30,000km on a bamboo bike

It's holiday booking season and for lots of people this means one thing: flying. So we've put together this Epic Flight Free Journeys series, to help remind us that a great holiday doesn't have to include a plane. This post is from Joost and Michiel, two students from the Netherlands who had a big idea for a big journey that would make a big difference. 

Two years ago we decided that we wanted to do something crazy. To not find a well paying job at a big corporation after our graduation, but to do something different. We started our own foundation, Cycle for Water. Our goal; to cycle from Alaska to Antarctica. 30,000 kilometers on bamboo bicycles to raise awareness about the global water crisis that is leaving 1 billion people on this earth without access to clean drinking water. We believe that everyone on this planet has the right to a basic and sustainable source of drinking water. It is the first step out of poverty. Water is life, literally and figuratively.

We’ve been on the road now for more than 18 months. We’ve cycled over mountains, through valleys, passed 15 countries, even more ecosystems, and visited many water projects along the way.

One of the things we do is talk at schools and universities to share what we’ve learned about water and from our adventures. We hope that we can inspire young people to take action. But it’s not that easy to tell a story that a lot of people cannot relate to. Most of us do not have to drink contaminated water just to stay alive another day. Most of us don’t have to walk 10 kilometers to the nearest well or be afraid our children will get sick, can’t go to school and don’t have a chance for a better future. There is no ‘one’ solution to the global water crisis. Every country, every village, every region has its own issues. The good thing is that for all the different problems there are, you have adequate solutions as well. And what we’ve seen so far is encouraging. A small NGO is teaching the inhabitants of a small mountain village in Guatemala to build wells and water pumps that cost next to nothing. Mothers in the banana region of Colombia are standing up and taking action to provide their children with clean drinking water. And there are many more good, sustainable and reliable projects out there.

People ask us often, ‘What is the highlight of your trip so far’. Most of them expect us to name a country we’ve cycled through, a city we passed or a sight we saw. But it’s none of that. It really is a trip about people. A rich family in the US that gave us the keys to their million dollar beach house. And the poorer than poor family in rural Ecuador that cleaned up one of their two rooms for us to sleep in then shared their dinner and stories with us.

It’s about the friends we made on the bike and off the bike. And it’s the amazing, resourceful and spontaneous kids we’ve met, visiting all the water projects. No matter where you go, children are the source of joy, laughter and hope and encourage us to do everything we can to help them in their efforts towards a better and more sustainable future.

For more information and stories of what Michiel and Joost have got up to, and to donate to their wonderful cause, visit Cycle For Water.

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