1. Are you a hopeless, dishonest, disreputable person ?
I like to think not. Granted, my life can seem messy. And I don’t blame anyone for the list of questions I get:
What are you really doing? Are you ever going to settle down? Don’t you think about having children? Don’t you want to buy a house? How are you going to finance your retirement?
“You’re having fun now because you’re still young”
Hopefully you’ll make your mind through the posts.
2. Early life
I was born in San Fernando, Argentina. My father is Argentine and my mother is French. My brothers and I were raised in both languages, and went to a bilingual school.
When I turned 8 years old, for some mysterious reason, my parents sent me to France on my own to visit my grandmother. I didn’t really know my her and I don’t know her better now. But that summer 1998 she did something that changed my life forever.
She took me on a road trip around France in her van.
No school, no homework, no fighting with my brothers, no phone, no way to reach the rest of the family or friends. We slept wherever we felt comfortable; in forests, beaches, cities. Together, in the back of a van. Waking up with the first light, heating coffee (not for me though), starting the car and driving, then realizing we had no set destination. I remember trying to read the map, looking for villages or cities or a castle, anything that could be of interest. For a whole month that felt like years.
I came back a new person. I seemed to have found a way to control my anger, and the anxiety that used to consume me. My father started teaching me basic survival techniques and I would spend most of my time in the garden, close to nature.
Then we moved to France, this time all five of us.
That’s why I can’t tell you where I’m from. I’m from everywhere. I went to primary school in Argentina, high-school in France, started my university studies in France then moved to Cardiff and Edinburgh to finish them. Then I specialized in Applied Linguistics through a Spanish university and passed the orals in China.
Nothing is continuous in my life. I have nowhere to go back to, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m not (dangerously) crazy, I’m not depressive, I’m not a serial killer. I’m fine. I actually chose to life this way.
3. The blog:
Wandering Secrets is about my vision of travel. Go deep into the unknown, follow the locals, talk to them, go where they go. Enjoying what’s happening around me, moments people create with me. That’s the whole point of not traveling. Our job is to keep our eyes open and try to understand . Can we really understand a place if we don´t know its people?
This blog is my chance to combine my passions: travelling, writing and learning. Wandering Secrets is not a diary but a compilation of thoughts and anecdotes on cultural differences, short tales about what an outsider sees, tales about the wonders of the world, wonders buried under our daily pessimism.
Wandering Secrets wants to show you the world the way it is, good and bad, but above all, a happy place to live in, an incredible collection of natural and human wonders.
4. How do I live?
Many people ask us how we pay for all the “travels”. I work in a country, stay for a year, not to make money but to really live it the way it’s supposed to be lived; and off I go. To another place. I never know where.
The same way you have your routine, I have a job, hobbies, nights out and friends. It’s just that I change the setting every year. And in between two countries I backpack, and I stop somewhere when I get tired of it.
Sure, I have absolutely no interest in buying a new car or a house. We just use our meagre savings otherwise.
That’s how I do it for now. Although slowly, we’re changing our minds on our lifestyle and would like to take it up to another level.
Hope to read you soon!
