Alessia Piperno told by Alessia Piperno
The 30-year-old Alessia Piperno, arrested in Tehran for still unclear reasons and traveling for 6 years, a couple of years after her departure from Italy told herself this to the blog Mangia, Vivi, Viaggia
Alessia Piperno, the 30-year-old Italian arrested in Iran in the past few hours, had been in Tehran for two and a half months. Originally from Rome, she started traveling when she was 24: first Australia, then Samoa, Iceland, India, Pakistan and finally Iran. “It seems like yesterday when I loaded my first backpack on my shoulders, to reach the land of my dreams, Australia. I promised myself that at 30 I would have stopped, and now I have come to this day and I ask myself “am I ready to stop?”. No, not at all ”, wrote the woman in a post on her Instagram profile 'travel.adventure.freedom' just 5 days ago, announcing that she would soon return to Pakistan to fulfill“ a dream ready in the head and in the heart. Rebuilding a village ”. In the profile Alessia tells the last years dedicated to the discovery of the world. “These years have been the most beautiful of my life, the most lived, where I learned and unlearned so much, where I met wonderful peoples and friends, and where I discovered the true beauty of our planet. The world and its people have given me more than I could wish for, day after day, year after year ”. And precisely in Iran, where protests and violent repressions have been going on for days, Alessia wrote on 27 September that “here people are tired of being a puppet, that's why thousands of people are taking to the streets to protest. They are demonstrating for their freedom. Women, men, adolescents and the elderly. And every one of them, every single person, risks his own life when he goes on the streets ”. ( Adnkronos )
Alessia Piperno a couple of years after her departure from Italy told herself to the blog Mangia, Vivi, Viaggia:
“I've always loved traveling. But honestly, that wasn't the reason that prompted me to leave. I was living the classic monotonous life made up of work, boy, a few outings with friends and then again work, work, work… I decided to leave first of all because I wanted to try something different “.
“I decided to travel also because I wanted to face that fear that we all have a bit: loneliness. I wanted not to be afraid of being alone, I wanted to raise my self-esteem and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it in any situation. In the end, I really did: in September 2016 I left alone with a one-way ticket to Melbourne “.
“I lived for the first six months in a hostel. Obviously my goal was to keep myself traveling, so I looked for work and found it in a hotel. Living in a hostel, I spent little and was able to save some money. After six months I left for the famous farms , the farms. If you want to renew your visa, in fact, you have to spend about three months on a farm . It was right there, far from the big cities and surrounded by nature, that the great challenge with myself really began “.
“It took me three months to renew my visa but in the end I worked in the farms for 6 months. I harvested potatoes, apples, ginger, watermelons, strawberries and peaches, but I also did a cowgirl in a cattle station , a large farm. Although it was quite difficult at times, I will always remember it as one of the experiences that have enriched me most in life “.
“After the farms I bought a car, a 1998 Honda, which allowed me to travel all over the coast of Australia and in the most remote areas. I fell madly in love with those places, despite the challenging moments. During my outback trip, I broke the clutch on my car, and got stuck in the middle of the desert. I was rescued by a cowboy family who hosted me in their home for a week ”.
“I had to spend a lot of money to fix the car, so I started cutting all the expenses. From that day on I started sleeping every night in the tent to avoid spending money on hostels, I ate cans of tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is no coincidence that now the smell of tuna alone makes me feel bad! But it was a crazy journey ”.
“I had just finished my first Working Holiday Visa in Australia, I lived in Brisbane and worked in a restaurant. But in the morning, when I got up, I asked myself 'did I really come to the other side of the world to lead the same life I could have in Italy?' It was not a time when I felt particularly happy, quite the opposite.
But there was one thing that always put me in a good mood: the chef “.
“He was a 40-year-old, chubby man with long black hair, and every time he cooked… he danced to the music that only played in his ears. He was always happy and smiling, he was radiant and gave me joy even on the darkest days. The chef was from Samoa and one day he said to me: 'In Samoa we are always happy'. After a few days I quit my job and bought a ticket to Samoa. It was a very instinctive choice, but I knew that I wanted to surround myself with positive people like him for a while ”.
“Samoa stole my heart as soon as I landed, a series of events made my journey intense right from the start. It's a pristine land, where locals are super interested in meeting passing travelers. Mass tourism hasn't arrived yet, people are super hospitable. I traveled around the two main islands for the first month of my stay, there is a nature to take your breath away ".
“A fisherman left me on the small atoll and I began to venture inside. There were no roads, I had to move the large banana leaves to make room for walking. There were 217 inhabitants on the island and I discovered that there were no cars, money, shops, cell phones, televisions and so on. There is still barter. To occupy the time, I taught in the island school in the mornings. I fell in love with the children, who didn't speak English but somehow always managed to communicate. And in the afternoon they always came to see me at home, sometimes it was impossible to be alone. They had no games but I will always remember them as the happiest children in the world “.
“I went back to Australia for another year. I worked. Much. I was still hungry for the world and wanted to know and explore other places. When my visa in Australia expired, I moved to Indonesia for a month, where I had the best dives of my life. Then I went to India, where I stayed for two months ”.
“India was another land that stole my heart. I lived on a budget of 5 euros a day. I knew the less I spent the longer my journey would be. I slept at the homes of the people I met, I only ate street food and I traveled on night buses to enjoy every day. I met the Dalai Lama and attended his lessons while sleeping in a community of Tibetan monks in a small town surrounded by the Himalayas. I have heard stories and got lost in the stories of those I met on the street. Then, with my last 400 euros, I went to Sri Lanka for a month. I rented a moped and went around the island, sleeping every night in a tent “.
Alessia then returned to Italy – we read on the blog – but this certainly did not mean stopping. And in fact, after a month it has already left, towards a completely different destination from those visited so far: Iceland.
“Initially here in Iceland I worked in a shark museum in a very remote area, there were only six people living in the town (and I was one of them!), But about two months ago I moved to Reykjavik, where I am currently. I have two full time jobs: I work as a waitress in a Michelin restaurant for about 40 hours a week and for another 40 hours I work in the kitchen in a small bistro. Life here in Iceland doesn't excite me as much as Australia. It's different here, I don't feel much part of it. But it's a beautiful land and I don't give up, I keep looking straight at my goal “.
“After Iceland I see myself in South America or Africa. I still don't know, but I'm already dreaming! ”.
“If I look back on these two and a half years, I realize how much they have changed me. I have learned lessons that are not written in books. I learned to look at the world from a different perspective. I learned to know him and I discovered that the best part is the journeys that are made through people. They left me the most beautiful lesson, from the untouchable sitting on the ground in a dirty Delhi street to the head of a village on a small dispersed island in Samoa. I have learned that happiness is in the little things. And that when you travel you are never alone “.
“I understand that the world is your friend and if you need help there will always be someone to help you. The word fear is no longer part of my vocabulary today. I learned to trust myself, because I understood that, if I want, I can do anything “.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/alessia-piperno-raccontata-da-alessia-piperno/ on Mon, 03 Oct 2022 11:41:58 +0000.