Andis Pikāns
Known as a member of a bord of transport company “Kurbads and Co”, Ltd, a hockey club “Kurbads” captain and as heated crayfish catcher - the person who’s the initiator of this expedition.
Andis was born in Kuldiga in November 20th, 1968. He and his parents moved to Riga 4 years later, where his dream of motorcycles and adventures came true. He likes to draw a parallel with Tom Soyer – about their childhood, school life, and the willingness to search for new adventures which caused a lot of sleepless nights for his parents. “The seaman’s genes and the amount of books read about pirates, travelers and other trouble making characters must have been the reason of my behavior…” he says. His headmasters, teachers and other authorities were even more skeptic about his future – “The ones like you end in reform centre!’’ they said.
But then a positive turning point happened – Andis found an appeal to motor sport. He relates an episode about him and the new best friend he had found – his motorcycle. One morning opening his garage doors he saw… nothing! – the motorcycle was gone! Somebody had obviously stolen it! Even now- 20 years later- he cannot dominate his emotions telling this story… Could he imagine that the “thief” was his mother who could no longer tolerate her son being on the road at nighttime? She had hidden the cycle at the neighborhood…
As his second serious turning point Andis marks out the time spent in the army. He says he came home after it as a totally different person. The willingness to be number one in everything wasn’t gone but it had taken a different form – interest in sports, traveling and expanding his own business had become very significant.
Andis admits that the time he has spent away from home wasn’t little, but leaving his family for 6 months was a serious decision to make.
“Through these trips it’s not just countries, nations and their ways of life I worm out, - I fulfill my life with something essential” he says.