Last time, I wrote about the road by which I, who had simply traveled by bicycle with reckless abandon, began giving talks out of a wish to tell children about the world and the people I met on my travels, and, through classes linking school classrooms by video call from around the world, made “travel as work” come true.
This time is the story of how I drew a line under adventure bicycle travel and came to travel serving coffee.
The moment when life is turned completely over comes suddenly one day, with no notice at all.
But what important meaning will it hold for the life ahead? Or will it utterly destroy the life you had pictured for yourself?
What meaning do you find in it, how do you accept what happened, and walk on with it as part of your life?
Isn't it precisely there that a single ray of light comes to dwell, in a world, and a life, that can't be helped?
And I believe that it's precisely in bicycle travel, through unknown lands, through the great outdoors, through every culture and people and season, that something important in life is to be found.
The 2016 bicycle journey through North and Central America.
In Mexico, which I had decided would be the end point of that journey, armed robbers stripped me of everything while I was camping, and I lost almost everything except my bicycle.
In the middle of the night there was the sound of something being slashed, and when I opened my eyes the tent had been cut open and there were two figures dressed all in black. Before I could even think “ah,” I was being beaten black and blue, and one of them was pointing a pistol.
As I was being beaten,
this is definitely one of those times you must not fight back.
All I can do is ride it out, and just make sure I don't get badly hurt.
Shielding my body, I was somehow calmly thinking through how to deal with it.
Then, having made sure the robbers had grabbed what they could and run off, I ran toward where I could see the lights of the town, dashed into the gas station that came into view, and asked for help.
If I had panicked then, I don't know what would have become of me.
A patrol car came right away, and I was taken into protective care and on to the police station.
There a police officer checked my injuries and my belongings, and it turned out that all my money, my smartphone and camera, and my passport, too, had been taken.
Only the bicycle, which had been chained up, was left at the scene.
In the country of Mexico, I had become a nobody.
At any rate, that I was Japanese. And I told the police officer my name and that I had been traveling.
“There's nothing to be done until the Japanese embassy opens in the morning, so sleep here.”
With that I was shown to a small room, where I curled up small and lay down.
Five years had passed since I began giving talks at elementary and junior high schools across the country, linking classrooms by video call from around the world and teaching classes, and making travel my work.
I had always said this to the children I met at my talks and classes.
In the world there is war, and conflict and poverty, too.
But there are people there who are no different from us, living with love, with big smiles and big hearts.
And thanks to traveling the world alone by bicycle, I was able, as one human being, to meet the people living there and exchange precious feelings with them.
So let's walk on believing in the world and in people, and in your own possibilities.
That was the message I wanted to deliver to the children of Japan as I rode my bicycle journey through North and Central America. In its last country, Mexico, I met with the most serious trouble imaginable, and as I lay in the small room of the police station where I'd been taken in, two things came into my head.
“How am I supposed to get back to Japan?”
“If I go back to Japan like this, I'll end up painting over, in a bad way, what I've been telling the children. Isn't there some way to keep the journey going?”
The next morning, I was able to speak by phone with someone at the Japanese embassy.
That the embassy could not come to collect me.
That I would have to make my own way to Mexico City, 2,000km from the town where I had been robbed.
That if I could get that far, my passport could be reissued and I could return to Japan.
That is what I was told.
At any rate, how was I to move on from here?
The face of Kaji-san, a Japanese person who had been the last to look after me in America before I headed for Mexico, came to mind.
I borrowed a smartphone from the police, was allowed to log in to social media, and sent a message.
And a few hours later, Kaji-san crossed the border by car and came to take charge of me.
When I saw that face, I truly felt saved.
Having lost my passport, I could no longer enter the US, so we headed together to the home of Kaji-san's relatives living in Mexico.
For me, who had lost everything, Kaji-san handed over the clothes I lacked, and money.
The relatives' family embraced me, injured and having lost everything, and welcomed me with real warmth.
I told Kaji-san and the relatives' family that rather than going back to Japan like this, having lost everything, I wanted to continue the journey by bicycle to Mexico City, bring things to a close of a kind, and then return to Japan.
Having thus made a resolution within myself, I borrowed a computer and reported on social media, to everyone cheering me on from Japan, that I had been robbed.
And I wrote that even so I would aim for the goal of Mexico City by bicycle, and posted it.
It must have been that night.
When I borrowed the computer again and logged in to social media, there was an incredible number of message notifications.
What's this? I thought, and opened the messages.
And there, overflowing, were messages written in Spanish and English.
“I heard about you! Is there anything I can do to support you?”
“We're sorry you had to go through that in our country! If you come to our town, we can support you!”
“You can stay at our place, so stop by on your way to Mexico City!”
At first I had no idea what was going on.
But among the messages was one in Japanese, and when I opened it, it was from Tsukasa-kun, a friend in Fukushima where I had taught classes.
His wife is Mexican, and he too had once lived in Mexico as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers.
He had shared what had happened to me, and a request for support, in Spanish with his friends in Mexico.
And I learned that it had been shared further, had reached a great many people, and that this was how messages of support had come to me.
I no longer had a smartphone, so I bought a map of Mexico and decided on my route from there to Mexico City.
I wrote the names and mobile numbers of the people who had offered support from the towns along that route directly onto the map in pen.
Giving my heartfelt thanks to the family who had taken me in, I set off again on my bicycle.
When I reached the next town, I would point at the map with gestures to someone walking by, and have them phone the person who had sent me a message.
Then that family would come to meet me,
and with “Come on, come to our house!” we would head to their home together.
They gave me the clothes I lacked.
They let me take a bath.
They gave me money, saying, “We took up a collection!”
They treated me to a feast until I was full.
And then, with “We're sorry you had such a terrible experience in our country! May you reach your goal safely. Please don't come to dislike Mexico!”
they would send me on my way again the next day.
Things like that happened almost every day.
“Use this to post on social media that you're traveling safely!”
There was even someone who handed me a smartphone with those words.
In the month it took to reach Mexico City and until I returned home, how many people gave me support, words of encouragement and loving hugs.
It was, literally, an experience of “being kept alive.”
And so I reached Mexico City safely, had a passport issued at the Japanese embassy, and was able to come back to Japan.
I rode my bicycle to the schools where I had taught classes, and when I told the children,
“Everyone, I'm truly sorry for worrying you!”,
“We learned that there are terrible things in the world, but that on the other hand there are lots of warm, kind-hearted people, too! Welcome home!”
the children said, welcoming me with smiles.
“Even all on your own, you can race around the world and travel.”
Those were the years I had spent conveying that through my own experience.
But here is what I thought afresh, having been robbed in Mexico and literally had the experience of being kept alive.
It was that “it's precisely because there were people cheering me on, and people who took me in on my travels, that I had been able to travel this far.”
And that, even though it may have had nothing directly to do with them, so very many people reached out a hand, saying, “A Japanese person traveling in our country has had a terrible time, so let's help!”
That gave me an occasion to think about what “living together” is, that fundamental human activity.
What I, having traveled the world, resolved to take on next.
It was this: in Japan, where the sense of bonds and connection is said to be fading, can people connect with people?
Isn't the richness of living to be found not only in realizing the way of life you picture for yourself, but precisely in the connections between people?
I came to think about such things.
And what I came up with as a tool for connecting people was brewing coffee and serving it.
Having had that idea, I switched from the gravel road bike I had ridden on my travels until then to a cargo bike, and set about the preparations and equipment for serving coffee wherever I traveled.
This is the beginning of the free-coffee bicycle journey.
Would I, traveling by bicycle through unfamiliar places, really be able to bring about connections between people, warm communities, in the places I visited?
Next time, I'd like to write about how I spent a year traveling Japan on a café cargo bike loaded with a coffee set.
“Tabi no Oto” by Masanori Nishikawa
Vol.1 / Vol.2 / Vol.3 / Vol.4 / Vol.5 / Vol.6
I'm currently out on a Mountain Bike Journey ride, so the series will take a short break, and the next installment is planned for early September.