Around the world... on a bicycle
CHRISTINE MACHADO
PANAJI
Hernani Cardoso is enjoying the peaceful atmosphere that is becoming of Goa. From eating Goan food at the beach, drinking port wine made in India and admiring the beautiful Indo-Portuguese architecture of the State, the Portuguese national is making the most of his stopover in Goa.
Having traversed 31 countries since he began this unique adventure in May last year, Cardoso will then proceed to Daman and onwards to Bangladesh, Myanmar and beyond...all of this on a bicycle.
A former military man, Cardoso's earliest tryst with cycles began as an eight-year-old in Luanda, Angola were he lived. And even after he returned to Portugal, the fascination never truly went away.
“In Porto there was a famous book shop where I saw magazines with pictures of people traveling on their bicycles. After that I started collecting maps from local embassies and planning out routes,” recalls Cardoso. He decided to take this love affair to the next level following his divorce, cycling to all his vacation spots including Salzburg in Austria and Varna, Bulgaria.
Following his retirement from the Air Force, Cardoso decided to pursue his childhood dream of undertaking a world tour and visited places where the Portuguese had made their presence felt in early history. But a chance incident with Chinese cyclist Eric Feng altered the plan a bit. Feng was on his cycle tour from China to Portugal to honour a Chinese navigator when his bicycle was stolen in Lisbon. Cardoso got to know about it through the common social network that they were on and lent a helping hand to his Chinese friend.
“Before meeting Eric, my plan was to start from Guimaraes and cycle to Lisbon from where I
would fly to Buenos Aires and cycle north from there along the Brasilian coast to Venezuela and San Francisco,” says Cardoso. “ When Eric's bicycle was found by the Portuguese police, we were talking about how to ship it back to Kunming, in China. Although it wasn't an expensive one, it had sentimental value. So I decided to change my plans and ride the same cycle east to deliver it in person to Eric.”
Starting from Portugal, Cardoso went on to Spain, Morroco, France, Bosnia, Greece, etc, before making his way to India from Sri Lanka. And Cardoso admits that the journey hasn't always been easy. “ It demands a lot from you both physical and mentally, and if you are traveling alone, as in
my case, it is very demanding because you have to keep your will power always strong,” he shares. “ There are times when I feel lonely especially when having dinner in a restaurant with families all around but it is all part of the adventure and at the same time you meet and make a lot of friends along the way. There is no way back, just the way that goes in front of you and will stop where it all began.”
And getting to know a new place is definitely better while on a cycle, he asserts. “You travel through the countryside and get to experience the kindness of people who invite you to join them for a meal or even give you a place to sleep. By plane, you just arrive in one place and you have X days to see it and then you're back to your country. What was your experience? Well you flew, spent money and you go back home with the same pictures that everyone has,” he says.
Indeed, Cardoso has had a lot of memorable experiences along the way like finding himself a part of an Iranian TV series about foreign travellers in Iran and becoming a star on Kerala TV and newspapers.
And he's looking to have many more. “People think I'm crazy to be cycling around the world at the age of 54. I have friends who are in their 40s and feel old already,” he chuckles. “But I believe that you only get old if you want to.”
