A BERGHAUS KHUMBU CALLED "LA MAGA"... FAR MORE THAN A BACKPACK

Since May 1st, 2005 I carrry on my back far more than a backpack. At times it has been a home, the camuflaged wings of my soul. Technically speaking, La Maga is a Berghaus Khumbu 70, an English-made backpack crafted by the same people who pushed the first internal frame rucsac into the market in 1971. After 7 years of enduring every imaginable condition across 47 countries, five continents and 160,000 kms,  La Maga is still going strong. What follows is a photographic essay, a brief sample of its adventures.

THE ROADS OF THE WORLD

Sahara Desert, on the desolate  road to the Siwa Oasis, Egypt.

Tibet, road 219, pssibly the most isolated and less travelled track on Earth. 2,000 km from Ali to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

La Maga likes history: here you can see her over an original, intact Roman road in Syria.

 But she also knows busy, modern European highways. Here in the Netherlands.

Finland: the sign proclaims our goal: "Around the World"

India: cows -or the Gods reincarnated in them- stare at La Maga.

Of course she also feels at home in Argentinean roads. In te picture you can see some of the badges we have incorporated as years passed: Norway, Iran, Siria, Romania, Ecuador and China, all countries where we lived famous adventures.

Ruta 40: 4,667 km of fun from Tierra del Fuego to the Altiplano.

 ....and eventually on April, 10th 2010 La Maga met "El Salmón", Laura's backack. Picture taken in Salta, Argentina.

 

Having some rest in an old Pakistani house at Chitral.

La Maga is planet-friendly. She easily makes friends among local flora and fauna.... Here in the Bolivian Chaco.

EXTREME MISSIONS

Arrival to Mount Kailash, Western Tibet, after an exhausting journey on one of the least travelled roads on Earth.

Crossing of Afghanistan along the Central Road: 1460 km from Herat to Kabul, where most people bet we wouldn't make it alive.

...but we held faith in mankind, a broad smile and a Peace flag.

Same happened in Iraq. Here La Maga under a sign with the colourful Kurdish flag.

Afghan kids thought La Maga was my parachute, and searched for my plane in the sky.

Crossing of Minapin Glacier, Pakistan. Walking over the ice, sorround by 8,000 meters high peaks is not an everyday setting, but even there La Maga was on duty.

Crosing from Pakistan to China on the Karakorum highway, decorated by hanging majestic glaciers.

Laura, La Maga (on my shoulders) and me just before embarking to Antarctica on board the MV Ushuaia.

TESTED AND APPROVED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD

Afghan rural teachers can't hide their curiosity and request to try La Maga...

These Bolivian farmers find in La Maga an excuse to kill time with, as they wait for their bus.

Syrian kids in a desert hamlet pose with La Maga, after bringing me food from their own home.

Inside a Bedouin tent in the Syrian Desert, Hasan formaly requests to test La Maga. They are the nomads par excellance.

POSSIBLE SETTINGS FOR A BACKPACK

La Maga formally posing for Press in Buenos International Book Fair, during the presentation of my book "Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil" (Spanish version)
 

A very different situation is this one, over a donkey drawn kart of an Egyptian farmer.

La Maga has known every model of car ever produced. Here with a 1954 De Soto.

At times she is picky, and targets sport cars, like this Smart Bravus in Germany.

But generally speaking she is on the humble's side: here my shadow and hers in the kart of a Chinese family.

More often than not she becomes excentric, with a curious taste for the absurd. Look her on board a Paraguayan ambulance...

She is an efficient table as well, both in the Bolivian Andes or in the Danish highways.

In the end, she has been a silent witness of all human activities, from businessmen and Parliament members to the Ecuadorian banana pickers that travelled in this truck.