Security

Throughout the entire trip is was clear that everyone is scared of their neighbour to the South, with the United States probably being the most terrified. Whenever we were in a particular country telling people about our trip they would warn us with genuine concern about the next country. They would tell us scary stories of things that had happened to people in those countries and while I do not doubt that they are true stories you can't do a trip like this in fear. You have to just take the leap of faith and hope that things will work out.

One of the top questions people ask us is about safety. We have been lucky and during the entire trip never found ourselves in a particularly scary situation. Do bad things happen? Sure, but I think you can take precautions to safe-guard yourself and then you also need a bit of luck. We follow a few rules to help eliminate our interaction with dangerous situations. We don't drive at night. We don't really venture out at night (unless it is with trusted locals) or just around the corner for food. We try to stay away from large cities and generally trust your instincts for situations that make us uncomfortable.

Alberto insisted on bringing disklocks for the bikes but after a few weeks in Mexico he stopped using them. We never went out of our way to secure things down (though most of our items on the bikes are relatively secure). We generally didn't leave the bikes unattended for long and on the rare occasions we did (Copper Canyon and Perito Moreno Glacier) we never had anything stolen. The only time we had something stolen on the entire trip was 100m from Alberto's parents house. Oh the irony. Alberto's old, smelly, knock-off shoes were stolen off the beach.

Security wasn't something we worried about too much, but that's not to say we were careless. The key is to be smart and trust your instincts.