Blog 4

We hired bikes, got lost, saw one of our Austrians tear his skin up falling off, rode spectacular roads and eventually found ourselves again.

The bikes are little 110cc Japanese numbers, the same used by virtually everyone in the country. It is almost as if the entire nation is speeding itself into the future on underpowered Hondas.

How we ended up so lost on such a small island is a mystery to me. It could have something to do with the map that we left on the table back at Freedomland. We were a party of five, Leo on his first motorbike, the two Austrians Thomas and Alex and Emma and me on the last bike together. The trip started well, with us buying two litres of petrol each – enough to last the whole day for everybody bar Leo who seemed to ignore fourth gear, preferring the grunt of third.

Soon enough we were lost, heading down eroded dirt tracks in the uninhabited core of the island. We were promised luscious beaches, primeval rainforest and villages that hadn't changed for decades. We went the wrong way. Instead of vistas and culture we got eroded tracks and hair raising bridges. Several times we had to turn back because the road had simply fallen into a chasm. At one point, perched before a bridge that looked as if it would break under the weight of a large chicken, Leo looked back at us, asking if we should go on. He was at the front so off he went, we held our breath hoping that this bridge wouldn't make us a party of four. It didn't.

Once again images of Indiana Jones chase scenes might help to imagine the roads we rode on. After five hours of being lost we eventually found our way back to the beach near our resort in time for a sunset swim with cold beers. All in all a spectacular day.