Petroleum Decay

Motorcycle maintenance and moments of love

Story and photos by Scott Hathaway and Sharah Yaddaw

On the Alaskan highway, by some act of fate or chance, our paths crossed. One path on a bicycle and the other on a motorcycle. We made a fire and drank coffee in a rainstorm watching the morning mist rise over the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains. Two years later with one refurbished XT 600 and one tried and true, we left our garden and home behind, stacked our motos to the sky with gear, kicked over our shiny re-built engines, and hit the road together.   

Motorcycle adventures are a love-hate experience. Riding these old single cylinder bikes destroys your body.  At the end of a day of riding, we have become lumps of jelly. Our heads are buzzing, our hands are numb from vibrations, and we are exhausted. All we do is eat, sleep, and ride. These days add up to what we like to call a state of “petroleum decay.” 

The bikes require constant attention but they tractor along like immortal machines carrying us down dirt roads, across streams, over winding mountain passes, and through forests of cactus and coffee alike. We care for them, and they save us when we pop a wheelie on a sketchy cobblestone hill or hit a pothole that descends to China. It is a symbiotic relationship and our motos are as much a part of our journey as we are, like good friends along for the ride and up for the challenge. 

In a state of decay and motorcycle maintenance, we have ridden the wild roads of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and back. We have spent weeks living with local families and immersing ourselves in the cultures of different places. Simple places with rooster serenades and pigs wandering the streets. With wonderful people who have a healthy closeness to the land and the earth and strong families who embrace you and shower you with kindness, acceptance, and love. 

In Guatemala, we slept on the slopes overlooking Guatemala City and awoke to visions of the apocalypse. Volcán de Fuego was cracking and grumbling, sending up huge plumes of ash, and the night sky was illuminated red with the glow of lava. We rode down to the base of the volcano to witness our first eruption and stopped to talk to anybody standing around. One bicyclist who grew up in the city remembered the eruption in 1974 when pyroclastic and lava flow took out most of the agricultural land around the base. He reminisced, “When I was a boy, my father took me to see the lava flowing through the ‘Barranca Honda.’ It’s the volcanoes that make this land so fertile.” As he started to bike away, he kicked at some cans in the ditch and said, “I love my country, it’s so beautiful here. Now if we could only do something about all this damn trash!” 

A true adventure is not really romantic or easy or always fun. A true adventure will test you. You will sometimes want to quit. You will wonder why you are doing this. It is painful, it is hard, and it can bring you to tears that are born from the very depths of your heart in a multitude of emotions. But it is worth it. You will never be the same. A real adventure teaches you about yourself in a true way. There is no room to construct false ideas of who you are. We take this on, we embrace it, we change, and we see the world in a new way.  

Read more at yamahammer.com

The Road, Alone.

A Life Settled in Motion.

Story by Lauren De Vine // @laurendevinebev

Photos by Randy P. Martin // @randypmartin

I have crossed thirty state lines from July to October this year.

In perfect conditions, I like to open a beer and watch the sun bend a thousand shades of violet before it is just me and the darkened sky and whatever critters take the stage to sing it down in my temporary corner of the universe. With any luck, the people I meet in my last day-drenched hour will be kind and humble, like the Vietnam vet named Larry who sold me firewood tonight from his small silver Nissan truck. His last words to me, the last human words I heard this day on earth were, “I am just here to help.” He meant in life. I keep an atlas shoved heavy with hand drawn maps and notes, a short library of books gifted to me along the way, fireworks, and a small amount of mushrooms in a matchbox. 

I am settled in motion. I need the phenomenon that road people know where the air moves past you in intermittent warm and cold pockets, expanding and contracting with changes in the topography around you — a respiratory system all its own. I take two lane highways and dirt roads and chase rivers that I haven’t passed in years — making good on promises made from a bridge above, out the window of a van while on tour long ago.  

This isn’t a vacation. This is simply my life, happening across multiple locations. Much of my work is done remotely, and because I have been at it for some time, I complete projects in large batches, freeing up greater concentrations of time to pursue the explorations of my choosing: time in the wilderness, my relationship with fear, and other mental real estate. I don’t identify as someone who is “seeking,” I am just “being.” 

I am a woman. Being a woman on the road alone is big enough in the minds of many to even perceive my choices as “extreme.” My gender asks that I explain my freedoms differently and certainly requires a lot of additional conversation. I answer the following questions: 

Aren’t you scared? 

How did you get so brave? 

Do you have children? 

It must be hard to maintain a relationship. 

I wish I could do that. 

So you carry a gun?  

I don’t get mad at the people asking me these questions in the way that I don’t get upset by people telling me they are praying for me because they are the same thing. The conversation always rolls back and forth between congratulatory and all-out panic. Also I am always the calmest one in the room. Statistically, as a woman I am safer on the road and mostly outdoors than if I were living in a city full time. Animals don’t kill people: People kill people. I stay safe and responsible with my choices. I drive well and understand my vehicle. I watch for others on the road as well as animals and always motorcycles. I am in constant conversation with my instinct, and avoiding it is a non-option.

I keep practices that lessen the probability for trouble. For example, I don’t go to bars alone on nights where I will be camped in my van. I also stay at established campsites the majority of the time rather than renegading, but I have my spots and know when the time is right. 

I have been flagged off the road thinking I had a headlight out and asked to dinner twice in the last month, and sometimes men suggest some local camping information and invite themselves to roll out for a beer later. For the record, none of those things are cool and I am always going to go the opposite way. 

This summer I was followed in eastern Wyoming by a man I had met at a gas station. After the third time he approached me as I filled up, my instinct went off and I gave him a ten-minute lead before climbing on the highway. Fifteen minutes down the road I saw him waiting for me on top of an overpass. I confirmed my suspicion by slowing to half my speed when he pulled next to me. I allowed a few cars to get between us so I could maneuver out of the situation. I was thirty miles from Sturgis and a whole lot of loved ones that put up with zero shit moved in my direction. 

I have had a neon life full of travel, creative and professional success, confusion, waking dreams, fuck ups, and an endless train of friendships. I am grateful for all of the forms that luck has taken and continues to take as I make my way through this turn as a human, doing my thing as I was meant to. 

Ultimately, being a woman on the road in my thirties is beautiful because I am fully aware of who I am, and no longer bear the weight of living “in spite of” anything. I am totally happy and exactly where I am supposed to be. In motion. Just being. 

Hand-Powered Lettering

Learn the basics of hand lettering by one of our favorite adventurers Adam Vicarel (the tree hugger below).

Thursday, August 2nd, 6:00 pm – 9:00pm
Tillamook Station, Portland, OR

"Adam will go over the fundamentals of drawing letter forms, speak to the differences of lettering and calligraphy, as well as share his process for conceptualizing, designing, and lettering words or phrases for any use such as branding, advertising campaigns, poster or t-shirt artwork, wedding save the dates, invites and cards."

Photo by Evan Schell

Mañana

Amazonian Love Boat Full of Hammocks and Chicken Eggs

Story by Brandon Raphael Dupré

Photos by Mia Spingola // @mambo.mia

It was just after dawn when the final truckloads arrived. The workers, mostly barefoot, swarmed the open truck beds, stacking cartons of eggs onto one shoulder while balancing sacks of oranges on the other, operating on some unspoken, collective organization like how bees or ants do. They ran up muddied planks to the cargo ship, weaving past other workers on their way down, not minding a couple of broken eggs or fallen oranges, the casualties of doing business on the Amazon River. 

“Mañana,” we were assured by Oscar. The ship was going to for sure, without fail, no doubt, definitely leave tomorrow. Oscar was about 5’6’’ and wore a discolored red tank top and oversized jeans with sandals and had the remarkable ability of materializing whenever you needed something. 

Oscar was the hype man and fast talker of Eduardo VIII. The type of guy you wouldn’t want to sit down at a card table with. He waited at the port’s entrance for confused-looking gringos, ushered them towards the ships, selling them a hammock or maybe a private room on a cargo ship headed to Iquitos, tells them it’s leaving tomorrow, and then plugs his personal product: weed. 

“Tengo la buena,” mumbled Oscar after he showed us the ship’s lodging, wiping some sweat from his brow. “Es gewd me frynd, la buena,” he added.  

It was now our third day on-board Eduardo VIII, a cargo ship docked in the port town of Yurimaguas in the Peruvian Amazon, when the ship’s engines showed the first signs of life. My girlfriend Mia and I had spent three days watching cows forcefully penned somewhere below deck and chickens flapping in vain against metal bars. We saw cases of beer, small boats, moto taxis, all kinds of fruits and vegetables and every conceivable and inconceivable item someone could want in the remote jungle loaded onto the ship until finally it was ready. The engine chugged, rumbling the boat to life. 

Oscar, muddied and wet from the light rain that had fallen that morning during the final cargo load, waved goodbye from the shore, his sandals completely submerged in mud. He took a sip from a flask and readjusted his Chicago Bulls hat against the midday sun. His day was done, but ours, finally out on the river, had just begun — three days and around 20 mosquito bites later. 

Yurimaguas has become an unlikely destination for travelers, who now head to the town looking for cheap rides to Iquitos, the ayahuasca capital of the Peruvian Amazon, and a three-day adventure along the Amazon. To local Peruvians, who made up about 50 of the 60 passengers, it is part of their weekly commute. Yurimaguas marks the end of wheels and cement and gives way to murky waters and boats.

We spent the night strung up in hammocks with the rest of the 60 or so passengers on the second deck. Aside from the kitchen that served our meals and the little store that sold gum and mostly beer, a hammock occupied every inch of space on the second deck. In some places, hammocks were stacked three high and even dangled over railings. There were so many hammocks that walking became difficult. To get to the tienda for a beer you’d have to step over a hammock onto a bench, then duck under another two, side step a third, avoid stepping on the three kids asleep on a piece of cardboard, and then duck under another. Just getting out of my hammock required a certain amount of concentration and dexterity so as not to swing my hammock too much and knock into my neighbors, causing a chain reaction of swinging hammocks and annoyed Peruvians. 

Below the second deck was where the cargo and livestock was stored and where the flies were the busiest. Above us, the top deck was completely open except for about six private quarters, which are really just metal closets with two bunk beds welded in, and are reserved for the captain, his crew and a few high paying passengers. The private rooms cost around $70, around three times the cost of renting a hammock.  

Sleeping a night in a hammock takes either practice or the right amount of alcohol and sleep deprivation, neither of which I had enough of the first night on the river. I woke up countless times in the night and my dreams and my sleepless bits seemed to blur together. Fighting chickens grappled in the corner, menacing bats swooping in, shrills from a baby squirming on a piece of cardboard, large buzzing insects, outburst of laughing and shouting and strange ramblings from a deckhand who mistook me for someone else in the night.

It was all made stranger by the line that had begun to form at 7 a.m., winding through the maze of hammocks towards the front of the ship. Each passenger had a container for a bowl and a utensil in had, something Oscar had failed to mention that I needed.

The line moved fast. The cooks quickly plopped down brown, mysterious breakfast mush from an industrial-sized pot. Quickly, I thought, looking at others pull out their Tupperware — what to use? I took out a notebook from my backpack, the sight of which drew an odd glance or two. The cook plopped down the mystery mush on my notebook with a grin, probably thinking, crazy ass dumb gringo. I later found out that you could in fact rent plates for a small fee, a detail everyone failed to mention. 

Just as quickly as the breakfast was served, a line formed for the bathrooms, next to the kitchen. It didn’t move fast, just brief, half-asleep shuffles forward. Four people were at the four faucets that spat out river water, using it to wash their bowls and utensils. One man, only in soggy underwear and a rosary, washed his clothes. 

There were four stalls, each with a toilet and an overhead shower head, so that you could conceivably take a shower while sitting on the toilet at the same time. It was soon my turn for a stall. The shower water was sucked up straight from the river and never entirely drained out of the stall, leaving little puddles at the base of the toilet your feet would sink into every time you sat down. 

The mornings were like this each day and the afternoons were all about staying cool, a difficult task when trapped on a metal boat in the middle of the Amazon. The savvy Peruvians who made the trip regularly were quick to buy cold beers as soon as it got midday. I followed their lead. Outside of trying to drink your body temperature down, there was nothing else to do to escape the cloth-like heat of the jungle. 

Between Yurimaguas and Iquitos, everything pretty much looked the same; only the names of places changed. The water, though, was unlike any water I’d seen before. It wasn’t blue like the ocean or even the dark opaque and ominous blue of the deep ocean that seems lifeless and cruel. It was a dark, frothy brown with zero visibility, the sort of water you imagine hiding hundreds of bloodthirsty crocodiles. 

The greatest change was felt when the rains came, which was always quick and violent. You could see the rains approaching from the top deck, a black blob on the horizon. The deckhand could feel the storm coming on before anyone else, and without even looking, would begin storm preparation in earnest. He removed precariously hung hammocks, unfurled plastic sidings to prevent sideways rain and closed the latch on the third story. The rain sounded like nails falling against a metal surface. They would pound for an hour or two, during which time you’d be stuck in your hammock until it passed, chickens roaming the floor and just about every smell trapped on the deck by the plastic siding. 

During the evenings, the sunset became the event, as everyone gathered on the top deck, some with beers in hands, as the sun sank. It was like this every night. The sun sat above the jungle, bringing out intense shades of greens and yellows. The moment hung on the water like a bug, briefly, before it too disappeared into the night.  

Little wooden boats began to appear alongside ours as the commotion of Iquitos came into focus. Ships twice the size of ours bobbed up and down in the port of Iquitos, some abandoned, marooned on shores until the waters rise in the rainy season. Bananas, grapes, watermelons, oranges — colors popping against the milkshake brown of the Amazon rode by on boats. Luxury cruises with glass walls and seven course meals paraded past with wooden taxis in their wake. 

The wild and chaotic commerce of Iquitos, a city flirting with anarchy, was on full display, the large appetite that devoured all the goods on our ship and every cargo ship that sailed into the port. The rapacious desire was the heartbeat of the murky waters and surrounding forests, giving life and abundance just as quickly as it could take it. It is the mañana waiting in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.