Portrait of a Nation: the Emirati who travels the world on his motorbike

It was never his dream to bike halfway across the world. Mahmood Al Muwafiq, did not throw a leg over his BMW R1200GS Adventure bike until he was 30. Today, at 51, he has already travelled through 60 countries and across four continents. With no mission or an adventurous streak to send him travelling across continents, Mr Al Muwafiq calls his journey “a twist of fate”. Originally a car dealer, Mr Al Muwafiq bought his bike to resell it. “That is what I told my family and friends, but deep down I saw in it an opportunity to ride myself,” says the Emirati adventurer. “A friend of mine, also a car dealer, suspected my intentions, so he told me he would keep it at his showroom for a potential buyer.” As luck would have it, the buyer never showed up. "I knew what my friend was up to, so I bought another bike," he says. And that "was the beginning". Mr Al Muwafiq was a quick learner and secured his motorcycle licence in 1992. “It was easy back then," he says. "I already had some skills from riding in the hood when I was young. The instructor asked me to perform a few moves and I passed.” Two years later, he started spending months riding across countries every year. “In 1995, I rode to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, then in 1999 I rode to Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and reached the Turkish borders,” he says. He then started riding across continents – at times covering up to 20 countries in one trip. Mr Al Muwafiq biked across Europe in 2013. He wanted to ride in miserable weather that most bikers would avoid. “I crossed Siberia in the snow. Only a few people did that distance in harsh weather,” he says, calling it his biggest achievement to date. “It used to be known as the road of death – I found that out only after I came back.” In 2015, he travelled 10,000 kilometres with his Kuwaiti partner, Anwar Al Azmi, in freezing temperatures that dipped to minus 24°C. On his Instagram page, Mr Al Muwafiq shows the route he took from Vladivostok in Russia to Mongolia, continuing through Siberia to Omsk in Russia and then to Moscow. He was the first biker allowed to cross the Eritrean border in 2017 – simply by impressing the custom officers with his travel history. Mr Al Muwafiq’s life has been full of adventure. During the trip to Russia, the pair came close to a bear that had broken into a shopping mall in the city of Khabarovsk. The bear was on the loose but Mr Al Muwafiq escaped unhurt. “We were in the same area that day," he says. "It broke in about 9pm, slightly before closing time. There weren’t many shoppers around at that time. “I even took pictures of the broken glass door.” While no shoppers were hurt and the authorities were quick to take control of the situation, the two adventurers had a bigger risk ahead of them. “Two nights later, we were camping in the same area outside the city in the wild," he says. "The bear broke into a mall in the middle of the city. Imagine us camping in the outskirts – there was a bigger chance we would be attacked. “But we had no choice. We had been riding for long hours in deep snow and we had to stop.” He also posted a video on Instagram of a bear he saw while riding in Canada. “In Africa, we saw elephants in the area where we were sleeping, and there were foxes and hyenas all around us. "We've only seen wild animals, never been attacked by them. We did not have any defence plan in place if we were attacked. “We would ask bikers we met mid-way for tips on the terrain and creatures they’d seen, and we shared tips from the road we’d crossed. So we use word-of-mouth tips from a fresh source who just passed. One guy in Canada told us he saw six bears. I thought he was exaggerating.” Mr Al Muwafiq ended up seeing four of them. He bought a small pocket knife from a street vendor in Africa to defend himself. He acknowledges it is a tiny one for big beasts but he sleeps with it nonetheless. Next on his bucket list is South America, Australia, “and most countries of the world”, he says. “My car business has also been suffering from my constant travel, but I will not stop as long as I have strength to do it.”

Portrait of a Nation: the Emirati who travels the world on his motorbike

Mahmood Al Muwafiq has crossed countries and continents on his motorcycle and has more travel planned