Day 60 doesn’t begin well.
During their motorcycle adventure from the U.S. to Chile, Pat Sherwood and Ian Wittenber miss the exit for Cali, Colombia, and Sherwood’s bike has a flat tire.
“In the middle of nowhere, bad-guy land, not a good place for two gringos to be,” Sherwood explains. “Night’s falling, it’s dark and we’re stranded.”
Eventually, the police arrive and offer a “free” tow to an area mechanic.
“The old Colombian police bribe went down,” says Sherwood, who used to live in the country.
Once the tire is repaired, the duo is back on the road for Cali, but it takes them hours to find the hotel and Sherwood almost drops his bike.
It’s a bad day. So when folks at CrossFit Altura in Quito want to work out with him, Sherwood isn’t interested.
“And then like somebody comes up and says, ‘Hey, thanks so much for working out with us. Like, it means so much. Hey, can we take a photo?’” he recounts. “I just felt like a total selfish jackass. It cleared my thinking right away. What we’re doing is more important than whether or not I get to do what I want to do. It’s about the community.”
Video by Ian Wittenber.
10min 36sec
HD file size: 193 MB
SD mov file size: 73 MB
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Additional reading: Confessions of a Testosterone-Drunk Jackass by Pat Sherwood, published Oct. 28, 2013.