Adventurer Laura Bingham on why determination is key to survival (copy)

The author of Lands of Courage spoke to us about a journey of a lifetime cycling 7,000 miles (11,265km) across South America with no money, lessons in resilience and the benefits of reading about modern-day adventurers.

All too often, travel presents itself as an eye-opening experience. One filled with stunning vistas, life-binding friendships and bucket list-worthy escapades. But the reality can be far from it, as full-time adventurer Laura Bingham knows all too well. The seasoned adventurer has previously sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and led the first expedition to locate the source of Guyana’s Essequibo River. She's married to fellow adventurer and survivalist Ed Stafford. 

When I sat down to speak with Laura about her travels through South America, what became clear was that bouncing back from failure is something that we should all be prepared for. As she aptly puts it herself: “It’s OK to cry, but you keep going.” Resiliency and determination are things she’s eager to instil in her young readers with the beautifully illustrated book Lands of Courage – One Girl and Her Bicycle, aimed at four- to eight-year-olds. 

I wanted to find out more about Laura’s epic cycle ride to raise money and awareness for Operation South America, a children's charity in Paraguay: the lessons she learnt, her own failures and what it was really like cycling (mostly solo) through South America without any money. 

Copyright Laura Bingham

The big question: why?

“In England there are infrastructures in place so that people don't actually starve but they don't have that in South America. And I wondered what that was like," Laura tells me from her home in Leicestershire. "Operation South America takes in children without parents, from abusive backgrounds or whose families don’t have enough money to feed them. That made the decision that I would do the whole thing without any money. And the reason that I decided to cycle and not walk? Cycling is quicker than walking.” Fair enough.

Laura started in Manta, Ecuador and crossed the Andes into Peru and onto Lima. Then it was back over the Andes to Bolivia, from where she pedalled south through Paraguay and Argentina to capital Buenos Aires. Friends and family joined her for parts of the ride and, amazingly, she only spent money once for a hospital-related emergency.

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Copyright Brandon Giesbrecht

A born adventurer, from the age of six Laura visited family in South Africa where trips were spent white water rafting and micro-lighting (a sort of parachute-hang glider apparatus) and spent her late teens working various jobs abroad as a teacher, gardener and au pair, helped along with a fluency in Spanish. In her early twenties she reflected on what made her happiest and it came down to one thing: travel. We may not all complete the same journeys but we certainly share that same, un-itchable passion.

Normalising failure

Of course, travel isn’t as glossy as the photographs make out. “When I was sailing the Atlantic, I hung my clothes up to dry on a line but I didn’t put pegs on them. And then this gust of wind came and my clothes went flying, including my favourite pair of shorts – and part of my book. You can’t exactly just pick them back up so I had to watch them disappear into the horizon.” She calmly recalls. You get the sense that at the age of 29 she has already learnt how to take these life lessons in her stride.

Failure is one of the key themes of her book and ironically recurred when it came to actually writing it. “When I got back, I sat down and started writing the adult book for it. I got to chapter four and I was like, I’m bored of writing this… people are going to be bored reading it.” Instead, she wrote for children’s magazines and gave talks to schoolchildren. Their natural energy and enthusiasm inspired her and she switched tack.

Copyright Brandon Giesbrecht

There are plenty of books about exploration and historic figures but not so many that include still-living people. "Fiction books are great because it can encourage their imagination, but then they're not real." Lands of Courage offers real adventures by real people made digestible to younger years, and through the ups and downs, she hopes children will relate to her as a character and that she'll serve as an empowering role model. 

Another key theme of the book is resilience. Laura didn’t have any money to spend on food or accommodation and relied on the kindness of strangers. “I’d go into a lot of shops and just see if I could have a cup of rice, and then they’d give me that or maybe a couple of eggs. I explained to them what I was doing and why I was doing it." 

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The realities of cycling solo without any money

One of Laura's highlights was finding a box of tuna cans that had fallen off the back of a lorry. Not only was this her main protein source during the trip, but one can became something of a prized possession. Her friend eating the only ‘good can of tuna’ anecdote has a Wilson from Cast Away-esque feel to it: “She didn’t realise this can was so precious to me because it was the only good one. I carried that tuna for about a month! We camping and as I returned with firewood, this can was open and she had a fork in it. Now we laugh about it, but I became extraordinarily fixated around food." 

Laura mostly camped in people’s back gardens and traded work for food, like helping out on their farms, restaurants and building projects. Other nights saw her sleep under bridges and out in the open. “It was definitely more of a trading journey rather than a buying-and-spending journey”, she says as she recounts trading a pair of gloves with her host whose hands hurt from farm work. In the absence of money, people treated her differently, with some becoming hostile when they realised she didn’t have anything to offer.

Copyright Laura Bingham

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At one point during Ecuador’s monsoon season, Laura hadn't eaten properly in days, couldn't feel her hands from the cold and was, quite understandably, in tears. Her friend asked a woman if they could camp in her garden and she looked straight at Laura and slowly shook her finger. Another time, she asked to use the gas at a hostel near a camping area but when it became clear she wasn't a guest, she was kicked out of the house.

After the storm comes the rainbow

Of course, the upside to most trips are the good people you meet – and it sounds like Laura’s were great. A couple in Peru paid for Laura to stay in a hotel close to where her bike tyre was being fixed before arranging for her to return to her next cycling point. Another couple in Argentina treated her to steak and wine. In Paraguay there's a place called Filadelfia which is home to a German-speaking community and is an unexpected place to find German-style architecture and food in the middle of South America. A few locals took her to a supermarket, handed her $50 and told her to buy whatever she wanted. After eating guinea pig, chicken’s neck and "plastic-tasting" crisps, it was the first time in five months that someone had asked her what she’d like to eat. “There were some really incredible people along the way. Like nothing was too much. You know?”

The experience didn’t stop when she got back home and it took a while to readjust. Ordinary tasks like the weekly food shop initially left her feeling flinchy and scared. "I almost felt like I shouldn't be there, like I was stealing. I felt really overwhelmed that I could just take something, buy it and walk out with it. It's the weirdest feeling".

Copyright Brandon Giesbrecht

Hearing Laura's story makes you consider what you have back home shouldn't be taken for granted. But it also makes you realise that with grit, determination and the ability bounce back from those unavoidable low points, you can push through and reap the rewards. And the little things, whether it be the kindness of strangers or a can of tuna, goes a long way.

Lands of Courage – One Girl and Her Bicycle is written by Laura Bingham and published by Award Publications. 

Lead image: Copyright Laura Bingham