Hi everyone,

I'm riding a motorcycle across the Atacama Desert in Chile in aid of Eat United, an awesome grassroots organisation set up by my friend Katie to fight food poverty. 

I got my licence 4 months ago and currently my experience includes a couple of weekend trips to Kent, so this is a bit of a level up. The plan is to fly to Santiago, arrange a bike, and make my way up North through the coastal desert, wild camping along the way. At Antofagasta my girlfriend Rania flies in to join me for the last leg and we ride triumphant into San Pedro de Atacama, the desert oasis at 2500m. With 1,750 km covered and the challenge complete, I'm looking forward to relaxing here and exploring the salt flats and volcanoes nearby before heading home. 

This is my entry into the Ugly Veg Olympics, the latest fundraising drive for Eat United. It’s a grassroots organization in Nicaragua that rescues fresh produce from local markets and shares it with families in need of support. Eat United aims to allow 25% more families access to fresh food in 2019, develop the existing app to track the use of the food, launch cooking clubs with mums & kids to make lasting changes to dietary habits, and provide professional training for young local volunteers who run the service. You can find out more at https://ugly-veg-olympics.causevox.com/

Spoiler alert: The trip is actually over and I survived! I've kept this project secret until I got home in one piece to avoid unnecessary worry (hi mum). It's a good thing I did, as this is a story of catastrophic floods, breakdowns, dog attacks, street protests, and scariest of all, bureaucracy. But it's also a story of close-knit communities, unworldly landscapes and the kindness of strangers on the road. I'll be posting my delayed blogs as I wrote them on the road. Please enjoy and thanks for any support you can give!