There were days when The Three Amigos could only laugh.
Faced with machineguns, broken-down motorcycles and abandoned slaughterhouses in the 30,000 kilometres between the southernmost tip of South America and Kamloops, there wasn’t much else Ernie Beadle, Barry Deacon and Bryan Daly could do.
Besides, those moments made for better stories.
“Just to manage to put all that together and all of us come back best of friends and still laughing at some of the foibles that happened — we had some great successes, there’s no doubt about it,” Deacon said.
“But, we did have some tough times as well.”
Travelling across two continents with nothing but their adventure motorcycles and the items they could carry, it’s no surprise the trio returned with plenty of stories to share.
It’s even less surprising considering the Amigos were sorting out most of the details of their trip on the fly.
They stayed in some beautiful places — 300-year-old buildings and five-star hotels — but they stayed in some dives, too.
There was one night, in a hovel in Argentina, when they resorted to sleeping on top of the covers, fully clothed.
Daly wrapped himself in his sleeping-bag liner so as not to be exposed to the bedding.
There were nights, too, when they couldn’t even make it to a hotel.
Once, they were forced to seek shelter on an abandoned farm, with a storm approaching and two of their bikes struggling to make it to their next destination.
It was only once they’d settled in the brick building, with its floors of concrete and its metal roof, that the Amigos realized they were staying in an abandoned slaughterhouse in the middle of nowhere.
“We generally had a few bottles of something to drink with us,” Deacon said.
Just two weeks into the trip and 50 miles in either direction from civilization in Argentina, this was one of those times when laughter was the only medicine.
“We sat down, got ourselves shit-faced and laughed ourselves silly about how desperate our situation was,” Deacon said.
The Three Amigos laugh about it now, as they did then. Seeing as how they made it back, the tales of the things gone wrong are all the more humorous.
The same goes for some of the more harrowing experiences on the road — the near-miss accidents, the buses that travelled with reckless abandon, the coverless manholes and the speed bumps that could send a biker flying.
They faced a life-and-death situation on the second day of the trip on a highway in Chile, driving through winds and rains like they’d never experienced, fighting just to keep their bikes upright as trucks sat jack-knifed around them, nearly blown over by the gusts.
There was nowhere to pull over, nowhere to find shelter — “just bald-ass Patagonia” as Deacon put it.
Beadle led the way, disappearing into waves of water as vehicles passed them by.
“The wind, it was taking my helmet and turning it sideways,” Daly said.
“I was having trouble. I would have to turn the other way to see straight ahead of me.”
Beadle smiled as the tale was told.
“After that, machine-guns seemed like a piece of cake.”
Around them, the world provided the Amigos with perspective — they saw everything from enormous wealth to unimaginable poverty.
The guns Beadle refers to were everywhere: sawed-off shotguns guarding Coca-Cola trucks and automatic machine guns at the entrance to chicken joints.
Though they never felt they were in danger, it was a culture shock for the Amigos to sit next to a man with a rifle as they ate their Wendy’s meal.
Though The Three Amigos had only each other on the highways heading north, the world was with them in spirit.
The men chronicled their windy way north on their blog, which garnered 50,000 views from across 40 countries.
In addition, they raised more than $40,000 for the Kamloops Hospice Association.
Now back in Kamloops after 100 days on the road, the trek taught the group of friends not only about the generosity of those who followed their journey, but also how fortunate they were to return to their lives in the River City.
“I think we all know that we live a very privileged life. We live a very good life here,” Deacon said.
“But, when you actually go see and kind of experience how other people live, you become very grateful for what you have.”
The Three Amigos told the story of their journey at the Kamloops Hospice Association’s recent annual fundraising dinner, but they are looking at the possibility of also hosting a public forum.
An announcement will be made online at the trio’s blog, at motociclistasamigos.wordpress.com.
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