From the moment we left our mother’s womb and arrived in the world we have to be brave to take our first breath, none of us were taught how to do it or what could what could be the consequences, but nobody say no to follow that instinct because deep inside we feel that our own life depends on it.
Although being that brave with a consciousness still not awakened does not seem to have much merit, the real challenge is to maintain that defiant attitude once we know the risks and we can imagine the possible wrong consequences.
So if you think about it and really believe that our destiny is not to avoid those instincts and you choose to face new challenges … then you get to experience what it really means to live, you become so addicted to those sensations and you do not wait for life to put challenges ahead like having to breathe for the first time, now you go out to look for them, now you want to run, swim, climb, jump, fly … go out to meet the world.
Everything is much more difficult when you face the unknown, so for us to go around the world on a motorcycle was a challenge from the first kilometer because the motorbike with which we were going to travel was practically the first one we had in our life, and even so we decided to drive it along some of the most hostile roads on the planet where nature had the opportunity to show us its power. These are three of the greatest natural challenges of our trip and the place where we face them:
· The wind of Patagonia.
Desert roads where the distance between two populations can reach 400 km without offering any shelter where you can protect for a while of a wind that does not stop. You are alone against this natural monster that reaches 130 km/h where definitely to not fall off the bike means a big deal, the days are eternal down there and each stage of the journey ends leaving your body as if you just finished running a marathon.
· The height of the Bolivian highlands in the Andes.
Besides the cold and the lack of oxygen, for us the biggest problem was that our visit to this corner of the world coincided during the famous “Bolivian winter”, during the months of February and March. At that time, every day the sky is covered with black clouds around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, an electric storm begins an hour or two later, turning the terrain into a muddy land from what even the most powerful truck can not escape. You will be bombarded by lightning every second, to this situation remember that you are almost 5,000 meters high … before this festival of the sky begins it will be better that you have already found a place to spend the night.
· The cold in Pamir, Tajikistan.
These mountains present one of the most beautiful landscapes we have visited during the trip, visiting them is a pleasure for the eyes but to visit them on a motorbike and in winter the pleasure ends up becoming a hell. We got to experience the -20ºC on completely frozen roads. White will be the only color we saw for a couple of weeks. Confusion will be a difficult enemy to overcome when you are in the middle of a snow storm without GPS or maps and without the possibility of seeing more than a few meters in front of you. The cameras do not work because they are frozen, but even if they did, we could not press the shooting button because our own fingers are frozen. It was not the best time and place for Manu to celebrate the first time he sees snow in his life. Our head wants to explode and gives us an introduction with the capillaries of our nose that did not resist and forces us to see drops of blood falling down from your partner’s nose. The risk often surrounds us, but in this occasion was the first time we really feel that the situation is beyond our control. Good luck or karma will decide our destiny at that moment. Finally, we passed it and Pamir leaves us many useful lessons for our future adventures, and above all remind us how beautiful it is to live.
These were three of the great challenges that nature put us ahead of us, but when you travel around the world on a motorcycle on your own you have to deal with many other complications. Our trip left us bone fractures and surgeries to close them, attempted robberies in some of the most dangerous cities in South America, corrupt police in Laos or Cambodia, we have crossed territories controlled by the FARC in Colombia and reached the heart of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, the terrorism of Egypt forced us to have a military escort to cross the desert and the wars zone of Sudan to be very careful with whatever we said, saw or photographed.
The dreamer who travels around the world quickly realizes that the road is not only beautiful sunsets or beers on the beach but it is full of the most difficult moments, but it is because these moments and experiences the reason why we enjoy much more that sunset and the beer is more tasty. To understand the traveler’s life you have to understand that a trip is a lot of different photos, as we understood after visiting Mexico that this is not just one country but the collection of many different ones, and the least known and most impressive places in Mexico are those we recommend in our next post
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