WATER, SAND & ICEby Ian Hibell

Ian climbing along the back route to

Machu Pichu in the Peruvian Andes.

A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G 2322 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G

Looking back as far as I can remem-ber, I always wanted to travel. My firstexpedition was planned in my pram, a longcrawl to and through a gap in the gardenhedge. My frantic mother found me atop aneighbour’s rockery some time later. For asecond try, I used a red pedal car to visitfriends the other side of town, which didn’tgo down too well with Father. The firstwas hard on the knees, the second on thebackside. He had a hard hand! Father andI never did see eye to eye on my travel aspi-rations. Later I found two wheels were bet-ter than four and still think so when I seethe present chaos in our cities.

The long growing-up business createda frustrating delay in my childhood plansto be an explorer. If I didn’t hurry, theremight be nothing left to explore! To thedetriment of my general education, I spenthours absorbing the discoveries of theearly navigators in the polar regions as wellas their routes to the cannibal-populatedSouth Sea Islands. How I hoped theremight still be the odd cannibal around.The result? At least I did well in geogra-phy.

A further setback was enforced mili-tary service, which I spent happily enoughin the Royal Air Force in Arabia, India, andEast Africa. Consequently it wasn’t until1963 that I was ready to see the worldindependently.

In this era of supersonic airliners andorbiting satellites, it is often said the globeis shrinking. I’d argue, “Not for thoseattempting to circle it on a bicycle.” Myprojected two-year tour did, in fact, taketen.

It has been suggested there are quick-er or more comfortable ways to do it, butspeed was never one of the criteria.Comfort? There are admittedly disadvan-tages in this respect, for in riding across thepampas or penetrating a jungle, I get insuch a worn and unwashed state my ownmother wouldn’t recognise me. However,this in itself acts to my advantage. Arrivingin a village tired, hungry, and dirty oftengains hospitality never offered to those in abetter state of appearance or health.Pressed to rest a while in an Iban long-house, to spend Christmas with an Eskimo

princess, or to sit out a blizzard in a tradi-tional Korean home, I have been intro-duced to the very ways of life I have cometo experience.

During those tenderfoot years of wan-dering, I reached Asia via Canada and

Alaska. It was in Japan amongst her volca-noes, shrines, and kimono-girdled girlsthat I finally abandoned all ideas of keepingto a time schedule. Thus began a scintillat-ing stay in South East Asia followed by twoyears as a Youth Hostel Association war-

den in New Zealand. Familiar with theMiddle East, I opted for new horizons onthe way home.

Cape Horn to Alaska had always beenon the agenda ever since reading of anattempt to travel there by amphibious vehi-cle, the first to try it before the Pan-American Highway had even been com-pleted. The knowledge that a ship wouldsail to South America in eight months’time was the catalyst. I’d go! The distancewas great, over 18,000 miles with thediversions I had in mind, and an additionalchallenge was the gap in the highway sys-tem at the joining of the continents,Panama’s Darien Gap, and the more diffi-cult Atrato Swamp in Colombia. ThePanamanian section has been driven bymuch winching and the use of rivers, butthe swamp had remained an impregnablebarrier.

I gained two companions, and theBritish/New Zealand Cape Horn-to-Alaska Cycling Expedition was born andnurtured around a cosy youth hostel fire.Although neither of my kiwi friends were

Peruvian market. Girls in their colorful garb discuss matters of local import.

Desert touring. Ian crossing the mighty Sahara with as much water as he could carry.

thoughts when he said he thought he’dheard a cow bellowing. We all listenedintently but concluded he had been dream-ing and had been back on his NewZealand farm. Then, unmistakenly, abovethe whine of the insects, we heard the stac-cato sound of an outboard motor bangingto life. The noise of the boat’s wake andthe sweet sound of that motor faded rapid-ly into the watery distance. It had soundedso near, but it took us two more days ofstruggle to reach the bank, and as a com-pliment to our navigation, or just plain

luck, there 400 meters away was our hut,one of a cluster named Traversia. Weeventually attracted attention by wavingour bikes in the air and were canoed overto crawl up the mud steps to stand on dryland for the first time in twenty-six days. Ascarecrow would have scorned the rottenrags we peeled off. Our physical appear-ance would have brought tears to a Spanishinquisitor. We were torn, bloody, and hag-gard, but how good it felt to be alive!

Having rested, we set off into the hillsto enter Panama. In Travels with Rosinante

the French author employed guides andporters in an attempt to reach the CunaIndian village of Paya. He gave up and boat-ed back and out. Having crossed theswamp, we found this stage relatively easyand reached Paya independently. I tookexception to a passage from his book:“They looked for unnecessary difficulties.Everybody admits (not us!) that crossingthe Darien Gap overland includes thenecessity of a boat trip up or down theAtrato River.” The crux of our expeditionwas to cross the Darien Gap using the

cyclists, the carrot that drew them was myintention to tackle that uncrossed swampand the jungle beyond. All other expedi-tions before and since have used the riversystem — as do the Indians — to avoidthe swamp, but this involves a huge roadand river detour. We ambitiously wantedto be the first to use the direct route, whichthe eventual road was designated to follow.

Our expedition sailed for PuntaArenas in southern Chile and we rodenorth from Cape Horn in early 1970.With the leg from the Horn behind us, wehad reached our obstacle.

With help from the British Embassy— which, as it couldn’t legally stop us,gave up and assisted — and theColombian Army’s issue of hammocksand snake serum, we were as prepared aswe could be and entered the jungle in anervous state of excitement tinged withapprehension. Others had failed. Why?We were about to find out. If supplies ranout before the halfway point, we couldalways retreat! Couldn’t we?

After nearly four weeks of effort, we

did run very low on food — only dampoatmeal left. Cutting and sloshing our waythrough the growth on a compass bearingon the final stage to the Rio Atrato —beyond lay the border hills at Panama —our optimistic expectation of the necessary

two kilometers a day was to be dashed. Wemeasured our first cut: 400 meters!Redoubling our efforts on the second day:700 meters. Our morale plummeted. Ifconditions failed to improve, should weobey our brains and get out or respond toour hearts and give it a go? The consider-able effort we’d made in riding from theHorn was not easy to throw away.

We continued until retreat was nolonger an option. In our passage forwardand the ferrying of our gear, we’d devel-oped a trench that was too deep to return

along. Down to two tablespoons of oat-meal twice a day, we were weakening.

By our calculations, we must be quitenear the river and the island village ofTraversia. In desperation, we pushed Johnup a tree to look. He couldn’t see the river

but did spot a hut. We were puzzled for weknew of nobody living in that waterloggedlocality. We took a fresh bearing andchanged course. That night, we lay uneasi-ly in damp hammocks, listening to ournoisily grumbling guts, thinking of noth-ing but food.

My hammock supports — a pair ofvery anaemic palm trunks — graduallybowed under my weight and gently low-ered my backside into the murky water.Like the dog too lazy to roll off the thorn, Iwas too exhausted to fix it. Gary broke our

It was in Japan amongst her volcanoes,shrines, and kimono-girdled girls that I aban-doned all ideas of keeping to a time schedule.

24 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G 25

Unexpected guests. A group of curious local boys stop by and investigate Hibell’s tent in Kenya.

26 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G

most direct route. We didn’t have to lookfor difficulties; they were in the way to beovercome. At the cost of severe immersionfoot, we achieved a first, the first completeoverland crossing by any means, power,foot, or dolphin assisted. I was so wet I’venot had to have a bath since, and youshould see my webbed feet.

In 1971, we still had to negotiate over200 miles of jungle to reach Panama City.Now, I believe, a road takes the travelleralmost as far as Colombia and the AtratoRiver, where boatmen are more than will-ing to take passengers to the Caribbeanport of Turbo. What a shame! That finalPanamanian jungle journey was difficult,but the beauty of it will never leave mymemory. Stick a road through anywhereand it contaminates the natural order ofexistence of both flora and fauna. The

human inhabitants are supposed to gain,but I wonder how much they lose.

On reaching Panama City, both mycompanions quit the tour, and I continuedalone to Alaska.

Then, in 1973, as it was when Ireached Alaska from Newfoundland,Canada, at the beginning of my world tour,Circle City was as far north as one couldget on the highway system. That was, untilthe pipe-line support road was built toPrudoe Bay. It was inevitable that I shouldreturn to finally reach the Arctic Ocean. Iwas allowed, under escort, to ride down tothe East Dock. There, thirty years afterdipping my toes in Tierra del Fuego’sAntarctic waters, I completed the ritual onthe northern coast of Alaska. The sea wasjust as chilly but not my welcome home.

In 1963, I’d been granted a year’s

leave of absence from my job in Devon.Now, ten years later, I hadn’t the nerve orinclination to try and reclaim it so I had tofind something else to do. I chose to writeto earn my crust for I was already sellingmy tales. For more material, Norway’sNorth Cape to Cape Town appealed.Crossing the Sahara Desert would give mesomething to get my literary teeth into andmight cure my webbed feet.

The news circulated. One of Mother’selderly friends apprehended me in thestreet and wagged her finger at me disap-provingly. “Your poor, poor mother. Sheworries about you so much.” I could seeher visualizing the dangers. “What willyou do if you meet a lion?” she asked. Iexplained that it was very much up to thelion. There was nothing much I could do ifit was hungry but strip and offer it salt, I

said with a dead-pan face. The explanationdidn’t go down too well, and her opinion ofme as a “nice young man” tumbled as shetut-tutted on her way.

A few months later, my sick jokecame back to haunt me. The old lady need-n’t have worried for I’d not meet a lionnow. I was lost in the Sahara.

Fully topped up, I could carry enoughwater to last me for three days. On average,I’d been resupplied by the curious passen-gers of passing vehicles every other day,but traffic had dried up and on day five Iwas down to two pints. I couldn’t sleep forthinking I’d not survive the morrow, so Idecided to walk through the night with thehelp of the stars.

At dawn, I laid the bike down, and asmy compass had been stolen, used the ris-ing sun as a navigational aid, walkingdirectly towards it. During the night Iknew I’d drift off the main track — a five-mile width of criss-cross wheel marks — ifI didn’t find it to the east, I’d use my shad-ow — westwards. There was no sign of iton either side; with a sinking feeling I knewI’d broken all the cardinal desert rules andwas now lost. Compounding the situation,I couldn’t even locate the bike and thosefinal two pints of water. Time had passedand the sun was no longer a red orange ballbut shimmered with the intensity of anacetylene torch. My physical condition wasnot yet critical, but I had no hope of rescue.I just needed somewhere out of the sun todie in. The sand was burning through thesoles of my shoes, and it was barely 10 a.m.

There was a certain irony that duringthe night I’d blundered into the bush-fringed edge of the desert and I was nearlythrough. The mirage effect made thesegrowths tantalisingly tall, offering theshade I craved. As I approached, each“haven” shrank back to its true squat size,offering no shade at all, not even an apolo-gy.

I was done for. I couldn’t complain. I’dtaken one risk too many. But “Oh, God,help me,” I whispered, more from mymind than my throat. What instinct drewme to turn around I know not. Shieldingmy eyes with a shaking palm, I intentlysquinted into the sun. I stared with incred-ulous disbelief at what must surely have

������ �������������������� ����������������������

�� � ��� � �� �������������

������������ ��������������

������������������� ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� !"��"� ������� ��!�� "��#���!$%&�����!��'(&"%

�!%)��"*� +!," -���

###$%����������$���

A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I S T J U L Y 200 5 A D V E N T U R E C Y C L I N G.O R G 27

Roadside accommodations. Ian sets up camp along the Trans Amazona Highway in Brazil.

been a hallucination. A small biblicallyclothed figure leading a baby camel wasapproaching me. Was I dead already? Ichecked and wasn’t. I’d stumbled into aband of nomadic Touregs. I’d live!

Many years later, having toured theFalklands, I found myself in the right placeat the right time to voyage to the“Continent of Ice.”

Ship’s Log“We landed on the Antarctic

Continent in spectacular sunshine to areception of Gentoo and Adelie penguins.Never had they seen anything quite like it— an Englishman, on a bicycle. Ian Hibell,who had travelled on his bike on everyother continent, wasn’t going to miss thechance to ride here, and the penguins werequite confused to see someone managingto get around so quickly.”

Professor Molchanov — 21 March1998

No, I didn’t frighten the penguins.They gathered around quickly, one obvi-ously explaining the merits of gearing tohis mates.

I didn’t reach the South Pole either,but what a buzz that short tour gave me.

Ian resides on the south coast of England and stilltravels abroad for bike adventures. One of his recenttrips took him to Venezuela.

Help us expand theNational BicycleRoute NetworkDonate to Adventure CyclingAssociation today!

www.adventurecycling.org/donate