Wandering an Incredible Life

I’m in Arequipa, Perù. I’ve been travelling for two months. Tonight I’m alone, and I granted myself the luxury of a dinner in one of the most renowned restaurants of the city. In front of an excellent Pisco Sour, plus another neoAndean dish whose name I don’t remember, I ask myself if this trip is the most important experience of my life till now.

No. There’s another event that is more important, of which I won’t talk in this article, but I still wanna sum up a little all that happened.

Two months of travelling. In the meantime I went through London, San Francisco, Berkeley, the Yosemite National Park, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Buenos Aires, Puerto Iguazù, Salta, Cafayate, Purmacarma, the Ujuni salt desert, La Paz, Copacabana, lake Titicaca, Isla del Sol, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Arequipa…plus another series of places and small towns, too many to name them all. I almost learned a third language, I practiced a lot the second one and I started playing two new instruments. I lost the count of all the people I met, with whom I talked, laughed or shared part of my trip. I said and wrote to my parents that I love them more times than I ever did in my whole life (and it’s still too little) and I missed my friends and all the people I care about. I took more than 2500 pictures and I wrote almost as if I was sixteen, now that I’m double that age. I turned on the TV just once to see what time it was. I found out about history, tradition, legend, music, customs and habits of people I didn’t know. I tasted new food and found out about new drinks. I saw new colors, heard new sounds, and smelled new scents.

And I learned something very important.

It doesn’t matter where you are, but whom you are with. This is fundamental.

Time is relative: celebrate nice places and people you love, not dates.

Love. Hate is a waste of time.

I confirmed once again something I have always known: money is best spent on trips. With money you can buy “things”, and “things” can be broken, lost, stolen or get out of style. Or they end up possessing you. But whatever you live in a journey, what you see, hear, learn, that part of the world that becomes part of you and changes you…that can’t be broken, lost, stolen or forgotten. And you will always be your own master.

And finally I’m sure about something: this trip is not an escape, but more of a quest. Go far from everything and everybody to look from far away what I have always had by my side, and find out once again how I love life and all its fruits.

I finish my dinner and smile while the trip continues inside and outside me.

To everybody who reads this blog: I love you, whoever you are.