WANNABE COWBOYS RIDE THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

It was our first visit to the U.S. While indulging in stale airline snacks in cattle class on our way to Texas from South Africa, we had a good laugh about all the contradicting and varied opinions of the U.S. we’d heard.

- Michnus Olivier

“They have the World Series of American football, although they’re the only ones playing it.” “The poor bastards pay $5–$13 for a beer in a restaurant and think beef jerky is something nice to eat.” Google “biltong,” which is now available in the U.S., you’ll thank me later, and yes, paying that for beer is a human rights violation, in my humble opinion.

Nevertheless, the media is guilty of creating many mistaken perceptions about countries, something we’ve discovered to be true in almost every nation we’ve visited. The same came to pass for the U.S. What we found was a country we fell in love with during our nearly six months there, and most of the proffered opinions were rubbish.

As we were sitting in the BMW workshop of our friend Hank, in the bloody hot, small town of Dilley, Texas, he slapped a few Butler BDR maps on the table while sucking on iced tea. These are about the best way to plan where to ride, he said. With added suggestions from the local gamut of adventure riders, those maps became our go-to for route planning. After buying two low-mileage Suzuki DR650s in San Antonio and rigging them for the long run to Ushuaia at the southern tip of South America, we hit the road at the beginning of summer.