The Challenge
The biggest challenge would be writing a travel book.
When we returned from a road trip to Alaska in the early 2000s, we began writing about our “adventure.” It wasn’t our first trip, but it had been our longest. We thought about what to cover and who the book would be for. It was a very rich subject and material, and the focus could be motivational or behavioral, or a travel guide and tips, among other topics. Faced with this indecision, we decided to create a website that remained online for many years.
This website not only told about this trip, but also about others, which resulted in invitations to lectures, interviews, TV shows and, sometimes, we were the center of attention at parties and gatherings of friends, and friends of friends. Everyone wanted to know more about the trips and, especially, about our “Alaska Expedition 2001”.
We told and retold stories countless times. Then, we realized that people liked the “stories”, hardships and funny stories along the way.
People laughed a lot at the story of the gas station attendant who, seeing the car covered in stickers, became thoughtful and asked: “- Are you really going to Alaska?” We were relieved, because when we said we were going to Alaska by car, many people doubted it or didn’t understand the information. After all, who would go to Alaska by car? But this time, it was different. We happily answered: “Yes, we are going to Alaska.” Then came another question from the gas station attendant: “- And what time will you get there?”
This and other stories are very present in our memory, with a wealth of details. Telling and retelling these “stories” is like traveling again. That’s why we decided to travel again, in these stories and take other people on a journey with us.
We have no literary, artistic or even financial pretensions in publishing this text-story, but we would like people to be able to feel what we feel, even if it means calling us “crazy”.
Giving travel tips can be very dangerous because what is a great trip for us can be a big embarrassment for other people. We are nomads and we go wherever our nose points. We have some quirks. Since 2013, we have decided to travel on foot.
It all started when we decided to do the Portuguese Way to Santiago de Compostela, starting from Porto. It had been an old idea, but another trip always came up. Finally, in September of that year, we decided to walk. It would be 10 days (240 km), but the agreement was that we could stop at any time. We didn't stop and six months later we walked the French Way (930 km), starting from San-Jean-Pied-de-Port and to this day we haven't been able to stop.
Then came the question: where to start telling these stories? We thought about telling random stories, but we were afraid that it would become a mess in the reader's mind. Mixing walking trips with road trips, or desert trips with camping in Africa wouldn't work. We thought it would be logical, but our trips don't make much sense. After all, we've been traveling our way for more than four decades.
Finally, the idea came to start with the longest trip. And, as we intend to continue traveling and feeding these stories, the other stories follow in a non-chronological sequence that can be read according to the reader's wishes. After all, this is a text-report of “never-ending stories...”. Thus, what we are going to tell is divided into parts.
In the first part, Alaska Expedition 2001, we will travel 410 days over 73 thousand kilometers and through 16 countries. We will cross 27 borders, with a lot of bureaucracy, which required a lot of patience and a sense of humor in 42 degrees Celsius heat and 25 degrees Celsius cold. We will pass through closed roads, collapsed bridges, rain in the desert, river crossings and unexpected encounters with bears. Finally, we will talk about our new friends and the immense happiness of having fulfilled a dream.
In the second part, Putting our feet in the World, we will tell you about our travels around the world, without forgetting that we had previously traveled almost all over Brazil. It was important to see our Brazil with our own eyes, so that we could then tell the stories of our country to people here and to people from around the world.
There are also many stories from abroad. Our debut was in Peru, then we flew higher and went to Europe. We got a taste for it and went to Canada, the United States, Greece, Egypt, Israel. We wanted more and traveled to the other side of the world, India, Nepal, Hong Kong and Macau. Then we decided to travel around southern Africa camping. There were many emotions in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia.
For our 25th wedding anniversary, we decided to do something different. We chose to spend the day on Mount Roraima, but a change of direction took us to the Amazon Rainforest. An off-road trip in our country would be a good idea, that's what we thought when we traveled to Chapada Diamantina. And an expedition to the end of the world? That also sounded great, because it was there, at the “End of the World,” that we decided to see the other end, the “Top of the World.”
The third part, Walking Around, will be the time to tell our adventures along the paths we have walked. We will start with the paths that lead to Santiago de Compostela. The first was the Central Portuguese Way, followed by the French Way, the Northern Way, the Primitive Way, the Sanabrês Way and the English Way. We learned about the Rota Vicentina/Trilho dos Pescadores, on the Alentejo and Algarve coasts in Portugal. And off we went. As we walked, we discovered other beautiful routes, including Le Puy, in France, which we also checked out. After that, we went walking in Italy. First, on the central part of the Via Francigena, from the Aosta Valley to Rome. We did the difficult Camino de Santo Antônio, followed by the Camino de São Francisco.
During the pandemic, we had to cancel a planned route, the Via Francigena Nord, ten days in advance. This route, which starts in Canterbury (England), runs through part of France and Switzerland, reaching the Aosta Valley, from where we set off in 2018 to Rome.
Once the pandemic period was over, due to the health regulations in each of the countries mentioned on the Via Francigena Nord, we were unable to resume this idea at that time, and we chose Sicily as our destination. So, we walked the Via Francigena Magna and then followed the Camino through the mountains, from Palermo to Messina, under the strong Sicilian sun.
The latter was a technical and tough route, made worse by the dry climate, influenced by Africa not far away. Common sense, after some “heat stress”, led us to stop a little before completing our journey, which left us wanting more and remembering the beautiful Sicilian landscapes.
And finally, in 2023 we will complete the Francigena Nord, aborted in 2019 due to Covid. But we certainly won't stop there, there have been and will be other routes to follow, such as, for example, the Alpe-Adria-Trail which, due to "technical" problems, we will only walk part of Slovenia and Italy in 2024.
Without further ado, we hope that this is an entertaining read and that you will embark on these stories with us. And as an added bonus, we will be happy if we can show, through our stories, that even if dreams are complicated and outlandish, they can and should still be lived. Enjoy your trip!
Click the link below to download the E-book
This E-book is available in Portuguese. We will notify you as soon as it is translated