WHAT WILL YOU DO EXACTLY?
So, I will leave on February 5th for Magadan, a port city facing Kamchatka (if you played Risico you know where it is). We are in the extreme East of Siberia so to speak. From there I want to ride north to reach the Polo del Freddo, which is the coldest place on earth where temperatures of -72 ° C were recorded. These will be the first 1200km and if I don’t leave the pens here, I’ll go ahead. If I can ride more or less another 1200km I will arrive in Yakutsk, a large mining town on the banks of the Lena river. It should be the first attempt to cross Siberia in the middle of winter by bike. This stretch of road is known as the “Road of the Bones” for the millions of prisoners who died during its construction in Stalin’s Soviet Union. There are very few people living in this region and so I will have to be self-sufficient and sleep in a tent with temperatures we hope never below -60 ° C. The journey could end here, but the idea is to continue southwards (therefore towards milder temperatures) until it crosses the Trans-Siberian. I will follow her to Mongolia. If I am satisfied I will go home if not I will cross the Gobi desert and then China to Beijing.
At this point I will take a look at my satisfaction, if I fail, I want to cross all of China and the Taklamakan desert as far as Kirgistan. While I will be there, I will go to Tajikistan along the famous Pamir highway and then to Afghanistan. Then on up to Uzbekistan and then to Thaskent. Here I had already arrived a few years ago with a tandem and a visually impaired friend but the civil war had forced us to stop. The plan was to get to India from home.
In broad terms this will be my journey, full of beautiful variables and planes B. Do you know a freer way to do what one loves?
HOW DO YOU NEVER CHOOSE ANY EXTREME?
Because I want to cross Siberia in winter I don’t know exactly, I’ve been to so many places that, right now, I really need something exciting and tough. I was a little tired of throwing two rags in my bags and leaving for conventional roads. This time I want to study, to read everything that was written by travelers before me, to learn how to light a fire at those temperatures. I want to be afraid, to be aware that there can be an infinite number of chances that I won’t make it. .
I want to go back to traveling like that time in Tibet and roads that are so isolated have not been left. Then I know nothing about Siberia. I don’t know who lives there, who they are, what ethnicity, what language they speak, how the hell they do to live up there. I want to get to know these people and learn as much as possible. I have never met anyone who has traveled to Siberia, it is perhaps the only unexplored place on earth. It had also occurred to me to go to Alaska, always in winter. But on that road there are the television series of truck drivers and then it’s America, they taught us what we have to dream and their philosophy I don’t like anymore … for quite a while. So I go to Siberia to see what few people know, and I want to see it with my own eyes. Then pitching the tent on the frozen Taiga at -50 ° C gives me the idea of something to try in this life.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR REALLY?
For many people, leaving is that dream you hold on to all your life, which perhaps allows you to float in a system where you don’t recognize yourself but keep you close. “That’s enough! I give up everything! ”I believe that at least 7 billion people have thought it at least once in their life. Unfortunately only a few have the chance and courage to do so. I accidentally fell for him at the START. Stunned in his twenties without a shred of passion or talent, bored by the life that had not yet begun, I made a plane ticket because I was afraid of dying (read on my blog “because I decided to travel”). Since that day I am dependent on it.
I look for the best quality of life possible. With every journey I carry with me an infinity of expectations that are inevitably swept away by a reality a hundred times better than my dreams. Is there another aspect of life that can give you this? Surely love, certainly a child. But for the means that I have today, starting is the best thing that can happen to me. A lot of people don’t remember what they did yesterday, when you’re riding your bike, yesterday you will remember it forever. It lasted for an infinite amount of time and you did more things and met more people than in a month at the bar in your country. In the journey I seek immortality, the awareness of every moment, the absolute freedom to make it what I think best. Only the street tells me where I have to go, and sometimes not!
AND THE SOLITUDE? COMPANION OR ENEMY?
I have traveled many times alone and have traveled many times with companions. In this period of life it is again time to leave alone. First because I have not found anyone who comes to Siberia at -50 ° C and above all because, for the character I have, it is much easier that way. I have no recollection of ever having suffered loneliness. I’m looking for it and I’m committed as well. The association with a form of purity. No one knows who you are, no one has a vision of you but the one you give them. You have no way to compare yourself with anyone other than the people you meet on the street. In all my travels I have always known an infinity of extra people when I was alone that when I was traveling with two, sometimes the company of a companion is enough for you and you are not looking for other meetings. Human being is a social animal, and although I adore staying with my own, when I encounter “civilization” after weeks of isolation, I dive into it like a fish. Maybe I love solitude because it makes me appreciate being with people a lot more. And how to eat Nutella only on a few occasions, is without doubt the most delicious.
WHAT CAN YOU HOPE TO FIND AT THE END OF THIS YOUR TRIP?
In all my travels there is only the starting point and never the arrival point. I do not plan where I want to go or when, let alone which way. A journey is thus an intimate experience which is like deciding at eight years who your wife will be. In some cultures they do it but I know few of idyllic marriages.
Only an athlete has a goal to reach, but I have nothing to do with a sportsman. I don’t train to go faster, to beat my opponent, to finish first. I just don’t train. I travel, and in my opinion the bike is the best way to do it.
If you decide to leave here and get there and can’t do it? What is a defeat? Am I doing the thing I like most in this life and could I fail?
I go on until I feel like doing something else, without having to give an account to anyone but my happiness. So I have not the faintest idea how far I will go on this journey, I only know that I will be happy.
My expectations are many and even ambitious, I know that what I will find will be something else but I live by this. I want to see what I will be after going all that way. I’ll have a few white beard hair and a few less hairs, but what happened to me in the meantime. Who will I have met, what will I have thought of, of whom will I fall in love.
The journey is geared to make the things you want most happen, even before they appear in the drawer of dreams.
I feel terribly fortunate for the life I made and I get goose bumps thinking about what will be.
After vain attempts, on this trip I want to try to make a kind of documentary about this experience. I’ll have a lot of filming equipment and an avalanche of batteries with me. Filming in one of the most extreme environments on the planet I believe will really be a far more difficult undertaking than cycling. But if it succeeds I will have something truly unique and then I will send my adventure to all the world’s adventure festivals. It costs nothing to try.
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