I was desperate for something ‘light’ and this paperback was on top of one of our reading piles in the spare room.
And it’s about a motorbike (sort of), so it was a natural pick-up.
Lois On The Loose is the true tale of our eponymous heroine and how she left her desk job to do something more… challenging.
She motorbiked from Anchorage, Alaska to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, then north to Buenos Aires.
Twenty thousand miles!
On a Yamaha XT225 Serow (trail bike).
Lois completed the journey in just under nine months.
Along the way she encountered fierce weather of unbeleivable extremes; locals of varying degrees of indifference/excitement; countryside of almost unimaginable quality and the company and generosity of many strangers.
Lois On The Loose is an entertaining account of the journey from A to B.
And there’s the rub.
The story is about the journey as a means to an end.
Sadly, it isn’t about the journey as an end in itself.
We are given snippets about the people and the places and scraps of near-nothingness about the culture and the histories.
We are treated to hundreds of words about one of her temporary travelling companion and the almost karmic-circle that bites her in the end.
But we get fewer words about the indigenous people of any Latin American country that she spent weeks or months in.
Not really balanced, you see?
Yes, it’s interesting to hear about the extremes of weather.
Yes, it’s fascinating to learn of the characteristics (good, bad or indifferent) of her travelling companions.
Yes, it’s captivating to hear about her unplanned ‘meets’ with fellow bikers.
But what about the countries that she travelled through?
What about the locals, the indigenous peoples?
What about their cultures?
But don’t get me wrong.
Lois On The Loose is an interesting book full of lively tales and well-related anecdotes.
I just wish that – having spent almost nine months on the road – Lois had given me something of substance about the places she visited.