Travel Stories

.. We get off the plane, tired but excited. All good at passport control, no special questions for Marti, no extra baggage inspection. I was traveling for the first time with my new passport and everything went for the best, as if it were the tenth or the twentieth, no request, no consideration, I passed as one of them. We get out of the airport, new air breathing. It is very hot, a dry heat, there is clean air. We walk with backpacks looking for a bus to get to the hostel. The bus is clean, smells of jasmine airhouse deodorant, inside the air-con shot that seems to be at the North Pole. We are immediately trapped in city traffic. From the window the first images of a new world, of a continent discovered just three hundred years ago. We start seeing imposing skyscrapers, wide sidewalks so clean that almost there are reflected the rays of the sun, garden cared for the smallest details with the grass cut so short that all seem of golf courses. There is an apparent feeling of wellbeing in the looks of people, you could breathe serenity. Everything has turned. No more stalls in the streets and squares, no more dust, no garbage, no chaos. There’s order, rigor. Well-dressed business men walk with the suitcase in hand, elegant women wearing shoes with heels, stopped in front of the most luxurious shops. The roads return to be a place of transit, of passage, no longer a place of life lived. No more cooking, sleeping, eating, working on the street. For this there are less unusual details to linger on, but just compare the differences to bring out even those few details. Anyway, we got to town, we’re in Melbourne, Australia. Welcome to the Aussie World (Ozzie = Oz). Welcome back to capitalism.

We will be guests for a few days of two South American guys known through couchsurfing, literally translated into “hosting on a sofa”. For those who do not know it is a site that allows you to make available a room or a sofa precisely, to give the opportunity to those who travel to stay in your home without paying. Conversely be yourself (like us in this case) looking for a temporary accommodation at no cost. It is a virtual community that is part of people from all over the world, who, thanks to this way of travelling, know and share live experiences and stories about their travels. They confront opinions and thoughts about different cultures they belong to and where they come from. They exchange advice and information for the continuation of their journey. In addition to being cheap, it is convenient especially when you arrive in new big cities. Who hosts you lives there, and in exchange for the sofa will be enough to receive your company as if it were a long-time friend. It will also give you the first indications you need to orient yourself, which will allow you to acclimate more easily. After making tourists in Melbourne for five days we say goodbye to our friends and prepare to continue on our way. A beautiful city more to live than to see. It transmits energy, you see it in its citizens often engaged in jogging, running in the many parks of the city and along the river that divides it in two, at any time of the day and evening almost was an obligation as well as a pleasure. See it in the shows of the acrobats through the streets of the center colored by graffiti on the walls and its street performers who perform in the evening on the waterfront among thousands of fascinating looks of young tourists or students from all over the world. There is not a lot of history but living it I think it is a city of great potential, except that it is not here that we want to stop. That’s right stop us. What we’re going to do. After five months of more or less frequent travel, Australia will be our base for a longer period. We chose this goal because renowned for being a place full of opportunities, we allow easily find some temporary work to recover some expenses. We chose to come here because it’s summer now. We chose this destination because it is a land where we live well, it is safe, there is plenty of space and in short it will be possible to recreate a everyday life, even if far from home. We were starting to need it. After so much wandering was necessary to find some stability.

We chose to come here because that’s where I was born. For this, coming back sometimes is my wish and makes me feel good, is a bit like a second home. To bring the person to my side instead, has always been one of my dreams to realize, and today we are here together.

Australia, a place so far from everything so distant from our perspective that not only we do not imagine how it can be or what can happen in it. We didn’t hear about Australia practically never, or almost and I would say that we do not care even more. It is so far that only to name it we are already tired, already we seem to talk about another world, from what is distant. Actually here everything happens before, with ten hours in advance. And basically we are talking about something that happens in the largest island in the world and the only one to be a continent, and the only continent to be also a nation. It’s true is a young country that does not have so much history, where there will be not so much culture to know and deepen nor people particularly different to discover. There will still be many wonderful landscapes, immaculate nature, endless skies and immense free spaces, waiting to be explored.

So we said we won’t stop here. We decide to rent a bus, normally called as a van. This is a kind of ‘ducato’ that in place of the back seats is provided with a real bed with mattress. Instead of the trunck is equipped with a small kitchenette, consisting of camping stove, water tank with water reserve and drain on the ground, refrigerated container where to put ice to keep the food in fresh. It’s a very used way of travel around here. Many people use it to travel the enormous distances that separate the big cities, thousands of kilometers between deserts, stretches of coastline and dense forests rich in vegetation. Traveling with the van allows you to stop during these long trips and then save on sleep. It’s a mobile home. There are many free camping areas served by public toilets where you can stop and stay for the night without having to pay anything. It’s a common way of getting around that makes you feel very free. There is freedom of movement and choice on where to spend the nights for this makes you feel even more stray, in close contact with nature. The van becomes your home, your little shelter. It is also your transport that gives you autonomy, to reach hidden places, unexplored land paradises where you can only breathe the smell of Mother nature. You drive, but not a normal car because you know that wherever you can stop, because he makes you feel protected, so it will be a little as if he were to lead you. We’ve made over two thousand miles that are not so many distances from here. We slept in the woods, in front of the sea, stopped in protected areas, in national parks, in front of endless landscapes, to remain breathless. We fell asleep with the rustle of the wind blowing strong on the trees and the peal of the powerful waves crashing on the rocks and on the ground and we woke up with the noise of strange animals. A unique experience that we’ll probably do it again because it has given us unforgettable moments.

We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, we left the van to those who had rented it and we left with our backpacks on our backs. Again start again, restart from the beginning. A new place, a new hostel, new people, new way, new life. This time we start a little advantage, because here not everything is completely new. Something here belongs to me, something here exists inside of me. It’s like breathing an air that reminds you of something. Welcome to us and welcome back to me. We’re in Sydney. As mentioned we come with some small advantage compared to the usual, in fact we will be guests for about ten days from two dear friends known here several years ago. He’s German, she’s Ecuadorian. I knew them individually and during these years they became a couple. Together they are beautiful. The change we are experiencing after five months of Asia is rather shocking. Everything is back to a common normality, as to order, cleanliness, rules, prohibitions, in some ways we could say that we have returned to a civilization. Even if we find reductive to base the concept of civilization on these aspects, therefore we respect in everything and for everything everything we have learned about customs and cultures different from ours and we have learned to understand and accept what these Places and these peoples have taught us during our journey. Another of the first differences we notice are in people, in fact, we see faces and expressions unfortunately common, hard people, serious, busy, impatient, nervous, angry. A series of adjectives that Asia had made us forget. Luckily the Aussie’s still have the gift of knowing how to put you at ease. Extreme education and civic sense seasoned with smiles, sometimes a little fake but always welcome, help to make you feel at home quickly, or in any case not to make you feel like a stranger. Catapulted into this new world the first days we are invaded by a sudden sense of loss, performance anxiety. If the decision is to stop for a while we must immediately engage in the search for stability, as we have not done for a long time. A house, or rather a room, a job, a hobby, habits, some point in short. So we put ourselves at work and glad that everything seems to come in a rather natural and simple, thanks to a little luck that never hurts. So in a little more than ten days we found an accommodation, a job each and a team to play football. I would say too much all together! For more detail and details we talk soon, in the meantime always remember to aim high.