MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Japanese Girl, 11, to cycle across South America

Akane Toyoda ready to ride 7,000 kmts across SA continent

An 11-year-old girl from Saitama Prefecture is due to set off on a seven-month journey by bicycle across South America with her parents.

Akane Toyoda, a sixth-grade student at a primary school in Kawajimamachi, and her parents are scheduled to leave Japan on April 9 for a trip of more than 7,000 kilometers across the South American continent. To focus on the journey and strengthen family ties, the Toyodas will spend their nights outdoors and are even planning not to take a cell phone with them. Toyoda is the only child of auto mechanic Tsuyoshi Toyoda, 44, and his careworker wife, Midori, 47. According to the itinerary, the family will start its journey at the southernmost tip of Argentina on April 15, and head north. At a pace of 30 kilometers a day, the Toyodas will pass through the Patagonia region, where the wind is often strong enough to blow a person over, reaching a height of 4,000 meters above sea level in the Andes. They will return from Peru to Japan in late November. Toyoda's father has a national qualification as a first-class mechanic and serves as the factory director at a Honda dealership in Saitama. To help fulfill his dreams, he traveled around Australia on his motorcycle in 1991. In 1992, he participated in the Paris-Beijing rally. After he married Midori, the couple crossed Alaska by motorbike in winter 1994. When their daughter was 6 months old, the couple took her to Mexico, where Tsuyoshi participated in Baja 1000, an extreme off-road race in Baja California. When she was 5, she traveled across Australia and North America for 1-1/2 years, accompanying her parents on their 30,000-kilometer bicycle journey. The girl says her goal for the upcoming trip is "to go the entire distance all by myself for the first time." Taking textbooks with her, the girl will study school subjects every day with the help of her parents. According to the city's education board, the girl will be considered absent from school while on her journey, but there will be no problem in moving up to middle school provided the family regularly reports on the progress of her studies during her time in South America. "[Through this journey] I want Akane to realize the good aspects of Japan and the importance of the things we have [in our daily lives]," the father said.