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An 8 year old mountain pass

1 May, 2023

An 8 year old mountain pass

Throughout the development of The Journey, I have crossed many mountain passes; real and imaginary, psychological and physical. Whether walking or riding the bike, to me, reaching a mountain pass is the moment I know my legs or Athena’s engine can take a break until the next stage. 8 years, 96 months, 2922 days, 70128 […]

Athena

12 June, 2020

Athena

My breath is short. I don’t know if its the altitude, although La Paz is known to be a very high. It could also be place where I’m in. Although it’s large, looks more like a poorly lit basement. Accustomed to not having walls around me, I am not surrounded by concrete. I feel as […]

The wind

29 May, 2020

The wind

The wind brought wealth to Troy. The phrase is written on a plaque at the entrance to the ruins where it was supposedly erected. Today it is known as the Hisarlik hill, in Turkey. I always think of that sentence, and the relative meaning of it, whenever there is wind. However, often times wind will not […]

Ghosts

14 May, 2020

Ghosts

It’s been an hour or more that I am endlessly pacing around. I look like a merry-go-round moving without going anywhere. I’m uncomfortable. I arrange the paper sheets. I check my notes. I find excuses to not write. I write and I cross the words. All of the sudden, as I imagine things I ask: […]

But, what is fear?

1 May, 2020

But, what is fear?

The pen on a blank sheet of paper. The representation of fear for writers, or so they say. But, what is fear? The obvious thing in the unary number system is that N is 1. At the beginning of my journey, N was days, then months, and now it is years. While the lockdown keeps […]

A Stroke of Luck

11 December, 2017

A Stroke of Luck

I get up. The contents of the panniers carpet some fifty metres on Sydney’s exit motorway. Twenty minutes earlier I was happily posing with Athena in front of the Opera House as a proof that the Australian leg of the journey was almost over. A symbolic moment on this world tour on a bike. I […]

The path of the ancestors

3 July, 2017

The path of the ancestors

80 year old, Ne Selpi, struggles to carry a bowl of rice and a coffee pot up the eight steps that lead to the interior of the Tongkonan, the house that precedes the rest of the buildings in the family home. Arriving next to her sister, she does the sign of the cross and with […]

Recalculating

25 May, 2017

Recalculating

Since Friday I have been on forced free time, so I have decided to write something. But, where to begin? It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Should I start from the beginning or from the end? Write thoughts on the blog? Do people really read the blog? This is a question I ask […]

The Time

26 March, 2017

The Time

I restarted the journey almost three months ago and just two weeks ago I’ve been able to update my site with pictures. The passing of time, an ally of programmed obsolescence, implacable, that forces us to update every programmed object we own, is the one to blame for my website’s problems. The price was to […]

Restart

5 January, 2017

Restart

The last four months have been very frenetic physically, but more so emotionally. I parked Athena, my bike, at a friend’s place, Sunny’s, in Kuala Lumpur so I can travel to my natal Buenos Aires to see my mother who was ill and give her company during her treatment. I was in Spain giving lectures and […]

Rest

27 August, 2016

Rest

It’s hard for me to write this post since it’s got nothing to do with me directly, but it’s affecting someone I love very much: my mother. I arrived in Buenos Aires a few days ago and, although I have her permission, I’ll involve her minimally in this post. I am not sure if I […]

Honey, I’ve left with someone else

28 July, 2016

Honey, I’ve left with someone else

I was talking with a female friend of mine about infidelity in our society and how it appeared to be accepted in certain countries (I don’t mention countries where you can be raped, stoned or killed for being unfaithful) What I mean to say is: it is easier to make a comment to a group […]

A year on the road

7 May, 2016

A year on the road

This week I celebrate a year on the road on the seat of my bike, Athena. Although I am no the celebratory type of person, a year can’t stop being a good highlight and I can make a reflection on the journey so far. Anniversaries are dates that reminds us of beautiful moments, or moments […]

Impassable Burma (II) The Truman Show

20 April, 2016

Impassable Burma (II) The Truman Show

As we went through Burma, the welcome in every stop, hotel or restaurant had a smile o curious, but reserved, eyes but with gentle gestures. I mentioned in the previous post that travelling with the group allowed me a greater margin of movement because not everyone was moving at the same speed. In the touristic […]

Impassable Burma (I)

4 April, 2016

Impassable Burma (I)

“Mr. X has invited Mr. Walter Adrian Astrada Marzan, passport xxxxxx7, to visit Myanmar on his own motorcycle in February 2016 to explore the possibilities of exchange agriculture produce and, in particular, to improve the fishing business, from production to the export of produce.” This is an extract from the invite letter sent to me […]

Bridges and roots

30 January, 2016

Bridges and roots

The Kashi people, for many years, has patiently guided the aerial roots of the fig trees to make bridges over the river beds, thus connecting one bank to the other. Using betel nut tree trunks cut in half, the roots of the fig trees are guided across the river, weaving as they go, until they […]

A Sweet Death

3 January, 2016

A Sweet Death

“I missed this sweet Delhi smell”, says my friend Elena, undeterred. Her boyfriend, Victor, and I look at each other stunned because just as she finished that sentence, a sewer stench impregnates the air as the auto-rickshaw crosses a river of putrid water. India has the infamy of hosting many of the most polluted cities […]

Silence

9 December, 2015

Silence

As I move on the road a group of trucks going in the opposite direction blink their lights and honk at me to move away from the road. It reminds me of the joke of a driver listening to the radio: – “Attention! We inform you that there is a car driving in the wrong direction on […]

Kidnapped

21 November, 2015

Kidnapped

All my calculations ended up becoming future plans as soon as I started going through the paperwork to get Athena out of customs at the airport. When I decided to ship Athena to India, I knew I would face one of the most bureaucratic bureaucracies in the world. However, since coming to India in 2009 […]

Trip to the non-isolated island

25 October, 2015

Trip to the non-isolated island

I was thirsty, so I went to what I thought was a drinks vending machine next to my room. What I found was not drinks, but sex toys. The machine was packed with rubber vaginas, vibrators and lubricants. I was staying a motel where affairs and young people looking for a bit of intimacy usually […]

Beware! There are Bandits!

29 September, 2015

Beware! There are Bandits!

I write this post from Vladivostok, a city in one of the easternmost points of Russia, after being on the road for 26,684km in 4 months and 26 days since I left Barcelona. I have a strong internal emotion that is difficult to explain. I imagine it is the same feeling for anyone having achieved […]

When not even your shadow is with you

9 September, 2015

When not even your shadow is with you

Once you cross the Mongolian border, there is a stop sign. It is one of the very few traffic sign I will see across the road until I reach the capital, Ulan Bator. A woman comes out running from a somewhat tattered shed, signalling me to stop. I need to pay two tolls, one for […]

T minus 14% and counting

15 August, 2015

T minus 14% and counting

“I just found out that my friend, Walter Astrada, who I met in Mexico in 2012 at Enric Marti’s home, had a breakdown on his bike. Walter is going around the world for the last three months with “Athena”, the name of his bike, as his only companion and of which its strengths failed Kyrgyzstan. […]

A stone on the way

2 August, 2015

A stone on the way

Destiny has many strange ways to help us commemorate dates. As I complete 3 months in the journey to the date, I am travelling 670km back to Osh, in Kirgizstan. There, is Muz Too, the travel agency I mentioned in my earlier post which helped fix my suspension problem just some days before. Athena is […]

The Jugaad Solution

22 July, 2015

The Jugaad Solution

When I did the maintenance course for Athena in India, “Jugaad”, a colloquial Hindi word, was the term used when you found a solution to a big problem that is unconventional, or innovative. For this journey, I carry some spare parts, but also a Swiss knife, wire and gaffer tape. When I was little, I […]

Athena bowls with a Russian sheep

6 July, 2015

Athena bowls with a Russian sheep

To traverse the spectacular Georgian Military Road, which starts from Tbilisi heading north passing through the Terek valley and the Baidarka River canyon, makes me go through the only possible passageway between Russia and Georgia. With historic tensions between these two countries, the crossing is slower than usual, with infinite queues of cars and trucks […]

Oh, Darling. Thank you for inviting me to dinner

29 June, 2015

Oh, Darling. Thank you for inviting me to dinner

“Oh, Darling. Thank you for inviting me to dinner, but this was the worst dinner of my life.” Inside the elevator with me, two women are having that conversation. As we go down in the elevator, from a restaurant recommended by a travel guide for its food as much as for the views it has, […]

The finger points the way

22 June, 2015

The finger points the way

When I was little, my mother used to scold me for pointing with my index finger asking about something or someone and that was something I used to do frequently. It was bad manners, she said. My most glorious moment I had it when I was 4 or 5 years old, in the queue to […]

And you, do you take the subway?

15 June, 2015

And you, do you take the subway?

Stuck in a traffic jam at the entrance of a city, in which I progress very slowly, under an almost torrential rain, I have an ear to ear smile. When I am in these situations, remember an answer given in an interview for a multimedia project on the wealthy classes in Buenos Aires that was […]

War Scars

8 June, 2015

War Scars

Bullet and mortar made souvenirs spread along the window displays of the shops near Mostar Bridge. They come in shapes of tanks, helicopters and war planes. Machine gun holes still adorn some walls along Santica avenue. With the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, Milosevic had the idea of creating the “Great Serbia”, unifying all territories […]

Michelangelo’s David and other artworks

31 May, 2015

Michelangelo’s David and other artworks

Although I’ve lived in Europe for many years, there are places I only know from books or films and this journey isn’t planned for me to do only that. Traveling in Europe is expensive and from the 10th of June onwards, the visas for Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan begin to expire and I want to pass […]

The last turn of the key

22 May, 2015

The last turn of the key

I’m in front of the door. On one hand, my bike helmet and on the other, the key to a home which is not mine anymore. Thousands of images from the past year pass through my head; 6 months of physiotherapy because of a ligament rupture on my knee, preparing the bike, papers and visas, […]

A non stop journey

21 February, 2015

A non stop journey

I’m passionate about travelling. I find happiness in facing new challenges and meeting new cultures. When I turned 18 I started working as an airplane mechanic. This allowed me to get on journeys inside my home country, Argentina, at a very low cost. A few years later, at 21, I started working at La Nacion […]

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