afghanistan and motorcycles

This is an old photo of Getty photographer John Moore (left) and me (right) in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I had been in southern Afghanistan for several months and was looking for a little release.

One day my fixer and I spotted an Afghan man riding an old Kawasaki dirt bike. I had to meet this guy...

We went on to chase the man down and spent the better part of the afternoon sipping green tea and talking about motorcycles in his small sign shop in Kandahar. The owner of the bike was a painter and artist. He ended up renting me the bike whenever I wanted to ride.

On slow days, I would run over to his shop and take off on the bike. It was so surreal racing across the desert and through the mountains on that bike...

Eventually my fixer located a second dirt bike in town and John would join me on occasion.

It was fun while it lasted. I ended up having a close call after clipping a rock and having a front flat at high speed, it was time to return the bike.

I pushed the bike to a roadside tire shop and had the flat repaired.

After that day, I never rode dirt bikes in Afghanistan again.

I will return and ride there again one day...