Glasgow Adventurers Hit the Pan-American Highway

In August, we leave behind our home comforts to embark on an epic motorbike journey from Alaska to Argentina to raise money for two worthy causes: SCIAF and the Yorkhill Children’s Foundation. Our trip will cover 18,000 miles and take us through 12 countries.

We have always loved travelling so this promises to be the trip of a lifetime! Before taking to the road we had to acquire a motorbike, learn motorcycle maintenance and basic Spanish, plan our route and decide what to pack. There will be no room for handbags and matching accessories on this trip – we are going to have to travel light.

Our adventure starts in Anchorage, Alaska, where we hope to meet some of the local inhabitants, including bears, moose and bald eagles. We will travel through the Rockies, Yellowstone national Park and the Grand Canyon before making our way into Central America. The wheels will keep on spinning as we make our way though Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and into Nicaragua where we will take a detour to visit Special Families, a SCIAF-funded project which supports the families of children with disabilities.

We chose to support SCIAF because we have always had great confidence in its work and have really enjoyed taking part in 24-hour fasts, buying Real Gift goats as Christmas presents and getting involved in the WEE BOX, BIG Change Lent campaign. And as SCIAF works with projects in Latin America, it seemed to fit in perfectly with our fundraising trip. Stephen, who usually works as an Investment Director at private bank Adam & Company plans to put his new skills in roadside repairs to work at the Special Families wheelchair workshop and I am an occupational therapist at Yorkhill so hopefully my training will come in handy too.

From Nicaragua we will travel through Costa Rica and Panama to Ecuador, Peru and Chile before we run out of road in Argentina and head home to Scotland. The magnitude of our trip and the experiences that await us have us smiling (and sweating!) in our sleep. We have been amazed at the interest people have shown in our adventure and at all their kindness, advice and support.

Stephen and Audrey’s mammoth trip will help raise money for SCIAF and Yorkhill Children’s Foundation. If you would like to make a donation please visit www.justgiving.com/pan-american highway1.