Recently my wife and I took a few days off. We were in the town square of Tiradentes Brazil one night when two gigantic motorcycles pulled in and parked right next to us. These were not your average bikes. The first thing that caught my attention was the BMW logo. The man and woman got down and I overheard them speaking English, not the stuff we speak but real English, from England.
I asked them if they were touring Brazil on their bikes and they replied no, they are touring the world on their bikes. Simon and Lisa Thomas have been at this thing for two years and two months and have already traveled through Europe, Africa, and part of South America. After starting a successful marketing company in the UK they grew dissatisfied with the life of upward mobility and £250 lunches in London. A terrible motorcycle accident left Simon recovering for two years and they lost their business. It also gave them plenty of time to think about life and they decided to sell everything and see the world from the saddle of their BMW bikes. They don’t have high-powered sponsors for the trip so they economize by camping and cooking their own food. This was their tenth wedding anniversary so they decided to spend the night at an inn in Tiradentes.
From Tiradentes they were headed to Diamantina. Their route would take them through Belo Horizonte so we gave them our phone number and told them if they ran into any snags in Belo that they should give us a call.
Sunday night, before church Simon called to say they had gotten lost in Belo and had no place to camp, as he put it “We need rescuing”. When Patty and I designed our house we made a guest room so we could make our home a refuge or entertain guests. We invited them to spend the night here. I had just enough time to meet them at the mall and lead them back home before I had to do a quick change and get to church before the music stopped. I wasn’t preaching so it was a pardonable offense.
They were planning to leave in the morning and push on to Diamantina but we were all having such a great time they decided to stay another night.
Monday night I hooked up the video projector to their laptop and we saw some of their photos, including their crossing of the Sahara and fording a river in Africa with their bikes loaded into a dugout canoe. These two bush-camped across Africa. They did amazingly well seeing as neither of them was a bushcrafter or wilderness survival enthusiast before the trip. They learned it literally on the road. I told Simon he could easily write a book on the subject after all the hands on experience. These are very down to earth and practical people.
In spite of their expensive bikes, they are doing this trip on a shoestring budget. We got into a discussion about sharing a vision and contacting sponsors. Simon had run a successful marketing business but he was so into doing the trip that he hadn’t applied what he knew. The conversation gave him all sorts of ideas and they decided to stay another day to work things out on their tiny computer.
Tuesday was a fun day. Simon taught me stuff on the computer that I didn’t know existed. It was interesting to talk with another couple that had left their old lives behind. We even had an impromptu machete-throwing lesson in the backyard. (machete throwing is one of my lesser known skills, its sort of like redneck lawn-darts). Simon was a natural at it so I gave him a used 14-inch machete, you really can’t camp in the bush of South America without one. I also sharpened their Leatherman tools (donated by Leatherman of South Africa) and their shamefully dull hatchet. In my workshop Simon spotted a roll of duct tape. It was refreshing to see another guy get so excited about duct tape so I sent it with them.
On Wednesday morning they left before noon headed north. Before they left Simon gave me the GPS coordinates to the house here.
We live at S 19º 50.231’ W 44º 00.198’, you can look us up using Google Earth to get a satellite image of the neighborhood or program that into your GPS and come visit.
When they complete their journey, Simon and Lisa will hold several world records including the longest tandem motorcycle ride, only continuous ride to reach every continent, and the oldest woman to circumnavigate the globe on a motorcycle (Lisa is 43).
We had a great time hosting them for a few days on their epic adventure. You can read about their trip and see some of their amazing photos at their website. Stop in and give them a word of encouragement. Mac
http://www.2ridetheworld.com/ 
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