I think it was Forrest Gump the one who said that “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get“; and sometimes, from the most unexpected situations, interesting encounters arise with people that is worth to listen to.
That actually happened to me not time ago, using as excuse meeting my friend Chencho, I popped into an Argentinian travellers gathering planned to happen completely in the middle of Retiro Park in Madrid (Spain)
Although there were travellers of all kind, it was a wispy and smily girl called Guada Araoz and her personal project that caught my eye.
Her story is quite similar to Belen Aime’s one, as both share Argentinian nationality and both have adventure travelling through different countries in their small cylinder capacity motorbikes.
Once more and as the joke says “Is not about the bow, it’s all; about the indian”
From backpacker to motorbike rider
Guada is a wispy, full of vitality, brave and impulsive woman. She formerly had a quite stable job, but even so, she left everything because of her need to travel, who knows whether she was influenced by that astral trip she had during a breathing exercise she was doing at the Himalayan Mountains or not.
In April 2013 she left Argentina towards China, with a one year duration open flight ticket, but really not having any idea in her mind to come back.
Sometime afterwards, in Vietnam, she decided that instead of going back home, she was going to travel to the border between Thailand and Myanmar, and try to find a job as maths teacher so that after a year doing that she would be able to travel to India and Nepal, her greatest dream.
Fall and stand up again
Although her father used to drive motorbikes, she didn’t start doing so influenced by her family environment but on the contrary, it wasn’t till her stay in Indonesia when she learned by hiring some small mopeds.
All those plans where frustrated when she suffered a serious moped accident in Cambodia and she had to go back to Buenos Aires to get a shoulder operation. After 11 months of recovery, during which the shoulder fully mobility recovery expectations where not more than 50%, she was able to be back completely fit.
At this point, probably some would have stopped and left it; but she, instead of abandon travelling, thought maybe that was only a destiny’s signal indicating her that there was still a lot to do, therefore at the end of 2014 she started her new project. For doing so, she bought a Honda XR125L motorbike and baptised it as “Sami“,she bought all the equipment she was able to with a very limited budget, and she also got a small co-work for a travels specialized magazine and, destiny’s chances, she started the 21st of February 2015 (same day she had that accident a year before) her trip “Latinoamerica en dos ruedas”
Hasta pronto Catalina (See you soon Catalina)
“Hasta pronto Catalina (See you soon Catalina)” was the farewell phrase from Guada to her cat, and also her blog’s name: so if you want to be up to date, don’t doubt to take a look.
“Travelling is completely addictive because of the personal growth it produces in you but also cause is easy to live for the present.
Although sometimes you need holidays and do a break for some months cause your mind doesn’t never stop; as you never know where you are going to sleep or eat, if the motorbike is going to be ok, how are you going to change the motorbike oil if it’s really expensive, etc.
But at the end of the day, the world provides you with confidence and wisdom, and deep inside you know that everything is going to be always ok.”
Forrest Gump was right, and the “chocolates box” brought me that evening in the Retiro Park, the opportunity to meet and end up sharing cachopos and sidra with Chencho (ilusionenmoto), Guada and new friends such as Bernardo Vives (Vives la moto) and Jabier Cid (Diario de abordo).
