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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] conversations with Tyler is produced by the mercada center at George Mason University Bridging the Gap between academic ideas and real world problems learn more at arcades.in conversations withth
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tyler.com today I am very honored to be with one Pablo vigarino he is from Argentina otherwise his name would be pronounced varino I have now had over 40 conversations with different guests but there is only one of them I have envied
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and that is Juan Pablo he has sometimes been called the world's greatest hitchhiker he also has a recent book he has four books the most recent now is out only in Argentina he is looking for a publisher in the United States it is
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called hitchhiking in the axis of Evil by thumb through Iran Iraq and Afghanistan onean Pablo welcome hi Tyler thanks a lot for the invitation really honored to be here if you could just start by telling us I mean who who are you and what have you been doing okay so
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I'm a trouble writer I have been busy on the last 13 years he hiking around the world in an attempt let's say to document hospitality and this adventure has taken me over across over 91 countries including the United States which is my last addition to the list
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and given what you do do you ever think well why doesn't everyone do this have you come to the point where you see your way of life as a sort of default as actually posing a question about the alternatives to mainstream culture and
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normal life with family kids rent walk the dog or do you think it's just a strange Niche taste that only you have I think that actually more and more people should choose their own place in society and their role so I don't think this is
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for everyone but I do believe and like the the whole a lot of messages I on social media has Le led me to think that a lot of people actually want this you know to to have a much more nomadic lifestyle and to or to redesign their own lifestyle and that's uh pretty much
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what I am aiming to while trying to to motivate my readers and is it that you think living this kind of life makes you happier or it's a form of aspiration where you like the kind of person it will transform you into and maybe it's
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actually in some ways tougher or more burdensome on you but you want to be a different kind of person you mean like when uh that this lifestyle would intrinsically make you happier um or you simply think it's a better life I think it's the kind of
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life I desire and I have desired since I was a student and I think like you know everyone should pursue his or her own dreams but I don't think it's like a universal formula that should be know exported like in a massive way then then
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everyone should do this but then if you look at a world map and when you look at a strange place like kyrgistan or Greenland and then you feel like you know butterflies in your stomach then you should pay attention to sinus and then go for it and not just pretend it
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it's not happening and what's the single most concrete feature of this new life that has so drawn you in is it seeing new faces every day The Thrill of the unexpected simply being able to walk so much talking with drivers what would it
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be I think uh the final yeah what's throwing me into this uh it's the chance to have something to do at least with more and more different cultures it time so you know when a country is mentioned on the news call it Syria uh Afghanistan
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Romania Norway any country and then you have something to recall which is not abstract it's not a tag or a flag but you can recall in your memory like real people you have related with and then I think you I feel much more threaded with
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humanity and with Mankind in the broader sense and living as a hitchhiker how much Social Freedom do you think you have on a permanent basis so if you think of people in mainstream Society there's so much expected from them in terms terms of Conformity at work in the
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family so you're out there on the road but over time is there a restriction of social Freedom that sets in like the other hitchhikers expect you to be a certain way your readers your fans they expect something on the Instagram account have you evolved into more
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social Freedom or ended up just as constricted but in a different box it's a nice question I love that it's uh it's always stereotypes actually the reason why I trouble is because I want to in in a way dismantle the stereotypes uh that
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there are about Nations you know like Colombia or you know or Muslim countries but as well there are stereotypes about people not only about not only about Nations and there are there is certainly stereotype about what type of Life
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hitchhiker should lead so there's people actually having expectations on me actually I don't think I fit with a stereotype like if some people have described me in some newspapers as oh he leads like a nomadic life with no bills
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no fixed Direction and no you know bills or taxes to payer but I also have like a house and I also you know uh have like a point of reference in the world like we have a place and that's in AR come back in Argentina Mar PL it's actually in
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another city in San Nicolas because that's where my girlfriend comes from uh so when we met it was kind of a pack you know like okay we're going to live traveling but whenever we are not on the road I want to be near my family so that
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was her condition for like being nomadic and so we live there but we go back there only to write the Books because we need our concentration our space or Archie of notebooks and everything but then we go back to the road and like 50%
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and 50% you know like one year or one year and a half traveling then we go back home L one year in order to start a a book project but yeah the thing about stereotypes I people would think you know they just would feel surprised like I'm for example a filatelist i stamp
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19th century I collect 19th century stamps and that would be I think as far away as a stereotype from H it can be and then the people just expect you to be like a hippie with without it but I'm also attached to things but I just decided to Hitch hike
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around the world not out of an economic condition or out of H being poor there was also journalist who stated that oh he chose the way he wanted to be poor it's not about that you know you buy the stamps online or you hitchhike to places
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where you think you might want to buy stamp no no I think I buy online but it's actually interesting to say that my first approach to world geography and history was through stamps when I was kid and then I have actually designed
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trips in order to fit with territories that I had learned about from stamps collecting like old colonies in Africa and stuff like that like that what strategies do you employ so that drivers indeed strangers trust you more okay I think like uh as a rule of th I always
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like to say that you stop cars with your smile and not with your thumb so there are actually a lot of things you can do to improve your chances of getting a lift it's not just like you know go there stick out your and get the right
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and I think like reath definitely smiling as the car is passing you know it's a really important thing and then there are like very subtle things that people wouldn't guess that have an impact and they do what which ones okay so for example like it's like there's a
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driver has like averagely like 3 seconds to decide or five whether he's going to stop or not you know he sees you he's driving maybe 80 miles an hour and then you just suddenly pop up and it's there are a lot of things going on
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unconsciously through his mind to decide whether he's going to stop or not so you have only this second to convey an image of trust so then you have to do things for example one is smiling the other one is when you manage to get eye contact
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then I reinforce okay I'm let's say I'm thumbing I'm showing my thumb but I also switch my hand signal and I point the direction I point the direction in which I'm going as I'm smiling and this like makes a more personalized link over the
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general link you're already doing which is thumbing you know so uh and then the way you're dress the way your backpack is positioned how do you dress so I I try always to be neutral so I really don't think the road is a place to manifest your aesthetic
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principles like if you like you know dreadlocks and a lot of things so social Conformity is head again just a T-shirt and you know like normal you know cargo pants so I guess neutral I try to be as stady as I can and yeah people you know
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pay attention to that and that's you know a way to to to make them develop more trust in you in the 18th century a French political writer monq he claimed that poorer peoples show more Hospitality to strangers on average do you think he was right I think it has to
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do with many things not only with economical factors for example if you go to countries like Ethiopia in Africa where you can find really poor people by our standards and then you will not find or receive as much Hospitality as I have
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received for example in Muslim countries like Iran or Syria so this has to do with like the way or the the place that interdependence has as a value in that societ society and for example in the Middle East and it doesn't necessarily
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have to do with religion but with geographical things in the Middle East I have found that people has been through Millennial used to depend on each other because of the long distances and you know and the living in a desert scenario
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where you could eventually needed the help of your neighbors tomorrow so you help them today this I have found in the Middle East and the and the Muslim countries and they I wouldn't consider them poor but I would put them in a middle scale because if you if we
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consider Africa as well you know so but in general people countries which are not so far from let's say which they're used to share resources for for whatever reason being religious or being because they were part of the Communist block
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which also you know developed some social structures in which sharing sources was very common so then it's easy today to he check in Romania or Poland so there are many many indicators or things that could make that VAR but in general yeah I could say that yeah
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had a point let's say and do you have a thought on why some of the societies that seem to show the most trust with respect to Hitchhikers in other ways perhaps superficial or or misguided but seem to show lower levels of trust so
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you mention Iraq as being a good country to hitchhike Iraq is not known at the macro or political level for always having a high degree of trust do you have thoughts on that possible contradiction I think that uh the problem is that we perceive countries
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just because of the what we heard on the news so uh or either we cannot know most people would only know about Iraq or Sudan let's say Sudan about they would only know that the it's suff a blockade economic blade and sanctions from the US
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in the late 90s uh then people would know about the Taliban in Afghanistan about the war in Iraq but then we never this uh we never get to know about the real people living there under those flags so and that's what I trying to compensate with my you know TR
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literature so um I think yeah you can say it's a contradiction but I would say it's the way that information is treated you know stereotypes and the way the kind of news that the media like to show is always about like either the wars or the things
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going on between leaders but uh like the normal people They just never make it to the headlines and there are some published estimates you've offered how long it takes to get a ride in different places if I may just quote so the
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quickest is listed as Iraq 7 minutes on average next quickest is Jordan 9 Minutes on average then eador or 10 minutes Romania 12 minutes the slowest of them all seems to be Tibet where your estimate is 3 hours 16 minutes now why is Tibet an outlier on the other side of
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that equation that's right but the thing is like in in the case of Tibet there were so me Vehicles were so scars because it's just like a plateau with one road crossing it and maybe you would see 10 Vehicles a day just not that many
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cars it's not a lack of hospitality exactly so then you should consider different factors when you want to measure how good or bad hhen is in a country you shouldn't actually only take into consideration the waiting time but you should consider the amount of cars
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that pass you know during your what H chiking so that gives an estimate but there yeah many factors that should be considered but in your six slowest you have in that worst six Sweden Norway Finland Denmar scavia with slow times
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and those countries have plenty of cars why are they so slow oh that's amazing to be he checking in Scandinavia you see all this row of bulbo cars passing you by and they will never ever stop I have talked to a Swedish friend of mine and
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she just said like yeah it would be I wouldn't stop either she said because because it's so cheap and affordable to have a car then if someone is is hitchhiking and doesn't have a car you would think he has second intentions on something wrong is going on here what I
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think it happens is that somehow a you know a society has Leen us into a you know you you have your your own house your own when you got when you get out of the house you just move into your little bit of moving private space into your
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car and it's sometimes difficult to break that cycle and you know and um and be ready to to share to meet to mix and I think that has that's pretty much the norm in like Nordic Society so yeah it's makes it a bit more a bit more difficult
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to hitchhike there any a typical year how many months of the year are you out there hitchhiking so it's uh I wouldn't measure of how many months a year but what happens is like we Laura and I always do long your wife La that's right
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for the last eight years we have been traveling together and what we always do long trips uh that means that the shortest one together it has been eight months and the longest like uh a year and a half so uh each uh trip is made
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with the idea of uh making a book afterwards so after the the trip is done then we go back home and start the book project which normally takes like another year so it's uh 50/50 I would say yeah would you describe yourself as a workaholic yes a workaholic hctor I am
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I am I am people would be so surprised to see how much time there is involved on the backstage behind the screen because yeah you HH and you have books and you have a Blog but oh the blog is so timec consuming you know like when
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I'm not traveling I literally spend like 10 hours a day working either by you know making new post posting on social media preparing projects for you know publishing houses and it's like an eight 10 hours routine so yeah I would I would
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qualify as a workaholic I guess but you don't always travel with your wife is that correct some trips with her some trips alone how do you divy up which trip is with her with which trip is not with her so long trips we do them together always like because it it
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requires like an year and a half like our last trip together was Africa from Egypt to South Africa on the Eastern side going like through Sudan Ethiopia and so on that we did together of course but then after that like uh I know I
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came came here she's going to Thailand next month uh or she for example like last year she went to Iceland with a friend and he Che around Iceland and they had some project to do some challenges like the audience were suggesting her and her friend challenges
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to do while traveling so we do these little side projects on our own uh I was in Cuba as well two years ago but the long trips we do we always do them together so your wife is doing some trips on her own your general lifestyle how much harder do you think it is for a
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solo woman to do what you've been doing it could be your wife but there are plenty of other women who do or might want to do this what would you say to that yeah it's a good question there have been and I know actually some of my
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Inspirations having girls traveling alone by hitchhiking like one of them is King free spirit it's just like a nickname like a Polish Girl Who HH around the world from 98 to 2003 and like did amazing stuff I I I I would barely dare to do like Crossing from
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Bina Faso to ner on a camel the camel back you know without not through an official limit and uh not through an official border crossing and amazing stuff like that and yeah I know a couple of girls who have hitchhike across
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Africa alone and done fine yeah yeah yeah and don't fine so um that doesn't mean that it's a 100% uh Pink experience which in which everything is going to be fine you need you definitely have to know your limitations and you know your
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own template and you you it must not be your first trip for sure but uh I think that the general General difficulties of travel traveling as a woman are not really different from the general difficulties of living as a woman in our
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society right what's the deepest darkest secret you've ever heard from someone who has picked you up okay so there's something called taxic cab effect and it translates into people telling you all sorts of Secrets after giving you a ride
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you know like from the most the simp things like someone picking me up like it was like a rural working in Argentina and and telling me hey you know I have just been with another woman which is not my wife and he was just jumping around and tell me all details I didn't
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want to hear but then I I had like all sort of people I I remember a truck driver in Spain who took me all the way to Italy that was like one day and a half of driving and he had been in the Foreign Legion and he had been in the
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Iraqi War in the first Iraq in the GF war and he had all sort of trauma that the health Spanish Health System hadn't been able to solve it seems and he was you know every time he would go down the the track it would be just for a for to
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fight with someone know he wouldn't be able to establish normal relations and after a day and a half of traveling when I left he was just crying over the wheel because he had been able to to build a relationship with someone inside you
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know the the track one day and a half yes I was so you know difficult for them for him then to to see me leave but I think like the the the most most interesting one in the lift was in the list was an Italian guy who he didn't give me a ride but he hosted me in his
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house and then uh after many bottles of wine he acknowledged he had been in jail for trafficking drug between Na napis and and Milan and that he had done Terrible Things um like an hour later he confessed he had killed someone and that
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he had a bit of his past that he wanted to like a physical thing from his past that he needed to get rid of and 5 minutes later he presented me with a knife yes and so it was basically a piece of evidence of a murder and that was the murder knife yeah and what did
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you do with it I felt that I had to carry it because he needed to to to get away with that and if I could help in any way for his Rehabilitation that because he had legally already paid for that anyway you know he had been in jail
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for that and so I thought I had to take it with me and I did the American Author Jack kowak in his book on the road he suggested that maybe the real problem with hitchhiking is you feel obliged to entertain your driver on and on and this
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can be quite monotonous do you ever find this to be the case and well sometimes you can get bored but I think it's I mean that's the reason why I hit in the first place you know to to mix and meet people I you know it's has never been a
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matter of money like I do H in India or places where transportation is so cheap so sometimes it can be boring to to repeat over and over your story or where do you come from what are you doing you know in each uh in each car you board
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but you know it pays it pays off because then the people have S such Amazing Stories to to share and and it's actually like my my default setting my typical approach to explore a countries K and that's why I do it so I think it's it's worth and what's the biggest danger
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you face I think definitely I don't have to think too much about is it was in Afghanistan because actually there into HH across the country post a threat because there were uh even though my trip was meant to show that 99.9% of the
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people there were just like nice people then I knew there was still the 0.1% that could be harmful and then when getting close to Kabul i h was um H chiking actually with an american guy who was a volunteer in bamyan Province
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where the big Buddhas used to be car you know before the talibans attack there and he was so excited about my hitchhiking thing and he say I want to join you and I said I yeah you can but you know remember that your life here is much more valuable than mine like you
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they could take you as a hostage but not really to me because Argentina will not pay any rescuer so know they and they know that so but we he tried to go to Kabul and we got a ride with Afghan police Jeep yes they were patrolling so
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they stopped and say guys we can take you to cabul but you have to know that we are the target the last patol we sent here was attacked by the talibans with a rocket propelled grenade and it everyone died in the Ambush and now we're going
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to see if the territory is better so you can come with us or you can do the same but walking and I say okay well we we should better stay with in the car at least it's you know faster and the next two hours were the most difficult hours
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of my life you know these guys were with the AK-47 with a finger in the trigger ready to to to fight and they told us actually to have a look at the roofs of the houses because they were expecting like snipers and so you know suddenly I
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was like in an army scenario that has nothing to do with my life but I think definitely that was like the the most H the closer I was to uh potentially fatal situation do you feel there's something you understand about terrorism in say
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Iraq or Afghanistan that most other people would not I guess that first of all like people would unfortunately relate just terrorism to the names of these countries and they would miss like the broader picture which is like the whole people uh living living there uh
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then but then I can also understand how like terrorists come to being because Al being in these countries which they have sometimes I mean in a way they are absolutely open to foreigners but at the same time they it's a it's a easy ground
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in which to recruit people because there are you know overp population religiously speaking it could be very I think like Islam needs an instance of like self-criticism I think these societies haven't been able to go through a process of like updating and allowing
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self-criticism so uh I think that in this sense they are a bit close minded so I think that it's easy it has been easy for like Insurgent groups to recruit people and yeah I I I have seen you know like the the social mechanisms behind it and the way they really like
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some time ago I was in Egypt and there was a school and the the motto of the school was that they wanted to produce good citizens and good Muslims that they would be able to repeat the Quran by heart so as long as long as they keep
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you know their goals of Education as a being able to repeat the Quran by heart then it's always leaving a gate open for you know people who are so fervent about it if you consider your longer trip say the trip through Africa and I were to
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suggest a hypothesis that every longest trip has at its core some kind of central place or event or a kind of emotional heart maybe not planned in advance probably not planned in advance but at the end of the trip you realize
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this emotional hard of the trip is there and if it's not there you did something wrong agree or disagree I agree definitely yeah there are moments big moments in which you know you really feel the whole Mystic of the of the trip embodying there and yeah and Africa had
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several of these moments what would be the central core of your Africa trip if you had to say well there would be more than one but I guess that Tanzania Tanzania or I don't know how to say in English Tanzania or Tanzania okay yeah
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Tanzania uh was one because there I would I did find in Africa proud to be Africa you know was a bit more different from the place uh from the situation I found in like South Africa in which they're having so many tensions ongoing
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tensions between groups and ethnic groups but I really like love Tanzania but now I recall a moment in which it's it was like a very dense moment because it shows that uh you can learn from everyone in these kind of trips it was in Malawi and we were looking for a
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place to to camp in a outside the capital in L Longway and was raining like hell um we asked like a couple of people they didn't give us any solution and then we arrived to a place with L would looked like um you know these places where they organize like a venue
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where they organized children birthday parties yes okay the place was closed but there was a caretaker this guy was 25 year old he was a refugee from Congo he has he had crossed all Tanzania on foot to reach there crossing rivers
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infested with crocodiles being chased by Tanzanian police who wanted just rise from him and so he had managed to reach there and find this little job and he allow us to uh to to sleep in this house he was taken care of so that was like
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the inversion of the logic you know that was the refugee was giving us he was the provider for us at night and the interest interesting thing was that all the um the situations he had to go through on the war and so on he hadn't it hadn't turned converted into
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resentment but into love the guy told me first that mountains he said this sentence that I can't recall he said mountains are not U meant to to encounter to meet but but men are meant to meet and that's why he opened the the
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house to us and then he said ER we were talking about the international situation and he said H oh about Mr Trump I understand him he said if I could tell something to him in person I would uh I would say I would tell him that I understand him because he's not a
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bad guy he said and I want to say he's wor here because he would only dream about coming to the US but I feel I I feel like a messenger now and he said that he understood he was not a bad guy but that he hadn't gone through any hardship in his life and that's why his
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heart was so hard and and then I felt okay this guy I mean you can learn from anyone in the stps this guy is a caretaker he was a refugee and now he's know talking like a Buddha you know in in Malawi so I I feel like when you have
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these little encounters with random people that's when the trip becomes really meaningful my favorite song about hitchhiking is probably Marvin Gay hitchhike do you have a favorite song about hitchhiking I don't think I can recall uh any know any song about
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hitchhiking probably pros and cons of hitchhiking of Roger Waters yeah that would be and try also Vanity Fair hitching a ride that's fun okay now you told us this is actually your first time in the United States your 91st country
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is that right it is because I was actually for a week in Puerto Rico like three years ago so it's uh officially the us but yes let's say it's the first time in the mainland and how long have you been here so less than 48 hours what
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has surprised you the most so far what has surprised me well looking at the Suburban areas from the plane was quite interesting because they which areas Suburban housing States and areas because they look as a Latin American textile pattern you know it's very
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strange that know was the icon of the US looks like a like a Aboriginal art piece but then yeah I would basically how the city I mean Arling now how the city gets uh depopulated at night after 8:00 p.m. there's no very few people in the
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streets at least in the downtown nobody lives there it's just like offices blocks and buildings and so this is a bit curious for me because I'm used to live in a more Livin City you know Argentina is almost the polar opposite
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in this regard buos arst at midnight can be quite teaming with people yeah sure I mean you can get out of the street at you know 1:00 a.m. go to a Kos and buy a drink and whatever you want yeah sure that's Latin America is like that now in
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a sense you started this journey if I understand your history correctly in Bist Northern Ireland yeah how did Bist come to pass so that was pretty random actually I was um so I was a student of psychology in Argentina where before I
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decided to take this nomadic lifestyle at some point I you know take took the decision I decided it was much more consistent even with the subject I was studying was much more consistent to go and see history unfolding in front of my
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nose and just staying at University but then uh a family I used to have a summer at a hotel just like a bell boy or receptionist and there was a family from Northern Ireland who I had talked to them and I had explain them I wanted to travel around the world but I wanted to
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to save up some money to start to get started because in those years Argentina was through going through its worst economic crisis right you know like the all the banks had fled the country taking the savings of the people with
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them was like a chaos and I was the only weird guy dreaming about you know H unattaching things and going around the world and they was was a pretty strange thing people were trying to get stability not trying to get rid of you know their stability to travel but um so
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this family from northern Island actually they yeah they offer me if you ever come over here you have a place to stay and we can you know keep you going until you find the job and that was what I did in year 2003 I moved to Belfast
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actually to a small town near Belfast found a job in another hotel as receptionist and then slowly started to move jobs and worked there for like a year and a half before I thought I had small budget for the first year of the trip and given that most people in the
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two irelands are no longer formally religious if you had to describe in Your Vision like the core cultural difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland what would that be well I could tell you the difference between Eastern Belfast and Western
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Belfast because that's summarized there yeah West Belfast is a typically a stronghold of the Republican you know Catholic let's say like the the Irish who are trapped there but would like to join the Republic of Ireland while north
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and east Belfast are like unionist which support being attached to Great Britain and of course like it's a it's interesting because actually the family that g that gave the chance to go there they were British you know they were not pro Irish
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so I like that because it breaks like The Stereotype and it's a good starting point of the biography of this trip of this trip which is trying to dismantle stereotypes so they were not on the side they were supposed to be but then I met
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great people from both sides but Mo mostly my friends tended to be from West belas so were from a hitchhiking point of view how did the two irelands differ if at all no they don't I think like know the same way they share a rugby
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team they share the their position in the hospitality ranking okay now as we know you're from Argentina and Argentina has its own history as being a victim of colonial occupation there's still an ongoing issue with Malin vas the Falon Islands as we say in English your
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background as an AR Argentinian how do you feel that has shaped your understanding of Syria Afghanistan Iran and Iraq well actually it help my understanding and their understanding because I it was very easy H it's actually easy to travel around the world
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with an Argentinian passport and it's good because people you know uh feel empathy because you also come from a let's say developing country or we're not we are you know we are like in the middle we're not like a rich country
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we're not a poor one but uh people but you know we know what it's like to live in a place where the traffic lights don't work and people just cross with the Red Cross and so yeah it has made easier to relate with people from Africa
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for example when I was explaining that I we also had a colonial rule in our country they were so surprised about that and that that that was a good point of connection with people you've written I believe that Colombia is one of your
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favorite countries to travel ined what makes Colombia so special Colombia uh Colombia people I mean they have poetry when they speak I mean you can speak with anyone there doesn't matter which Walk of Life he does he belong to can be
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a coffee collector can be the owner of a company they will have the same cautious way of speaking and even though it's not actually easy to hit hiking Colombia because of all the problems they have had with you know with gorillas and kidnapping they are a bit cautious at
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the time of giving you a ride but once you are there and you're talking to people I mean that's um I really wish everyone could spend a couple of days a month in col I to take all the stress away you know you've also cited transnistria as one of your favorites
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depending who side you're on that's either part of mdova or a breakaway Republic from mova why is that so interesting I like transnistria I I wouldn't put it in a rank like go the better the best one of the best countries in terms of
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hospitality but I as a traveler who is obviously trying to also H collect the difficult stamps in his collection then of course Breakaway republics they are like a a very precious price you know so and they may not be here for much longer
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right yeah yeah so you have to go there if you can that was the same case with somal land in The Last African trip but the special thing about transnistria I think it was bizarre the place in itself I mean it's the only place in the world
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I guess where you can order sushi and sit down restaurant to eat sushi only 100 meters away from a Lenin statue which is still standing so I I think it embodies a lot of contradictions in itself now here's a question I also asked Chris blatman I asked Charles
33:30
San if we think about the new world it seems to me that systematically a lot of countries in the new world are much more dangerous than countries in the other hemisphere if you think about Colombia earlier on not so much now you think
33:43
about murder rates in Honduras bise El Salvador many parts of Brazil there does seem to be a difference in the level of violence gun deaths in the United States compared to say Western Europe why is this it's not just one country there's
33:58
something about the new world that makes some significant parts of it more violent what is that well probably because in in our Evolutions in our Evolution as territories we have had violins as a part of it much more recently in the timeline I mean we were
34:13
conquered by means of powder so I think that's probably in the genetic of our culture I guess not I hope not but but it's interesting what you said about the shootings here in the in the US uh it's something that uh of course as an
34:24
outsider and as someone who is its first visit to the country it would be not proper to give a very you know deep reflection on that but I and and going back to the hitchhiking issue I that's some sort of relation I I I think I can establish and I think like when you
34:43
hitchhike you are trying to you know to establish Social Links with with random people but then I feel that in in a very developed Society like the US where people have been how to say the people that the value of inter Independence has
34:59
been stressed over interdependence too much and much more than in Latin America for example or even in Europe and then I feel that when you are absolutely independent and you don't need help from your neighbors then also no one is
35:12
needing your help so then how do you uh um feel that you are needful for your community I think that we are losing that probably something happening here that some people just some people don't have the chance to show demonstrate their value to the community and this
35:28
kind of lead to like social anomi anomia yes anomi anomi anomi yes yeah and that no and that may be the case when you have someone climbing to the roof of a building and shooting people that's the best answer to the question I've heard
35:41
so far consider the South American nation of Chile now there's a semi- famous you might call it rivalry between Argentina and Chile and if you're hitchhiking in Chile I loveen in Chile actually it's a beautiful country a Chilean driver picks you up do you in
35:56
any way feel that rivalry when you connect with him and he learns you're from Argentina hears that you're from Argentina or is that just not at all present no actually no first I love hhen in Chile it has a very low waiting time
36:09
as well they no this rarely actually it never happened H people are really really like I remember being in a in a hiking some kind of hiking uh refuge in deep in the mountains in Chile but there was a road and then a truck came and
36:24
Laura and I were camping inside this little hot and the truck driver stopped and gave us they took like a cooking kitchen and started cooking food for us because we had been you know under the rain for like a couple of days now people I I I really had nice experiences
36:39
in in Chile but even if you we are talking about supposed rivalries I once got a ride with a guy that was from the madinas or Fon Islands the guy used to be the coach of the soccer team of the malvinas of the Fons and the interesting
36:55
thing was like you know okay it's the first time I see a guy from the madinas in in person we are supposed to what kill each other or and then he was also like oh Argentina okay like what do we do now we were in a car we were in
37:07
Britain and so the first thing say hey would you would you enjoy would you have a pine yeah let's go we stop the car we drink you know we drink our problems away you know it was a a way of healing individually the problems of our countries and I like that where is the
37:22
food the best food I actually like lot like in the balcans where people because I like the balans because it's Europe but it has a lot of Ottoman influence which means they are like having fresh ingredients in their food is like you
37:38
know a priority for them you know the the way they have this breakfast with olive and er This Yogurt but naturally processed yogurts and so I I like that because you you know nowadays you have like genetically modified food everything you can get in the store is
37:54
like poison and stuff like that and I I like this Middle Point that like Bulgaria and Albania Macedonia is for me the best food in the balansia yeah not far from there definitely all the region I think Romania definitely yeah I like
38:07
that which country has the most beautiful women okay I should go for Lithuania the most beautiful men I don't have an opinion for that okay the knowledge one gains from travel it's very strong it's it's far-reaching it makes one more Cosmopolitan maybe
38:24
instills some wisdom in US but what biases does it bring to us just as people who don't travel have biases if you've traveled a lot what biases are you likely to end up with that you need to guard against precisely because
38:36
you've traveled so much let's say um it's hard question to answer actually like B is like something you are conditioned by your trip you mean and then you kind of things you take for granted let's say you start taking new things for granted probably yeah that's
38:49
the thing probably when you you know you just go to a country and the people are just ticking off you know the bucket list things to like s seen and you know probably I've seen like 100 Buddhist temples already and ruins and that so
39:02
yeah I feel that that makes me Focus much more on very very specific things or on people and not on like sit scene and stuff like that but uh that as a traveler I mean but in other areas I couldn't Recall now probably there are but do you think travel makes people
39:19
more conservative I don't mean that in the political sense of any party but conservative in the literal adjectival sense that youve seen many different ways of life you see that in different ways they can work or many people can be
39:31
happy within them and tolerance is one half of that but a kind of conservatism or acceptance is another part you think that's a bias of travel a benefit of travel not the case you mean like uh if you okay you have seen like um a lot of
39:46
countries in which people are striving to get a to to make a living and then you mean that that would um cause you to accept that that you've seen the possibility that that people can be happy in many different settings yeah I think that definitely makes you stronger
40:02
stronger in the sense that it helps you to to be happier with less I think and also it helps you to not take for granted what you have at home because when we were in Africa the last year and then Noah had had a tap on his house
40:15
where they would just you know switch it and have running water they would have to walk to the next Little River you know normally was a women doing that and they would have to walk like one mile to get know big full load full of water to
40:28
their house and we all have taps with running water so it really helps you not to take things for granted while preparing for this talk I looked up quotations about travel I like to do that okay and I was shocked at how ordinary or or banal all of them were oh
40:44
travel opens your horizons travel makes you a new person arguably true but they seem so TR and uninteresting so I guess a question I have for you is what is it about travel that no one else will tell us what is it about trouble that no
40:58
getting past the tri in the banal which may well be true what will no one else tell us I think the the problem is that traveling know and even our role as bloggers has fallen for some people only into you know promoting destinations and
41:12
you fall into the touristic aspect of it while I try to to enhance and and stress like the way travel can change the way you relate to the whole planet and this has also like a responsibility because you know the way the more the more you
41:29
travel and the more you get out of the abstract tax and the more you're able to relate to real people then you start feeling empathy for real people from Colombia Albania Iraq wherever and then you are less prone to subscribe to any
41:43
or to vote to the BR government in your home country which is then going to declare war or sanctions on these countries or so I think uh traveling has this little you know twist that can make you a more aware person and then you have this responsibility of transmitting
41:58
this at home and in your at whatever in your own levels of influence so I think that's the most interesting potential traveling has if you're going to visit a new country or region where you've never been other than simply going what kind
42:13
of preparation do you do in advance yeah the fact that I HCK doesn't mean that I leave everything at random so people sometimes tend to think that I will just land there and start hitchiking randomly in any direction which is not the case
42:25
which so let's say I always travel by hitchhiking that's like a rule but of course I always read a lot about the country about it history and I try to identify regions regions that will that have like um their own identity within
42:39
that country because that's normally the case like if you go to Ethiopia and then you have like the omo valy and then you have like the highlands and everything changes between each region so I try to read a lot of history about the country
42:50
but then I would stick to my like um standard approach which is choosing small roads minor roads and visiting random towns along them and that would be like my average strategy of trying to to get to the stories and to the people now in two weeks I'm going
43:06
to Ethiopia for 11 days given that you've been there and done some research what advice or tips would you give me for my trip for Ethiopia and for 11 days 11 days so I'll have some time not enough time to go around the whole
43:19
country but I think I would definitely stick to the north which is like the the place where you have like gondar which is like the it would used to be the Imperial seat of power of the of the kings of the Emperors of the Ethiopian
43:31
Emperors I would go to gond to see the castles yes and to understand all this history and linage of the Ethiopian Empire I would definitely put lella you know the the the rock carved churches the underground churches of laiva which is something amazing you know that
43:49
should you should actually be there in a Sunday because then you can even doesn't matter your religious position you should go and um witness a a mass service there yeah I think libella gond the monasteries in bardar yes and
44:03
conceptually what should I understand about the country and its cultures that maybe I don't know right now never having been oh get ready get ready for Ethiopia it has been one of the most difficult countries for me to heack but if you're going to be
44:16
there 11 days and if you will be will have some things already organized I will use plane tickets rather than theing just so you okay so then you will not be hit so much but you will be hit hit by what people is people in Ethiopia
44:30
uh you know it's this not so huge country with 90 million people it's a bit crowded and I felt that they had a history I mean Ethiopian is a very interesting case because they combine the proud of an Empire I mean they're so proud the Empire has never been beaten
44:46
or Conquest just leaving aside six hours of Italian presence during the second world war but besides that they had never been conquered and they have their proud is like so much there up you know when we went to Kenya after Ethiopia and
44:58
we were telling Ethiopians our next step they said oh you're going to Africa oh they're so different from us you know like we are Ethiopians and then consider themselves like a different linage uh so you should be ready for that in contradiction with all the
45:12
poverty they have so it's like this mix of so you know stou proud people with a very very challenging PR they're not able to to identify it I have a few questions about Argentina if I may yeah the elites of ARA wealthy Highly Educated people do they understand their
45:29
own country or are they insulated and removed from it no no I think they are uh they understand but that doesn't mean that they can feel empathy for them or that they want to do something to improve it I mean of course they know
45:42
who are they governing you know but they are so far away from it our country is an interesting case in Latin America because it's like composed of a high percent percentage of people who descends from European migrations yes
45:56
same scenarios in the United States I mean probably if you were European in the 19th century and you wanted to immigrate your choices were New York or when airus you didn't have the most probably place would it would be those probably Australia as well but in the
46:11
rest of Latin America H so that made Argentina very complex demographically speaking so then we have a lot of like provinces which are far like a world away from the standard of living of wos Cirus like you know the North and the
46:24
far north and definitely our Elites just don't get there and that's the areas of the country where development never reaches there why is Argentina today not as wealthy as Australia as you probably know it was in the 1920s yeah yeah it
46:38
was it used to be like in the top 10 richest countries in the world and that's actually what my grand grandparents no actually my grandparents went there in the 1920s like I still have the the the ship ticket the steamship ticket in where did they leave
46:52
from Italy what part they came from Sicily okay but normally would take the ship from Genoa which is like the standard place where you would Bard the ship and um actually my family is half Italian the same as most like probably
47:05
50% of people in Argentina that's like the average case ah sorry your question was why we're not as rich as Australia yeah I think there was a turn in the I mean in in our history somewhere in the late 60s s yeah well the military governments really had a economic agenda
47:25
which was not set but by our own people but by by International entities you know such as the IMF and the world bank so I think we owe a a big deal to that for like changing the the tithe to what extent do you understand Argentina as
47:42
being a kind of Italian country or offshoot rather than Hispanic in the sense that we might consider much of the rest of Latin America I think the richness of the country relies on actually on the complexity because you couldn't say Argent is an European
47:56
country we have a uh an important percentage of the population who descends from Europeans but we all the people these people also mixed with the original inhabitants of our land you know I think it happened similarly in the US in the way that you also had your
48:13
original people living here which were gradually moved West and well then you know it happened with us in Argentina the same that happened here most of their culture was erased but those who stay they you know the they they combined and they made the
48:29
society we have today so it's definitely a mix and it's not like a European country though some people like to see that as oh we are a elite we are different we are better we're we're just different but we're not better you know
48:41
are you optimistic about Argentina I think we have survived so many crisis that I think we still have the the wood for to to stand new actually now as we talk now there's a huge climate of uncertainty and the exchange rate with the dollar has switched like 10% in two
48:59
in two days but yeah this is May we're speaking and it fell about 10% last week for the listeners but you're you are optimistic I think I'm optimistic yeah in the in the long run but not in the present government we have now I'm not
49:12
optimistic at all about the present the government we have now are you optimistic about Pope Francis well the church hasn't really changed in like 2,000 years you know I think they just hold a romantic and symbolic position so I don't see they're
49:25
not fighting any battle I can ostensively see so I cannot be I don't know over what I have to be optimistic or not I just find it funny that we have a pope from our country but yeah who's your favorite author from Argentina and
49:40
why I like um two others actually which people tend to consider contradictory one is Julio gaser yes which I love uh especially oh how to translate Raja Hopscotch Hopscotch yes yeah you got one of my favorite novels yeah definitely I
49:57
love hops watch uh and the other writer is VES those are also my two favorites from your country yeah I like the way they you know they just compliment each other uh I like corta because he mixes like the intellectual game of briting with the very Bohemian sense of his
50:16
lifestyle in when he was in Paris so that probably inspire me a lot when taking the decision to live as a Wandering artist and if you had to tell a person who had traveled a lot understood something about the world but they had never been to Argentina before
50:32
and they had two weeks how would you outline the ideal trip through Argentina for them and what should they not miss other than the obvious so yes they go to Buenos artist they go to iguasu but what else yeah that's the thing everyone
50:44
wants sck list you know the bucket list so probably I would have the glaciers the perito Marino glazers in the South because Patagonia is a extensive Place full of wonderful scenarios but definitely you should at least uh eat an
50:58
Asado you know our barbecues yes which we call Asado that's like a typical Argentinian experience and where is that best in the country yeah you have to meet local friends and do it in a Sunday and um on a with local people I mean you
51:10
can't go to a you can go to a restaurant and ask for uh you know the best steak they can produce but you're going to just be seated there in the restaurant alone but there's a whole social ritual around preparing the the barbecue the
51:23
asado and that's something that we make you understand a lot of things about Argentinian culture you know people speaking about soccer results and so on politics and so yeah that should be something that shouldn't be missed and what's the best place to visit in the
51:36
north of Argentina in the north so definitely it's a I love the Northwest which is also the grounds in which randomly I happen to take the decision of becoming nomadic so it's salta Province yes in the in the Kaki valys H
51:50
that's where in 2002 I kind of had this insight and I said okay yeah I should do I should go for this you know you think of your own future for yourself what is that you're planning next okay you mean in the short term or like reti M so the
52:05
short term I think like I just keep doing what I'm doing now the as I said like so you will write more books and take more long trips that's uh something that is definitely going to happen I think like the next move is trying to H
52:20
make the books uh available in the US or in the UK because I feel that's uh a place where the books are necessary even more than in my home country because that's where decisions are being made and that's my whole concept of travel literature is to try to change
52:36
people views and have and make them have empathy and also affect the decisions they take in life so I would you know that would be like my next big challenge to to get published in the us but as a as regards lifestyle I think I will
52:52
continue making long trips and Publishing books uh that for sure yeah and in the longer term what is next for you in the longer term I think it's it's h you know that when I made this decision of traveling uh for life one of the things I was
53:07
afraid was of course this economic stability yes people were asking me okay but what what are you going to do in the long run okay you can do this because you're young but what are you going to do with a when you are 40 and the things
53:17
I'm already 40 but they were asking me this when I was 20 and they were forecasting oh when you're 30 you are going to understand you should have kids and this and then I I turned 30 and now I turn 40 and I keep doing the same stuff I think Oscar wild say that the
53:30
only way not to H not to get old was to continue repeating the same mistakes so he would be proud of me but when I took this decision I kind of Imagine okay what's the worst possible scenario what can the worst happen to me and in that
53:47
time my books were not like they now they were handmade photocopy books just a bunch of A4 size paper uh papers stapled together and I would sell them around in bars and hostels and I would I just decided okay if it cannot get worse
54:01
than that I mean if the worst possible scenario I would be like a old hippie um going around soueast Asia um sharing inspiration with the younger Travelers and making a living out of it welcome I mean I could go for that it will look
54:15
nice in my biography so after that then I never again had like a you know um fears of the future of retirement obviously you're managing to persist as it is but do you ever think how your business model might evolve over time it evolved a lot already actually tell us
54:30
so as I said this started as um um photocopy books just like 50 to 100 Pages like when I uh published well publish is a very generous word for going to a photocopy place and ordering 50 copies of it's all publishing we write blogs right everything is
54:46
publishing so when I first brought the book I had just finished my two-year trips from Ireland across Middle East and Afghanistan and I arrived to Southeast Asia I took a rest there I I made a pause and started writing the
54:58
book in the first format it was like 100 Pages photocopy book and I would walk around the streets of Bangkok and the beaches in Thailand to sell it to other Travelers and when I came back to Argentina I decided to try to get it published properly so the first thing I
55:13
did was like expanding the book to like a 200 Pages uh go to a print in place so it wasn't photocopied anymore but I was still like you know self-publishing and selling it in person and then like over the time so I was invited to a book fair
55:29
with my own self-published books and I managed like to to to sell a lot of books because I was H they had there was a bookstore that had allow me little space and I was uh with my backpack and a big world map showing my route and it
55:44
was very curious you know and I had my Afghan head with me so the first thing people would see when they enter the book fair was this weird guy with an Afghan hat and a backpack selling these little books so it was a success and
55:55
then the big publishing houses from wenos Iris say noticed that okay which was the bestselling book in Mar Plata's book fair what's this he hiking de of evil who is this guy I mean he this doesn't even have publisher so then I I
56:08
was published by Theo extremo and RBI publishing houses in Argentina and Spain respectively and I stayed with only seven years but during those seven years social media really changed you know H the way artists can promote their products so in Argentina at least I
56:26
decided to even though I had contracts to publish my second book which was Caminos invisi or invisible Roots even though I had offers laa and I decided to to self-publish it because people could directly ask the book from us so we we didn't need a
56:41
middleman that is effective from for a like a middle siiz market like Argentina but probably wouldn't be the case like in the US or the UK or countries which are not like my stronghold for followers or but uh that that really changed a lot like
56:57
really the decision of switching from published books with a large Publishing House to self-publishing through social media afforded us to have like a better um standard of living that was definitely the case but now it's again the term of finding a partner in a
57:14
publishing house if we want to expand to New Markets could you imagine doing a big long trip through the United States and maybe Canada or is that logistically too difficult and too expensive because hitchhiking was much more popular here
57:25
say in the 1960s than it is today no I think would would be it would be definitely possible like uh people tend to think which is normal of course that the most the more expensive a country is then the most difficult or expensive it would be to travel there but the
57:40
interesting thing is that H for example in a country like Norway which is probably even more expensive than the US sure much more yeah I think I have there I have my record I only spent $30 in 22 days because I think also in this kind
57:54
of count countries um first of all like food in supermarkets is never expensive and then you normally always receive help from people and people also because they have hitchhike before or they have heard about it so it's not it's not even
58:08
necessarily related with the fact that they still heik or not because no no one else is hitchhiking nowadays you know like in Norway or or even here even though here it's part of the culture let's say in the 60s but no I think it
58:21
would be definitely be doable and after you leave here Arlington Virginia what is your very next country other than Argentina okay so my next plan trip you mean yes I think in the long well not long term but next year we want to go
58:35
back to Africa because we really we really love Africa where Tanzania yes yeah that was the place but I think now I would like to do there's a trip I would like to do to a place called kingra which is a Russian exclave in the mainland Europe kbur it used to be
58:52
called in German it's where lived for C exactly I've always wanted to go there exactly it's on my list and what I want to do is actually to get 19th century maps in order to go from like Berlin to kbur or kaliningrad following the road
59:06
of old towns which used to have German names but now they have Lithuanian polish or Russian names yes and to see what is left from that time I have seen there are like ruined palaces and ruined Lutheran Churches so I want to check that out and and I want to play with
59:19
this thing of traveling with a 19th century map that sounds wonderful my very last question totally obscure but tell me why should I visit Suriname I've long been curious but what exactly is there that I will find of Interest suram
59:32
you've been there I haven't I said at the beginning I envy you and that's one reason why okay so soram is a must I think for any person who feels who wants to explore a present destination uh I mean if you want to explore a place in
59:46
nowadays world everything is exploring but Surinam is a place first of all people in South America don't even know anything about Surinam you know and the amazing thing is like they have they are probably the only Hindu country in South
59:59
America like a huge percentage of their population descends from people who were brought as a cheap labor force from either Java by the Dutch or by the British from from India so um so the people from from from India they brought their religion with them some of them
1:00:17
are Muslim but some of them are also Hindu so you are traveling in in on the main road in Surinam and you would see 20 ft tall statue of Shiva you know and then you will right to a town and people are eating having um um Japanese Japanese food so it's a definitely
1:00:33
Melting Pot of places that you wouldn't expect in South America again I'm with Juan Pablo vigarino or Juan Pablo varino he's the author of four books most notably hitchhiking in the axis of Evil Juan Pablo thank you very much we all
1:00:48
look forward to much more from you in the future thanks a lot Tyler for the opportunity and yeah just last words for the audience you know every dream is given to you with the power to make it come true so go for it thanks for listening to conversations
1:01:05
with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the [Music] show