A few years ago I undertook a journey with the desire to know the continent where I was born. Moving, not for vacations, nor to escape a few days to the routine. Travel. Because I wanted to experience, feel closer. To skin, eyes and ears. Traveling to realize that there were things I had learned wrong. Traveling to, whenever possible, have less prejudice and more ability to understand people as they feel they are and not as I felt they were. Traveling for every now and then feeling a little lost, exchanging with others the sensitivity of my senses.

In a world where technology seems to have shortened the times of physical distances, there are also other types of distances and experiences that require slowness to bring them closer. Opportunities that this fast-paced modern world seems to push away rather than closer. That is why in this last year and a half I decided to continue my journey pedaling on a bicycle. Adding itself as the third trip through my land and largest home, where LATIN AMERICA is located. A region of the planet with a gigantic variety of latitudes, altitudes and cultures; some ancestrally original, others usurpers, others introduced and others by necessity arrived. Perhaps today, and due to recent circumstances in history, all of them make up the most diverse human-natural macro essence that can be found on the planet. Before traveling, she seemed to me as heterogeneous and alien as the words describe her. However, this round trip through this great plurality led me to homogenize my feeling in the midst of that heterogeneity that had once been so alien to me. Something similar could happen to me as a human being on planet Earth or as stardust in the Universe. However, considering the social, historical circumstances, conflicts, problems, feelings and longings that exist in all the large communities that comprise it; from Argentina to Mexico; there are micro realities that interdependently generate a homogeneous macro reality, running like common blood to all Latin Americans today. A land where the social challenge is immense, but repeated in all its "sub-regions", some in politics called "countries". A region that in terms of its natural configuration, with its 85 degrees of latitudinal variation and 7,000 meters of altitudinal varieties, never tires any adventurous spirit in search of exuberance. But it is also essential to know this geophysical configuration to understand social circumstances. Because after each house, each city and each country, the home of Latin America is the American Continent, molding different lives in its accidents and natural processes so extreme and varied.

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It is an IDA trip, and not a round trip. For being born on this earth, and indeed a very small representative of it, who will always be mutant and infinite to my will to know it during my ephemeral life. Return trip there will not be. Because the Latin American Ida will not end until I have finished my life first.

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At this moment, that one-way trip through Latin America finds me NOMADIC, changing the exact location of my physical geography with relative frequency in relation to the common of the human being. A way in which I do not see or perceive everything, but at least many things on the way. Living a life and sub-lives, of constant and repetitive cycles. Beginning, end, beginning, end ... and each end transforming me and the journey with something new.

Travel in Motion ..

1st trip . They started in late 2015, after first grabbing the backpack with one of my best friends. We take a bus to the North of Argentina from our city. We pass through the Bolivian Altiplano, Peru, the Amazon Rainforest, Ecuador and Chile. Then we return to Córdoba (Arg), our starting point and city that saw us grow.

2nd trip . Some time later a second trip followed. This already leaving alone. I toured a little Central America, its ruins and its volcanoes. I passed through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico; before returning again to Córdoba, Argentina.

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3rd Trip - and in progress-   THE BICYCLE TRIP

In December 2018, we finished assembling our bikes with Male and left Córdoba in our mobile homes. We crossed Uruguay and reached the border with Brazil, where Male turned and I continued pedaling alone, entering the South American green giant. Currently (March 2020) I am in the state of Bahia. In a slow, intense and constant adventure travel / life mode. Guided by a very great freedom because me and my body are almost all the limits that my mental freedom faces. I chose, and continue to choose, to follow this Ida trip on a BICYCLE. Because on two wheels I found the best way to travel as I wanted, in intense contact with the local people and the nature that accompanies and separates them. Kilometer for kilometer, and sometimes even kilometer sounds a lot, I am giving micro-bits back to this continent. At the time of writing this text, this third trip already has 7,000 kilometers pedaled. On the map below you will see a photo of the journey so far and the attempt to follow. In the blog section of the "TRAVEL DIARY" menu you can see chronicles, stories and reflections, photos and videos of people and places. I will also share general useful information about cycling.

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AS FOLLOWS?

I DO NOT have a target of fixed destinations or times. For the moment, I call the WAY I am here and now OBJECTIVE. I call future attempts IDEAS. The trips that I take are showing me that the most loyal way to travel connected to local people and the most enriching surprises, is to travel avoiding being tied to fixed and anticipated plans. Once, on that first trip with Simon, we met a very bearded Belgian traveler, with hair and adventures, halfway through a journey that lasted 4 days by boat on the Amazon River. One of those afternoon in which the Sun hid majestically behind the dense green, we saw the natural spectacle sitting from the side of the boat while my curiosity took advantage of the occasion to ask him many questions about his life. Perhaps because of extra questions, in an instant he stopped his answer. He looked me in the eyes and with a strong accent of non-native Spanish he said "The Best Plan, No Plan!" ... Many will prejudge him as a crazy half-crazy antisystem, and at that moment even I had to make an effort mental not to get carried away in that disdain after listening to it. Today, I understand a lot of what that world traveler with many more adventures than me taught me with that simple sharp phrase. I do not like to affirm, but experience has told me that the most enriching part of the trips was always outside the anticipated plan. The best plan is dictated by the way alone. It is great to have ideas, enthusiasm, information, read and ask a lot; and in fact I am so much. But destinations as targets is not the best target.

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Tentative ideas for the continuation of the journey

Continue pedaling to the north end of the Brazilian coast (Oiapoque, Amapá). The trip would then continue to French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana (former English) and from there enter the Amazon Rainforest to cross into Venezuela via Boa Vista (Brazil). Cross Venezuela to Colombia. In the illustrative map the summarized idea can be seen graphically.

Possibilities of changes: Many.

Objective: What each kilometer has to tell my skin, eyes and ears. Document it through this BLOG , my notebooks, and my photographs. Giving special attention to the ways of life of people in each region and their relationship with the environment they inhabit. Without prejudging, to let me transform.

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To contact me write to me by mail ( luciomam96@gmail.com ).

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