My dear friends,
the adventure goes on – please follow my new blog about my stay in India!
Upon registration, that blog provides again the convenient subscription feature for mail notification about new articles.
Stay hungry, stay foolish!
Simon
Liebe Freunde,
das Abenteuer geht weiter – bitte folgt meinem neuen Blog über meine Erkundungen Indiens!
Bei erneuter Registrierung kann wieder die bequeme Mailbenachrichtigung über neue Artikel bezogen werden.
Stay hungry, stay foolish!
Simon
Im Vorfeld der Reise, vor gut 14 Monaten, habe ich mit dem deutschen Botschafter in Kolumbien telephoniert, um zu fragen, ob man das machen kann – eine Raddurchquerung Südamerikas: „keine gute Idee“. Diese Unternehmung wurde eine der besten Ideen meines Lebens.
Ich bin ziemlich unbedarft aufgebrochen, ohne viel von dem zu wissen, was mich erwartete, ohne von den Ländern mehr zu kennen als ihre statistischen Eckdaten. Der Großteil der touristischen Reisebuchliteratur beschäftigt sich mit der Beschreibung von historischen Bauten und den klassifizierten Sehenswürdigkeiten. Das war nicht, wofür ich mein geordnetes Leben hier zurückließ. Ich wollte ein Stück anderer Welt erfahren, ein Stück mehr von der Palette des Lebens.
Auf ein solches Vorhaben kann man sich nicht vorbereiten, ich wuchs da hinein: We grow with the challenges we take, we grow when we dare (Stay hungry, stay foolish).
Und ich hatte Glück, so eine seltsame Art Dauerglück für 14 Monate. Nie hätte ich mir einen Begriff gemacht von der Offenheit, Aufrichtigkeit und Herzlichkeit der Leute, die ich traf auf meinem Weg. Ich traf Fremde auf der Straße, die mich aufnahmen und ihr Leben mit mir teilten, Dorfgemeinschafen, die mich zu ihre Festen einluden (Dancer in the Dark, La Corrida, High Falls), einen Grenzpolizisten, der bereit war, mich über eine geschlossene Grenzstation nach Argentinien zu schleusen, ein equatorianisches Paar, das mir, als ich bargeldlos in einem Dschungeldorf strandete, Geld für die Etappe zur nächsten Kleinstadt schenkte, einen argentinischen Fahrradmechaniker, der mit mir zwei Stunden lang den blockierten Freilauf zerlegte, Vorüberfahrende, die mir aus dem Autofenster Cola-Dosen reichten, Straßenarbeiter, die unbedingt mit mir photographiert werden wollten. Ich könnte diese Aufzählung endlos fortsetzen; von vielen dieser Begegnungen hat mein Blog erzählt.
Ich sah harte Armut, Bambushütten, Häuser ohne Fußboden, Dörfer ohne Wasseranschluß, Kleinstädte umgeben von Plastikmüll, den jeder Regen durch die schlammigen Straßen spülte, ich sah die Arroganz der Reichen in ihren schwer bewachten Villenvororten, ich sah die Rücksichtslosigkeit, mit der Minengesellschaften das Lebensumfeld der lokalen Bevölkerung für immer zerstören. Ich sah die Jagd auf die letzten Reserven in der Unberührtheit am Ende der Welt, den Ölrausch im patagonischen Río Grande.
In diesen letzten beiden Monaten, in denen ich von Madrid aus durch Europa nach Musberg radelte, hatte ich oft den Eindruck, daß das Leben hier um belanglose Luxusprobleme kreist, daß der westliche Lebensstandard, dessen Verheißungen die Konsumindustrie propagiert und dessen verheerende Auswirkungen ich kennengelernt hatte, nicht glücklicher macht. Das offene Lachen, das mir aus den Gesichtern am Rand der staubigen Pisten oft entgegengeleuchtet hatte, war seltener geworden.
Als Radreisender hat man leichtes Gepäck.
Ich lernte, daß es sich lohnt, mit Erfahrungen statt mit Dingen zu leben. Daß es sich lohnt, leichter zu leben. Fortsetzung folgt.
Me alegra tanto oir tu voz aunque dormido,
por fin viajabas como en tus sueños
buscando un sitio para volver,
y sin poder olvidar lo que dejas, lo que has aprendido,
van a cambiar las caras, los sueños, los dias
y yo lentamente te pierdo.Ella baila sola, Cuando los sapos…
When this article gets published, I’ll be 10km above ground level flying back to Europe. Already during these last weeks I lived the gentle farewell, the beginning of my slow home coming. I knew that I was going to experience some things for the last time here, the last camp night out there under a starry sky, the last orange full moon (which grows here from the left to the right hand side…), the last time to see the Southern Cross, the last view on the Pacific Ocean, the last time to eat one of these delicious empanadas, the last ripio gravel road. Things get another meaning under this perspective. What will be the last word you speak on this continent? What will be your last perception, the last face you see?
I spent almost one year in South America, and what had started as a mere dream became the project of my life. Inch by inch I made my way through the continent, along coast lines, in jungle and deserts, crossing mountains and planes. In sun and rain, in hail and heat, in wind and dust. Passing lonely countrysides, passing wooden shacks, passing farm buildings, passing mansions, passing modern cities. I have seen desperate poverty, men struggling for a living, I have seen those who made it. I met people who shared their home with me, the stranger, who willingly let me take part in their overwhelming happiness and strong confidence, people who welcomed me with curiosity and open-hearted cordiality, people who live their culture, their beliefs. I’ve experienced a friendliness and helpfulness never expected. I felt closer to life than ever before.
Returning to Europe will be hard, and, as a friend of mine once formulated, I somehow envy this wonderful continent to continue existing while I’ve left it. For some times, I felt inclined to follow the temptation, to cancel the flight and to start directly a living here, like anyone started from scratch who started a living in a foreign country. But I know that, in the given situation, things would not get round. I am coming home now. My last word was: gracias!
I cycled here for 126.825 altitude meters (which is like climbing the Mt.Everest 14 times – with a 40kg backpack) and for 11.038km (which is about 3.2 times the diameter of the moon – or about 29thousandths of its mean distance to the earth…).
Southern Cross (src: http://es.uruguay-fotos.com/15482-7/Kreuz+des+Suedens.jpg)
How many roads must a man walk down
before you call him a man
B.Dylan, Blowing in the wind
People ask me what I think during these long hours riding the bicycle. To be honest: not too much. I am more occupied with the landscape around, with the road conditions, the traffic, with taking pictures. Sometimes I think of future projects, I sing or listen to music, and once in a while I utter sudden bursts of laughter when I remember obscure or funny situations of the journey I was part of. And many memories which come and go reach further back, reach back to youth and childhood. One of my earliest mind pictures is my father sitting on one of these dark brown leather couches so common in the 80ies, his guitar in his hands and playing and singing. We had a whole series of song books, liederwolke, liederbaum, etc. and he sang a lot in those days, songs from his own youth like the golden „Jenseits des Tales“, the wistful „Lili Marleen“ („und wenn die späten Nebel dreh’n, wer wird bei der Laterne steh’n“) and more recent ones, „Donna, Donna“, „Lady in Black“, Dylan, „Good night, ladies“, „Bolle reiste jüngst zu Pfingsten“, „Nehmt Abschied Brüder“.
I still remember every single line of these songs. Each song formulates an own perspective on the world, each one presents considerations on situations known to all of us, each one teaches us something about human nature. But the most I learned about people was from the example of my father himself. I’ve never met a man with such an intuitive knowledge of human nature, with such an ability to listen as my father.
On this particular journey, I had to deal anytime with new encounters, I always had to rely on the help of others, be it for shipping me over an impassable lake, aiding me to get a cardboard box or just to watch the bike for a moment while in a shop. The aptitude to open people and to know whom to trust I owe to my father. On the occasion of his birthday I wish him all the best!
When first coming to Chile, I was perturbed to find the western culture so predominant there, and cycling felt like cycling in a South American version of Switzerland. But in fact, it is not. Soon, I learnt to see the shades: people and their relaxed mentality made all the difference. And then came the Southern part, Carretera Austral and tierra del fuego, and I loved cycling in the rain forest, under glaciars, in wide open land, and in the remote little villages the rough spirit of true pioneers at the last frontier of civilization. It was still the adventure I’ve been enjoying for so long.
I hope that people is proud and aware enough to resist the temptation to destroy these precious and pure natural reserves in the last corner of our planet for the shortsighted commercial interest of particular companies (see the threat of HydroAysen and the campaigns against).
In this somehow last stage of my journey, I often felt that circles closed back to the beginning: words I’ve last heard in Colombia popped up again, and people were just as welcoming: I thank the lovely family of Pino-Burgues who gave me a home in Santiago, the three girls and Ricardo with whom I spent such a jaunty time in the lake region and not least the warm farewell at the frontier with Judith, Alejandro and Claudio.
These people and many others made my stay so intense and fortunate – actually the longest time I’ve spent in a single country on the whole trip.
I cycled in Chile for three months, 2.409km and 23.600 altitude meters.
„The problem is not the litter along the highway but the highway itself.“
E.Abbey
After these months in the andenean Altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, coming to Argentina, the cultural differences were striking. To name a few:
Cycling there, I often had the impression that the adventure is over. But then came el Paso Agua Negra…
I cycled in Argentina for 1.538km, climbing 11.935 altitude meters.
We need to try the impossible for the possible to happen.*
H.Hesse
Back in college, my first class teacher wrote me this sentence in my autograph book (yes, they were still common in those days). While it is clearly true for any scientific or technical achievement, it also holds for our personal lives: we grow with the challenges we take, we grow when we dare. No matter if successful or not.
Getting older is not growing. While we grow for the things we have done, we get older rather for the things we stop doing. We get older because we stop playing (well, some never do…), because we stop asking, because we stop exploring. We get older when we run out of projects, when we lose the trust in our dreams, when we cease to expect the more from life.
Some are old when they are young, reckoning to know already all about life, and they may get younger as they grow. Most people get older when they, looking for safety, enter predefined career paths, when they arrange with the existing as it is. We are the best educated generation in Germany ever, the globalized world offers a wealth of possibilities and challenges never known before, and we should dare more, we should head for more than to become the Senior Vice Brand Manager in the marketing department of L’Oreal, say. This is kappes, the world deserves more from us. Remember the words of B.Obama about N.Mandela: „what people can reach when they are led by their hopes and not by their fears…“
In this new year, for your projects, I wish you all the best:
be true to your dreams! Don’t settle. Keep on running. Stay hungry, stay foolish!
Dieser Beitrag ist zu ihrem baldigen Geburtstag meiner Mutter gewidmet, deren jugendlicher Offenheit für Erfahrung, deren unstillbarem Erfahrungshunger ich so viel verdanke.
*“Es muß immer wieder das Unmögliche versucht werden, damit das Mögliche entsteht.“
Today, after only six weeks, I left Bolivia. Apart from the bad roads – actually the worst I’ve ever seen and -alas!- cycled – I loved this country: vast nature and captivating landscapes with endless open spaces, sincere and honest people living a free life and the unique city of La Paz with high mountains as well as rain forest close by.
I cycled in Bolivia only for 780km, 5.621 altitude meters and 77,5 hours, but this time belongs to the most intense periods of my life.
Today, I crossed over to Bolivia, thus ending the largest stage on my journey so far: in the wonderful country of Peru, I cycled for 2890 kilometers and 38.804 height meters.
At times, the people with not exactly rude, but unsociable manners, and especially the aggressive dogs gave me a rough ride. But the marvellous landscapes rewarded all efforts: the elegant waterfalls in Amazonas, the deeply coloured desert valleys and impressive mountains in the central highlands, the mighty ruins of Kuélap and Choquequirao.
I made the experience of opening the tap and waiting vainly for water, lived without electricity for days and – I learnt to do without these modern blessings. I met people who admirably stand the inconveniences of daily life, who curiously welcomed the stranger, who cited their poems for me at nighttime. I was often deeply impressed by their attitude towards things: much more than their scarce belongings they value personal contact and a happily shared time.
Today, I crossed the frontier to Peru, leaving behind the marvellous landscapes of Ecuador.
Amongst the many impressive, lasting reminiscences, I will forever remember the time at the foot of the volcanoes, the Cotacachi, the Cotopaxi, the Tungurahua, and the crossing of the Oriente, my first encounter with the rainforest.
I cycled in this country for 1310km, climbing 24.390 altitude meters.
Most of this distance together with Andy whom I’d like to thank for his refreshing, humorous company. And I thank the kind and interesting people I’ve met and those who helped me along the way, the shop owners who had suelto (change money), the children for their laughter and happiness, the road acquaintances who responded my greeting.