It's 59 countries and counting for an Argentinian bicycle traveler who has been on the road for some nine years.
Pablo Garcia, 35, is riding his heavily laden bicycle around the Middle East now, recently making headlines on his arrival in Qatar. He already has bicycled through South America, Africa and Europe.
Bicycling more than 44,000 miles so far, Garcia has said:
“The crux of the trip is to transmit a message of tolerance and respect. We need to respect each other, different cultures, and to live together in peace.”
The stories he writes on his website — Around the World on a Bicycle — reflect that view. Reading through some of his adventures, you can tell he's trying to explain some of the historical and cultural underpinnings of the countries that he's visiting.
Under “trip notes,” he tells about all the countries that he's visited. In the past couple of years he has visited Israel, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Iran, Kuwait and Bahrain.
In Iran, for instance, his wish to travel by bicycle brought a lot of official paranoia, but merely curiousity from others. He nearly ran afoul of some drug smugglers but was often welcomed in private homes.
I remember writing about Garcia more than two years ago when he was travelling with his bride, a Italian archeologist whom he had met while bike touring around the Mediterranean.
I always wondered how that would turn out.
Suffice to say he's travelling alone now. As he writes about taking off for Bosnia-Herzegovina:
“After two years of living together with Clara, we had to separate. We didn’t want to do it, but we believed that the best option was to stop of travelling together, at least for a time. So, downcast as never I was, I left Italy.”
The Peninsula Qatar reports that he's got quite a few major sponsors, including a hotel chain and a local cycling federation.
He' still carrying about 120 pounds on his 24-speed Halley bicycle, and he still plans to continue through Asia and Australia over the next four years.
I hope it's not such a long time until I run across his trail again.
Photo above from his website Around the World on a Bicycle.
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