A new beginning

Translation courtesy of Cintia Verónica Ortiz

35 days in the first world

I was born, raised and lived until I was 28 years old in a country called “developing country”, a political and hypocrite concept recently created by economists of rich countries when referring basically to the third world. I am a third-world citizen from Argentina and have spent most of my life in South American and Asian developing countries, that is why every time I visit the so nobly called “first world” is when I most feel what is known as “culture shock”, the opposite effect of what many first world inhabitants experience when they are horrified after landing in an unknown poor country. After travelling in Africa for several months, the shock is even stronger, the first world where everything is in order, clean and civilized (at least on the surface) is the one I really find exotic.

In the ring of fire

 With such limited time as 4 months to visit Indonesia, the last place in the country where I would have spent at least one second is in Bali. The mere idea of going there gave me chills. It is for this reason then, that destiny put the nearest bike shop where to buy and replace the broken component of my bike, where? Precisely, in Bali. So from Labuanbajo, we took the Bukit Tilongkabila, heading to Denpasar, the island's capital. Those were the last 32 hours that we would have to spend on a PELNI on this journey and like all previous times, it was a PELNI experience like the one described in the previous posts. Getting off at the port of Denpasar, was like getting off in another country. If ever in history, Bali was a paradise, now certainly it is almost impossible to imagine. Our stay was limited to going from the port to the bike shop, and from the bike shop, we cycled 140 km west to cross to Java. We minimized this nuisance to just 10 hours only. Shortly after midnight, we were already disembarking in Banyuwangi, Java. It was time to go up to see the Earth breathing.