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.

FROM USHUAIA TO GREENLAND BY HITCH-HIKING - DREAMS AND LOVE ON THE ROAD

Laura and I in Alemania, a tiny town in Northern Argentina. That was the place were we decided to continue together the hitch-hiking round the world trip I had started alone in 2005. After visiting 46 countries, I happened to find my road and soul mate in my homeland...

Our two backpacks sharing a roadside. The sign reads "Feliz Viaje" which translates as "Happy travels!".... Right now our plan is to start the American stage of the round the world trip in Ushuaia, Southern Argentina. After that we will bounce and travel north all the way across Latina America to Mexico, the US, Canada and Greenland, where we aim to end our trip.

Laura portrayed over a load of mud bricks, carried by the truck that gave us a lift. Bricks are construction items, such as our drems and the power we feel after having found each other.

Villager from Jasimaná, a tiny community hipotetically reached after walking 10 hours from Cafayate. He wanted to recover quechua language so we promised to arrange the donation of Spanish-Quechua dictionaries for him. All the people in the area are goat shepherds.




From Cachi to San Antonio de los Cobres we got a ride in this 1972 Ford Falcon driven by two crazy French students on their South American tour. It was a rough ride over a gravel road that climbs up to staggering 4.985 meters in Abra del Acay section. One of the roughest rides ever!

THE LADY AND THE TRAMP: LAURA AND ME DECIDE TO TRAVEL TOGETHER!

A chapter of my book "Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil - By thumb in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan" ends with the following thought:

“… will I ever findwill I ever find a wandering princess? Or will I continue my world tour of spontaneous, dead lane romances? Only distance, centauric breed of will and sentence, caresses the wounded feet of the traveller.

When I wrote those lines I wasn`t aware that thousands of people would read it. I had never published a book before. Words rather unfold as in a cascade of therapeutical honesty towards myself. But I was unknowingly throwing a bottle into the Ocean.

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And on the other shore Laura took the bottle, opened itand read it. She bought the book at a buenos Aires bookshop and couldn't avoid thinking in the similarities with his own life. Laura had her own experience in travelling around the world, leaving her footprints in Bolivia, Peru, Central America and India. Always eith her backpack, but never hitch-hiking, Laura would always come back from her trips feeling it hadn't been enough and feeling less than comfortable with going back to her 9 to 5 office job as a travel agent.

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In the beginning, she was not to write to me, but then she had that dream, in which both of us where hitch-hiking to Alaska... Then she sent me an e-mail, and we started chatting for over 2 months before deciding to meet up in Salta, Northern Argentina. I was travelling south from Bolivia to participate in Buenos Aires International Book Fair.

The first ride Laura and me got together, in a Renault 4 that took us out of Salta towards the Lerma Valley.

Local men working in the tobacco industry, selecting the best leaves.

Hitch-hiking together to Alemania town, where the spell was casted...


This is the old railway station of Alemania, a town inhabited by 8 families. In this desolate but colourful place I had decided to start hith-hiking around the world, back in 2002. Now, the tiny town was to host another spectacular event: Laura and I decided to join our dreams and bring forth a future together. A future together in the road side. And so we decided to travel from Argentina to Alaska together....

EDUCATIONAL NOMADIC PROJECT: CONFERENCE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AT LA EMILIA, ARGENTINA

Carrying on with the Educational Nomadic Project Laura and I visited La Emilia, where we talked for over 200 kids from the town's public schools. We have been very busy since we are beginning our Argentina-Greenland hitch-hiking trip next week. But we made a little gap in our agenda to reach this town. School teachers told me there had once existed a carpet factory in town. Having walked up and down the Middle East and considering the warmth welcome we recieved in la Emilia I imagined that were there once was a carpet factory there must be hospitality still around...

We were also delighted to meet Alberto, the director of the local Museum of Paleontology, and Alejandro and his girlfriend, local journalists who had helped us to bring the event there.

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The Educational Nomadic project is coordinated with the People's Health Movement (PHM) and supported by donations from readers.

EDUCATIONAL NOMADIC PROJECT AT SAN NICOLAS

Laura and I organized yet another educational event at the Escuela de Eduación Media Número 7, at San Nicolás, Buenos Aires province, Argentina. We felt really welcomed. The entire school worked like a big family...

In public schools students give you the impression that they really appreciate that you arre there, bringing activities, contents, ideas, etc.

It's rally rewarding to have the chance to acceed the educational system core, be allowed into classrooms and then tell kids: "You know, as soon as you finish high school it's really easy to get a back pack and go out to see the world regardless you are planning to study afterwards or not". I was lucky enough to have a professor who awakened a sense of freedom within me. Now I am the provider for other. It's nice to be on the other side.

We were even granted diplomas certified the accomplishment of the conference.

EDUCATIONAL NOMADIC PROJECT AT VILLA LUGANO

While we get ready and keep organizing our Argentina to Greenland hitch-hiking expedition we continue executing our nomadic educational project. Last week we visited Villa Lugano, a poor Buenos Aires district where many families previously living in the railway tracks were relocated.

After the slideshow of pictures the coordinator told the kids to draw the picture they had liked the most.

For some reason kids kept drawing hitch-hikers.

Two little girls show proudly their hitch-hiking designs. The activity was rather directed to use photography to portray hospitality, and there were indeed several pictures showing the different type of vehicles we travel in. For the kids of this poor district, however, cars left a deeper print in their perception.

A HITCH-HIKER IN THE 36th BUENOS AIRES INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR

I briefly Interrupted my hitch-hiking trip from Argentina to Greenland in order to take part of the 36th Buenos Aires International Book Fair. Having reached Sucre in the roof of a Nissan truck carrying 43 pigs I received a callof my editors requesting my presence in the venue. It seems the first edition is gone and 2,000 more copies have been printed. For the first time in my life after ten years of self-publishing and selling around my small photocopied books I have the chance to sign copies of this fresh 350 pages edition of "Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil - By thumb in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan" (Spanish version edited by Del Nuevo Extremo Publishing Group). To get hold of a copy from outside Argentina you can order it online from my online shop

Five months ago I had received this nice parcel at home. How not to recall that what now is a book was once a collection of scribbled notebooks, records of rides, interviews, CDs with pictures and a bunch of ideas. These were my first 20 complementary copies. The 1,980 books pending were in the bookshelves nationwide!

Ad poster distributed by the publishers.

FROM SUCRE TO BUENOS AIRES INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR

From Sucre I looked at the map and let me finger mark the position of Buenos Aires, where my presence was awaited in the 36th Intenational Book Fair. There I am meant to sign copies of my book "Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil" at the stand of Del Nuevo Extremo Publishing Group. In the picture, the ride from Sucre to Potosi with Alex's family.

South of Potosí, at a village called Villanueva, the attendant of the peage lifts the bareer each time a drivers pays the toll.

North of Bolivia, I had to cross th Cuesta de Sama.

Pipo and Sara, my drivers and host in San Telmo, Bolivia. He had been living in the UK for a year, where he met his wife.

Border crossing over the Bermejo River from Bolivia to Argentina.

This Chrysler Caliber driven by this family proves wrong two things. Firstly, that Bolivians always ask for money. Secondly, that women will never give you rides. They were on their way to Salta, in Argentina, to make an ecography for one of them who was pregnant.

Already in Argentinean territory I was stopped by this journalist and cameraman at Fraile Pintado, Jujuy. It seemed they were short of news...

LORD OF THE PIGS ARRRIVES TO SUCRE

Sight from my rooftop trip in a truck carying 43 pigs from Monteagudo to Sucre, around 350 km quivering in the top of a Nissan Condor truck, unable to sleep, braving winds and rain.... Once in a life is enough! I arrived at 5:30 before sunset to Sucre's main slaughter site...

Talking to farmers while waiting on the roadside.

Wolf's house in Sucre. Wolf is a German who arrived decades ago to the country as a volunteer and eventually settled there. He is now a member of Hospitality Club. In his house his wife teaches ballet, so straight fowards from the slaughter house I made it to a ballet...

Opposites: the well known colonial architecture and burned cars piled in Sucre's police station after the riots protesting for the presumably illegal way the new Bolivian constitution was sanctioned.

I became a friend of this woman at the Sucre market. She told me she was quite sure during my trip the pigs had passed me their fleas. She consequently described quite graphically the way the fleas would spread al over my body. Here in the picture she ceremomiously lifts a fish for a costumer. Eastern time apporaches...

Vegetable woman...

EDUCATIONAL NOMADIC EVENT AT ÑAURENDA, BOLIVIA

The Educational Nomadic Project involves a conference based on a photo slide displaying episodes of hospitality received while hith-hiking around the world in the last 5 years. These events are free of charge and avaiable for all the visited communities. The events are possible thanks to the People's Health Movement, who has donated the pocket projector.

Marino, the chief of the Guarani community helped to organize the event and ordered two assistants to clear the area of the football pitch. They hanged a white curtain bended over the arc and that was the screen!

Thanks to all of you for the donations that keep me traveling and organizing these educational events.

THE GUARANI NATION NICKS ME "BURYA WATA"

The Volvo truck drops me off at San Simon junction. From there I walk steadily intro an increasingly forested road. My backpack also gets used to the new tropical fauna.

A pick up gives me a ride as far as Timboy town, where I am invited lunch by this group of kind drunken locals who were regreting the death of a relative who had been striken by a bolt and also blaming one of them for marrying a girl with the only aim of inheriting her father's timber properties.

I then continued walking and stumbled upon Ñaurenda, a Guarani community, and stayed two days to learn a bit of their language, enjoy a traditional celebration and aso have the chance of making one of my educational events and photo slides.

Artisans at work. Women stay in the porches of their houses most of the day when they are not busy inside.

Traditional dances. Note the tipoi, long traditional dresses wore by women.

Cuchi or boiled pork. It was a special celebration during which the Guarani chose a nick for me. They explained me that these nicks represent their first impression of each person. So mine was "burya wata". What does it mean? - I asked. "Long trip" - they said!

Honoured by the Guarani nickname granted to me I set to walk again. It was the day of my 32th birthday. I had nothing to celebrate except a can of tuna fish and a crispy bread. IN the early morning the people from Ñaurenda had invited me breakfast. There I go, on my slow way to Monteagudo.