30 years of travelling
I always travelled. When I was one year old my parents
moved from Greece to the USA. Today it appears exotic, but at that time (1960)
it was usual to cross the Atlantic aboard liners (some of them really beautiful
…). It took us 14 days to go from
Piraeus to New York after calling to Messina, Lisbon and Halifax (CA). It took
always 14 days to cross the Atlantic back 3 years later when my parents decided
to come back to Greece. I have no memories of these early travels. My mother
used to describe colourfully this adventure mostly as
far as going was concerned: she was alone with two children (my brother of 5
and myself just 1; my father having moved already some months before). It can
be however, that this early travelling already gave me some initial taste …
My travelling memories start around the mid-60s, when
my parents used to travel around Greece using a Peugeot 403 (bought in the
USA). They were brave in beating off the track locations and eventually we
slept all together in this car: a rudimentary camping car (compared with what
circulates today) with which we discovered large part of the remote Greek
countryside and many secluded locations. Later on, the arrival of my sister
obliged my parents to go for more comfort buying a caravan with which we continued
travelling around the country: these was times where a Greek family travelling
with a caravan was something completely unknown and I suppose even difficult to
understand. Now if I am talking about these early experiences is not just to
register my childhood memories. I suppose that having been used since very
young in travelling (potentially in an unconventional way) and having like it
(actually my brother transformed this pleasure in job: www.trekking.gr), this might have been one of
the reasons for which I practically never stopped and this explains “30 years
around the world”.
I jump ahead in the time. At the late-70s I moved
myself in Italy in order to continue studying. While there I met a beautiful
girl, Emanuela. There are (I suppose) several reasons for which we still live
together, but certainly one has been our common passion for travelling. When in
1981 we decided to get married (surprising parents and friends) we were so poor
that we did our honey moon hitchhiking. But we did it. This is a crucial point.
Travelling is a social activity. Sharing your travelling experience with
somebody is important. I also extensively travelled alone (mainly for
professional reasons), but the most exciting travelling experiences occurred
while we travelled together. These 30 years around the world are our 30 years
around the world although seen through my photos.
As a student I have continued travelling (hitchhiking
in Italy, Greece and around Europe). However, when I graduated in 1983 we
decided for the first time to head outside Europe. It was August of 1983 and we
were at the Greek island of Lesvos when we decided to cross to Ayvalik and then continue to Izmir, Kayseri and then Kapadochia (at that time virtually tourist free … it is
unbelievable today) before turning to Istanbul and then back to Greece. Wow!!
We discovered such a new, different fascinating world just around the corner,
populated by nice and friendly people. What a shock for a Greek!! The ones
which, for my education, were expected to be the “enemies” were polite, well
educated, friendly, with that innate sense of hospitality we only have in that
part of the world; they were so similar, so similar to me for so many aspects
of cultural identity. The “enemies” were the nearest cultural brothers I have
met until that time (and not surprising they remain such after 30 years …).
This first travel, besides leading us in some of the most beautiful places
around the planet has been an extraordinary mind opening experience.
I have no photos of that first travel. But that
experience excited us. Some months later, in December 1983 we caught an
opportunity and flew to Cairo and then travelled around the country down under
the Sudanese border and up to the just opened (after the Camp David agreements)
Sinai region. I still remember the astonished Greek monks at the St. Katherine
monastery receiving a greek-italian couple of
visitors after some tens of years of almost complete isolation. Second
unforgettable experience helping to build a solid conviction: travelling is
beautiful!
That was happening more than 30 years ago … The
summary of our travels can be seen in Table 1. Some of them consisted in
visiting a country, but most of them have been travels crossing a region of the
world for some given purpose or opportunity. It has been the case when in 1997
we travelled from Dar-Es-Salaam to Cape Town using
the TAZARA railway (until Zambia) and the existing network down to the Cape.
The same when in 1999 we crossed the Siberia going to Mongolia and China using
the Tran-Siberian railway and the Chinese network. It has also been the case when we crossed the
Sahara desert in the late-80s, when we did a round the world trip in 2003
(which took several months) or when we did a round the East-Mediterranean
travel in 2010.
In 1990 our son Sirio was born. Since 1998 and for
almost 10 years he travelled with us to all destinations. Despite what many
people think about travelling with kids it has been (and can be) a great
experience, provided some basic precautions are kept: visit malaria free areas,
include in the travel places and situations where kids can have their fun,
travel (at least partially) with people who also have kids. Sirio seems he has
appreciated. He is now travelling alone (with his friends). I hope he got the
right travelling tastes …
Of course we extensively travelled in Europe,
certainly in Italy and Greece (obviously …), but also in Spain, Portugal,
Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands … the most exciting place
perhaps being Iceland (but being there primarily for professional reasons I did
not take any pictures … what a shame …). I also extensively travelled for
professional reasons. Most of the times such travels are difficult to
distinguish one from another. Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Boston, Nice,
Brussels, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Seoul, Dakar, Moscow, Warsaw, Madrid, just to
mention some of the cities I visited in these years for professional reasons,
can look very similar when somebody flies in the morning and leaves the day
after (or two days after), considering that most Hotels, Universities and
Companies headquarters are nowadays so similar … However, it happened I had the
time to spend visiting (in Japan, in Israel, in Russia, in Madagascar, in Burkina
Faso, in Senegal …). I rarely took photos during these visits (you are not
really thinking about it and more over I never carry my photo equipment with me
in such occasions). I carry however, the images and the experiences of these
travels as from the other ones, mostly because of the people I had the
opportunity to meet.
Interestingly enough in these 30 years (and more) I
never had real negative experiences. We travelled with buses, trains, cars, ships,
boats, donkeys, horses and camels, by feet, by public transport, hitchhiking,
using our own means … I flew with almost any time of flying equipment, I
boarded almost any type of vessel and I met any type of people. I met humble
peasants and rich landlords, poor students and wealthy businessmen, illiterate fishermen
and fine intellectuals under any conceivable circumstance from sharing a boat
crossing a river to official dinners. My overall experience is that most of the
people are kind, polite, friendly and fundamentally easy to approach. And this
experience crosses the education level, the type of profession, the geographic
origin, sex and culture of the people we met. It also falsifies the usual
reputations we construct (or we are induced to construct): despite taxi-drivers
worldwide hold one of the worst reputations, one of the kindest person we ever
met is a taxi-driver at Amman, Jordan, who stopped his taxi in the middle of
nowhere to give us two just baked forms of bread, having noted in the middle of
the night the bakery working: “you might be hungry after crossing the desert”
he told us!!
In these 30 years I have only once been stolen a
camera (in Taj Mahal, India) and nothing else, which is an amazing low rate
considering the opportunities we offered to International Thieves Co. In these
30 years we met men and women who made us richer and better, discussing,
eating, travelling, drinking, bargaining, sharing and exchanging … It has been
the most exciting part of these 30 years of travelling.
As one can imagine during these years I shot thousands
of photos. In the early years, when films where necessary I was shooting with
parsimony (professional films were not available in most places and you cannot
carry unlimited stock within limited space). This parsimonious attitude
persists until today, although digital shooting is practically “unlimited”.
Despite that my files contain thousands of photos. When I decided to make this
book I had to choose. With the help of Emanuela I chose a “representative
sample” of this 30 years long material. That makes approximately 600 photos …
These needed to be organized. There exist several ways to do it, but finally I
opted for identifying one common element independent from the location and the
time when the photo was shot. This is of course an ex-post rationalization (I
shot what I liked as most amateurs do, without any project in mind); the result
are the six sections in which the photos have been divided: details, locations,
nature, people, skies and water.
“Details”
contains photos capturing details of objects, people, situations which I felt
had a stand-alone meaning; it is the detail itself which explains the photo.
“Locations” is characterised by the
place where the photo was shot. Saying it in other terms it is the location
that inspired me in realising the image.
“Nature”
obviously narrates the nature in its multiple forms and situations. Natures as
I saw it in its complexity and impressive generosity of colours
and shapes.
“People”
collects the images of the people who shared their time with us. Those with
whom we travelled, laughed, ate, discussed or even shared a smile. Most of
these photos have been shot asking the permission of the interested. To them go
my heartiest acknowledgements for all they offered to us.
“Skies”
contains what I have seen above my head … You will note a certain attraction by
the clouds. I have been fascinated by them since ever. And I still get lost
behind them.
“Water” shows
my personal vision of the natural element which most attracted met until today.
An irresistible attraction; only Emanuela has been able to beat it …
To those passionate of technical details, the photos have
been taken using three (in time) equipment. The first one was a Nikkormat FN300 (to be honest I started taking photos with
a Zenith in the late 70s, but this is another story …) equipped with fix length
lenses (28, 52, 105 Nikkor and a Vivitar
300). Then in the early 2000 I moved to a Nikon F75 equipped with a 28-200
lens. These were times when we need to use film, which most of the time (let’s
say 80% of the times) has been Ektachrome
professional at 100 ASA, occasionally used at 400 ASA (however, the reader may
distinguish some few photos in Kodakchrome 25 ASA).
In 2008 I finally decided to go digital (although I really suffered doing so)
and got a Nikon D40 equipped with two lenses: a 18-55
and a 55 - 200. All recent photos are done with this camera.
Is there a one single place which we loved more than
others? No. Certainly there have been places which impressed us more than
others, but the big experience has been the travelling itself. Is there a photo
that can summarise this experience? Yes! It is the
photo of the young boy swimming in the Niger River near the canoe within which
we were travelling. The movement of the water amplifies the smile of the boy
and I like to think to this “smile” as the essence of our travelling: having
received the smiles and the kindness of all the people we met. We hope we have
been able to smile to them as they did to us. To all these people this book is
dedicated!
Athens, July 2014
Main travels out of Europe not for professional
reasons
1983 Turkey,
Egypt
1985 Tunisia,
India (partly in 1986)
1986 Sahara (Algeria)
1987
Sahara (Algeria)
1988 Sahara (Mali, Niger), Togo, Ghana
1993
Morocco
1994 Jordan
1997
Zanzibar, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
South Africa, Russia
1998 USA
1999 Russia (Siberia), Mongolia, Cina
2000 Mexico
2001 Cuba
2003 USA,
Canada, Chile (Easter Island), Polynesia, Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, New
Zealand, Australia
2006 Nicaragua
2007 South
Africa
2008 Turkey
(Kurdistan), New Zealand (partly in 2009)
2009 Tunisia,
Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey (partly in 2010)
2010 Tunisia, Sahara (Libya, partly in 2011)
2011 Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Venezuela
2013 Argentina, Chile (Terra del Fuego,
Patagonia)
Professional travels outside Europe besides the above
Algeria,
Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali,
Morocco, Niger, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia,
Turkey, USA.
Visited several times (for private and professional
reasons) almost any country in Europe, but still missing Bosnia, Malta,
Moldavia, Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine.
PS. Meanwhile,
other travels have been added to the above one including Tunisia at the end of
2013, Morocco and Mauritania in 2014, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia in
2015 and Brazil in 2016. But these will be for the next books …