TRAVERSE Issue 16 - February 2020 | Page 37

didn’t fill the void left by not travelling … he needed his bike … In many ways it was the music industry that sent Mike to Colombia, as he explains, “the music industry had basically crashed in Denmark, so I took the chance to go travelling to South America.” “I was in Colombia for five days when I met Diana and we fell deeply in love,” he beams. There’s a special con- nection between Mike and Diana. “We got married, had our daughter and opened our business that year,” Mike is passionate. “And the rest is history.” Mike explains that Colombia wasn’t even on his radar, its reputation was enough to make him think twice. He took a chance and has never looked back. “I ended up amazed by the country’s incredible natu- ral beauty. The mountains, the jungle, the ocean. Every shade of green.” He continues that the people of Colombia have an atti- tude like nowhere else on Earth. They want “to leave the painful past behind”, the country is improving day by day with an “entrepreneurial energy”. It was this attitude that drew Mike in, he could see that his future was in the South American country. Mike and Diana opened a backpacker’s hostel and after six years of business they realised that perhaps there was another opportunity. Many of the travellers had shown an inter- est in Mike’s bike, often parked out the front. The couple spent the last of their money on a second bike and started offering guided tours through the country. “Eleven years on, motorcycle tours and rentals are our main business,” the passion is showing again, Mike loves taking visitors through ‘his’ country on two wheels. Mike admits that it’s a ‘lifestyle business’ and not one that will TRAVERSE 37