130,000km to the Cape Hope Yohei Inoue
I love bike touring and I have done a few bike trips both in Japan and overseas. Of course, my trips were a lot smaller scale and cannot compare with author’s. Anyway, I love to read travelogs, especially ones written by someone travels alone.
The trip started from Alaska. I felt the I was reading my own experience. The begining of a trip is always about anxiety with unknown world. I could reconfirm that anyone can overcome these anxieties by just moving forward.
He went to Canada and the United States. His anxiety was deminisshing, but he was more and more in unsafe situations. He came across a bear when he was camping and held up by policemen, etc.
He continued to travel to Latin America, Europe, Middle-East and Africa. The trip was getting even tougher. His friend, who biked together, never came home after he said he was climbing to a mountain. Gone though tough hill-ups in Andes, chased by watch dogs, suffered from altitude anoxia… He was almost shot from a watch tower in a military regime country. At extreme case, he suffered Maralia in unstable Zaire. He ran 20 miles with fear of an attack of a lion. What a hardship!
Of couse, there were great experiences and that’s why people travel. This thin book packs his entire six years, and his 99% of day-to-day experiences was not mentioned much. I’m sure he had a lot of good experiences.
This book is certainly far more extreme than “Midnight Express”(a travelog novel by a famous Japanese author). The level of experience is order of magnitude different. However, I did not admire what he did.
Yes, the trip was extremely hard. I understand why he tried. However, I feel taht he was just lucky to be able to complete his trip. He faced situations that he could die and survived luckly. I don’t know that it worths risking life. If he was unlucky, he was just called “a reckless tourist”. I don’t feel that’s something justifiable for everyone.
Title: Run the whole five continents - 130,000km to the Cape Hope (自転車五大陸走破 - 喜望峰への13万キロ) Author: Yohei Inoue (井上洋平)
(2009/01/24)