They are the
land rovers

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Rich and Amanda Ligato have no mortgage, no car payments and virtually no possessions. The Parkwood native and his Mexican bride are unemployed, too — at least in a traditional sense.
But after spending most of the last seven years traversing the nooks and crannies of the Third World, first in a Volkswagen minibus and currently on two hand-me-down bicycles, the thirty-something couple have learned that "tradition" is not absolute.
Rather, it’s dynamic and evolving, depending on one’s perspective.
"We kind of realized on that trip what we don’t know, so we don’t have a lot of messages in it," Rich Ligato said of a book the couple wrote to chronicle their three-year, 60,000-mile trek through Latin America and Africa in a 1978 VW Westfalia.
They did learn that they enjoy living together out of the quaintly cramped camper. They also discovered that they don’t need worldly possessions to be happy.
"Those are the kind of (messages) that are buried in the stories," Ligato said last week by telephone from an Internet café on a Malaysian island halfway around the world from his childhood home.
Earlier in their lives, the Ligatos followed more or less typical paths for individuals of their backgrounds.
Rich graduated from George Washington High School and Temple University, then settled in San Diego to train as a triathlete in the mecca of the sport. He first took a job with the city of Coronado and later as an office manager for a local campground.
Meanwhile, a young, high-achieving Amanda Bejarano left her home in Tijuana and commuted into Southern California each day to attend private American elementary and high schools. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from San Diego State University, met Rich while working in Coronado and later became a human-resources executive for a credit union.
But neither was content.
It took them about five years to save up the $50,000 they figured they’d need to do what many folks think about but rarely do. They quit their jobs, bought a van, packed it with supplies and left everything and everyone else behind.
"It’s something that everybody dreams of, ditching their jobs and setting out into the world," Rich Ligato said.
They embarked from Tijuana in September 2000 and drove south along the Pan-American Highway and beyond, touring Mexico and Central America. When the highway evaporated into the Panamanian jungle, they shipped the van to Ecuador and continued through the Andes, down the Pacific Coast to the tip of South America and up the Atlantic Coast into Brazil.
After returning to Chile, they again shipped the VW, this time to South Africa, where they reunited with it for jaunts through the bush country and jungles in the southern and eastern regions of that continent.
Three years and almost 60,000 miles later they returned in the VW to San Diego, having captured their own spirit of adventure along with the imaginations of many.
A media throng greeted them at the beach for their ceremonial plunge into the Pacific Ocean. News articles followed. In 2005, they self-published a 308-page collection of the many humorous, suspenseful and poignant stories of their voyage, Wide-Eye Wanderers. It sold out.
National Geographic Adventure even featured the couple’s long road trip in its October 2006 edition. But by that time, the Ligatos were already on the way out the door again, using the profits from their book to finance a new adventure with a twist.
They put the VW into storage and bought a pair of vintage bicycles. Testing the machines first on a three-month jaunt from Seattle to Los Angeles, they packed up and flew to Bangkok. Since October, they’ve been in Southeast Asia, having trekked across Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. They’re currently on hiatus in Malaysia but will resume the tour, including a stop in Singapore where Rich will compete in a triathlon.
Despite its unique challenges and hardships, the couple are finding that pedal power compares favorably to motor travel.
"One of the things that happened with the van was there was a barrier between us and everything else and now there is no barrier," Rich Ligato said. "In some ways (the van) was easier, because I could just press the gas and go. But in many ways, it was harder because I’m not mechanical."
While every day for the couple seems to bring something new, many individual experiences stand out above the rest.
Rich thinks back to the early months of the van trip when the couple passed through the mountains of Guatemala and the Andes, "going and seeing people who are living in very traditional ways," he said.
Their African leg was so impressive that they decided to return there without the van to finish writing the book.
"Driving across Africa was enlightening, eye-opening and life-changing," Rich Ligato said. "Going places like Uganda to see mountain gorillas, it’s almost a religious experience to know that something like that roams the jungle.
"I guess we feel as humans that we are in such control. But you realize how (we’re not) in that environment."
Not much has changed during the Asian excursion. Instead of a van, they sleep in guesthouses. Camping is risky outside of the United States, but they still travel light. After all, it’s no fun trying to pedal 100 pounds of gear from town to town over hills, through valleys and in the midst of rainy season.
There’s no lack of profundity, either. In Vietnam, they viewed rice paddies littered with unexploded bombs, walked through tunnels along the Demilitarized Zone and crossed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In Thailand, they stayed near the sea with survivors of the 2004 tsunami — a Dutch man and his Thai wife.
"You could see the terror in their eyes (when they talked about the disaster)," Rich Ligato said.
The giant wave killed more than 200,000 people and rendered millions more homeless.
The Ligatos, meanwhile, have voluntarily given up their home.
"Our only possessions are in the van. We don’t have a home," Rich Ligato said. "In a very strange way, we’ve taken to the idea of being out there. It makes us feel alive." ••
For more information about Rich and Amanda Ligato, visit www.vwvagabonds.com
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com