Werner Kropik, can you tell us how your passion for travel was born and what personal journeys led you to becoming a solo traveler?
My desire to travel isn't so much a passion as an innate curiosity. It's a way of exploring the world outside our comfort zone, which in certain situations pushes us to our limits, not just the physical ones. Traveling allows us to get to know ourselves, not just other countries and cultures. It also has to do with that desire for independence that every teenager feels. In fact, I took my first bike trip at 16, alone, without asking my parents' permission, with no money and little food from the pantry at home. I admire solo travelers, but over time I've preferred to live certain experiences in the company of a friend, even if the emotions experienced—both positive and negative—have diminished in intensity. Of the memories I have of some solo trips, only the magical moments remain, which prove precious, especially years later, when you can't go back and you understand the uniqueness of what you've done.
What is the spirit with which, in today's frenetic world, is it possible to rediscover a more authentic dimension of travel?
When traveling, there are always moments when you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" That's why you need a good reason to endure inconveniences that ultimately reveal a worldview that would otherwise be elusive. The likelihood of encountering unexpected situations increases considerably during an unorganized trip. Travel agencies plan everything: they tell you where you'll be on a given day, what you'll see, where you'll eat, and how many stars the hotel where I'd be spending the night has. During my travels, I never knew where I'd arrive in the evening, whether I'd have to spend the night in a tent in the desert or in one of those uncomfortable hostels, perhaps sharing with some rats. On my bike, I often had to repair the inner tube using acacia thorns and contend with tailwinds or headwinds, freezing temperatures or scorching heat. A thousand situations that you don't choose in advance, but for this reason it's a real journey, which forces you to adapt and gives you a thousand emotions, like the happiness when a truck driver takes pity on you and offers you some of his water after you've already finished yours hours ago."
During a journey, when one finds oneself alone with oneself, what are the most difficult moments to overcome and, conversely, the most intensely exhilarating?
There have been so many difficult, even risky, moments, but in the end, once overcome, I remember them fondly, and the moments of pure joy always win. During the Lugano-Hong Kong trip in 1994, I found myself with my friend, a guest, in a small farmer's farmhouse in Rajasthan: outside, only the silence of the night, the stars, and our companions' camels. Suddenly, we realized it was December 24th, Christmas Eve! We had nothing to celebrate, but we were happy and felt we had everything we needed to rejoice. The same thing happened at the end of the year: no sparkling wine, but so much happiness. These seemingly banalities were truly exhilarating for me. Just like walking along the Silk Road, retracing millennia of history that are still palpable, or listening to the music in the Sikh temples, where I truly entered a sort of spiritual trance that still gives me shivers when I think about it. I think that all you have to do is open your mind and the magical moments will come by themselves, transforming even difficulties into opportunities."
You have entrusted the book "A Life on the Road," edited by Paola Cerana, with the recounting of your experiences. How did the idea for this publication come about, and why would you recommend it?
"With a certain age—I'm 83—you feel the need to leave some trace of your experience, and despite having produced 300 documentaries, I felt the need to recount episodes of my life through words. Moments, sometimes embarrassing, that lay bare the nature of the human race, and if a reader of my book He'll discover himself in my stories, he'll definitely have fun, even without personally riding a bike to Hong Kong. The publisher himself, Fabio Casagrande, said he'd had a blast when he read the very first draft, and that was already a great satisfaction for me. I'd already written the first 40 pages years ago, but was promptly discouraged by a friend of mine, who believed—not without reason—that my Italian wasn't sufficient, being a native German speaker. Coincidentally, five years ago, I met journalist Paola Cerana on the summit of Monte Boglia, and after further meetings and long conversations, she offered to lend me a hand. And so it was, a beautiful friendship was born, crowned by this book. Today I know that without this chance—or perhaps predestined—meeting, those first 40 pages would have remained in a drawer and I would never have experienced the joy that the creative side of writing has given me. In these pages, I've renounced clichés and predictable things. After all, I could never tell a story I hadn't personally experienced. Today, as I leaf through it, I think of a book as a child: once born, it no longer belongs to its creator, but to the world. Therefore, I hope the stories told in this book can enrich the reader, and not just entertain.
After traveling the world on foot, by bicycle, on steam trains, and hitchhiking, what other slow means of transportation would you like to try?
After experiencing all the different ways of traveling, each with its own specific opportunities for experiencing the world, walking remains my ideal means. Even today, I walk to the banks of a small river in what I call "my secret valley"—in our beautiful Ticino—and I love identifying with a birch leaf swept downstream by the current, seeing my life in its casual destination. We are not the directors of our lives; at most, we are extras. Things happen. If we compare today's way of traveling—cell phone in hand—to the time I crossed all of Asia by land in 1962, without any information or GPS, I doubt that technology today can provide the same thrills of discovery, surprise, and unpredictability. The dust of dirt roads, the smell of steam locomotives, the waits to catch ships or trains. In Penang, I had to wait a month for the ferry to India, and in Zahedan, I had to wait a whole week for the train to Quetta. Who today would be willing to sacrifice weeks of their vacation to wait for a ferry? Then there were the contacts with family and friends, who were then only reachable through letters and endless waits. Today, everything is shared in real time via WhatsApp. We consider all this progress, but if we don't even know where we want to go, what's the point of progress? Few realize that with all this technological progress, we have also become extremely vulnerable, as the latest blackout in the South of France, Spain, and Portugal demonstrated. Everything has stopped. In that sense, I'm grateful to have seen the world still without electricity, paved roads, cell phones... even Afghanistan 60 years ago without the Taliban!
A fundamental component of the journey is the narrative of the journey itself. What tools do you typically use to recount your experiences?
I realized that our brains have a limited capacity to store all of our experiences, and for this reason I'm grateful to be able to consult my diaries. They, along with a huge archive of photographs and videos, are my memory. Just as a chef draws on these ingredients to prepare my documentaries, so they helped me collect the stories for "A Life on the Road." I still have a diary page with a muddy paw print from a dog that visited me in my tent one night of torrential rain. It erased what I'd written, but it imprinted that now-distant night in my memory.
Finally, what will be the destination of your next trip and why this choice?
In the summer, I don't feel the need to travel; I prefer to stay in Lugano and play tennis at the Campo Marzio Tennis Club, which I've been going to for over 60 years. In Ticino, we have a paradise right on our doorstep, a splendid natural setting. Spending a few days in the mountains, sleeping in a tent on the shores of an Alpine lake, makes me feel part of nature, which unfortunately suffers from human presence in vast regions of the world. In the winter, I'll probably visit Bangladesh again. A country that lives its poverty with incredible dignity. Who knows, maybe I'll tell about it in my next book.
