This post is a little different. It's not a story about how the journey went. It's not a summary of what I saw on the way or an anecdote in any way. This is a summary of thoughts that came to me in an equally confusing manner, and I am spelling them out here today. Sorry if it is hard to follow me when I jump from one topic to the other, but this is how life has presented itself to me in the last months. Unstructured. Emotional. Real.
I am now on the road since 23.08.2024 (ok, I was returning to Malta for a few weeks, if you're picky, let's say I have been traveling since October 2nd, nonstop). So today marks month Nr. 6 on two wheels. It is time for a little review and to elaborate a bit about what I learned but mainly of how I feel, circling around the question of how my life is different today from before.
The journey changes you.
I know this is a commonly used term, but I can now confirm it's true. Especially when traveling solo on a motorcycle. On the way down from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, for example, I had tremendously long stretches of straight roads. For a European, it is almost unthinkable that such an uninterrupted lane of tarmac could go on for hundreds of kilometers without curves or crossings. Also, the landscapes are pure monotony. Riding through the Pampa means riding through a repetitive world of grass and dust.
Don't get me wrong, I still loved the trip but these roads force you to spend a lot of time in your own thoughts without any form of distraction. Sometimes, what you discover in your mind is beautiful, but often, it's not. You have time to reflect on your life, your decisions, your interactions with beloved ones, or less beloved ones, and all of a sudden, for days, you have time to mentally unwind yourself. You don't only have time; your mind just wanders there in the absence of any other intellectual input. I believe there is no meditation session or yoga course as confronting and healing as the long and lonely monotony - but also beauty - of the "Routa 3". I have learned a lot about myself. I didn't need a mentor or mental coach. I needed 2,500 km of tarmac laid into the Argentinian soil to discover corners of my mind that I never knew existed.
On the other side, you encounter unforgiving corners of the continent that have never seen any tarmac and probably never will. Route 40 offers you a totally different challenge, and this one is physical rather than mental. The "pista", as the Latinos say, is rough. Loose gravel, knee deep at some points, for kilometer after kilometer, demands every second of full attention from you. One mistake and you will fall. A little moment of not careful consideration about the next move will cause your front wheel to get stuck in a pile of loose stones or will be hit over by a lane of gravel dug into the soil by a heavy twin-wheeled truck. All of a sudden, you need to fight under a burning sun. Water is a sacred thing here, and you hope that the fuel will be sufficient to reach one of the few gas stations in this area. In these moments, there is no room for thought. You need to fight your way through. There is no return, no way around. There is just you, your bike, and this pile of dust that you need to cross to continue your journey. I have not spoken to any other fellow biker who was not impressed by this stretch of road, and all of us wanted to kiss the tarmac when the road finally turned into a proper one again, but would I have wanted to miss this? Hell no! Having managed this hell on a 500 cc air-cooled one cylinder made me feel like just having wrestled down an attacking lion with my bare hands. It might sound stupid to say that, but at that moment, I felt like a man. I know that many women are much more capable of riding a bike than I am, but still, at that very moment, when my bike and I came out of this road, all dirty and dusty, I was flashed by steroids. I felt unbeatable and like nothing less than the king of that world.
On a motorbike trip, life happens to you in fast forward
In my previous life, my days were relatively foreseeable. I knew what would happen on Monday or Wednesday of that particular week and most emotions came with even such a foreseeability in an almost scheduled manner. I would be happy on Thursday evenings when I had beers with my buddies, and stressed on Tuesday when I had a meeting with my boss. Monday, I guess is the same blues for every office worker in the world and Friday meant the beginning of the scheduled freedom that society has granted us in the form of a weekend. (Sorry shift workers)
The road has taken all this scheduled certainty away. Life happens in fast forward. Emotions are presented to you in a mixer. Good or bad days don’t depend on the schedule, but on the road, the weather, the engine, the environment, other people in traffic, the availability of fuel and food or maybe a cold beer. What can seem to be a promising day can turn into a cold and wet misery if the weather Gods decide differently than what Apple had forecasted. A shitty dirt road can become a fantastic ride, if it turns out to be very manageable and with a beautiful scenery. You never know what you can expect but you can be sure that you will feel it unfiltered and now there is no question how you will react to it. The road doesn’t care about your mood. It won’t change its behaviour after you yelled in your helmet (and God knows, I did). You need to adopt and make the best out of it. Otherwise your lost.
Strangers can become unconditional friends
Bikers consider themselves brothers; if you are not a biker, you will probably never get this. I even didn't get it until I started this trip. We bikers are united by being equally exposed to the "perils of the road". We all fought the same battles and won the same rewards. We all lost to the road or succeeded in lonely situations. We all fly high on endorphins on a long and curvy stretch. We all know what a puncture means in the middle of nowhere, with the sun burning down on you. These experiences, this vulnerability, these self-inflicted sacrifices, but also this addiction is bonding more than anything I have ever experienced anywhere in life. When a comrade is standing on the side of the road with an issue, you stop. No matter if you're late, have stuff to do, or want to be somewhere. You stop, and you help.
But it doesn't require a breakdown to find a friend in this small cycle of like-minded people. You might just travel through the Patagonian loneliness and coincidentally run into other bikers and almost instantly become friends. This happened to me twice on this trip, and I feel blessed to have experienced it. Close to the Antarctic region of Argentina, I ran into a multinational group of bikers, and from the moment we greeted each other until we said goodbye two weeks later, we had been the best friends ever. We might not see us ever again, but in this very moment, there at the end of the world, we were as close as brothers.
I thought a lot about this part since it is so contradictory to the understanding of "team" that I experienced in my professional life. In the business world, you are always again, at some point in time, subject to some kind of unpopular "team building exercise" in which you are supposed to bond with your coworker whilst falling backwards into their arms by doing some ridiculous impro-theatre performance, or by doing some other kind of more or less awkward activity. However, let's be honest: most of these techniques only serve the trainer who is giving the session, not the bonding with your comrades. The moment we sit in our review meetings again and the boss is watching, the sleeves are rolled up, and the competition for who is best is on. Why is that? Why can't we reach the same feeling of brotherhood that one biker has with the other, with the coworkers we spend hours and hours with in our daily lives? I don't have the answer to this question, but I think it is worth a thought. If I ever had to build a team again, I would want us to be like Igor, Camillo, Manel, Marijke, Takeshi, Koske, and I were down there, so close to Cape Horn. Focused, like-minded, united and fun. We knew we could only win together, and we made sure we did as a team.
Simplicity is everything
I do admit, from time to time I miss the comfort of a star-rated Hotel. Luckily, I can afford to occasionally allow myself such a treatment. Still, in all honesty, none of the nights I spent there are the ones to remember. The nights that stay in my mind are those spent at a campfire, or whilst cooking with strangers in a hostel for 12 dollars per night, or the ones that I didn’t get to sleep at all because I was waiting for hours for a ferry that never came. What all those nights had in common was their simplicity. The pure honesty of the moment. There is no white-gloved server who works for a tip and tries to make things artificially better for you. Things are as they are, and you must make the best of them. Of course, I could complain about the 3 dollar wine we had when cooking together since I very well know how a better bottle tastes, but would it have helped our experience that night if I had nagged about it and praised some secret vineyards from some small town I know, instead of just embracing the moment? Certainly not. We laughed and enjoyed the night and were nothing more than some strangers sharing a meal (and, of course, a cheap wine).
Or would the night of the ferry have been better if it had been a well-organised service that ran on time? On a first look, perhaps yes, but on a second, the waiting time allowed me to find new friends. A group of German bikers was in the same miserable situation, and we started talking, bonded and certainly would meet again.
Adventure is out there
I had been riding for hours and was getting tired. The wind in Patagonia is strong, and even when I had already reached its Northern borders, it still had a mighty force that could blow even the strongest fellow of his machine. I needed a break and started looking for a place to get something quick to recharge my batteries. The only house I spotted stood on the right and miraculously even had in black and white letters written on there: Hotel. Even though the place certainly had seen better days, I decided to give it a go and stopped. The U-shaped building offered perfect protection for my bike while I parked in its little yard and started looking for a coffee and maybe even a meal for me. Upon entering the doors, I felt like Django from the Western movies that my dad used to love so much. The interior inside was reminiscent of that era, but what really caught my attention was a black-and-white picture hanging on the wall. It was framed and showed the exact same building that I was standing in now, possibly 100 years ago. In front of the building where now my motorbike stood parked, then was a Ford T Model standing and next to it were a few Gentlemen with heads and ties. Even without saying it, this picture was the last reminder of the good old days of this establishment. The story itself is not noteworthy, really, and the coffee I had here was mediocre and served by a grumpy guy who certainly would have preferred that I was not here, but still, it all made me proud. I had discovered this place. Unspectacular but with a 100-year-old heritage. I was a time traveller. I discovered it. This place in this moment was mine!
Yes, the times of the prominent explorers is over. No continents are left to discover, and no mountain is yet to be charted. The world is what it is, and either Columbus or Magellan or Norwegian Cruise Lines has already been there. However, still, if we drop out of the comfort zone of using Google reviews, the Trip Advisor apps or the preset Lonely Planet tours, and when we trust in our instincts and open up to the little wonders, the world is a big place that has an indefinite amount of treasures to be discovered.
Happiness is not where you expect it to be
We all know the chase in life for happiness. We think, “Oh, when I have this degree, I will be happy.” Or, “When I have this car, I will be happy”, or “When I have this job, I will be happy.” But I guess we also all know that this is short term happiness at maximum. For me it was always this trip that I thought would make me happy, but reality is I did face very dark moments when I was on the road and I was at times super far from being happy, however what makes this trip such a wonderful experience is to realise that you find happiness in the places and moments you didn’t foresee and such a long and intense trip just delivers these moments with a nice regularity. I was moved to tears when I saw Whales for the first time in my life in their natural habitat. I was full of joy when a really awful, long and hot road finally turned into tarmac. I was blown away when seeing mountains on the horizon, so majestic and white, for the first time after weeks of riding in the Pampa. I was so happy when total strangers invited me to their house to eat with them or when a guy in a cafe just picked up my bill to support my travels. All of these moments were unexpected. I couldn’t plan them really or even have forced them. The whales might have already left their breeding grounds or the mountains could have been under grey clouds, but their were not and all of these little wonders presented themselves to me as the most astonishing gift I could have ever hoped for, but the trip itself is no guarantee for happiness. It is the appreciation for the little beautiful moments that life holds available to us. And each of these moments count. There is no one big thing that will mean enduring happiness. Instead, it is our willingness to accept and cherish the small wonders that arise in our lives, recognising them for what they are: Magic in the moment."
Summary
This trip certainly is a life changing experience. It was always intended to be one. I wanted to step out of a corporate life and become an adventurer, at least for a while. My dream was to encounter the reality of this world in an unfiltered manner. Thats why I chose a motorbike and no vehicle with a protecting windscreen. I am happy I did this and still every day I cant wait to see how the story continues. The intensity of what I experienced though was unexpected and remains mind-blowing. In real life and in terms of how the journey is changing me and how I see this world. I lean back in my saddle and remember the lyrics of a short movie I once saw:
“It is getting dark again,
the stars lighten my room up.
I don’t want to sleep,
I just want to be embraced by its seducing dance.
The sun nocks on my door,
I start another day where everything will be new,
a day that will not be repeated once again.
I am not certain about what I will find,
but I am certain about everything else.
I am free. Completely free.
I have seen places that I do not even remember,
but I remember places where I have never been to.
I have cried when leaving places, that some people do not even know they exist.
I have been the only inhabitant in the world.
I have been in parties that have not finished yet.
I laugh in other languages.
I am able to share feelings with people that I have just met.
I have discovered, that I was wrong.
That everything is different,
That everything is better,
There are no boundaries,
for boundaries to not exist
I do not know when I will be back,
because there is no return anymore.
I am a different person.
I have changed.
I, I am a traveller.”