ABT036. Finding a Place in the Wild

What if you could reframe your greatest fear not as a barrier, but as an invitation? Join Laura Grace on her incredible journey from being too afraid to wild camp alone to spending over a year on a solo bike tour through South America. In this inspiring episode, Laura shares how she learned to meet fear with curiosity and courage, transforming it into a catalyst for growth. Hear about the thrill she experienced setting off to cross Ireland by bicycle, a trip-halting mechanical failure in Ecuador, and the dramatic circumstances that solidified her friendship with fellow cyclist and previous guest, Julia Esser. This is a powerful story about pushing personal boundaries, finding strength in vulnerability, and discovering that the most rewarding adventures are waiting just outside your comfort zone.

The best way to reach Laura is on Instagram, @laurainwildplaces.

Her writing is on Substack, @laurainwildplaces.

For links to podcast platforms, feedback via email, the podcast website, and Instagram:
https://linktr.ee/accidental_bicycle_tourist

Transcript

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Yeah, I know I was debilitated by fear for a long while. It can feel really uncomfortable. But I now rather see it as an encouraging invitation to go beyond my comfort zone and maybe do some mental gymnastics to meet fear with curiosity and a courage and an excitement as well, because I know that the best experiences are on the other side. You just heard Laura Grace, who in a few years has gone from not having any bikepacking experience and not daring to wild camp alone to spending more than a year traveling solo by bicycle through South America. As is to be expected the trip has had its share of ups and downs. I caught up with Laura in Cajamarca, Peru, where she was waiting for replacement parts to arrive from England that would enable her to get back on the road. You're listening to the Accidental Bicycle Tourist. In this podcast you'll meet people from all walks of life and learn about their most memorable bike touring experiences. This is your host, Gabriel Aldaz. Hello cycle touring enthusiasts! Welcome to another episode of The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. It's always very enjoyable for me when one interview guest leads directly to another. In the previous episode, "Bitten and Back: Overcoming Fear After a Dog Attack," guest Julia Esser talked about a bikepacker named Laura who helped her heal, both physically and mentally, after a mauling in rural Colombia. On today's episode we get to hear Laura's story, from her upbringing in England to how she decided to travel by bicycle in South America to her fateful encounter with Julia in Colombia. Laura Grace, thank you for being a guest on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. Thank you for inviting me into the podcast. It's great to be here. Yeah, I just quite like to premise before we start that I have a speech impediment called a stammer, so if you hear me stumble on my words occasionally that's why. But yeah very much looking forward to talking about how I got into bikepacking and my journey through South America. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview. Let's start off by talking about your childhood in England. Where exactly are you from? Sure. So I grew up in Yorkshire in the north of England, close to the Peak District National Park, so I spent a lot of time here as a child and in my teenage years as well, hiking and doing a lot of road cycling. More recently, though, I've lived in Cornwall, which is in the southwest of England by the ocean. I moved there in 2019. Okay, so it was your proximity to an area with beautiful nature that got you exercising and outdoors? Yes, I'd say so. I feel very fortunate to have grown up where I did for sure. How did you make the transition from road cycling to bikepacking? In terms of the transition from road cycling to bikepacking, so my dad had done a bit of cycle touring when he was about my age now, through France, so I'd known from an early age of this thing called"bike touring" and I actually remember doing a trip with him when I was a child. It was just for a night to a local campsite, but maybe that planted a seed as well. Yeah, I just continued road cycling as a hobby and didn't really touch the idea of bikepacking again until a couple of years ago. I remember wanting to for longer but I just couldn't bring myself to go wild camping alone. I was so scared and. yeah, terrified to the point where I just kept putting it off and making excuses. Eventually I did camp alone, and all of a sudden a whole new world opened up to me and I could then combine the cycling which I loved with camping, and I felt more, more confident to do that. Excellent. What advice would you give to a person who is afraid to take that step of experiencing their first solo wild camping night? Great question. Yeah, so my first night wild camping I was actually on a hiking trip with my friend in the Lake District in England and it came about because she'd had a couple of nights really bad sleep after cutting her fingers, so she just wanted a night and some accommodation to get a good rest. I just thought, I'm in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, an area that I don't get to very often because it's quite away from Cornwall, where I lived at the time and I obviously had all of my camping gear with me. The weather was really good and yeah, it was just the perfect opportunity really to take the plunge. I think it worked really well having camped for a few nights before. I was kind of in that flow of camping and I hiked up the same hill as well that we'd done so previously. I think that's important, to go somewhere that you recognise. It's probably a good idea as well to tell someone where you're heading and what time you expect to be back. Good advice. I think it's important to mention here as well that it will create a feeling of fear. It's a completely natural reaction to something that's stretching us or that's unfamiliar, and I think especially as women, I probably speak for many of us that we have so much fear projected onto us for mothers and it's not with any bad intention or malice but it does have an effect, I think. I know I was debilitated by fear for a long while. It can feel really uncomfortable. But I now rather see it as an encouraging invitation to go beyond my comfort zone and maybe do some mental gymnastics to meet fear with a curiosity and a courage and an excitement as well, because I know that the best experiences are on the other side. That's a very interesting way to approach feeling fear. It seems like you've almost turned it into a strength. Yeah, I really quite enjoy the sensation, that feeling of walking into the unknown and knowing I've got so much to learn and experience. And I also acknowledge and realize that if I didn't have this feeling of fear, then whatever I'm doing probably isn't anything that I can expand and grow from. Now that you were able to combine camping and cycling where did you decide to go exploring? My first trip, bikepacking trip up the west coast of Ireland in 2023. And I actually used my dad's panniers from the 1980s, or whenever it was, and my road bike as well. So a far from ideal setup, but you know it it worked and I had the best time in Ireland as well. Fun that you used your dad's old equipment I find there's a special feeling when using some tool or other object that once belonged to a parent. Yeah, it did feel special I agree. What was a memorable moment from your trip to Ireland? One of the most memorable? I think one of the most intense feelings, and therefore memorable, was leaving the most southwesterly point. So my start point, quite similar to how I felt leaving my start point in Colombia, just this huge melting pot of apprehension and feeling completely out of my depth but also just feeling so alive with adrenaline and excitement. Nice. Yeah, so my route was from most southwesterly point, Mizen Head, and I kind of weaved on and off the Wild Atlantic Way to the most northerly point, Malin Head. Then I went across to Northern Ireland to see a work colleague who kindly helped organize a bike box and gave me a lift to the train station so I could get back to Dublin. And you were saying it was that first day, as you were departing, that was most memorable? Yeah, when I left in Ireland, it was the most beautiful, sunny day, which is quite a rarity and I was cycling on the coast road next to turquoise ocean, and I just, yeah, it's hard to translate the feeling into words. It's just this really expansive feeling. Quite often, the run-up to these things, where it's quite stressful trying to get everything organized and packed and then all of a sudden, the only thing you have to do is ride and look at mountains and the ocean. It's, yeah, it's a special feeling. That feeling was a bit addictive, I guess, because before long you must have started planning a bigger trip. Yeah. Was South America your follow-up to Ireland? Yes, it was soon after Ireland when the idea to come to South America came about. I'd left Ireland feeling immensely empowered and I'd just fallen in love with traveling by bike, and I knew some kind of change was on the horizon. The year or so before I was starting to feel a pull to do some kind of traveling, but I just wasn't sure when exactly, where, or what that would be. And I obviously still was and felt very much a newbie to bikepacking. It was actually a speaker who came into my work's training week, who's also called Laura, Laura Penhaul, and she had rowed across the Pacific Ocean, and while she was telling her story I was just hanging on to every single word. I just felt so inspired by her resilience and pushing through the boundaries of her comfort zone even when it felt impossible to do so. I was so moved by this, so much so it almost felt like her story gave me permission to dream, and it kind of instilled a sense of courage within me as well. So despite not having maybe quote-unquote, "the right amount of experience," or any of the equipment yet it all just seemed to land within me. Did you go out and buy a rowboat the very next day? Not quite, no. The slightest movement on a boat and I get very travel sick. But yeah, I of course could chase those same feelings and similar experiences with bikepacking. I just felt this huge call to go to South America and take my bike with me. Could you explain the training week at your work? Yeah, so they're a charity called the Wave Project and they use the ocean and beach-based activities, such as surfing, to help children with their mental health as a prescribed form of therapy. They also have adaptive surfboards as well, so anyone with a physical disability can access the water and feel the joy of riding a wave. So yeah, they do really amazing work. Cool. The organization I worked for, the Wave Project, has team members all over the country so for one week a year we we got together to do some team building activities and in this case listen to inspiring people that would result in me handing in my resignation notice a year later. It's funny that you ended up working at such an organization, when you get seasick so easily. Oh yeah. I guess you must have watched from the beach. Oh well, my role was primarily office- based, but yeah, the ocean was and is still a big part of my life. I really enjoy most ocean-based activities, apart from anything boat-related. Oh, glad to hear that. Getting back to the teambuilding, it looks like Laura's presentation was too engaging, since you eventually resigned from your job. Yeah, indeed. Laura had actually written a book on endurance and long- distance cycling, having worked with Mark Beaumont, who set a speed record for cycling around the world, and she kindly gifted one of those to me after seeing my passion during her presentation. So yeah, it just really felt like one of those encounters that was supposed to happen. How did you settle on your next destination? Yeah, I can't remember exactly when I settled on South America. I knew of a couple of people who had been in recent times, and I guess I started listening to bike-related podcasts and following bikepacking accounts on Instagram. And I think I was just so struck by the varied landscapes in South America and the idea of cycling across a mountain range appealed to me as well. So I just know, by Christmas of that year, 2023, I had decided on where and when I was going, much to the shock of my family and friends. That's a common reaction from friends and family. Shock at first and maybe awe later. And I suppose that the mountain range you were thinking of was the Andes? The Andes, yes. I'd actually already been to Venezuela so yeah I decided to start in Colombia. And yeah, just with having a finite timeline as well, I was happy to start here. So I started in a town called San Gil, which is quite close to the border of Venezuela, and my first route would take me through the Boyacá region. And like many many others, my destination is Ushuaia in Patagonia. We're starting to close in on your first meeting with previous guest Julia. Did you meet her on Instagram first? We are, yes. But no. Julia and I connected through a bikepacking South American WhatsApp group. I think it was around autumn time of 2024 when Julia reached out to me after seeing a question I had asked in there and, yeah, it was really nice to connect with another woman, especially planning to do this trip alone. It felt comforting to know that, even if in another country there was someone else who was going through the same motions as me and the same process of leaving a job behind and leaving comforts behind to go to the Andes. Okay, so you were both members of this WhatsApp South America group before you even got to South America? Yeah, it's a really valuable resource. I think I was in it for over six months before I actually landed in Colombia, just asking for route recommendations, and in hindsight probably asking some silly questions. But I suppose I just had no idea how to plan for a bikepacking trip in a different continent for more than nine days, which is how long Ireland was. For how long were you planning to be away? So I've got my sister's wedding in August 2026, so I've got that as my hard deadline to be home for, but I'll be pressed for time soon as in that by the ferries in Patagonia, which I think stop running around March time. So yeah, I expect to complete by March or April time next year. August 2026? I thought you were a planner, but it looks like your sister is even more so. Yeah, I mean perhaps that's one of the only things we have slightly in common. She's not into bike- packing, I take it? No, absolutely not. I think what what I'm doing now is her idea of hell but yeah, that's okay. It would be boring if we all enjoyed the same things right? Right. Well, previous guests have gone to weddings by bicycle, so who knows, you might show up on your fully-loaded bike. Maybe so. Maybe so. So far, all previous guests' accounts of Colombia have been spectacular. What were your experiences? Yeah, I agree. Yeah I didn't really know what to expect with Colombia. It's not like Peru, where I have images of huge snow-capped mountains or the salt flats in Bolivia. I didn't have the same preconception for Colombia, but yeah especially in the Boyacá region, the landscapes are just so varied. In the morning I'd be cycling on roads through dense trees and then in the next valley there'd be dry, sandy mountains with cactus everywhere. So yeah, really incredible to cycle through and one of my overriding memories as well of Colombia is the birdsong and just how green the landscapes were and how alive the land felt. What can you say about the people? The people were amazing, yeah. Cycling along, people would be waving from their mopeds and cars and I got invited into people's homes for a cup of tea and lunch and invited to camp on people's land. It would be a regular occurrence as well for people to stop and ask me about my trip and take photos with me. So yeah, really kind and open and hospitable people and this is even without me having a good level of Spanish too. So these beautiful interactions still happened, even when we couldn't maybe communicate with each other so well. Is there one interaction that really stands out? There's definitely a few I could choose. Yeah, one time I was sat in a village just outside a tienda, having a drink and a snack, and a man called Jairo came up to me and sat down, and he started to engage in a conversation. We did have to use Google Translate a bit, but yeah, I'm just so grateful for him taking the time to do this. And he told me his house was just up the road so he invited me in and showed me around his allotment. He picked some pomegranates for me and then made me some lunch and a cup of tea, so we spent a few hours together. And it was still quite early on in my journey as well, probably within the first two or three weeks, so it was just so wonderful to receive such warmth. And yeah, I also remember thinking that this would just never happen in England. Yeah, so after spending some time together, I left with a bag of pomegranates and a big smile. The people in Colombia are warm-hearted and full of life that's for sure. Definitely, yeah. And so eventually you made it to Salento, in the coffee-growing region of Colombia. Is that where you met Julia for the first time? No, so Julia and I had met up a couple of times. Once at the end of the Boyacá route and then in some hot springs before Manizales. The "Oh Boyacá!" route from bikepacking.com has been mentioned in several recent episodes. This highly-rated tour, originally published in 2016 by Canadian bikepackers Dean and Dang, is set deep in the Colombian Andes. The route, which connects Soatá with Villa de Leyva, features mostly gravel roads winding up high mountain passes, dropping into hidden valleys, and visiting quiet villages. As mentioned by several guests, the scenery, flora, and fauna changes dramatically as the road crosses several microclimates. The highest point is a lofty 4,100 meters, or 13,450 feet. Yeah, this time Julia was at the end of recovering from some food poisoning and I was planning to have some time off in Salento anyway, so we ended up lining up schedules to take some time together in Salento. You were planning to leave Salento shortly after Julia, but then you heard about the dog attack and you stayed? Yeah, so I received a text message from Julia that morning. She set back off into the mountains. The first one was just my name, and when I saw it I thought the next one would be telling me how beautiful the landscapes are. That's usually how our communications go, so I was just so devastated to read that she'd been bitten by dogs and was on her way back to Salento in an ambulance. I had plans to set off the next day, but that neither felt or was the right thing to do. So you rushed to the hospital? Yeah, I went to the hospital and I was just so shocked to see the severity of the bites. It was really really bad, and my heart just broke for her. It was such a horrible, horrible experience and ordeal. I think Julia is extremely grateful that you stayed with her, not just for a day or two but for more than a week. Yeah, I stayed for just over a week to help as much as I could in the early stages of her recovery. I just saw myself in her situation too, like if I'd set off one day earlier, it really could have been me that got bitten. Yeah, that's crazy. I was just glad I could support Julia in some way, and although the circumstances were unfortunate, our friendship was fast-tracked, which has been a silver lining to come out of this I suppose. I just continue to be so inspired by how Julia dealt with and continues to deal with such a traumatic event. She's truly a remarkable and incredible person, and I'm just happy that we made contact and crossed paths in that WhatsApp group all those months ago. Definitely. I know you've met up a couple of times since. Each time you must have seen an improvement in her spirit and physical strength, I imagine. We did, yes. Mainly in the cities like Quito and Cuenca, where we make it our mission to drink as much good coffee and eat as much good food and slices of cake as possible. Yeah, the cake. I remember the cake. It's wonderful to see Julia back on a bike, enjoying the mountains where she belongs and it's absolutely what she deserves. How did you experience Ecuador? Ecuador is really beautiful. Cycling through Cotopaxi National Park and a little further south seeing Chimborazo come into view. They're just these huge statues of nature they're just tower above and over everything else in sight, it's it's really spectacular. I found Ecuador to be more remote and wild away from the towns compared to Colombia. Although Colombia did have its remote sections, I was never really that far from a shop or some kind of accommodation if needed. But yeah, Ecuador felt different to this, and the weather was more challenging as well with the wind and the cold nights especially around Chimborazo volcano the coldest night yet for sure. It felt like a step up from Colombia and perhaps that's what's needed to prepare for the high Andies of Peru coming up. You said that Laura Penhaul's story of rowing across the Atlantic Ocean had inspired you. Was there a time during your trip that you found yourself in trouble and had to call up your reserves of grit and resilience? One day stands out which I wrote about on my Substack, because it felt like one of those days I'll remember for a long time and I wanted to capture the details of it. So, it was in Ecuador and on this particular day I had my site set on a hostel that had been recommended by the bikepackers. It has a jacuzzi and a sauna, so quite a luxury for on the road. Yeah, the morning had started off relatively easy on a paved road with a gentle wind, so I felt like I was making reasonable progress. That was until the route took me off the paved road and onto a track that was just covered in sand. And the wind had picked up by this point, so it was just blowing in my face constantly. So I spent a good three or four hours lifting and hauling my bike through this sand. Sounds miserable. But I had in my head that I just have to get to the top of the pass, then there'd be a paved descent down into the village. At least, that's what Komoot told me. But after reaching the top of the pass, I realised that there was no paved descent, and it was actually a really poor-quality gravel road with loads of potholes. And the wind was still battering me and it was also dark by this point as well, so really challenging conditions, and I was just so exhausted by this point and felt cheated and disheartened. So yeah, definitely a time when I had to dig deep, but that's one of the reasons why I love adventure and bikepacking, because you put yourself in these situations where you have no choice but to dig deep and find your own strength. Those are two things I hate. One, when Komoot says that a road is paved and it turns out to be deep sand. Two, when Strava loses part of my all- day ride and only gives me credit for 15 kilometers. Yeah, I mean I really should have known the region I was in was far too remote to have a paved road down to a tiny village. Until you get there, there's always that hope. Like, maybe there was some money laundering going on, and they just happened to pave a long road to nowhere? I mean, those are the kinds of thoughts you have when you're struggling to go up the hill in a sandstorm. Exactly, yeah. Hope. Hope coming from a place of desperation, rather than any kind of logic. Yup. You mentioned a Substack page. How can we find it? Ah yeah. I sometimes post longer- form writing on my Substack. My handle is @laurainwildplaces. And on Instagram? The best way to reach me is on Instagram, and it's the same handle, @laurainwildplaces. And yeah, if anyone has any questions or wants any advice then I'm more than happy to help. That's a great offer. And now you've crossed into Peru? I have indeed. Unfortunately, not by bike though. I had a mechanical in Ecuador. Julia and I were actually riding together on this day. It's only the second day we've aligned to be able to do that. So we were about 20 kilometers away from the Peruvian border when my bike made a kind of - how to even describe the sound - like a crunching metal noise. Oh no! What had happened, my derailleur had become all twisted and bent into my back wheel and the hanger was also bent. So yeah, my bag was just unrideable at that point. And it's such a shame, because I've woken up with such high spirits, being able to ride with Julia and crossing into a country that I was looking forward to. So yeah, I hitched a ride in the opposite direction to the border back to the town of Zumba. And I went alone, just because there wouldn't have been anything Julia could have done if she'd come with me. And after all of her hold-ups, it was just best for her to continue. So that's how you ended up saying goodbye to Julia. You two have a flair for drama. That's one way of putting it, yeah. We do joke that every time we meet up something seems to go wrong of some kind, but hopefully that will change now. I'm sure that Zumba had a fitness studio, but were you able to find a bike shop there? No, there was no bike mechanic. So I took my bike to a motorbike mechanic, who were able to bend the hanger back. But the problem was, the thread had gone on the hanger and it's not a replaceable part of my bike, so even if I could replace the actual derailleur, the lack of thread would mean it would still be kind of moving about, and the same thing would likely happen again. So yeah, I felt really helpless and stuck at that time. I made contact with my trusty bike mechanic at home, and we were able to work to a solution. Hey, great news! But, it would mean I'd have a couple of weeks off my bike whilst I waited for parts to be shipped from England and it also meant I wouldn't be able to cross the border by bike either. By the way, who will actually fix your bike? There is a reputable bike mechanic in Cajamarca, which is a town in northern Peru, where I am now. The arrival of the bike parts from England is a connection to your past self. A few years ago, living in Cornwall, could you have imagined that your future self would be receiving a package of bicycle parts in Cajamarca, Peru, prior to beginning a traverse of the high Andes? I think yes and no. I've always had quite an adventurous streak in me, as my mum would be able to confirm. But yeah, I mean, when I think back to a couple of years ago when I was feeling my way into adventure and bikepacking and solo wild camping, I was inspired by lots of people and followed other people on their crazy adventures, but it always felt like something that other people were capable of and could do. It felt so far away from what I'd ever be confident or capable of doing. So to be sat here in Peru now, about to cycle into the mountains, I'm just so happy and made up that I'm now a version of myself that a past version of me would have looked up to and felt inspired by I think that's all we can ever hope to achieve, really. True. It's so easy to hold ourselves back, thinking that don't have the right equipment, we don't have the right experience, it's not the right time. You know, there's always something that's not quite right, and I say that because I recognize those excuses within myself, and I was so hesitant to go wild camping. But yeah, I think a lot of the time these are just limitations we're enforcing on ourselves, and I yeah, I really hope in sharing my story, I can inspire women especially to to seek the wild and to seek adventure, because it's been the most empowering fulfilling and life-enriching thing I've ever done. As Laura mentioned at the beginning of the episode, she has a speech impediment called stammering. Although Laura did not feel comfortable directly recording a live interview, I really wanted to share her amazing story. We got creative and found another way to make an episode together. Initially, I interviewed Laura in a text- based format, using a shared Google Doc. Then we recorded our questions and answers separately. Lastly, I stitched the audio files together to create the finished episode. You heard Laura talk about turning her fear into a strength, enabling her to enjoy activities such as wild camping and bike packing. Well, now she can add podcasting to that list. The transcript for this episode is available on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist website. I welcome feedback and suggestions for this and other episodes. You'll find the link to all contact information in the show notes. If you would like to rate or review the show, you can do that on your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow the podcast on instagram. Thank you to Anna Lindenmeier for the cover artwork and to Timothy Shortell for the original music. This podcast would not be possible without continuous support from my wife, Sandra. And thank you so much for listening. I hope the episode will inspire you to get out and see where the road leads you. Was there a time during your trip that you found yourself in times of trouble? Oh! Did Mother Mary come to you, speaking words of wisdom?