Meet the girl!

I guess I have never stopped exploring, traveling, moving, asking & smiling.

I came up with the idea of Not Just a Tourist after traveling around ever since I am 16 & realizing that in the whole process of traveling something essential was missing. I have called that essential thing “the originality “. There was a need for a fresh approach and a more personalized as well as personal experience. The world out there was too big for me to make it a better place but I could make a little difference in my own town, Seville! So I started offering those non touristy “experiences” that I was lacking in my own travels for travelers coming to Seville.

This blog started when I finally discovered that backpacking was not my cup of tea as it would make me very dependent on the public transportation, cycling was too slow or hard for me, driving was just too expensive and Africa was closer to me than any other place or continent. The decision was kind of made for me: I decided to head for West Africa, but how? On a motorbike maybe?! Great idea but then I needed a motorbike, a driving license and a travel companion! It all went well, miraculously!

After the trip and having discovered the joy of writing, reading other overlander’s travel experiences, sharing our travel stories and more than anything exchanging valuable information I decided to keep on writing about my travels to make it a bit easier for overlanders to travel to those places that I have already been. Blogging became just another way of traveling, meeting people, sharing and exchanging.

So where is the rider part of me? Here you can see some fast facts about me:

First time I rode a bike? As a little girl sitting behind my cousins in the back of a motor cross bike going up and down the stairs. I still remember the excitement and I still cannot go up or down the stairs with the bike! 🙁 The day I learn it will be a big day for me.

First motor bike trip I did? In Cambodia, with no idea of how to ride a bike: I met a girl who told me her story about how she took the bike for the first time in her life. She just did it. Based on her experience I could do the same as long as I could go to a bike rental and take the bike without them see that I don’t have any experience at all! It worked out perfect- I went to a bike rental, rented a bike , pushed it carefully out of the shop and out of their sight and rode away. On my very first day on the 2 wheels I made it to the Vietnamese border cruising delighted and grateful along the Cambodian coast and its dream-like scenery. I couldn’t be happier and feeling more free. That was the beginning of a long lasting love story.

When I got my motor bike driving license? In 2011 and I have to admit- after failing 3 times in a row!

What I´m going to do next? My dream over the last few years was to do a road trip on the Pamir Highway but it was never really the perfect time for that. Till a couple of months ago that I got invited to Ethiopia by a friend and having a look at the map I found out that if I took a boat from Djibouti to Yemen, Oman or Emirates and then another one to Iran and then cross Turkmenistan and UzbekistanI´ll be pretty much very close to my long lasting dream: the Pamir! So this is the rough idea of what I´m going to be doing from December 2014 till July 2015.

What I´m going to miss most? My cozy bed, my cat, fast internet connection, a glass of red wine, high heels, getting dressed up, having a work out and a healthy routine!

 

Meet the bikes!

La Macu

My ever first bike, la Macu, was a big bike. A BMW 650F. I had happy times with it and am still amazed how strong the engine was. She carried the 2 of us fully loaded during our journey of 18000 km in West Africa. I shall say that the bike was the most reliable of all of us as both David, my travel mate and myself had almost no ideas about motorcycling. So choose well your bike!

 

 

 

My second long and adventurous trip was on a Kawasaki KLE 250, la Kawa! Yes and there were two of us again riding 4000 km in total on the same bike. Much to my surprise it was not that bad at all.

 

 

 

 

La ZU

And I´m already with my third bike, my dear travel companion, a powerful yet quite light Yamaha XT660R, called la Zu. I hope she can put up with all my mistakes along the road.