Proudly displaying his Cayman Islands flag on the front of his leather jacket, Gilbert Nicoletta journeys around the world on his trusty motorcycles telling the story of his homeland every chance he gets.
“My title… I guess I am a motorcycle adventurist, I’m an honorary Cayman Islands tourism ambassador,” Nicoletta said in a recent interview with the Cayman Compass before heading off on his next two-wheeled adventure.
Nicoletta has racked up miles and memories in visiting close to 100 locations and he says he intends to keep doing so until he no longer can ride.
He said he has been riding motorcycles since he was eight and it was the first thing he bought when he got his licence.
He said when he got married he promised to stop riding after a collision, but after he got divorced he was back on the bike.
“I’ve bought a motorcycle for every single year since I’ve been divorced. So, I don’t know, maybe there’s a correlation with a sense of freedom, sense of adventure,” he said.
Plan for Panama
Nicoletta, who stands an imposing 6 foot 5 inches, is looking to South America as his next adventure as he seeks to push Cayman Airways’ Panama flights as the gateway to the Cayman Islands.
“I’ve always been proud of being from Cayman … I’m fifth generation Caymanian, so it’s very important for me to tell people how special the Cayman Islands are, how unique it is,” he said.
Nicoletta said he wants the world to hear the true Cayman Islands story. – Photo: Supplied
He said he is working with the Department of Tourism to raise awareness about the Panama air link so people from South American countries know that they can get to Cayman without having to go to the US first.
“I want them to know the similarities in our culture, the similarities in us being Caribbean people, being from this part of the Americas. So I’m working with the Department of Tourism to try to find out how we can bridge that gap,” he said.
He will be working with translators and use his previous television experience to articulate that message, he added.
Nicoletta, who has partnered with the DoT on his previous travels, said he has always dreamed of seeing the world from the freedom of the open road on his bike.
He plans to place advertisements on his saddlebags that will include QR codes which people can scan to take them to the Department of Tourism website.
Journey of a lifetime
He likened his adventures to that of travelling in the US Old West, where someone would ride into town on a dusty horse and the townspeople would gather around to find out about the stranger and his journey.
“I think I have that going for me when I ride into a new place, ride into a new country. When I meet people from another place, they’re like ‘How far have you travelled today? How far have you travelled in the last month? How long have you been here?’” he said, laughing that sometimes he would teasingly say that he rode across the Atlantic.
When people see him ride into town on his roaring motorcycle, he said their curiosity opens the door for him to share his love of the islands and the true story of Cayman.
“They all know about the fiscal capital … the money, the tax haven stuff. So I try to tell them that we’re much more than that and they’re always surprised by that. They’re surprised by the beauty of our beaches and the beauty of our island. I don’t think that gets promoted enough [because] Hollywood just obviously focuses on people transferring money in bank accounts and all that sort of stuff,” he said.
Nicoletta said one of the biggest challenges he encounters is the language barrier, but he often finds ways to work around this hurdle to share his experience and raise awareness about all Cayman has to offer, so people can judge for themselves.
Motorcycling in Morocco
He called his most recent trip, where he travelled through Morocco, an eye-opening experience for someone coming from the western world and seeing how women are subjugated.
Nicoletta with his bike and a camel on his adventure in Morocco. – Photo: Supplied
He said it was in that country that he had his most “terrifying” encounter.
Nicoletta was led into a dark market place where embalmed animals were being offered for sale and he felt like he had wandered into the trade of exotic animals, he recalled.
“It scared me because I wasn’t even sure if I had stepped into like a horror movie because there were so much stuff back there … I had that bad feeling inside when you get that energy, that something’s not right,” he said.
He said from the smell he could tell the animals were being cured. “I just saw these heads popping up.”
Nicoletta said he bolted as fast as he could out of the darkened stalls.
He keeps 18 bikes in different parts of the world to make riding through places like Europe and the US easier.
But he believes getting his motorcycle to South America may be a bit more logistically difficult because he may have to fly it from Panama to either Colombia or Brazil.
He said everywhere he goes he always takes branded souvenirs from the Department of Tourism and Seven Fathoms rum, both of which have sponsored some of his trips, to leave a little reminder of his homeland with the people he meets.
To follow along on his travels, go to his Instagram @joetouristcayman.
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Publish date : 2024-08-16 18:00:00
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