Peking to Paris 2016

 

Travel leaves you speechless,
then turns you into a narrator
(Ibn Battuta)

 

 

Polynesian proverb says: "There is a time to be a tree, there is a time to be pirogue". The tree, synonymous with roots and physical inactivity, can become the emblem of the movement. Surely, it can not be the opposite. But then, as we have become pirogues, what will become of us? Will we move for eternity?
No, definitely not for eternity, but 12th June 2016 we will be again in China, in front of the Great Wall, to the start of the fifth edition of the Beijing-Paris. We will be 113 teams from 26 different countries. With us, there will be six other Italian teams, five of them with the same kind of historic car: the legendary Alfa Romeo Giulia. So many premises for a historical event that we will tell - as usually - every day. Moreover, this time we decided to include in the pages of the diary a short daily video. The initial image (a collage with drawings by Altan) should have as its title "Chat stop". Of course, we need a modem to connect to the satellite phone, then Rita after she took the images, will edit them, and finally will post them. A great work which will add to the daily toil of the race, and which, especially in the eight days in Mongolia, will put a strain on everyone. Because we shall have to sleep in our tents, and for 10-12 hours a day we shall never release the tension to follow roads that - let us always remember  - mostly not there. We will have the advantage of experience, we will know what to expect and how to overcome many difficulties. After nothing of Mongolia, there will be lots of Siberia, the Urals and the Volga, Moscow. Eleven days before crossing the Soviet Confederation of Belarus, Poland, Slovakia. One rest day in Budapest, then Slovenia and finally we enter Italy in San Martino di Castrozza. We will face ten special stages in the Dolomites mountains before coming to Saint Moritz. Penultimate stage in Reims and triumphant arrival, on July 17th, in a place Vendôme closed to traffic and reserved for those crazy parties the Far East five weeks before.
We have no ambitions of placement, the only goal is to get to Paris happy and glad to have accumulated this other "extra life". As claimed by Gesualdo Bufalino, "traveling means to add life to life." And, with this criterion, the Pe-Pa 2016 will be another existence that the two of us, "rally drivers by chance," we lived together. Trying to share also this adventure with friends who will have a good will and the perseverance to follow us.