Alex, my fan, subdued by nostalgia, shows me an elegant case with postcards, airline tickets, telephone cards and city maps from different regions of the globe that he has collected during thirty years of traveling. “You know well that wandering throughout the world is poetry to me,” my long-time friend says.
The passion for peregrination has been with us since we were children, and it is in these longings that we find our desire to discover and learn about other cultures, peoples, traditions and religions. With each passing year, the distant corners of the world are coming closer and closer and traveling, which is an indispensable element of our lives, has never been as easy as it is today.
All this was interrupted by Covid-19, which, like an apocalypse, shook the horizons of civilization, throwing us into a makeshift and uncertain tomorrow, putting us at the era’s turning point, a kind of ice age, the zero year, deeply marking our lives. This contagious tsunami has sparked fear for our health, the workplace, and the future, saturating us with obsession, insecurity and frustration.
It is hard to imagine when this Sword of Damocles will disappear from over our heads. One thing is certain, this horror will not stop the deeply embedded in our genes incurable desire to explore the world.
Will voyaging be the same as in the past? No, it will definitely change. Throughout my life, I have witnessed radical changes, always not in favor of it, and the new trend will have little to do with the past.
Regardless of the threat of the virus and a number of pitfalls, such as canceled flights, closed borders, forced quarantines, lack of medical care, suspended visas, one’s impossible return to their country, or the requirements of a valid test or proof of vaccination for the coronavirus, there will certainly be no shortage of enthusiasts at risk of infection discovering exotic cultures, historical monuments, or lands once available only to brave explorers.
I follow these developments closely and just like others, armed with patience and caution, and a bit frustrated at the same time, look forward to a better scenario. My nostalgia is intensified by accidentally looking at photos of monstrous dunes in the Namib desert, hearing information about a new Indian tribe in the Amazon forest, getting a call from a friend from Ruwenzori, the last inaccessible corner of the Earth, or the useless Lufthansa, British Airways and KLM Gold cards that are in my wallet today.