The travels at the turn of the century

By Mario Garrido Espinosa

Five travel stories told with a lot of humor and irony. Five chronicles of a time when travelers did not carry a digital camera with memory for thousands of photos; nor did they carry a mobile phone with an infinite number of functions capable of resolving any unforeseen event. The reader will be immersed in an initiatory journey, in passages that are pure adventure and will remember an unprecedented historical event that occurred at the same time as one of these journeys. All these episodes occurred as we left the 20th century behind and began to experience a radical change towards a use of technology so extreme that it changed the way we traveled. As we reached that point, we kept looking at a map, we didn't use the GPS and we looked for a phone booth to call home. Dare to relive all those sensations with these stories; after all, "travel is the best money can buy", right?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Apr 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071537398

Book preview

Dedicatory:

My parents and brother.

To all who shared and will share journeys and adventures with me.

PREFACE

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Travel is the best money can buy. This maxim is one of the great truths of this world that cannot be replicated. During my life, as soon as I had the chance, I invested money in this discipline and, so far, I can say that I have been in more than twenty countries: Portugal, France, Andorra, Italy, Egypt, Austria, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia...

In the process of remembering to list them, you realize the dimension of what you have experienced; especially when you are aware that the list is not complete, that you are leaving some country behind. I hope, in any case, to be able to double or triple that figure as long as the body holds out... But for the moment, the accumulated experience fills me with joy every time I think about it: I've entered the burial chamber of the Myceraean pyramid in Egypt; I've crossed Europe's largest lake, Ladoga, by jumping over six feet into a Soviet ship; I've seen a halfeaten Mayan city in the Mexican jungle, perched on top of a newly discovered pyramid; walked on the tongue of the Pasterze glacier in the middle of the Alps; jumped off a zip line a mile above the Costa Rican cloud forest; saw Mont Saint Michel in the mist, like a fairytale castle; walked in the magical surroundings of the Matterhorn in Switzerland; I've seen all of Toronto from the 446metrehigh CN Tower and felt the vertigo of walking on its transparent floor; I've seen the blue window of the island of Gozo in Malta before it disappeared forever; I've crossed the Eurotunnel on a journey from Brussels to London; I've been inside a World War II submarine in Estonia; I've climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower; I've bathed in the famous columnarfringed pool at the Gellert Spa in Budapest; in northern Canada, I've seen a whale come to the surface of the sea and just five metres away it looked at me for a few seconds...

I am aware that I still have much to do, to see and to live, but sometimes, before starting new projects, it is convenient to look at the origins and that is precisely what this book is about: the first trips that gave rise to all the others, that established this tireless vocation, that made me want to continue travelling; I am referring to the trips to the island of Mallorca, to Portugal, to the Pyrenees, to Italy and, finally, to the most surprising place of all those I have visited: Egypt.

It is true that I am not Rustichello de Pisa, nor is this a copy of The Travels of Marco Polo, but I am sure that this book, is its humility, will please all those who like to travel or wish to do so; and who knows, maybe someone will dare to write about their experiences too...

TRAVEL TO Mallorca

1 - THE FOG AND THE NEGLECT

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1999

At 9:00 a.m. our Iberia flight left from terminal two at Madrid"Barajas airport. At least, in theory. My brother was driving me to the takeoff point. Despite the excitement of the moment, everything seemed to indicate that the adventure was not going to start well. As is often the case in the capital of Spain, a thick fog mixed with the night, covering the city with black prey and, in passing, my thoughts. This was meant to be a kind of initiation journey. The first, of some importance, was to be undertaken outside the influence of the family. In addition, I would begin with the experience of my first