Life Lessons from 60,000 Kilometers on the Road

Jerry Kopack [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Bike Life, a podcast from the Warmshowers Foundation. Here we celebrate our global community of touring cyclists and hosts who make life on the road unforgettable. Through stories, insights, and shared experiences, we explore the connections that fuel every journey. Whether you're pedaling across countries or welcoming travelers into your home, you're part of a movement rooted in generosity and adventure. Discover more and join the community@warmshowers.org now let's hit the road together. Hey, everyone, this is Jerry Kopeck, the host of Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains at Breckenridge, Colorado. Today I'm talking to Isaac ventama, and since 2019, he's been cycling the world on a shoestring budget with over 60,000km and counting, choosing remote roads and a minimalist lifestyle rooted in climate awareness. His journey is not just about distance, but about connection and what it means to truly live simply.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:07]:
All things that are right up my idea. Nally. Hey, Isaac. Welcome to Bike Life.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:01:13]:
Hello. Thanks for having me.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:16]:
Yeah. As I mentioned, I love this approach to a minimalist lifestyle, to living simply. Because now you've been on the road for five years now. Right. So where am I finding you today?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:01:27]:
I'm in Belgium, actually. I just finished cycling South America a month ago. So now it's time to make some money and reconnect with friends and get ready for another adventure.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:41]:
Got it? Got it. So when you started off back in, what, 2019.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:01:48]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:49]:
What motivated you? You left from Belgium and just took off?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:01:53]:
Well, I actually traveled before that. I traveled to Australia on a working holiday visa, and I was going to do the same thing in Canada with a friend, but that friend met a girl, and in the end, he didn't go to Canada anymore. And I still wanted to see the country, so I said, okay, I will just do it by bike. And then traversed the whole country in six or seven months. And I. I never really worked with this working holiday visa in the end.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:22]:
Have you always been a cyclist? Is this something new to you?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:02:25]:
No. Yeah, I've. I've never had a driver's license, so I've always been a cyclist, which in Belgium is quite common to everybody cycling here.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:36]:
Yeah. Is it common to not have a driver's license? Because in the United States, very uncommon. I have one friend who doesn't have a license. He's bike everywhere. But in Belgium, maybe it's not so uncommon.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:02:47]:
It's slightly less uncommon.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:53]:
So when you started, you said you wanted to go through Australia or Canada. How do those trips Go.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:03:03]:
Well, the first trip in the end, in retrospect, I was very unprepared. I was expecting some summertimes basically. And I was looking outside of the plane and I thought, oh, this must be Newfoundland. But we were actually already starting to land and there was snow everywhere and at the Niagara Falls, there was ice everywhere. And I was camping in a hammock. I just had normal civilian clothes. Didn't really have like very warm stuff. So it was.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:03:35]:
Yeah, it was tough the first, the first weeks.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:39]:
So this was back in 2019, right. What month was this?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:03:43]:
It was May, but everybody told me, oh, spring is very late this year. You should have been on the west coast, because now it's like Indian Spring or something like this. And then when I arrived at the west coast, the winter was two months earlier than it would normally be. So I feel like in this whole seven months in Canada, I had like one month of summer. That's it.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:10]:
So you had seven months in Canada. Did you traverse the. The whole country east to west?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:04:15]:
I cycled from Toronto through the States to Nova Scotia and then from Nova Scotia I cycled to Vancouver.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:25]:
Got it. It's a big trip.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:04:28]:
Yeah. But I have to say I hitchhiked 2,000 kilometers in the middle. What? But also cycled an extra loop of 2000 km to compensate for this.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:38]:
What, what motivated you or what reason do you have to hitchhike for 2,000km?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:04:44]:
Because it was getting too cold in the west and also because it's just basically cornfields for 2000km and I was cycling against the prevailing winds as well, so I thought, okay. And also the road is very, like, traffic wise, very unsafe.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:03]:
So how much, how much planning did you put in this trip since seems like you maybe were early on the season and cycling into a headwind, that one.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:05:13]:
Not enough planning. Now, I tend to over plan things a little bit, but I just was not that lucky with the weather.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:22]:
Got it.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:05:23]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:24]:
So did this trip kind of set you off onto a different lifestyle of wanting to see the world in a different way?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:05:31]:
Yes and no. After I worked my working holiday year in Australia, I already traveled in Southeast Asia with a motorbike. And somebody had told me, oh, you can just carry camp everywhere. I did the same. So I just bought a motorbike and camped everywhere. And then afterwards this friend told me, oh, actually I only camped three times, camping everywhere, and apparently it's not always that safe. But then I basically got the hang of it and started doing the same thing, but with a bicycle.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:06]:
Yeah. And how, how Was that different of an experience?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:06:11]:
What I really like about the bicycle is you can float through the lives of people somehow. Like, you go through a town, everybody's working, nobody can hear you coming, you're not interrupting anyone. So life just goes on, and you can observe everything in a really pure way. You're not making noise, so people can also talk to you or shout at you. So it's.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:36]:
Yeah, I love that. Float through the lives of people.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:06:41]:
No, that's.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:41]:
That's beautiful. And I completely agree.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:06:46]:
In my mind, I see, like, people working the rice fields with the water. So the floating comes from this. This image.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:56]:
Yeah, it's. It's. It's a much smaller impact, maybe, right?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:06:59]:
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:01]:
Because I often talk a lot about what I call this concept of a human experience. And so when we travel, the landscapes, the food, the culture, sure, they're always amazing. But it's traveling by bike slowly that allows us these connections with people that maybe we wouldn't get if we were on a bus or a train or a motorbike.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:07:20]:
Exactly.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:21]:
So do you have any stories about some of the people that you've met that maybe impacted you?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:07:27]:
Yes. One particular girl that I cycled with, I cycled with her in el Salvador and 13 months in Colombia. And what I liked about her is that she really didn't care about any rules. And I already. I was kind of a person that doesn't care about rules that much, but she made it a lot worse. And she also taught me to ask for help and talk to the people. In Europe, sometimes people are not that helpful, but most parts of the world, if you ask help, people will help you. And sometimes you feel like, oh, no, I'm giving up.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:08:09]:
But you're not giving up. You're just asking someone for help. You're not doing something wrong by asking people for help.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:18]:
Yeah. Why do you think people are hesitant or afraid to ask for help?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:08:22]:
Sometimes I think it's because it feels like, oh, I cannot do it alone, so it's failure. And it's actually more enriching to ask people for help because maybe they have another solution or another way of looking at the problem. And even if they cannot help you, then in the end you have a good conversation and maybe a place to.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:43]:
Sleep and look at those connections that you made that you would have otherwise not had that experience with. Right?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:08:49]:
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:52]:
So I read somewhere that you cycled over 60,000 kilometers. Right. And on a minimalist lifestyle, trying to exist on six or seven euros a Day. Have you always embraced this simple minimalist lifestyle?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:09:07]:
Yes, actually, I think it started when I had my first house that I rented, had no heating whatsoever. And in Belgium, that's. I just have a wood stove, basically. And then also the whole thing to make hot water broke down four months in winter, so I had to shower with a bucket. And basically I'm doing the same thing now, making a campfire and bucket showers.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:36]:
Wait, currently where you are right now?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:09:39]:
No, no, no. Now staying at a friend's house. Now I'm bathing in luxury.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:43]:
Okay, got it. So do you have any tips or advice on how to get by in such a minimalist way when you travel?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:09:51]:
Yeah. Go to the local marketplace.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:53]:
Okay.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:09:55]:
And try to eat as much of the local food, because usually that's the most sustainable way to live. It's also most of the times, the cheapest way. And take very good care of your bike. That's also a big one. Yeah. Keep it clean.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:13]:
I don't know about you. And I've traveled to different places, whether it's Asia or Africa. A lot of times I'll see places that advertise hamburgers or pizzas or things like that, which may sound good, but it definitely is not part of the local cuisine. Right.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:10:28]:
But once in a while, you can make an exception, of course.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:31]:
Right, right, right. So I know you're passionate about climate change and awareness. Talk to me about what that means to you in your travel.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:10:40]:
That means that I'm always trying to ask people how the life was, how nature was when they were children, basically. And for me, it was very shocking. Like, I always meet older people in the Andes and they tell me about, oh, there used to be glaciers and there used to be crystal clear water coming down these. These dry riverbeds. And then I met some younger person that told me the same thing. She said when I was, like, 10 years old, there were glaciers everywhere, and she was 27. So to me, that was really shocking that it's just disappearing so fast, all the glaciers. Nature is changing so fast.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:11:20]:
Nobody has ever told me that it rains more than back in the days. It's always drier, it's warmer.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:28]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:11:28]:
And that's really shocking. It's all over the world. It's really crazy.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:32]:
So are there any things that you're doing along the way to try to promote or create awareness for this?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:11:38]:
Yes, I always carry. I always try to use my plastic bags as many times as possible. I did a presentation a few weeks ago, and I showed people the plastic bags I had, and I still had one plastic bag from Mexico, so that one must have been two years old. And when I go to a store, I always have, like, a little bag with some other plastic bags inside because I want to avoid people handing me things in new plastic bags. Because when you say, I don't need a bag, they're going to put the tomato in a bag. They're going to put every single article in a bag, and then they're not going to give you the final big bag. At least in Bolivia, Peru was like this. So I would go in and tell them, okay, I have my own plastic bags.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:12:26]:
Don't use any plastic, because then it ends up in the trees. And they don't realize that if you're not using the plastic, it will also not end up in the environment. They don't want plastic in the environment. But prevention is the best way to have a cleaner environment, basically.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:46]:
Yeah. And I found that too, when I've traveled in South America or Southeast Asia. It's just common wherever you go to give you a bag or two bags or three bags. And when you say, don't want a bag, they somehow think like, well, why don't you want a bag?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:13:00]:
Yes. Yeah. I always have to explain that I carry everything on the bike and I have bike bags. And I also think for a lot of people, you are already like an exotic phenomenon, cycling in these remote places. So when you tell them about not using plastic bags, I feel like they really think about it. And I would often tell them, like, in Europe, you don't always get a bag anymore because it's better for the environment. And I hope in this way that it will make them consider the use of a plastic bag a bit more.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:39]:
Yeah, I love that. Now, I know that you mentioned you traveled with a friend through El Salvador. Have you met any other friends along the way that you traveled with? And how does that experience change you? Like, do you prefer to ride solo or ride with other friends?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:13:54]:
The first Canada and North America, I rode almost everything solo. And I was also. Well, I didn't really meet anyone. And then Central America, I was becoming more social on the bike. And then South America was full on cycling with people. Everybody's doing the same routes, everybody's in the same South America, WhatsApp group. So it's very easy to meet people. And you meet people that in normal life you would probably never be friends with them because the only thing that you have in common is the road and the bike.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:14:32]:
But it's such a strong connection that you get like, it's so easy to get along with other people that are very different sometimes. And it's very enriching to learn about their lives and how they're handling life in general.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:46]:
Yeah, you make a good point that a lot of people do that South American route, right. From Colombia down to. Was it Tierra del Fuego down in Argentina? So very, very common route. So did you enjoy cycling with people? Did you prefer. Or are you more of a solo kind of guy?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:15:05]:
I prefer cycling. Well, a mix of the two.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:08]:
Okay.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:15:08]:
But for this trip, I really, I also, I. I think I cycle with the same people for one person for three months and then another guy for four months. So it's. Yeah, it's. It's not like meeting someone cycling a few days. It's really. Yeah, you really get to, like, at some point you also get annoyed by really small things of the other person. But in a way, it's like a good experience to have more patience with people sometimes.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:43]:
Sure.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:15:44]:
And, yeah, it's really not easy.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:48]:
But at the end of the day, right, if you feel like, hey, this isn't working, like, we want to go different places, maybe we cycle at different speeds, or I want to cycle longer or you want to cycle shorter or whatever, you don't laugh at my jokes. We just go a different way. Right. Like, I go this way, you go that way and no problem. Right.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:16:06]:
That happens as well. But I cycled with a German guy and he. He really, when he cycles alone, he told me when I. When I'm alone for one day, I get so homesick that I. I just want to stop. And I met him the second day of his trip, so I felt kind of responsible for him. And now I feel like I know him so well. This is a friendship that will last for the rest of our lives.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:16:35]:
That's really nice.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:36]:
Really?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:16:37]:
Yes. It's hard to have this deep connection in daily life with people. And on the bike you can have this.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:47]:
Well, yeah, because you're cycling together for five, six, seven or eight hours a day. And a lot of times you're camping or sharing a hotel room with somebody and. Yeah, you get to really know somebody really well. Right.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:17:00]:
For two weeks. We even adopted a dog together. So we were like two parents.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:08]:
Was just a stray dog along the road.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:17:12]:
I went to a bush to pee and I heard some dog, like, noises coming out of this bush. Like puppy kind of noises.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:22]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:17:23]:
So I tried to lure out the dog with some food and in the end I just, like, put the spiky brush away. And took the dog and had a broken leg. So he thought, okay. It was a very busy road as well. So I thought the only chance for this dog to survive is if we take it with us. And then the same evening, we had a Warmshowers host and she happened to be a vet.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:48]:
What?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:17:49]:
So she gave the dog the syringes and some vaccinations and then we just took off. We made a box. We took. We wrote free dog on it and we went to look for a new family for this dog, which is very hard in Peru because there's dogs everywhere.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:09]:
Sure.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:18:10]:
And after two weeks, just before we started the Peru divide, we found an owner for the dog. And up until three months ago, the dog was still alive with the owner because we saw a picture that's incredible.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:25]:
Huge.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:18:25]:
It was like a little cow.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:28]:
And a broken leg was all better.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:18:31]:
The broken leg was already better after two days. So we called her Shakira, but it's not the right name because her hips did lie.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:42]:
Nice reference. I was wondering where that was going. That's perfect. All right. Today's episode is brought to you by bikeflights.com the leading bicycle shipping service and bike box supplier for cyclists. You'll enjoy low costs, excellent service and on time delivery with every shipment. And you get preferred handling for your high value bikes, wheels and gear. As a brand built around a love for the outdoors, they are committed to reducing environmental impact in every bike flights shipment is carbon neutral.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:16]:
Join the nearly 1 million cyclists who have used bike flights to ship their bikes, wheels and gear with confidence since 2009 and see how easy it is to book, manage and track all of your shipments. Visit bikeflights.com warmshowerstoday for more information and to book your shipment. Now back to the show. So you mentioned the Peru divide, right? So it seems like you are maybe drawn to remote, difficult roads. What's the attraction for you?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:19:49]:
The remoteness. The lives of people that are untouched by western civilization or by smartphones. And it's basically a window into the past for me. And it's a mix of this and just the. If you're going through a really nice landscape, a really impressive mountain range, it just feels different when you're doing it alone or on a really desolate road. If you're more. It's even more impressive, I think.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:26]:
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And you're talking about going into these really remote places, which means you have to have a pretty stable bicycle. So I know you're kind of a gear nerd. So let's Talk some tech. Right. What kind of bike do you have?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:20:41]:
I'm using a very normal cube mountain bike with front suspension. Absolutely not adapted for bikepacking. But I just mount everything with these cleats that you use for like gas fittings. The ones you use, you screw and they tighten.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:01]:
Yeah, we call them hose clamps in the U.S. yes.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:21:03]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I basically attach bottle holders and everything with those clamps. And I did change the wheels. I have to change the back wheel every trip. My bike is not that heavy. I I now had mavic ed Max wheels, which is for downhill e mountain bikes, and still I managed to break it.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:29]:
So how that you don't strict me as a large man and those wheels are really burly.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:21:36]:
Yes. I do carry a lot of food. Like I need my vegetables every evening.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:42]:
So like 100 kilos of food. I mean, how much is a lot?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:21:46]:
15, 20, maybe sometimes with water.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:49]:
Still not enough to break wheels.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:21:51]:
No, it should. It's rated for 180 kilos and my weight is 65. And the bike with maximum food would be 65 as well. So I don't know. I'm sending it into back to the store for warranty, so I'll see what they say.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:06]:
So maybe just like going fast downhill on rough roads. Right.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:22:11]:
They're supposed to be for jumps of one and a half meters, so I'm not doing those kind of things.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:16]:
Okay, that's a good start. Okay. So does your bike have a name?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:22:23]:
Yeah, I call it. It's Baby Chair. It means like little baby in Dutch. It's like something we say to our if you have a girlfriend or something, you could call her Baby Chair. And the bike is kind of my.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:38]:
Girlfriend because it has such a deep personal connection. Do you understand that? Yeah. My bike is the same way. I totally can relate.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:22:46]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:47]:
So when you started out bike touring, what did you realize that maybe you needed? Or conversely, what did you realize that you didn't need and actually get rid.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:22:55]:
Of every new trip? I carry less clothes, but I do take more quality clothes like a merino wool or a down jacket. Those things might be a bit more expensive, but they are worth it. What I start using less is I lost my drone and I'm not going to replace it. And I'm also not going to take GoPro anymore because a cell phone can do kind of the same thing. They're waterproof nowadays as well, so less gadgets. I started off with three fishing routes in Canada after catching only three fish that year. I also didn't carry a fishing rod anymore.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:45]:
Three was different purposes, right? Because it seems like one should be.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:23:49]:
No, I just thought more fishing rods will catch more fish. It doesn't work that way.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:55]:
It doesn't. Okay. Do you have fishing experience? Like, do you know what you're doing? Because I personally don't know how to fish.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:02]:
I, I, I caught some nice fish in Australia, but I guess I was just really lucky there.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:12]:
Interesting.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:13]:
Yeah. We arrived at the lake and I start fishing with, with corn. And then somebody told me, no, don't do it. We here, we use worms. So the next lake, the next day I look for worms. I'm fishing with a worm. Somebody comes up to me and says, what are you doing? You know, we don't use worms here. We use corn, basically.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:32]:
I also don't know what fish I'm trying to catch. So I don't, I really don't know which fish are in that lake. So I don't know what they eat. So it's really hard to. But I just really don't know what I'm doing with the fishing, actually.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:46]:
Do you know how to clean fish to eat? Because I don't know.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:48]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:49]:
Okay. You have that part figured out?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:51]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:51]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:24:51]:
That's what I learned that in Australia. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:53]:
Okay, good, good. I was going to ask you, do you have any luxury items that you carry that, you know, things maybe aren't essential, but it sounds like you carried a drone, which isn't really essential, but any other luxury items that maybe you just don't need but you carry because you like it?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:25:12]:
That's a difficult question. Maybe I would say a camera with two lenses, but I don't think it's a luxury item because the tele lens you can also use as binoculars. Find the campsite sometimes.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:24]:
No, I think that is very useful.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:25:26]:
When something has two functions, you can take it on the bike.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:29]:
Yeah, I love that. So navigation. Do you use offline apps on your phone?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:25:37]:
Yeah, the only reason I have an iPhone is because I want to use Map out, which is for me. Since I discovered this app, planning became so much easier. Navigating drawing routes became so much easier. Then as a backup, I still use maps me or organic maps, it's called nowadays. And then I tried to have as much offline maps on Google Maps as possible. And for example, in the States, I would every time I find a Walmart because I travel without SIM cards, I would go on the wi fi and scroll along the route with satellite images. So these satellite images would still be at the Cache memory of my phone. And that would make it easier to spot green parts where I could camp because I was traveling with a hammock.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:26:31]:
So I need trees.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:33]:
That's not always smart. By using the cache memory to store.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:26:37]:
Footage because you cannot download them and then when you take screenshots, you. You cannot use the zoom function that much. Yeah, so that was my trick.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:47]:
How'd you learn that one? That's a good one.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:26:50]:
I don't know. Nobody thought.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:51]:
I just discovered that I'm going to use that one on my next show. That's a good one. Thank you.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:26:56]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:57]:
How about what's your favorite snack food? Like what's always on your bike when you're riding?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:01]:
Peanut butter.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:02]:
Same. Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:05]:
A wrap with peanut butter and then a nut mix and a banana.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:11]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:11]:
That's the best food.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:13]:
You're speaking my language. My go to as well.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:16]:
But then you probably also know how hard it is to keep the bananas in good shape.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:20]:
Impossible. Especially if you're on a bumpy road. Right. I remember one time I was in kind of northern India and a woman gave me a bunch of bananas and I kind of threw it in a bag on my bike. And after an hour on this road, it looked like baby food. Like it was just rising to mush. So tough.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:39]:
But you can still eat it. I do.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:43]:
Speaking of remote places, have you had any parts on your bike that are.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:48]:
Difficult to find on the Peru divide? I broke my rear shifter.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:55]:
Okay.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:27:56]:
But I managed to find, like a very simple friction shifter. And I only had three gears in the back. But for the purity divide, it's not really necessary to have more than three gears because you're only using the lowest tree that you have, so.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:14]:
Yeah, because it's either up or down, right?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:28:17]:
Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:19]:
Huge, huge climbs in that route.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:28:21]:
Yeah. And then eventually, I'm a friend of a friend of a friend came to Peru and brought me a shifter. They did sell shifters in Lima. And they can bring it to you by bus because the bus doubles as, like, postal service.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:38]:
Oh, wow.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:28:39]:
But the price was 10 times more than it's when I order it online.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:47]:
Because of the shipment?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:28:49]:
No, it was just everything in Peru for bike parts is ridiculously expensive.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:54]:
Maybe the import duties.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:28:56]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Got it. Exactly.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:00]:
Okay, so I want to shift things up a little bit here and do some kind of rapid fire questions. Sound good?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:29:07]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:08]:
All right. So now I realize this is a very cliche question to ask, but whatever I'm going to ask you anyways. So I know every place Is different, unique, but you have a favorite place that you've been or maybe a place that you might go back to.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:29:23]:
It's a region. It's basically the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, and the high mountains of Guatemala. In Guatemala, you have the Cuchumatanes. It's like a route that Mark Watson and Hannah made where you go over 4,000 kilometers. 4,000 meters?

Jerry Kopack [00:29:44]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:29:45]:
You're basically 200 kilometers away from coral reefs, Maya temples. So it basically has everything you want. So much diversity in a really small area. That's what I really like about this part.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:59]:
How much time did you spend there?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:30:04]:
Two months, I guess. Yeah, a lot of time.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:06]:
Yeah. Do you have a list of places that you still want to see?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:30:13]:
I really want to see Africa and I really want to go to the Middle East. Yeah, that will be the next. The next journey will be the Middle east also. Because for me, South America was a bit dull on the food part of things. And I think the Middle east will be very, very good food. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:35]:
Yeah. So I've spent time in Israel a bunch. Turkey a little bit. And I can tell you the food is. If you like hummus and pita and the fresh vegetables. Amazing.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:30:49]:
Next trip starts in Turkey.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:50]:
Yeah. Good man. Okay. So you've got that on the. On the radar. Yeah. So was there a country that you thought, like, I really don't want to leave or I could possibly settle down here.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:31:03]:
Oh, that's difficult. Well, if the. The question of settling down depends also on the price of land, for example, or to buy. And for me, Nicaragua was a very nice surprise.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:18]:
Okay.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:31:18]:
The coast of Nicaragua has really good surf. Still reasonable to buy land there. But by traveling more and more, I also realized that basically I want to be where my friends are. So I said goodbye to the idea of living abroad. I think it can be very lonely as well when you settle down for a long time and you miss your friends and family, I guess.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:48]:
Yeah. Those connections are important, of course. Our community, our network. Absolutely. Was there a place that you found particularly challenging for any reason?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:32:01]:
For me, Ecuador. The Trans Ecuador mountain bike routes in rainy season was very hard mud.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:10]:
Right.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:32:12]:
Crazy mud. And then the Paramo, it's all black and it's so slippery. Yeah, man. And I don't know, I. Do you have this section with where you have to cross water channels. And after that I decided, okay, it's enough. And I. I cycled the.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:32:33]:
The three volcanoes routes and then I went to the Amazon. I thought, okay, at least it's also raining in the Amazon. But at Least it's not cold.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:41]:
Yeah, man. You've done some cool routes. I. I read a lot about some of those places you're talking about.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:32:47]:
I tried to connect all the bikepacking.com routes as much as possible.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:52]:
Those guys will appreciate that for sure. You mentioned food in South America was. Was not great. What's your favorite food country that you've been to?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:33:03]:
El Salvador for the pupusas.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:04]:
Ah, good one.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:33:06]:
Yeah. It's basically like a tortilla wrapped, like, folded in half, and it's filled with anything you can imagine. The standard one is cheaper cheese, beans, and meat. But they come in all kinds of varieties, and I remember eating nine or 12 of them a day, a day and a day.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:28]:
Good man.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:33:29]:
And I just don't get. You don't get. Well, I could. When I think about El Salvador, the first thing is like, I want a pupusa.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:39]:
So here's a little insider tip. Have you been to India or Nepal yet?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:33:44]:
Not yet, no. No.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:45]:
So when you get to India, they have this dish. It's kind of the main dish. It's called veg thali, or in Nepal they call it dalbat. And it's essentially, it's rice and beans and curried vegetables and flatbread. And the amazing thing about it is it's usually around 70 cents or a dollar U.S. that's right up my alley. And it's unlimited, so. So if you say, hey, I want more, they'll keep bringing you more until you say finish.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:34:14]:
Oh, yes, that's exactly.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:16]:
For a hungry cyclist, it's amazing.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:34:18]:
It's making me hungry now just listening to you talking about it.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:22]:
So lastly, favorite landscape. Desert, Mountain, Coastal. What?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:34:28]:
Oh, that's really difficult. I think the jungle. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:31]:
Jungle, yeah. Okay. Why?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:34:35]:
Many cyclists go through Central America really fast because it's hot and humid and it's. I. I mean, it's really challenging. The constant humidity, but the amount of birds and. And animals you see is. For me, it's totally worth it. Even if you like, especially when you're in some kind of jungle landscape near a coast where you have coral reefs. I usually not for South America, I usually carry diving goggles and snorkel.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:35:10]:
And I always want to see what's below the water as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:13]:
Amazing. Wow. Okay, so thinking about your next trip then, to the Middle east, are there some countries that you kind of have on your. On your target list?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:35:25]:
Yeah, Turkey. And then everybody's so positive about Iran. So I really want to see Iran as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:34]:
I was going to put that out there. I met some. Some Swiss friends a while ago, and they mentioned a month they spent in Iran, and they said the kindness, the generosity of the Iranian people was unparalleled. They didn't pay for a meal or a night stay in the entire month they were there. Incredible.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:35:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's sad that we get such a bad image of the country in Western media just because of the government, basically, because the people are completely different than what we think people are like in Iran.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:07]:
Isn't that just the truth? Right. So people everywhere I've been, people are just people, right?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:36:13]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:13]:
No matter what country I've been in.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:36:15]:
Yeah. 99.99% of people are all good.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:21]:
Yeah.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:36:21]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:23]:
What a great way to wrap things up. So I want to thank you so much for taking some time to sit with me and tell your stories. Isaac, if there's any way for listeners to find you or to follow along on your ventures. How can they do that?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:36:37]:
On Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I'm called World of Jackie. And Jackie is written J A C K Y. And that's kind of my nickname for my. That my friends gave me.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:50]:
Jackie, where's that come from?

Isaak Vanthomme [00:36:54]:
I don't want to go into that.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:55]:
Okay, fair enough. Another talk for another episode.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:37:01]:
I'm not proud of it. That's why.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:03]:
Fair enough, man. Well, we will have all those links listed in our show notes. We can follow along and see what crazy stuff you're up to.

Isaak Vanthomme [00:37:11]:
All right. Thank you.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:12]:
Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. So thank you, Jerry Kopeck, and I hope you enjoy watching. We enjoyed sharing as always. If you enjoy our show, your friends just tell your friends. This helps us hope. Set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make this amazing community. Visit us. My name is Jerry.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:34]:
Until next time, keep the wheels rolling on Instagram showerscore. Org. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, or email us@podcastarmshowers.org.