Valparaíso, 2 February 2020
One of the privileges of doing our job is to be able to tell the innermost thoughts of the people we meet.
We have been stationed for a couple of days in Valparaíso to prepare the vans and motorbikes for the long journey and decided to shoot the first interviews with the team. These first interviews are always the most difficult: the camera often intimidates and leaves one speechless. That is why we decided to set them up as a dialogue, where there is no embarrassment or expectation but only the desire to listen to what one wants to share with fellow travellers.
In turn, Egidio, Isabella, Marco, Dino, Veronica, Celestino, Davide, Valter, Norbert, Erhard, Eckart and Luigi came to visit us in the set we had arranged in the courtyard. A bench, a small table, a chair, and blue wooden beams as a backdrop. Gabriel sat opposite and started with a simple question: “…is this your first time in South America?“
Having broken the ice, the responses were many, but the most exciting part for me was when they all shared their expectations for this mission with us. Their motivations for embarking on it, the difficulties of leaving home and their final wishes for their fellow adventurers.
I would like this trip to make me feel out of place and leave me amazed, astonished and in love with this part of the world even more. To them, I wish to get lost along these routes, free themselves from the rhythms of accustomed normality, and find themselves in Lima with new skin.
It will be a privilege and an honour to travel with them – and tell their story – through one of the most fascinating lands in the world. And as Jonathan, our driver on the first day, told us, ‘In Chile, if you stand still and don’t see any mountains around you, it means you are on the mountain‘.
And it’s time to see some new ones.
