Continental Drifter
Continental Drifter
After accumulating more than 250,000 miles on his trusty BMW, world traveler Helge Pedersen looks back on a 10-year journey and recounts tales of tremendous beauty, harrowing adversity and awesome riding
WENDY F. BLACK
HUDDLED IN THE coner of a dank, foulsmelling prison in North Yemen, Helge Pedersen contemplated his options. The year was 1984, and until this point, the affable Norwegian had been happily bopping across Africa aboard his BMW R80 G/S. That was before a police checkpoint along the Arabian Peninsula.
When Pedersen stopped, he was confronted by armed guards, yanked off his bike and
unceremoniously dumped into a I 5-toot by 10-toot cell. 1 tie enciosure was black as pitch, except for a sliver of light filtering in through a slit in the ceiling. His celimate, a man bearing the physical and mental scars of brutal beatings, alternately wept and babbled incoherently. No doubt about it, the situation looked grim.
"They thought I was a thief," recalls Pedersen, now 43. "In Yemen, they chop off your hand for stealing. I was trying to figure out how I would ride my bike with just one hand!"
Fortunately, albeit with no explanation, Pedersen was released after about U hours-with all of his limbs intact. He admits that jail time wasn't on his agenda when he set out for the Dark Continent. But then,
he didn't plan on taking 10 years to tour six continents and 77 countries, either.
But first, Africa. For years, Pedersen dreamed of seeing the faraway land that had fascinated him since boyhood. So, in 1982, he converted his new BMW, which he christened "Olga," into something of a pack mule, reinforcing the frame, and mounting aluminum luggage, an 11-gallon gas tank and jerrycans. Next step was to board a ferry that would take him from Spain to Morocco. “I had no time frame in mind for the trip,” he says. “My major concern was just getting across the Sahara Desert. Then I would play it by ear and see Africa.”
Pedersen's decade on the road was alternately frightening, exhilarating and joyful. In the Darien Gap he struggled with vampire bats and tick
infestation; in Japan he was awakened by the sounds of vol canic activity; in Ecuador he was enchanted by the lovely Marilu who, regrettably, shared his travels only briefly.
After two years of diligent yet unhurried exploring, he returned to Norway broke and homesick. But once there, he realized how much he had enjoyed being on the road. “When I returned to Europe, it was culture shock,” he says. “I really enjoyed traveling. 1 learned so much. It was the biggest classroom you can imagine.”
Plans commenced for further travel. The idea was for Pedersen to trade labor for passage on a frigate bound for South America, then eventually make his way to North America and Asia. “Again, I didn’t have a time frame, but 1 knew I wanted to go around the world,” he says.
After 28 days of toiling in a ship’s engine room, he arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He roamed at will, riding through Uruguay and Bolivia, venturing into the Amazon Jungle and the Andes Mountains. Of the latter, Pedersen enthuses, “I romped through them like a kid on a BMX bike, sliding around dirt hairpins and sweeping turns.”
Despite the grand mountains’ allure, though, it was the Darien Gap-what Pedersen calls the missing link of the Pan American Highway—that was most memorable. “There is no road for 80 miles,” he emphasizes of the stretch of jungle leading from Colombia to Panama. “It took 20 days of following Indian trails; after the third day I broke my hand, and later I broke a rib.”
In addition to the arduous terrain, numerous tip-overs and physical injuries, Pedersen was also beset by unfriendly insects. “I was attacked by killer bees," he says. “It’s quite a test to have a couple hundred bees sitting on you. They would get stuck in my beard. Riding the Darien Gap was stupid, I would never do it again.”
By the time Pedersen made it through Mexico and into the U.S., both he and Olga were in desperate need of civilization. While stateside, he had the Beemer’s engine overhauled. “It was tired,” he laughs. He spent two years crisscrossing America, and while here enjoyed his first baseball game, attended the Sturgis Rally and visited Washington, D.C.’s Vietnam War Memorial.
“Traveling in America was very easy,” Pedersen says. “You can get everything you need everywhere-spare parts, food, you name it. It was a good break after three years in South America.”
Yet in spite of Mom, baseball and apple pie, Asia beckoned. Pedersen admits to being a little intimidated by Japan because of negative comments he’d heard from fellow travelers.
As it turned out, his fears were unfounded. “There were so many people, and there was the language barrier and the traffic,” he says. “But it turned out to be a very good place.
People are very trusting, polite and nice there." Furthermore, he had contacted Japanese motorcycle maga zines about freelancing, and found himself famous with the locals. "Everywhere I went, they recognized me and called me `Helge-san'," he says. This sort of immersion into other coun tries' cultures was what Pedersen hoped for when he first set out on his excursion.
"I did stop at several places to work, sometimes for the money and sometimes for the experience," he explains. "Taking time off let me learn about the environment and get to know the people. That's what it's all about."
While in Africa, Pedersen led safaris in the Kasungu National Park, and found himself confronting lions, water buffalo and other wild game. In South America, he spent time in Chili fishing for octopus. In Brazil, he performed manual labor on a farm so he could learn to speak Portuguese, and in Venezuela, he repaired refriger ators and washing machines. A Helge-of-all-trades, if you will.
About this downtime, he says, "It takes too much energy, being on the road all the time. You need some place to call home, even if it's just for a few months."
Following 10 years of almost constant globetrotting, Pedersen felt the need to settle into a less nomadic way of life, at least for a while. The location he chose for this hiatus was Seattle, Washington, where his girlfriend, Karen, resides. And yes, they met while he was touring the U.S.
Just because he's extended a few roots, however, doesn't mean Pedersen is completely dug in. "There are many places I would still like to visit," he says a little wistfully. "Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia ... I could go on and on."
Indeed, he could. With little prompting, Pedersen speaks enthusiastically about the group tour through Russia and China he hopes to lead, which will ring in the year 2000. "I want to do extreme touring," he adds excitedly, "like taking groups to the Himalayas or to Mongolia. If I can do that regularly, I can make a living doing what I love-riding my motorcycle." Would that we all could...
For more on He/ge Pedersen `s travels, read his book, 10 Years on 2 Wheels. Price is $48 (plus $6 shipping & handling) from Elfin Cove Press, 914 Virginia St., Seattle, WA 98101; 888/465-2619.
