Next to 'Es posible dos cervezas por favor?' the most frequently asked question in the bar is probaby: 'So how did you guys end up here?' Well, it's a long story, or maybe not. Anyway, Gert was working for the UN in Bolivia, got bored, started up the motorbike business, put up the bar and meanwhile started calling his Dutch friends if they'd like to come over and help him out. That's in short what happened. By now Joy Ride is well on its way to become an established name in Gringolandia.

The three faces of Joy Ride

Joy Ride was started up by Gert van der Meijden (Yes, that's Dutch), who gave up his carreer as an international development worker for an UN body to do something he really liked. That was and still is riding motorbikes. By the time the motorbike branch was ready to start up, the bar was bought, intended primarily to serve as an office for the motorbike tours.
From day one, the 26^th of July 2001, when the bar opened things got way out of hand and the bar rapidly grew into being the core business of Joy Ride. One year after we went into mountainbiking and that took off very well also. We're now looking into the posibilities of more outdoor stuff and even Joy Ride Café II is in the pipeline.

Gert:"Joy Ride Latin America...That's my dream"

Ted is the man who gets things in order, makes things work at the Joy Ride. An extremely reliable, hard working man. Things probably wouldn't work without him. And he's the one who survived the tirrany of the chief the longest.

Ted: "In February 2001 I received this mail from a friend of mine asking me if I'd be interested to come and work in some future bar in Sucre Bolivia. In those days I was stupidly enough thinking of becoming a tourist guide for South America. So I had to learn Spanish anyway. I accepted the offer and I'm still here.....my Spanish is still rather horizontal but I guess it's the lifestyle that I really like!"

Erik is the creative mind behind the Joy Ride. Doing most of the graphic output he creates the face of the Joy Ride. He's the one to judge who gets to perform live music in the bar and, more importantly, who does not. And guess who designed this website?
He's been with us since July 2002 and is bound to keep the place funny and artistically sane for some time to come.

Erik:"I was teaching biology in Holland when I thought I might as well check out this procreation thing in South America. Actually I don't know how I ended up working my butt off in a bar in Bolivia for a lousy salary. It must be the artist in me..."