns, of course, and moments where she had to figure things out as they
came to her alone in a foreign country.
I'm Jim Martin.
This is Adventure Rider Radio.
Stay with us.
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Lisa Jalvis, and I'm Jalvis, Clinton Smout, and you're listening to Adventure Rider Radio.
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My name is Lala Baller. I'm from Melbourne, Australia.
And currently I'm doing a bit of teaching, but for the last few years,
I've been pretty much traveling on a motorcycle.
Lala, welcome to Adventure Riding Radio.
Thanks so much, Jim.
It's such a pleasure to be here with you.
Thank you. Where are you right now?
I am back at home.
So I am in Melbourne, Australia.
Yeah, in winters, just sort of set in.
So, yeah, I was in Bali a week ago in the crazy humidity.
So it's a bit of a drop shot coming home.
But yeah, it's nice to be home.
Right. What are you doing at home now?
What do you do while you're there?
I work, unfortunately.
Oh, that's horrible.
I'm so sorry I asked the question now.
I didn't mean to bring you down.
It's OK. Back to reality.
So yeah, I'm teaching at the moment.
It's sort of that's what I'm doing to pay the bills.
I mean, I don't have that many bills, but pay the bills and,
I guess, replenish my travel funds so I can disappear again.
What do you teach?
It's secondary school.
I've taught lots of different things over the years,
but at the moment I exist pretty happily as a we call it a CRT here.
So casual relief teacher.
So covering classes when other teachers are sick.
So it's kind of a mixed bag of everything.
But in terms of a flexible job that I can dip in and out of whenever I want,
I have no boss because I work for schools independently or through agencies.
I can literally just, you know, mark myself as unavailable
for the schools that I work for or the agencies I work for.
And disappear.
Like I could book a flat tomorrow, really.
If I if I'm not doing a long term contract or a short term contract in a school.
And they don't miss you until they want to reach out to you and get you to work.
Well, yeah, I sort of come back and I reach out to them and say, hey, I'm available.
I'm available, you know, Monday to Friday or whatever.
So it's it's it's really good in that sense in that you can just dip in and out.
And like you said, you're always in demand.
They're always going to need teachers.
I don't know what it's like over in your neck of the woods,
but there's still a very high demand here and especially coming into winter.
Everyone's starting to get sick.
So yeah, I'm very fortunate.
I think we just stumbled onto the perfect traveler job.
You work when you when you need money and then you disappear when you want to.
Totally. That's sort of what my yeah, since covid, that's kind of been my life.
It's been coming back working for however long I need until I've got the money
I need and then disappearing. Right.
So I'm very, I'm very fortunate in that in that aspect that I can do that.
Yeah, you also spent time as an actor.
I did. That was my life.
That was my, you know, sole purpose until covid happened.
And, you know, everyone has their their covid story, I think.
But yeah, everything pivoted from there.
But yeah, I did. That was, you know, my sole purpose, my my life's pursuit,
my passion. It took up every aspect of my life and I loved it.
But now I do something else.
What kind of acting was it?
Musical theatre.
So yeah, I sort of singing, dancing, acting, went to school, went to drama school,
did my Bachelor of Arts Education.
So I have my teaching degree as well and then worked in the industry here,
went and moved over to London and was lucky enough to get some really cool
gigs over there, music theatre, mainly.
But then I actually got this really cool gig as a sadistic,
psycho killer teacher in a indie film in Yorkshire just before covid happened.
So I there were just some, yeah, I've done some really diverse.
Do you put that in your resume?
Not not for teaching.
So covid was also a bit of a change for you as far as
motorcycling, because you took up motorcycling, but you took it up.
You said after years of thinking about it.
Yeah, so I don't know.
I'd always been I've always been a bit of a rebel.
I don't like following rules.
I don't like following the crowd.
I'm a bit of an introvert, like an extroverted introvert,
I guess you could say, I'd always been fascinated by them.
But I mean, knew no one that road.
So it was always this kind of thing that I was interested in.
But because I didn't have a point of reference, a friend and auntie
that road, it was like this unattainable thing.
And then covid happened and I had all these gigs lined up.
I'd just come back from the UK, where I'd been living.
And my ex-boyfriend and I at the time had just written a show
about living in a share house in London.
It did really well.
We took it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
won all these awards.
And then we did a world tour of it and took it to Australia
and did the Fringe Circuit in Australia and took it back to the UK and the UK tour.
So everything life was just it was operating on a different sphere.
Came home to Australia and then had all these great gigs lined up, did the film,
had some really good auditions and I was sort of just about to break into the industry
in a really incredible way here.
And then covid happened and everything just pivoted.
And I was like, because all of my gigs got cancelled,
all of my shows got cancelled and suddenly it was just me.
I wasn't on a stage and I didn't know who I was.
Like, I think a lot of people went through.
I mean, you're just at the point.
You're just at the point.
I mean, it's like coming to that point in a good movie or a good book or something
like that and everything crashes.
Yeah. But I think it was like that for a lot of people.
Yeah. But yeah, everything just and I was forced to look at myself
and go, what are you if you're not performing?
What are you if you're not receiving applause and gratification?
What are you if you're not going to, you know, 10 auditions a week
and doing singing classes and all of these other things?
And and the outdoors just opened up to me in such a cinematic way.
I just started.
I it sounds really cliche, but I started dreaming
of motorcycles and mountains like I would wake up in the morning
and I'd just be like, whoa, what was that?
Just work up from and then the book, you know, I just started listening to podcasts
and I started listening, reading books about Patagonia.
Everything it was Patagonia appeared to me so clearly.
And the motorcycle, I was like, OK, well.
I have to get my license and I want to go into a trip.
Somewhere, Patagonia, because it just kept coming up and reappearing.
And I'm very I'm quite spiritually aligned and I'm very, very intuitive.
So if something keeps coming up, then I follow it.
So I yeah, I decided, God, it was March of the year that March of 2020
that I'd book in and get my license.
I I didn't even know how to drive a manual car.
So I didn't even know how to use gears.
Like, I didn't know what clutch was, Jim, like.
Right. So you're really starting at grounds.
It's a you went and got a motorcycle license
because you dreamed about it more than once.
Yeah. Yeah. But it was so many different things.
It was, you know, I had a library membership at the time
and I kept getting led towards the books on automotive, you know,
and motorcycle mechanics and travel.
And it was just lots of different nudges
towards that, you know, all the pictures that I was researching were of motorcycles.
I was like, what is this? You know, I have to follow it.
And I think as well, because Covid was such a
it was a really intense time for us in Melbourne.
We had I think it was like the world's longest lockdown.
It was a really quite oppressive time here.
Mm hmm.
So the desire to escape and tap into a kind of freedom.
That just wasn't accessible here, like and the motorcycle to me was
was that during such a hard time here, it just represented something
that could catapult me out of the current reality, which was so.
So bleak, I guess, during that time.
So, um, yeah, I booked my license and I went and I hear you have to do
like a two day pretty intense course that's fairly expensive.
It was it was really good.
And I already passed it.
And I just remember when I passed that test, I thought I was going to fail
because I was I was useless on the clutch and I couldn't find the sweet spot.
And I just I passed it and I just burst into tears.
And I just don't ever remember being feeling so elated.
In my life. And I was like, you know, after all the things I've done
and the success I've had with my career, like, I don't ever remember feeling
so proud of myself as I did in that moment.
You know, and my parents are, you know, I was living with mom and dad at the time.
I still am now they're both, you know, very respectable chemists.
You know, my mom was a chemistry teacher.
My dad worked in a lab.
They're like, what are you doing?
Come on. What are you doing?
I'm going and getting your license.
I'm like, I just have to have to do it. I have to.
So you got your license because you had this dream about South America.
So the idea is in your head still, you're getting your license
so you can go to South America and ride a motorcycle.
Hardly. Yeah. Yeah.
So what I wanted, it wasn't even just go to South America and ride a motorcycle.
I knew it had to be Patagonia because I was obsessed with this idea
of the space out there and being it was something about being so
distanced from my comfort zone.
I wanted to be like, I didn't want the language to be the same.
So I'd started learning Spanish as well.
It was something about the landscapes in South America.
The the fact that it's so sparsely populated down in Patagonia.
I just wanted to be really on my own.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what it was about that continent specifically,
but yeah, I just followed the nudges.
So you bought a motorcycle and you decided to do a shakedown trip.
Yeah. So I bought a little Honda VTR 250.
Unseen. Had it delivered home.
Mum and Dad had a heart attack.
It was actually the perfect time to learn how to ride during covid
because there was no one on the roads.
So I was able to wobble my way around, you know, the suburban streets
of Essendon, building up my confidence.
I used to go to the local.
We've got like a DFO, direct factory outlet nearby that has this huge car park.
So I used to go there at night and there was no one there.
And it was just this huge expense, you know, this huge parking lot.
So I used to do, you know, circles, practice U-turns, all that sort of stuff.
There it was the best time, best way to to learn and the best time to do it
because there was no one on the roads. Yeah.
And then I got my riding practice up and then ahead of my South American trip,
which I do have to think, I do have to thank you, Jim,
because without all of those raw episodes, I don't think I would have got there.
It was my Bible that I think I listen to every single episode
in my preparation and particularly because Shirley and Brian are also from Victoria.
Yeah, it was just so useful in my preparation.
That's neat.
So, yeah, I had the VTR and then I decided to upgrade when I was feeling comfortable.
So I bought a Yamaha Vista 650 Cruiser
and that was the bike that I took from my sort of Taster test run
up to along the East Coast of Australia, up to Nusa Queensland,
which is about 2000 kilometres.
And then I went out to Winton Queensland, which is out in the outback,
which was another, gosh, one and a half thousand,
2000 kilometres out into the middle of nowhere.
Usually when I think of a shakedown trip,
I think of, you know, weekend or a week or something like this.
But you went out for what, months?
Yeah, it was it was about four months.
Four months. Yeah.
That's a long shakedown trip.
It is. But I wanted to go to South America for a year.
And I knew that I had to be able to prove to myself
that I could do this for extended periods of time.
Like, to me, a weekend was nothing.
Yeah, I think like four months is impressive for a first ride.
Like, wow.
Totally. But I was, you know, the blessings of COVID, I guess,
is that I didn't have work.
I didn't have consistent work for a while
because of the on and off lockdowns that we had here.
So I had that window of time, I guess, and I utilized it.
And yeah, I had to be able to prove to myself that I could do it,
that I could handle the solitude, that I could.
Problem sol on my own,
that I could handle the extreme heat
that you obviously get in the outback.
I mean, I'd left in, I think I left in March.
March is just sort of the tail end of summer.
But it was still so hot up in the outback in Queensland.
I had, you know, I was camping in 38 degrees.
There were roads that were melting.
And then, of course, Australia has so many extremes.
There were floods. I had to avoid floods on the way home.
You know, all of these things that I knew would be so much more
difficult to deal with in South America
because you add the language barrier,
you add all these other elements.
So yeah, I had to prove to myself that I could do it.
And I did. I loved it. I camped.
I took my tent. I camped every night.
There were no hostels because it was a super budget trip.
I cooked my own meals.
I had an absolute blast.
I just loved it.
And I was like, after that trip, I was like, yeah, cool.
I can do this. I'm ready.
But it all, it all wasn't a beautiful trip necessary.
I mean, you went through some hard times with the heat.
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.
There was and also working out like, you know, is my gear,
is my gear OK, is my packing OK?
There were some times heading out to
Winton, Queensland, which is sort of getting
towards the Northern Territory, which is, you know,
where it's really hot still in March,
where I'd have to get up and ride, start riding at six a.m.
But then if you ride at six a.m.,
you have to be careful of kangaroos, obviously.
But if I rode any later than about 10, 30, 11 a.m.,
it was just too hot and I was getting tea dehydrated.
So it was sort of get up, try and make the rest of the cooler
mornings, don't hit a roof, get to your destination by 11,
hide, hide out of the sun until maybe four.
And then if you need to do any more riding,
you do it in those afternoon hours,
but then you have to be careful of the kangaroos at dusk at sunset.
So, yeah, I mean, all of those things are so relevant
because in South America, you've got
one echoes that you're trying to avoid, which have a death wish as well.
You had an apple cook in your tent?
I did. I did have an apple cook in my tent.
Gosh, you learn so much when you're when you're a newbie, rookie.
So I was heading up and my destination,
my final destination was Winton, Queensland,
which is actually I didn't realise until later.
It's where it's where Waltzing Matilda was sort of born
and which is like our unofficial national anthem.
But, yeah, I made it to Winton and it was about 38, 39 degrees dry,
you know, dry Australian outback heat.
And I was on a super budget, so I didn't want to pay to stay in a caravan park.
You couldn't wild camp out there and I wanted to be near the town.
So I popped into the local Winton pub and I was like,
hey, guys, can I camp in your car in your parking lot at the back?
And they're like, yeah, you can. It's I mean, it's gravel.
It's going to be hot and pretty uncomfortable.
But yeah, and I was like, great.
So I set up my tent and I was there for about three days and,
you know, budget, budget cooking, budget living, trying to eat well.
Had an apple that I had in my tent.
I just put in sort of like one of the side pockets and it was really hot overnight,
like really hot.
I had to sort of cover myself in wet towel to regulate my body temperature.
And during the next day,
Winton's famous for they've got all these dinosaur.
It's famous like the dinosaur trail.
They've got all these bones that were found there.
So they've got this huge museum that you can go and visit.
So I left my tent and packed up my bike for the day to go and visit this museum.
Got about the apple, got back to my tent at about,
yes, six p.m. and went in and I could smell like apple pie or like burning apple.
I was like, what is that?
But, you know, I don't leave any fruit in my tent usually.
And I was like, oh, God.
And I looked to the side and get this apple.
Had been absolutely cooked like it was brown.
It was a bit wet and soggy and it had been cooked by the sun.
And unfortunately, I learned other lessons because my beautiful
Cedar Summit inflatable mat had also been cooked and had popped
because I hadn't let it down.
And if your inflated mat is left in the sun in that kind of heat,
it expands and bursts.
So I learned that lesson as well as my cooked apple stew.
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So four months on a trip like that.
I mean, that's more than most people will ride in the two years probably riding
on weekends and things like that.
So you had to feel what reasonably experienced by the time you returned.
Yeah, I feel pretty good.
I mean, I had I had a lot of on road experience.
The thing that I was most not nervous, but was was the altitude.
I just had no experience up and I knew over in South America, places like Peru,
Argentina, Bolivia, working out how you would adapt.
But also the bike would be at, you know, 12000 meters
when you have to do some of these passes.
So that was the one thing that I was like, well, I can't get any experience
doing that in Australia. It's just not possible.
We don't have that.
So I, yeah, I felt relatively confident in the areas that I could gain experience in.
Yeah, on road riding, I felt pretty good off road riding.
I mean, and this is where you try and do what you can.
I had enrolled in an off road riding course to do before I left for South America.
And I turned up to it a couple months before I left in 2023.
And unfortunately, all the bikes they had, there'd been a miscommunication
and all the bikes they had were far too high for me.
So I couldn't do the course.
And then I actually booked another one through a different company
a couple of about a month later and the exact same thing happened.
I couldn't believe it.
And I was like, OK, this is a sign from the universe
that I'm just meant to learn on the job when I get there.
Like I've done my best to get a bit of experience.
But if this is happening twice in a row, OK, I'm just meant to get over there
and just trust that I'm going to learn on the job.
So your plan is to go and get a bike when you get there.
You're not going to ship your bike over.
No, no, because I'm.
I didn't have a bike and I and I wasn't I'd I'd done a bit of research
and I'd found originally I wanted to start in Columbia and do Columbia
to to Ushuaia.
But I found a reputable company that was I've had a few red lots
of good reviews from in Peru, a guy called Toby.
But at the time they basically prepared the bike for you,
organized everything for you, put it into your name, set you up.
Did all the paperwork for you with you and, you know, you were free to go.
For me, as a new rider with very not fluent Spanish
and very little knowledge of motorcycle mechanics, very little, very green,
you know, the idea of being able to have someone
handle all of that stuff for me and me just turning up,
being able to be shown the basics and then go.
That was what I needed at that time.
If I was to do it again now with a few years experience,
yeah, I'd totally probably ship my own bike over because I know a lot.
You know, I've just got more, more experience now.
So you just jump on a plane and go by yourself.
You make it sound so simple, Jim.
I mean, it was, you know, it was years of preparation,
spreadsheeting, researching things, learning Spanish, doing the tester ride.
But yeah. Yeah, I did.
I jumped on a plane,
flew to Peru, caught an eight hour bus over the Andes from Lima to a place
in the central, I guess, sort of just on the brink of the Amazon
over the other side of the Andes called Wanuka.
Had a really uncomfortable bus ride, had gastro and then got altitude sickness
and spent the whole time.
Vomiting on the lower level with a lovely Peruvian man, rubbing my belly
and saying some Andy and incantation to try and.
Raise me from the dead.
It was it was a really uncomfortable bus ride, but he was a blessing.
Yeah, so got to Wanuka, which is just on the border of the Amazon,
but on the other side of the Andes.
And that's where I started my adventure, my year long adventure.
Well, I'm glad you said about all the preparation before you went,
because a lot of times this is made very sound very simple afterwards.
You know, that you just got your bike license and off you go.
No, it was so much more extensive than that.
Like, and no one sees it's like that picture of the iceberg
with the tiny bit poking out of the water.
And then you see the actual size of the iceberg underneath and it's monumental.
And that's the preparation.
That's what no one sees on Instagram or or when you're, you know,
it was years, it was years of hours a day.
You know, I'm not going to downplay that.
I it was a huge undertaking.
And if you want to be prepared and if you're going to be on your own,
like I I was going to be completely vulnerable.
I wasn't going with a buddy.
I didn't know anyone over there.
I didn't even really reach out to anyone because I wanted.
I wanted to do this on my own, you know.
So, yeah, the the preparation was huge.
I'm not going to downplay that.
So you bought you had this company supply you with a bike
or you bought a bike from this company and and then you what did you do for your gear?
So I bought everything again, did some research before I went,
ended up buying a gear.
Do you mean what I like like suit?
You know, I just your bike gear, like, you know,
your panniers and things like that that you would need for a bike.
Yeah, cool. So the bike was a CSC RX 3.
It was a Zong Shen, like little Chinese 250 CC.
It was fantastic.
It looks like the Honda Honda Seabee.
Is that right?
Honda Seabee 400, I think that's what it is.
But it's, yeah, basically an exact exact replica.
And it came with pretty small, but, you know,
they were sufficient hard side panniers.
And then it had a very small hard top box on the back.
And then it had this great rack that went around the side.
So I just bought, I think they were actually bicycle panniers,
40 litre bicycle panniers that I know, not 40, sorry, 25 litre
bicycle panniers that I put on the rack on either side.
And then I had a 40 litre soft
waterproof bag that I put behind me.
And then I had I took over some soft crash bar bags as well.
So, yeah, it was it was kind of already ready to go.
And then I just added what I needed to it.
So think back to what it was like when you went to get the bike
and you you get your gear on your bike and everything.
What did that feel like?
Were there any apprehensions there?
I was absolutely terrified, Jim.
Perhaps I have never been so incapacitated by fear in my life.
But I think that's what this is all about.
Like, yeah, it took me by the time I landed, got to Wanukko,
met the guys at the garage.
They were really great guys, so helpful.
Most people that rented through that company
or bought a bike through that company sort of prepped their bikes,
get going within a couple of days.
I was in Wanukko doing this for about 10 days.
It was almost two weeks by the time I left, because I just
I was terrified to get on the bike.
I'd been on a cruiser on a big chunky cruiser for the last year.
So getting on something that was quite a bit higher,
just foreign as well.
The roads in Peru, I mean, even just just nudging my way out
into that took days of coercion.
Because it was just so overwhelming.
You know, I just took it in little steps.
I was like, OK, today I'm just going to ride up and down the quiet
back road that the garage is on.
And then the next day it was OK, you need to go and get fuel.
You're going to go up to the main street in Wanukko and you're going to fill up
because that's going to force you to get out on the main road.
OK, cool, did that.
The next day it was all right.
I'm going to go up to the the base of that nearby local mountain
so I can get up to 60 Ks, make sure I can test out the bike
because I did buy it secondhand.
It wasn't a new bike.
And it's lucky I did that because on that day the clutch cable snapped
and I had to wobble my way back to the garage for them to fix it.
So yeah, it took me.
It was a real test of my resolve to, you know, get the confidence up
with the bike, with the gear, with the new culture, place I was in.
And I was I was alone.
I was completely on my own.
So it was, yeah, it was terrifying.
But I knew I was in the right place and I knew I was doing exactly what I had to be doing.
What stopped you from just going back home?
I couldn't like I'd come this far.
I was like, you've come this far.
You are not turning back.
And perhaps that's why I chose such a difficult place to start from as well.
Because going home from from Wanukko in Peru, it's not an easy route home.
You can't just turn around and ride home.
Like and also like ride, I would never have turned around.
I had come that far and I'd put in so much preparation and I was so ready.
I think all of those fears and all of those reservations you have are just part
of being in a state of discomfort.
And once you push through them, you realize that you can do so much more
than you think you can do.
Yeah, have you experienced anything that would have been equal to that at that point?
No, never, never.
No, that that first day that I left with the bike loaded up completely ill.
A lot like, oh, my God, it was so heavy.
I had maybe 60 kilos of gear and it was really poorly packed
because I was in rookie like I didn't know yet how to pack the bike in a way
that was going to be beneficial and, you know, balancing out the sides
and all that sort of stuff because you'd learn as you go.
But yeah, that that first day, Jim, I was I was so I was almost incapacitated
by fear, like almost couldn't leave.
But at the end of that first day of riding, I have never felt that that proud
of myself in my life, never.
Where did you get to?
Oh, the first day.
Oh, my God, it was it was not an easy first day to for anyone that knows this area of Peru.
So I was nestled in between one side of the Andes and the Amazon.
And there was no easy first day.
There was no easy way to make the first day easy.
The easiest option was to get to a place called Tama.
I was heading south because I wanted to make sure I was going south towards
Ushuaia, and it was only about 100 and fifty kilometers.
I had to do in the first day.
But in that first day, I had to go from one ago, which is at 2000
meters all the way up to Serra de Pasco, which is a high altiplano pass
at about 4700 meters.
And I had to traverse that for about an hour, hour and a half.
You stay at that altitude and then you start dipping down into
this beautiful little town called Tama that I can't that I stayed in that night,
which was I think it was about three thousandish meters.
But yeah, so that first day, the bike, it fell over three times
because I was getting used to it.
I didn't eat enough.
I was I probably didn't drink enough because I was adjusting to the altitude.
I'm at this lovely family at this really strange high altitude gas station
who took pictures of me and made me feel like.
Famous person, but I was absolutely bonkers.
I got chased on that first day.
I got chased by like what I can only assume is a rabies
ravaged dog because it shot out of the bushes as I was descending into Tama.
And yeah, it was farming at the mouth.
It had these really red bloodshot eyes.
And I was like, whoa, and I just I accelerated.
I was terrified.
I was like, no, because I'd heard about I'd had my shots
and I'd heard all about how you have to be careful of not only dogs in Peru
and Bolivia, but but dogs that have that that might have rabies.
So yeah, yeah, it was it was a really intense day.
I think it took me I left at 530 in the morning because I was told
that the traffic in Wanukko can be really bad from 6630 a.m.
So I was up at four a.m.
And then I rolled into Tama at about five p.m.
And it was, yeah, 100 and fifty kilometres I'd ridden that day.
But I did it.
Long day, but I was so happy.
Like and I don't I was so exhausted and I was so tired.
But it was that kind of exhaustion that it's so satisfying.
It was such a satisfying exhaustion.
And I'd never felt that before in my life, that type of exhaustion from
being on a bike and having all of your senses firing for every minute of the day.
It was it was addictive, I think, as well as as as exhausting as it was.
Yeah.
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You went to wear in South America.
What was your route?
My route was so I started in Peru, sort of.
Want to go sort of in the middle of Peru, I guess, and I worked my way down
to went through Bolivia, did the salt flats, La Paz and then entered Argentina,
hooked over into Chile and did half of the
of the coast of Chile and then went back into Argentina around Mendoza and then
all the way down to Ushuaia.
And then, yeah, spent about four months in Patagonia, hiking and enjoying that region.
And then I came back up and Buenos Aires did a bit of Uruguay.
And yeah, it ended up sort of finishing in.
And yeah, Argentina, yeah.
And then I returned.
I returned a year later because I me and my
lovely ex-boyfriend who was very, very good friends did some traveling together
on one bike. So.
Right. So you did sort of 11 trip solo and then you did another trip
riding in the back of his KLR.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I met this lovely, beautiful man called Johnny in Buenos Aires
and we we hit it off and
we always said that we wanted to do some some some more extensive travel together.
So I came back to Australia and a little bit more money, returned to
Buenos Aires at the start of last year.
And we did, yeah, tour around northern Argentina quite extensively for a couple of months.
And then we ended up taking one bike
from Buenos Aires all the way up to Cartagena in Colombia.
And that took us about five months.
And that was me on the back, which was a very different experience.
Yeah, I'll bet because, I mean, you really, you went in and you've done it on your own.
You don't need to be on the back of someone's bike.
What was it like, the difference between the two?
It was, I mean, I love trying lots of different things out.
I'm very inherently curious and very flexible.
I'm a very flexible individual.
So look, there were some definite pros to being on the back.
The reason we did one bike was because there were I won't go into it,
but there were issues with my Peruvian owned motorcycle re-entering Peru.
Basically, it had been considered permanently exported and I couldn't take it back in.
And we wanted to traverse Peru again.
So that's the reason we sort of did Argentina on two bikes
and then left my Peruvian bike in Argentina whilst we went north on one.
Yeah, look, like I there are so many great things about being a pillion.
I mean, the footage that you get is unparalleled.
I couldn't believe some of the things I was able to capture on my phone.
That I would never have been able to capture riding solo for obvious reasons.
And I loved that.
There were things that I noticed that I never could have noticed
because I didn't have the my brain with wasn't being required
to respond in the same way on the back.
Swing your head around and look at what if you want for as long as you want.
Totally. So I really enjoyed that.
But then obviously you're in places like
La Paz and these crazy towns where two
sorry, two sets of eyes are actually incredibly useful,
where I actually did feel like I was still kind of riding
because of just how chaotic some of those towns can be cities.
But being on the back is not for me.
It was I did.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss being in the driver's seat.
And it's just a different sensation when you're in control of the motorcycle.
Um, just just how formidable I felt when I was leading, I guess.
So would I do it again?
Probably not.
But am I glad that I tried it out for 56 months?
Totally. Absolutely. Yeah.
It's interesting when you think about the difference between the pillion
and the driver, you know, because you're both on the bike,
you're both feeling the same sensations or very similar sensations,
you know, that you're with the bike, the wind, the smells, you get all of that.
But there, but there's something about having the machine respond to you.
100 percent.
Well, rather than you responding to the machine, I think, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And it is, it's very difficult to put your finger on
and describe, but I don't know.
I think like holding onto the handles and having to
tune into the bike was something that I didn't get as a pillion.
I didn't feel like I was having to, you know, move with the road.
I didn't feel like I felt the road as much as a pillion.
I was just sort of plopping along.
And, you know, feeling the throttle and feeling even,
you know, even just the sensation of risk or or those things.
It felt a bit muted on the back.
And that might sound strange, but yeah.
Everything was just a bit more, a bit more intense, a bit more.
There were higher stakes, I guess, when I was in the driver's seat for obvious reasons.
Yeah, not to not to discount being a pillion.
It's absolutely amazing.
No, no, I mean, it's to each their own.
So I want to talk about your first off.
Well, let's say gravel section, off road or gravel section.
You sort of dove in deep here.
Talk about that. Set that up.
So I'm like I've explained, I'm not an off road rider at this point.
My experience is mainly asphalt.
Although riding through Peru and Bolivia to that point
where I got to Mendoza in in Argentina, I've done some pretty gnarly roads.
So yeah, I mean, I shouldn't say I didn't have an experience because I did.
But yeah, there's this.
My first big off road section was just south of Mendoza in Argentina.
It's it's about 120 kilometers of really crappy, big,
slidey, slippery rocks, gravel, some some sand thrown in there as well.
And I'd read about it on on Ioverlander and I knew it was coming up.
Um, again, not particularly daunting for the average adventure rider
who has done this before, but for me, it was huge.
For me, it was really something to be I was nervous about it.
Luckily for me, I met up with this fabulous German woman, Gabi
in Bolivia, who I traveled with for a couple of weeks.
And we met up again in Mendoza.
And we actually were able.
I was able to to face this section of of off road with her,
which was just brilliant.
She's this tiny little pocket rocket German woman, really funny,
really accomplished rider.
And yes, so we spent a couple of days in Mendoza
and hit this hit this lovely section of road together.
Yeah, it took us again for anyone else that's that's done this sort of stuff
before it's probably a walk in the park.
But for me, like it was huge and going into it and she was in front of me
and just being able to watch the moments when she put her feet down
and the way she managed her balance on the bike
and the way that she shifted her her body to accommodate for,
you know, specific patches in the road that required something different.
And she just was able to model so many good skills.
Like I felt like I got to the end of it that day
and felt like I'd had a master class in it in off road riding, nice,
which was so cool.
Well, deep gravel is intimidating for many, many riders.
I mean, that's something that comes up all the time.
Gravel is unnerving for a lot of riders,
unless you've ridden lots of it, it is definitely.
And but yeah, I totally agree with you.
And the only way to get past those
that trepidation is by doing it miles. Yeah.
It's just it totally it's just it's just practice.
It's just time and I try I get, you know,
halfway through the day when we'd gone about 60 K's and it was, you know,
we were stopping to have a drink and some eggs,
some boiled eggs on the side of the road.
I was like, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this, like the loose arms.
I just kept.
I kept repeating in my head, you know, loose elbows, loose arms.
Don't control the bike. Relax.
Stop. Stop bracing yourself.
Stop fighting.
Did she tell you this before you went in?
Yeah, yeah, she did.
She did. So loose, loose arms.
And and by the time, you know, I started to sort of feel it.
And I was like, ah, this is just like, like dancing.
Like there's a rhythm to it once you once you sort of relinquish your control.
And there were all these great, you know,
philosophic things I was coming up with during the day.
I was like, ah, motorcycling and gravel, you know,
deep just has such a metaphor for all these other things.
So it was quite a, yeah, it was a really cool experience,
but I was very happy to have a buddy for that day.
It's kind of a metaphor for travel, isn't it?
You have to let go some you have to let the bike do its thing.
You have to follow the journey sort of rather than think you're in control all the time.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it meant that when I got to a really horrible section of road,
which is Malditos, which is sort of further south
in Patagonia, I was my confidence approaching that road was completely different
because of that, because of that day in those lovely slippery moving rocks.
Malditos means dammed or cursed or something like that.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a section of road that is quite notorious in Patagonia.
It hasn't been paved and I don't think it ever will be.
It's a bit of a, yeah, all the travelers that sort of go along the Gringo route know of it.
The Malditos 73. Malditos 73. Yeah.
And if you get it on a windy day, I mean, it's absolutely abysmal.
But if you get it in good conditions, which which I did, it wasn't so bad.
So because you already had some gravel experience when you got there,
you felt sort of had it a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all it is. It's just practice.
It's just practice.
And again, like just working through those fears, fears that you have,
I can't do this. I'm going to fall off. OK, well, you can do this.
And if you fall off, pick the mic up. I mean, it's, you know, you've got the right gear on.
You know how to fall, you know what you're meant to do.
There's people around that are going to help you.
It's going to be OK.
Did you have a breakdown in the Atacala Desert?
Yeah, I did. I had a I was pretty lucky during my year alone.
I didn't have that many disasters, considering, you know,
solo female riding South America.
I didn't even have a puncture, actually. Oh, wow.
One puncture. Isn't that incredible?
Wait, wait, are you talking that up to skill or or luck?
No, I'm not.
Maybe you're adding that into the skill part of it.
I was going to say, hang on a second.
No, I'm not at all.
I'm choking it up to the fact that I probably stayed on asphalt.
So I mean, it's definitely not a representation.
Still, that's it's pretty impressive, isn't it?
I mean, it's nice not to have to deal with that.
It is. But then I sort of look at it in the way that.
But if I did have one, I'd know how to fix a puncture,
whereas that's still something that I I've never had one, Jim.
So I've never had to fix one.
And you're not missing out.
I can tell you that.
I know, I know, but.
That's how you learn. Yeah.
Is when it happens to you, you know, you don't learn
about how to take care of a battery
until you get back from your trip and your batteries did.
And you're like, oh, I should have had a trickle charger.
So, but yes, I did have a breakdown in the Atacama.
I ended up coming over from Argentina via Pasoama,
which is a very high altitude border pass
between Chile and Argentina to get to Australians.
They don't actually require it anymore,
but Australians for years had to get a.
A visa, a specific visa for Chile
due to some kind of reciprocal naff
that the two countries held.
So I'd pre booked, prepaid for this visa.
And I had timed it pretty well,
but I only had like five days until I had to get into Chile.
Otherwise, my visa would be void
and I'd have to pay $180 for a new one.
And I didn't want to have to do that.
So I sort of gunned it through the north of Argentina,
hopped over to Chile two days to spare.
I did pretty well and hung out in San Pedro de Atacama,
which is a fascinating little town in the middle of the desert.
When I was there, I met this guy.
He was a local guide, really, really cool guy.
He actually came up to the top of the Elti Plano
and escorted me, I guess, all the way to Pasoama,
which is really nice of them
because it's a pretty hairy ride.
Anyway, I think he kind of wanted me to stay
in San Pedro de Atacama and he was a bit keen.
And I think I probably could have been a lot more discerning.
And he basically tried to help me with my bike
and told me that it should have more power
and it's overloaded and let me help you,
let me help you repackle your gear.
And I probably should have in hindsight told him to bugger off.
But he was an experienced motorcycle rider, off-road rider,
and I thought he would help me.
Which he did, but he also, I think,
tampered with my bike a bit.
Yeah, because...
Like he's doing something wrong,
like he's trying to do something wrong.
I don't know, Jim.
Like, I look back at it and I'm like,
did he actually or...
Because sometimes when you're traveling on your own
and you're in a very unique situation
where you've got no one else around
to bounce your internal monologue off,
at the time, it seemed like he was doing anything possible
to keep me in San Pedro de Tacama.
And actually, I wrote a piece for Australia Rider,
Australian Magazine adventure rider on this
because it was such an intense experience.
But I was basically in San Pedro de Tacama
and I wanted to leave, I was going to go back to Argentina.
This guy was screwing around with my bike
under the proviso that he was helping me.
And then on the day that I was meant to leave,
San Pedro de Tacama, it snowed.
And this is the middle of the driest desert on Earth.
It snows here very, very irregularly.
But it snowed.
So, and I was like, what is going on?
Like, is this going in charge of the weather?
Like, this is crazy.
I need to get out.
That's when you're really getting carried away, isn't it?
It was. I was like, what is going on?
Does he have some kind of like Medusa powers here?
And I just had to get out.
I had to get out of that town.
So I ended up getting up very early in the morning.
I packed everything.
Instead of going back to Argentina
via the snowy pass of Pasahama,
I actually stayed in Chile and I went to Antofagasta,
which is a mining town on the coast.
When I was there,
I started experiencing some problems with my motorbike.
And again, I couldn't, I was like, was it him?
I was like, it had to be him
because I haven't had any problems up until this point.
So anyway, it was turning off strangely.
I couldn't diagnose it because I was ill-equipped
and inexperienced and to be honest,
a bit freaked out by the whole experience.
I made it to the Mano del Desigato,
which is the hand of the desert in Chile,
which a lot of people know of.
And yeah, about an hour and a half past that point,
my bike died on the side of the road.
On the main highway, but it's not a busy highway.
It died at about midday.
It was really hot.
What did that feel like?
I was, I mean, in a way, I was, again,
I wasn't grateful for it, but I just knew the drill.
Like I'd listened to so many podcasts.
I'd listened to so many of your raw episodes
and the stories of like Michelle Lamfair and other travelers.
You know, you're gonna,
things like this are gonna happen
because you're in a situation where
things like this are gonna happen.
So when it happened, I was just like,
I think I cried first.
And then I was like, okay, we know what to do here.
Just step by step by step.
First thing we need to do is get this bike
off this dusty, hot highway.
So I had to sort of walk it.
Took about an hour.
I had to walk it about a K.
I had to walk it about a kilometer up
to where there was sort of a safe area.
You just pushed the bike.
I just put, I had to push it.
It wasn't starting.
And yeah, it was a long hour.
I bet.
And it was heavy and I was hot.
Depressing.
And then I had a water.
Yeah.
Anyway, I got it up there and
yeah, I had, and then I had to sort of wait another hour
because I had to flag down a trucker
and a few of them, I talked to a few
and a few of them couldn't help me
because they were, you know, various reasons.
Then this one really lovely guy, Juan pulled over
and he was able to help me.
He had some Coca-colas in his truck, gave me one of them.
I was like, I love you, marry me.
And yeah, we had to get the bike onto his truck.
But in order to do that, we had to like create a mound.
We had to like build a tower of sand
because there was nothing around to be,
that was at the level of his,
the rear of his truck to get it on.
So we spent about another hour digging this mound
of dirt sand.
And then we had to sort of put down this thing of metal
that we found and then we had to sort of roll
and hoist the bike, you know, to unpack it
so that it weighed a little bit less,
get the bike onto the truck.
And then he started driving me back to Antipagasa
and then we stopped at this strange kind of,
it felt like a border town, even though it wasn't on a border.
But you know that kind of eerie
energy that border towns have,
there's lots of dodgy people lingering around.
And yeah, we stopped at this little town where he was like,
oh yeah, someone here can help you diagnose the problem.
And then I was like, okay.
And suddenly there was this big posse of Chilean,
they looked like extras on Pirates of the Caribbean.
Like they were really out there, guys.
They were overdone, were they?
Really overdone.
It could have been my perception at the time,
but I swear one of them had an eye patch
and they sort of, I think they were mechanics,
but they sort of like,
ah,
they got me in and had a look at the bike
and they were all smoking and drinking
and also diagnosing at the same time.
And I didn't really have a clue what was going on,
but they fed me, they gave me a beer.
And yeah, it turned out that the issue
was that my stator and rectifier were completely fried.
So yeah, my bike got taken eventually back to Antepagasa
and I had to pay a lot of money to get those parts.
Yeah, because they couldn't repair it there
because there's no parts.
No parts, no.
And I mean, Antepagasa is a quite a wealthy mining town,
so there was no issue, but I had to wait for the parts
and then the manual labor.
And the thing is, is that I look back at it now
and I'm like, look, it could have been
the guy tampering with it,
but it also could have been,
I did ride on the Salt Flats in Bolivia
about a month before.
And it wasn't the wet season, it was the dry season,
so you don't get a lot of,
that's usually when they say you can do it
as long as you give the bike a good wash afterwards,
but I mean, it could have been that.
Who can I blame, I'm not sure.
Yeah, or could it just be one of those things?
You know, it could have just been one of those things.
Absolutely.
But so why did you think the guy wanted to keep you around?
Like, is he interested in you, like romantically?
Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think he was pretty keen and I think in my inexperience,
you know, when you're on your own in a place
where you speak a bit of Spanish,
but everyone, to me, you have to treat like a friend
unless you're getting a bad energy from
and more a bad feeling.
But you never know when you're gonna need help from anyone.
And if someone who is an experienced adventure rider,
guide, local, says that there's a problem with your bike
and he can help you,
I guess, you know, I was probably a bit too trusting.
I probably should have been a bit more forthright,
probably should have protected my bike a little more
and put my foot down.
But that's the things you learn on journeys such as this.
You mean because you don't think anything
was wrong with it at the time?
I don't think anything's wrong with it.
Oh, I see.
No, and he sort of, he was like,
oh, your spark plug, it's, you know,
you need a new spark plug.
And I was like, do I, at the time, Jim,
I didn't even really know what a spark plug was.
Like, this is, you know, it's-
That's a tough one.
It's always in hindsight,
it's so easy to judge what we do, isn't it?
But at the time, you know,
this experienced guy is saying,
your spark plug is screwed.
And I was like, okay, do I get a new one?
And then it turns out from that point,
I didn't add, I also had issues with my spark plug
moving on from that point,
which again, I put back to him,
but look, no long-term damage,
I learned a lot and, you know, it's all good.
Right.
Just chalk it up to experience
and the things that you learned, yeah.
Absolutely, it's all part of it.
It's all part of it.
You had to deal with the winds, I guess, on Route 40?
Yeah, yeah, as everyone can attest to,
that has done that part of the world.
Yeah, I mean, I was prepared for it.
I'd read a lot about it.
I'd listened to a lot of people talk about it,
but until you're there, it's next level.
Yeah, there was one particular day that,
yeah, I was really on my own after,
I said goodbye to Gabi in a place called Eskel,
which is sort of just on the brink of Patagonia
and I sort of, I was really on my own.
I didn't really see many people for maybe three weeks
going through the wilds of Patagonia,
like these really just quiet roads and intense conditions.
The wind just continued to intensify and intensify.
My aim was to get to Ushuaia for Christmas
for the 25th of December and I was doing pretty well.
I'd stopped camping because you, I mean, it's just,
it's a death wish if you wanna try and camp in 100K wind gusts.
So I'd been staying in a few years or little cheap hotels.
And yeah, there was this one day in particular,
it was the 24th of December
and I'd made it to Tierra del Fuego
and I was, yeah, I'd woken up
and I'd had to look at the wind at Windy,
which is your Bible down there.
The app.
I'd met these great guys, the app, the app Windy, yeah,
that's sort of what you live on in that part of the world.
And I'd met these great guys from America
who were heading off on DR650s
that were much less loaded up than mine.
And they were like, you know, you can make it,
you know, you can make it today.
And I was like, oh, maybe I should just wait it out
for one more day.
I was trying to get to the,
there was this great motorcycle hostel
in Tierra del Fuego about 200 kilometers north of Ushuaia.
A lot of people visit there on their way down
and that's where I wanted to make it that day.
But the wind gusts were not looking good,
like 80, 90Ks.
And I knew that that was too much for me
because on my way down,
my top limit was about 65K gusts.
That's where I felt I was on the brink of,
okay, I feel safe and okay, I don't feel safe.
So yeah, when these guys woke up and they were like,
oh, you know, you can make it, it.
I'm like, 80Ks, 90Ks.
Is anybody riding an 80, 90K wind?
Yeah, they are, they are.
I was talking to guys on big GSs
and my bike was from China, it's made mostly of plastic
and it's got 60Ks, 60 kilograms of gear on it.
It doesn't hold up so well in these really big wind gusts.
The more weight you have,
the guys in the GS are better off
because the bike begins with far more weight
than your 250 does.
Yeah, totally, exactly.
And maybe a few times I was like,
am I just weak?
Like, am I, should I be getting out there
and, you know, toughen it out a bit more?
And that's sort of what I,
my intuition on this day said, do not go out there.
And after my conversation with the guys,
I was like, come on, like, you can do it.
Do you wanna get there by Christmas Day or not?
Like, come on.
And it was against everything that my intuition was saying,
but I did, I packed up, I went out there.
It's, and the wind just, it increased and increased
and increased and it was just terrifying.
Like, you know, people talk about having to be almost,
you know, you're on an angle riding into the wind
to stay upright as it hits you.
I was, I came across a shepherd that had a bunch of sheep
and the wind at one point was pushing me so ferociously
that I was, I had to keep downshifting into this wind gust.
And I got to, I was at fourth gear
and then I went down to third
and then I went down to second.
And I was like, oh, God.
It's head on, is it the wind?
It's head on, yeah.
And I got down to first and I saw this shepherd
with his little flock of sheep
that was crossing the road in front of me.
And he sort of, he just looked at me
and he didn't say anything.
He just looked at me like, you poor girl.
He didn't need to say a word.
But yeah, I got to first gear
and then I ended up having to stop.
And then I was like, oh my God, you can't stop
because stopping in this, in these conditions is,
you're going to go over.
And if you go over, I don't think
you'll be able to get it back up.
This is right now.
Yeah, you're not going to be able to pick the bike up.
And now we're not working you,
like you're not going to stay there.
No, there's nothing.
There's nothing in Tiered Off wego.
It's just, it's just scrub.
Nothing grows, nothing can grow.
It's so windy.
And especially that little area between,
I can't remember the name of the towns,
but it's, you're in, sorry, you're in Chile
and you have to sort of, you catch the ferry
from the mainland over to Tiered Off wego,
Chile in Tiered Off wego.
And then you have to, it's about 100, 150,
200 kilometer expanse of nothingness
before you pass back into Argentinian Tiered Off wego.
It's just the wind and you,
and yeah, it's just, it's survival.
It's pure survival.
And I just remember the adrenaline
when I finally got to that crossing
where I went back from Chile into Argentina,
my whole body was shaking.
And I was like, are you cold?
And I was like, I don't think I'm cold.
I can't take that cold.
And it took me a few minutes to work it out.
It was, it was because it was adrenaline.
My whole body was flooded with the sensation
that I was possibly going to die.
And it took me, I don't know, a couple of days
I think to recover from that.
What was that the scariest thing you've ridden through?
I think so, yeah.
But the scariest invisible thing,
like the wind, you can't see it.
It's nothing, but it's everything.
Once you're in it, it's such a powerful force
and I will never underestimate it again.
But lessons, like the lessons that I learned
about resilience.
When you were mentioning that you're riding in Patagonia
and you're riding the big open road, the wind is blowing.
But that's really what you went there for, wasn't it?
I mean, you wanted to see Patagonia.
That's probably the area that you're in.
You probably saw photographs from it.
Did you have time to think about that at that moment
and think like, this is it.
This is what I looked at on the internet.
This is what I dreamed about, literally.
Yeah.
And I'm here.
Yeah, I did.
I did.
I had lots of moments like that
where I was able to stop and appreciate it.
I think when you're in the moment of things like that,
you can't because you're focused on your survival
and getting to that hostel or getting to that campsite
and being able to relax and breathe
because you made it through another day.
But I think because as well, because I was alone,
I had a couple of pockets
where I traveled for a couple of weeks
with Gaby from Germany, as I mentioned,
and a great guy called Jack from South Africa.
But apart from that couple of weeks, I was on my own.
So I had lots of time to reflect and go,
oh, my God, this is terrifying,
but this is exactly what I wanted and I'm getting it.
And I'm alive.
Like, I have never felt more acutely aware of my own,
both mortality, but like the life force inside of me, I think,
when you're in these situations where
you are getting tested by Mother Nature,
you could die at any second,
like one wrong steer of the handles
or one misplaced pull of the throttle
and you could be in a ditch with your bike on top of you.
Those moments just validate how incredible it is to be alive.
And I had them almost daily.
Yeah, which is what I went there for.
And did you come out of it sort of like emboldened for solo travel
or did it make you rethink solo travel
as maybe it isn't something that is for you?
No, I absolutely love solo travel.
I love it.
Because there's a lot of fear there, right?
I mean, you're having to deal with everything on your own.
It's like it's an incredibly vulnerable position
that you put yourself in.
Very vulnerable.
But I think because I don't know, I'm a very lucky individual.
I've never had any huge sicknesses.
I've had a very blessed, very blessed childhood, very, you know,
I almost crave the desire to be challenged.
And that's such a, that's such a.
I'm so fortunate to be able to say that
because so many people out there don't choose their suffering
like it's put upon them.
They suffer, you know, cancer or accidents or things.
And I'm so fortunate to be able to say that.
My life has been free of those types of things.
But I do, I just crave that the challenge
that being alone out there on a bike or hiking.
Affords me.
And I really do like the solitude.
I really like people as well.
I'm a huge people person.
But I recharge when I'm alone.
And if I don't get that alone time,
I tend to feel exasperated with the world.
What do you think people see when they come up to you?
When you're riding like Francis on this trip?
What do they see?
I mean, I think during that first trip in South America,
they would see someone pretty wacky.
Fairly inexperienced, but because I don't really look like
you've standard female adventure rider.
What do you mean? look like?
Well, I mean, I do look like it.
Like I've got the suit and I've got the boots and I've got the bike
and I've got all of that stuff going on.
But I'm a creative person.
I would never go for a ride without lipstick on.
For most of the last trip I did in South America,
I was wearing fake eyelashes and stuff on the road.
That's crazy.
And the other women that you're coming across, they're not doing that.
No, no.
So again, it's just, I guess it's that thing of what does a woman
on the road doing adventure riding look like?
And the answer is like anything, like whatever she wants.
But yeah, I tend to, you know, I dress quite out there.
I like lots of colors.
I like to match my socks to my t-shirts.
I'm, I sing a lot.
I'm very theatrical.
I travel most, you know, usually with my ukulele.
So I sit down and play and sing and I guess in that sense,
I've never met anyone on my travels that's like that.
So therefore I sort of think of myself as a bit of a, not a weirdo,
but just as a different variety of adventure rider.
If you get me.
Like I presented at HU in Queensland last year
and I managed to get a whole room of, you know,
mostly male, mostly males to be singing, born to be wild
as part of my presentation.
And I was really proud of that.
I was like, yeah.
You know, I just, yeah.
I just feel like I'm a bit of an oddball in this world,
but then I am in this world and I'm part of this world
and I love this adventure riding world.
So, and I want women specifically, you know,
I'm a role model for other women as well.
And to me, that's so, I feel quite a responsibility
to be out there and to be really sure that I'm being myself
because I think that's really important,
whether you're adventure riding or working as a teacher
or, you know, it doesn't matter what you're doing,
just to be authentic and whatever you're doing in the field
you're doing in to show people that you are who you are
and you're not going to change who you are,
whether you're wacky or you're really introverted
to just be true to what you are.
Mm-hmm.
Do you have people coming up and mistaking you
or think that maybe you're not riding the bike that you're with?
Um, sometimes...
Yeah, I think they sort of see me.
Sometimes in South America, I go in and buy, like, some water or something.
People sort of look at you in your suit and they're like,
whoa, what is that?
Because you're a woman on your own, in a big space suit,
and then I'd sort of walk out and to walk towards the bike
and people would be like, eh, what's that?
Yeah.
But do you feel that they respect you, though, when they see that?
I mean, they see what you're doing and they think,
like, I think a lot of people would look at you
when you're doing and think, ooh, I couldn't do that.
Totally.
I wouldn't have what it takes, you know?
Totally. That's the biggest thing.
And it's also because I'm quite small.
Like, I'm a short. I'm 5'1", 5'2".
I'm pretty strong. I do crossfits.
So I like to keep pretty strong and able to hold my bike up.
But yeah, there is.
There's an immediate sort of perplexed,
what is this? And then it's, oh, oh, she's on that.
Wow. I just did a week alone on a bike in Bali.
And I hired one of the Himalayan, sorry, 411,
and did a little week-long circumnavigation of Bali.
And a 411, you know, that bike in Bali may as well be a 1200 GS.
Like, no one in Bali rides a bike, a 400 CC bike.
They're all on tiny little 160 scooters.
They're all on scooters.
So looking at the women, come, you know, women would just,
the open mouths, the jaws on the floor as I roll in,
going up and down these little roads on this monster of a bike.
Like the awe, I could see that they were like, what the hell? Yeah.
And that, like, that is what this is all about.
Like, I love showing what we can do and what we should be doing.
And that, you know, we're capable of this and you can be too.
So yeah, I love that about it.
It's pretty incredible.
I mean, like, you know, for those of us who haven't done what you've done,
look at it and you think, wow, that's a lot to do, especially by yourself.
You know, it's one thing doing a big trip like that with other people,
but doing it on your own, wow, that's pretty neat.
Yeah, thanks, Jim.
I think I forget that.
And then, and then sometimes I look at people like I met Kinga on her bike over in Columbia.
And, you know, she's been doing this for nine years.
And I sort of look at what I've done.
I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so small fry.
Like, I've done nothing.
But then I go, no, no, no, hang on.
She was there once as well.
And, you know, you don't need to compare yourself.
It's not what this, it's not what this is about.
It's about, you know, encouraging each other and getting out there and seeing the world.
And, you know, you don't need to look at yourself against someone else.
And I've had some, I've had some great moments.
I've got a friend, Sasha and Beck, who are a couple in Melbourne and their pocket rocket adventures.
They do some great stuff, but they went over and did three months in Europe last year, two up.
And I was able to share.
It was this incredible full circle moment where I was able to share some of my experience with these girls.
And that felt so good.
Like, I felt so good being able to do that.
Yeah, not bad.
That's what this is all about.
So, yeah.
So COVID sort of turned your world upside down.
It really stopped something that was really important to you, that was going great, that was really going somewhere.
And it spun the world around.
I think the word you used was pivot, which I think was a great word because it doesn't mean good or bad.
But I'm just wondering, in the end here, now you're off in a different direction, you're doing a different thing.
Your life sounds like it has pivoted.
You've made sort of a turn.
Good or bad?
Good, absolutely good.
Yeah, I feel much more, I don't know, I feel much more aligned with a higher purpose.
Whereas when I was performing, it felt like everything was about me.
Gratification, receiving applause.
You know, even going to auditions gym, it was like constantly being told that you're not enough or you need to work on this.
So you didn't get the job because of this.
Whereas, you know, out there traveling, I'm connected to something that's so much bigger than myself.
And it's so rewarding.
So no, I don't miss that path that I was on, that sliding doors moment.
It's all for the better.
And I haven't regretted the direction I've gone in one little bit.
So, blessings.
Yeah, for sure.
Lala, it was great to sit down and talk with you.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Thanks so much, Jim.
And thanks for all of the help that this podcast has provided me over the years.
I wouldn't have been able to do what I've done without it.
So I'm hugely grateful to you and your raw panel and just all the episodes you provide us with.
They're invaluable.
It's just so invaluable. So thank you.
Thank you so much.
That was Lala Barlow from her home in Melbourne, Australia.
And we've got some photos and a link to her website, which is lalabarlow.com.
That's all in the show notes for this episode on our website, adventureriderradio.com.
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Well, that about wraps up another episode of adventureriderradio.
And we sure hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we did making it.
If you've got an idea that you think would be good for the show, we would love to hear from you.
Drop by our website adventureriderradio.com and click on one of the multiple ways of contacting.
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Now it's time to get out there and ride your bike.
Special thanks to our producer, Elizabeth Martin.
My name is Jim Martin and I will talk to you next week.
I'm Ted Simon and here I am on adventureriderradio again.
I'm extremely happy to be here with Jim Martin.
About this episode
Lala Barlow’s Patagonia obsession turns into a COVID-era pivot: she books a license, learns clutch basics, and starts with shakedown practice that stretches into months. Her solo South America plan becomes a logistics puzzle—altitude, gear, and mechanical surprises—before she returns to Patagonia for a wind-driven test of nerve. The conversation also covers riding technique (loose arms on gravel), gear choices, and what it really means to travel alone when help is scarce.
Original notes
Solo Motorcycle Travel Through South America with Lala Barlow
Lala Barlow was working in musical theatre in Melbourne, Australia, when the pandemic brought the industry to a halt. Drawn to motorcycles, mountains, and Patagonia, she spent years preparing for a solo motorcycle journey through South America, including a four-month shakedown ride across Australia. Lala shares what it takes to plan a major adventure, travel alone in unfamiliar countries, manage fear and uncertainty, and ride through Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Patagonia. A conversation about preparation, perseverance, and turning a dream into reality.
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Since 2014, Adventure Rider Radio has shared adventure motorcycle travel stories, Rider Skills, Deep Trouble episodes, tech and gear features, and conversations with riders from around the world. New episodes of ARR are released every Thursday, with new episodes of RAW released monthly on the 21st.
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