Wandering an Incredible Life

A scarf.

Tied like a blindfold around my head, it doesn’t let me see anything while, clung to a friendly arm, I’m led through a crowded club. When someone takes it off me, I stand in front of almost thirty friends that, though coming from different cities, got organized to come and celebrate my return. What I feel is authentic joy, pure, sincere. Speechless and stunned, I can’t do anything else but jump into the crowd and hug, kiss, smile.

This is my last travel memory. Even though when it happened I had been back in Italy for more than a day already, I consider this experience the true conclusion of my world trip.

From that day on, many people ask me how I’m carrying on, how I’m getting used to the old life again, if I’m bored already. Others ask me when I’m leaving, as if they knew better than me that I won’t be able to stay still for long.

Answering these questions is not easy: the feeling of coming back is strange. On one hand I really feel like I’m back in time, to the same static life, dull, lazy. The boredom is back, the time that runs too fast without leaving a trace. On the other hand though, there is something different, details, colors, thoughts. I feel like when you go back home and think: “Someone was here, things are out of place!”

But nobody misplaced anything, it is me that changed.

I surprise myself walking and looking around as I still had a camera in my pocket, ready to take a picture of some extraordinary panorama, that yet it’s always been there. I often have some thoughts that I would have ignored once, now instead they connect to some anecdote that inevitably starts with: “like that time when I was in Bolivia…” or some other country. It’s like I kept an umbilical cord that links me to the rest of the planet, and thanks to that I have a background feeling to be still travelling.

And what am I planning for the future? This is another frequent question.

Well, even though it is difficult to explain in a few words, I can assure you that before leaving I was looking for the answer in pitch dark, now instead I feel like I found a light.

The 117th day of travel opened my eyes, and put a way in front of me: it’s uphill and full of bends, I cannot see where it leads, and it’s not free from dangers for sure, but it’s my way, and I cannot wait to start walking it down, now that I know where it is.

One day I will tell you why I am convinced that the whole universe collaborated so that I could find that way, but in the meanwhile I enjoy the feeling to look again at the world, this time trough the dazzled eyes of someone that just took a scarf off his face.

New Zealand.

This is the last destination of my world trip. In ten days I will be home, if the Icelandic volcanoes let me, but I haven’t stopped being amazed yet. I was almost convinced I had lost the ability to enjoy, to be moved, and to be thrilled. Very few times in my life I’ve been so happy to be wrong.

I’ve been travelling for some days with my friend Mike, a kiwi guy whom I literally ran across in Chile, and with him as a perfect guide I’ve been conquering and exploring the road that leads south.

We wander through forests of giant ferns, that from far away look a lot like the Italian Alps to me, but on a closer look they remind me that I’m on the opposite side of the planet.

We conquer with determination the vertiginous tops of mountains and volcanoes, and then we end up playing with stones for hours on crystal lakes.

Like kids we climb on the rocks drawn by the strength of the wind and the sea, to silently admire the majestic oceanic waves around us, and the sunset that shatters itself upon them.

And now I am in a place that is astounding, for someone that was born and lived for all his life in Italy. I paint on my face a smile that will last for hours, and a feeling that will last for days.

I’m at the Arthur’s Pass, altitude of 737 meters, in the “Sanctuary”. With Mike and me there are also Fong and Lily, Malaysian, Mel, British, Max, Canadian from Quebec, Ashley and Matt, American from Missouri.

The Sanctuary is a small house, supplied with eight beds, simple but functional bathroom and shower, a kitchen completed with all household appliances, a wood stove, electricity, running water, a guitar, a couple of board games, a few books. On the outside there is also a small room with five computers connected to Internet (technology reaches everywhere).

And a Honesty Box, that basically is the moral of the story.

It is the box where we will leave a small payment to the owner, which left this place only to the travelers’ respect and good will. There is nobody here to make sure that we pay, that we clean, that we don’t steal, but there is no need of it, because thanks to this disarming example of trust the Sanctuary is still here, intact, clean, welcoming.

In that Honesty Box i will leave on of my most beautiful memory, besides the money.

For two days this place has been my tree house, my castle made of sofa cushions, my Indian tent, everything too good and too innocent to be even tempted to ruin its purity.

In New Zealand travelling returned to be a child’s game.

Maybe I’ll surprise somebody, but Australia and I didn’t get along very well.

Believe me, I would have liked to write something nice about every place I’ve been to, but I can’t hide the truth: Australia, among the countries I’ve visited, has been one of my biggest disappointments, together with Thailand. I’m partly to blame, clearly I haven’t been able to find the “right” places, whatever this means. But then I ask myself: how easy is for a foreigner to search out the “right” places?

In South America it wasn’t that hard, while on the Australian east coast I had the same problem I had in Thailand. Here is almost impossible to escape the tourists’ and backpackers’ current and, trapped in this forced migration, one ends inevitably in everyone else’s destination, where the days goes by always the same way, one like the other: beach, alcohol, sex.

Does it seem appealing?

No, it’s not. Not for me.

For sure, spending the days on the beach is pleasant: let the majestic oceanic waves sweep you, bodyboarding, pretending to be a surfer….it’s fun. But the fun ends at night, when the beer comes, the wine, the damned “goon”.

The goon…just the existence of this evil concoction is a visible symptom of a serious problem with the Australian liver. Four litres of this excuse for a drink that somewhat resembles wine and costs 10 Australian dollars. The same amount of cheap beer cost three times as much, some decent wine costs eight times as much. Make your own considerations.

Every night, when the darkness comes, every backpacker takes out his own alcohol and the drinking games start, card games not necessarily funny that are good just to drink a lot of alcohol in a short time. Once you’re perfectly drunk you can eventually go out, keep drinking, overstep the limits, do stupid things that you wouldn’t do if you were sober, and eventually forget everything. With a little luck in the meantime you had sex too. In any case this here simply means looking for the drunkest girl in the club and take her out. It doesn’t matter if when she looks at you she doesn’t even see you, her eyes dull, sunk in the alcohol. It doesn’t matter if the day after she doesn’t recognize you, or pretends she doesn’t see you. At night she’s just one more erotic mammal, stupid and helpless, and in the end this is what she wants as well, this is the reason why she started drinking some hours before.

The high tide of alcohol comes every night on time, and floods everything, erases everything. When it goes down, at the dawn, it leaves on the streets its unfailing wrecks: ruined and unconscious youths, aggressive and stunned men, girls with dresses too short and heels too high that could have been pretty when sober, but now they are just rags, soiled with vomit, sleeping on a bench.

Not for me thanks.

Few days before arriving, a Japanese friend of mine told me: “Be stupid, get drunk. That’s the way you enjoy in Australia”. I had brushed off that comment with a smile at the time, but now I’m leaving this country without smiling much at all.

Airports are crazy places: people come from all over the world, speak every language, wear every kind of clothes and follow every religion. And everybody is looking at each other, but they don’t see each other, all busy checking the price of a perfume they don’t need, reading a newspaper with the same useless information they could read at home, buying a souvenir maybe not even made in the same continent they’re in.

So I think: they should shut down airports, lock the doors with the people inside, stop the airplanes, serve food and drinks and say: “Now you talk to each other. Sit down and tell your story. Talk about your country, your culture, your hopes. You have a rare opportunity: don’t waste it with perfumes, with newspapers, with souvenirs. Sit down, talk to each other, look at each other…and see each other!”

I will write an article about the cultural and linguistic that I had in Beijing, and perhaps explain why I haven’t been at the Great Wall too.

In the meanwhile, I uploaded the pictures taken in the few days I spent in the city, accompanied by Alberto and by a sky not very fit for taking pictures, sadly.

Enjoy!

I’m on the plane, in 2 hours I’ll land in Beijing, but I’m thinking of the country I’ve just left: Japan. I’ll miss it.

At last.

It has been a while since the last time I missed a place, leaving it. I haven’t missed Thailand, I haven’t missed Hong Kong, or Easter Island. All places to which I’ll probably go back one day, but there’s no hurry. To find the last time in which I was down while leaving a place, I surely have to go back to South America, some place on the coast of Chile, a few days before taking the flight from Santiago. I hadn’t written anything that day, but I had silently left a small piece of my heart in that continent of bright colors, warm smiles, and fascinating scents.

Then nothing more, until today.

I don’t exactly know what I’ll miss the most.

Maybe the atmosphere sober and sophisticated at the same time, the silence and cleanness of Tokyo’s subway, the good manners and kindness of people, that makes you feel like walking on your tiptoes.

Probably I’ll miss asking for direction to kind and helpful people who doesn’t know a word of English, letting them guide me silently, and exchanging huge smiles once at destination.

I could miss the big wooden temples, solid, sober, mighty. Or the small ones, silent, that you can find amongst Kyoto’s houses. Those that make you feel more spiritual.

Or the ridiculous craziness of Japanese people, that pay a lot of money just to be served drinks by teenagers dressed like cartoon’s waitresses, or dance Michael Jackson in work suit, on Friday night, totally drunk.

In all honesty, the most physical part of me will almost surely miss the beautiful slim girls, sophisticated and ridiculously sexy, those that make you feel like learning Japanese. And not only.

Someone said: “I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I’m with you.”

Here, maybe this is what I’ll miss. Here I’ve been more serene, more smiling, more social. I felt nicely good, without excesses.

Now I’m leaving, but I’m sure I’ll go back to Japan, sooner or later. In the meantime, I add a country to the list of places that I’ll miss.

At last.

Sitting on a bench in a Tokyo city park I write this article, while a big black crow picks up small pieces of wood among the roots of a knotty tree, still bare for the winter. Do crows make the nest? Evidently yes. Who knows, maybe I thought they always flew, with no home.

This trip around the world, by myself, has been as living a small life inside the real life. When I left I was inexpert, ingenuous. I didn’t know how I would have faced planning, problems, dangers, loneliness. Everything was new, a surprise, a game. Later, while the trip was going on, I have grown: I learned how to move among hidden dangers and inconveniences, to feel experienced and confident but also more cold, less excited.

And today a thought came to my mind: the trip won’t last forever, it’s about to end. Sometimes I’m tired, and always more often I interchange touristy days and relaxing days. But I’m happy, I’m really satisfied, because if I look back, to the day in which enthusiastic I left from Venice in a warm day of November, proud I can say: “I have lived”.

I’ve seen many things, I’ve spoken many languages, I’ve eaten many foods. I’ve made some mistakes, but I’ve also made some good decisions. Many people have entered my days, to stay just a minute, one day, or forever. I’ve laughed and I’ve made laugh. I’ve cried, and maybe I’ve made cry. I’ve loved some people, and –who knows?- maybe I fell in love, even just for one day. I’ve walked so much. I’ve got sick and I’ve recovered, I’ve been sad and I’ve smiled again. I’ve danced, I’ve run, I’ve swum, and I’ve even surfed. I’ve planned very little, and I’ve never respected a single plan, except those really important. I’ve always tried to not follow the most beaten path: sometimes I’ve got lost, but I’ve always found my way back. I haven’t filled every day as I would have liked, sometimes I’ve just been lazy. I won’t have a memory or a picture of every single day, I haven’t used every occasion. But I’ve been free.

I’ve been free and I’ve lived. Yes, I can say it holding my head up.

And even though it’s true that the trip is about to end, I know well that it’s not over yet. There are more planes to take, more countries to see, more people to meet, more laughs, more runs, more unforeseen events, more occasions. I will get up from this bench and I will live them all, as best as I can, in my own way.

But first I want to give all of you the same sentence that has been given to me, recorded forever on my trip journal: “Life is a journey, not a destination”.

Once again I smile, and I go away.

No…my trip is everything but over.

To all of you, have a good journey, wherever you are heading for.

I really liked Kyoto. Even though is a pretty big city, even though it has the classic multitude of small souvenir shops by the touristy spots, it is able to not lose its own identity, as other cities of similar dimensions do. There are small temples among other modern buildings, wooden houses with clogs left just before the entrance, narrow and silent streets, geishas walking…

You can breathe a more authentic air, more “Japanese”.

I hope I could catch with this new album the atmosphere of this pretty city.

Lying on the uncomfortable airbed down on the floor, while I’m wondering, I let my fingers slide on the thin wooden wall that divides the different areas of the dormitory. Lost in who knows what thoughts, in what distractions, I stare at the ceiling. Sudden, a detail catches my attention, and my concentration fades away, making room for a fierce curiosity. Under my fingertip I feel an unusually soft object. I turn around to see. It’s a small piece of paper, a roll maybe, firmly stuck in a crack of the wall, but I think it’s been voluntarily left protruding. Very carefully, I slowly take it out from its hiding place.

When I realize that the paper is completely full of words drawn with a pen, I feel as if I had a treasure map in my hands.

Jealous of my finding, I hide from the others’ sight, but nobody noticed me: they’re all too lost in their thoughts, or deeply asleep.

I start reading greedily. The pen trait is weak and unsure, and in some points time made the ink fade, but I can still understand.

My eyes wide open and my heart crazy, I devour those words, written by another prisoner and left here, hidden in the wall of this cell so that somebody could find them.

So that I could find them.

It’s a diary.

No, they’re memoirs. They’re precise instruction, advice.

Full of emotion, I imagine the risks that this man had to face, the terrible experiences he’s been subjected to, to be able to handwrite these words and hand down to a stranger. To me.

I hardly hold back the tears.

This man is explaining to me, through the words handwritten on this piece of paper, how to face the countless tricks, the endless mysteries, and the mortal dangers of Thai vegetarian cuisine. I hold that treasure tight on my chest, and I mentally thank this brave and compassionate man, whose name I don’t even know. I will give you a name, so that my gratitude can get to you, wherever you are.

Thank you so much…Bepi.

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Ok: now raise your hand whoever thought that this article was serious.

Forgive me, but the Thai vegetarian cuisine I tried at the temple for the whole week (more similar to the one you can find in normal houses than to the one you find in the restaurants for western tourists) without having an English menu or one with pictures, without a handbook, and without the possibility to ask, could be an adventure on its own, and it prominently contributed to toughen my strength of will. I don’t know how many times I forced myself to swallow food with a taste either horrible or so strong that it was intolerable, trying to disguise my upset expressions. At the end though, I always found the way to turn this true challenge in a good humor occasion.

From which Bepi(*), fellow of Toni, the one from Machu Picchu.

(*) A comment for the non italian readers. Toni and Bepi were tipical nicknames in my own region, few decades ago. They derive from the italian names Antonio and Giuseppe, respectively. Now they’re not used as much as in the past, but they still remain as “generic names” to use in some situations, when telling jokes, for example.