We Go No Further

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Success. We're here. The motorbike has hung up its wheels in retirement. The most trying day was saved for last, too, with all signs pointing to danger. Walking in heavy rain the night before, I saw two motorcycles, one man more similar to myself and one Scooter Babe more similar to Andy, lose their balance, fall, and skid to a cruel halt. There was no blood or fractures but the lasting lesson was an obvious omen: They're two motorcyclists, we're two motorcyclists -- hmm, better watch it. All along, it's been a pair of rules etched deeply in stone: We stay off the roads at night; we don't ride in the rain. The chance at a Friday night in Rio sanded that stone clean. The final day left me short 100 miles from Rio with only a slight drizzle to spar with, the very type I have infinite patience for. The road had really degraded at this point. I kid. That's some jungle we ambled down. (I saw a Toucan. He was not making cereal.) The last week has been riding through a paradise. That paradise did not stretch to Rio. That concluded with Poseidon finally getting his revenge for me shouting his name in vain that one time. Then, just as the rain begins to pick up with only 15 miles to go through favellas, an ambulance wails by the opposite side of the highway. Then another one. Then 23 more. They kept coming, their catcall whine preceding the flashing lights, until I lost count. Something ugly had transpired and to this moment I don't care to know what it was. I kid you not, by the time we found a garage even willing to shack up a pair of bikes, which took a fair amount of time, the weather had turned into a tropical deluge torrenting from a dank, evil raincloud. Mom would be really disappointed right about now, I thought. The mindset by now was one of a gloomy pessimism: Be careful. No, even more careful than that. We've made it too far. Drenched, dripping, and finally out of the saddle, I was close to towering over the motorcycle Ali-over-Liston shouting, "There! Are you happy?! You fought and fought but I won!" Now it's a done deal. We're here. We go no further. And if I could implant a lasting image, it would be of me riding a motorcycle. Me riding a motorcycle across South America with billowing scarf and funny pilot goggles. Wait, me riding a motorcycle of questionable reliability across South America with scarf, goggles, and rickety sidecar. And in that sidecar is a plump pink pig named Peaches. She too has a billowing scarf and funny goggles; she also has a sour countenance, like a girlfriend taken on an awful date. Yeah. Me and Peaches. That one will do just fine.