Thunder Roads Magazine of Oregon | Page 16

Photo courtesy of Around Gaia found themselves near Portland. It was good fortune that their trip took them north through California and Oregon, so Aran invited them to speak, and they took Aran up on his offer for both a place to stay and a chance to share their project experience. This is a journey that started in April of 2013, will take over 100,000 kilometers and counting, and span 40 countries. Their journey actually started 10 years before that, when they met while working together locating and selling semi-precious stones on the island of Mykonos. This job allowed them to work only for the summer and to get the rest of the year for traveling. During this period of their fledgling adventures, they also collected the stones which were needed for work the next season. Their “ah-ha” moment came during one of the travels in India (probably their favorite country if you ask them). The couple got one very old Royal Enfield from the 70´s, and it was the first time they mixed motorcycle riding with travel and the experience was more amazing than they expected. After 3 months around India they had had to sell the bike to move into another country, and in that moment they knew that the end of the India´s journey was the beginning of something bigger. It’s not hard to see how they fell in love of the idea of traveling around the Thunder Roads Ma