Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
Good evening everyone, as I told you, I'm Yanez Borella,
I come from Trentino
and always from there I left to go on a trip,
because I am a traveler, a dreamer
and because trips, for me, are also emotions
and they are also, above all, keys;
and I would like to know if they are keys to prejudice, sorry,
because that's what I basically did,
with these trips so many prejudices have been removed from me;
and so I wanted to tell you about these prejudices that have disappeared
with pictures, with pictures.
Now I'll show you a simple video and explain the journey,
so you understand where I went and in part what I saw.
And then I'll tell you the anecdotes that happened to me during the trip
where I overcame prejudices.
Meanwhile, the video.
(Video)
Here: this is more or less the journey.
And here's the first picture
which reminds me of the first prejudice I overcame.
Simply put, we were in Turkey,
on the bridge ridge, West Turkey.
We got here - from this girl right here -
we arrived in this small town, I think it was called Siran,
now exactly - yes, it was there, more or less yes.
And when we got there, there was obviously -
so many people came to see that we were there
to ask us a lot of things:
Where do you come from? Why are you there?
But we, in reality,
we just wanted to find a place to camp or sleep,
because it was starting to rain
and we also had a lot of equipment to put away, to cover,
everything;
so we said:
or we camp somewhere - but underwater is a problem -
or else we have to find a hotel or something.
And then the whole country came along,
in 20-25 minutes the whole country was there
they asked us questions, they encouraged us;
and they found us a place to sleep,
which was a hotel, more or less a hotel, nearby;
and so out of nowhere,
this little girl came here and said, "Why don't you come eat with us?"
And it was during the Ramadan period.
So, being a Christian, to arrive in a Muslim country
and be invited to Ramadan
I said to myself -
it seemed strange to me, because it's quite sacred
I mean, it's kind of important, it seemed a little exagerated;
but it was beautiful.
I found myself in the middle of everyone, eating all together,
we exchanged food and had fun in English,
both mine and theirs was clumpsy;
but we all had fun
and we celebrated this dinner, because you only eat once.
So it was beautiful.
It practically opened a world,
and removed, above all, a very great prejudice,
I came from a country, Italy, from Trentino,
I had a thousand ideas,
even Giacomo, the boy who was with me.
If we go somewhere, in a Muslim country,
we have seen images telling us
who knows what will happen, what won't happen.
Quite the opposite happened.
They invited us, and they made us comfortable,
and they have even given us food and a place to sleep
and they didn't ask us anything;
so it was a beautiful thing,
from that point of view it opened a world
and gave me courage and confidence, too.
Trust that we are confident that we are traveling somewhere,
I started having fun on the trip,
because in the beginning you're filled with doubts,
and you think you won't make it,
what's going to happen there,
that area there is more or less insecure;
instead, in the end we realized, precisely,
that the further we went on with the journey,
the more peaceful we were,
and the more people liked us as we were,
in fact we became almost idols for many
because they weren't used to seeing two guys
like this, with 100-kilos carts in the back,
with an electric bike that was in such a condition -
after 10,000 kilometers, you can imagine, the bike is not really looking good
so they were all like that
and people would cheer us up, stop us there, and give us what they had;
and so this was, shall we say, the first anecdote that struck me
precisely because it was quite emblematic,
that is to be in a Ramadan
it struck me so much, but also Giacomo.
After we talked about it, it was a good thing.
And then something else happened.
Now we pass here, we're in Georgia,
we were always going ahead, but it was raining.
In the journey,
on a hundred days of travel,
it has been raining hard and all day for 50% of the time,
in fact we also had problems, because the bikes were electric.
They had an engine, because the cart, as you see,
it's pretty big, so it weighs over 100 kilos.
So it was hard to get it to the top,
so we had an engine that helped us
with batteries that recharged with solar panels.
And we had everything behind us, skis and all the equipment
because in addition to crossing countries, we have crossed 12,
we climbed one peak per country,
for the Bone Marrow Donors Association
because it's something I've always carried around with me
during all my journeys
to promote this association that needs support
because there are few people here in Italy.
So I'd be happy if the number of donors increased.
So everything was in it, so it was really heavy.
When we got to Georgia,
the roads were like this, they were not paved, they were very muddy.
We stopped: it rained, it rained as usual.
At one point Giacomo and I stopped and said:
What are we doing here? We don't go up,
we can't get off with these bikes down here anymore.
We stopped there for ten minutes,
we took shelter under a small canopy
and two kids appeared, all wet, playing,
and after a while they asked us what we were doing and where we were,
and we told them that we wanted to go on the other side of the road
but the problem was that we can't do it with our bikes,
always in a bad English.
And they understood us and after ten minutes someone arrived,
with a green van, a Russian van,
Try figure out: you're a bit broken up,
and Hercules descends.
I thought: Oh, my God, we're done.
What do we do now? He's twice our size, he will clean us out.
Just stop, let's go, let's go home.
Well, in 20 seconds, he took 100 kilos of bike and cart
he takes them, charges them
and he's like, "Come on, get inside!"
We sat in the back of this truck,
and in the frontseat he was chatting with a friend of him, meanwhile
but I never understood what they said
because they spoke in Georgian, and I don't speak Georgian.
And they didn't speak English.
Anyway, we moved on.
The kid came with us, too
we climbed up to this pass, at some point the truck stops,
and I say: now we're done, now they're taking us away,
putting us -
instead he stops, he enters a small dilapidated kiosk, he goes out,
he comes up with a few beers and a cigarette stick like that,
and he says, "Come on, let's drink and smoke!"
But I don't, I don't smoke and I hardly drink beers
because I know what they're doing to me.
Giacomo drank a beer and everything,
we went down, they took us to the road that was paved;
and he dumped our bikes and everything,
and we pulled out the wallet:
asking them what do you want for the help?
You "saved our lives" in that moment.
"No, are you kidding me?" They answered
"We helped someone who needed help,
it's normal for us to do like this."
And we had done a two, three hours journey on the road, I mean
so it wasn't a little thing.
We looked at each other and we said,
really, really weird, really crazy.
We use to say that
even the dog doesn't move its tail if it doesn't have a reason.
Instead they took us there,
they dragged us there across the pass
and they let us go.
And in addition they also offered us something to drink, they loaded our bike -
Another prejudice completely removed,
it is not sure that everyone wants something in return,
for what they do.
So this really opened a world even more,
and I was even more curious to travel, even more curious to see other places;
but in fact these 100 days flew by at the end.
At first I left, we both left,
and we were tired
because we only had a hundred days to get to China,
not because we wanted to establish a record, we didn't care,
but because the Chinese visa lasted 90 days
since we stamped it with the passport,
so in 90 days we had to get into China,
otherwise they wouldn't let us in.
And so having another visa was a problem.
So we said, in 100 days, we have to get there.
And we had a mountain that was 7,000 meters
we knew it wasn't that easy, so we had to give ourselves some margin.
So they were pretty tight,
at first we were destroyed, completely destroyed,
because we did 150 kilometers
and then we had to go up to the top, reach the peaks:
we have set everything
but the further we went,
well, forget it. Maybe we were a little more trained
but we got excited,
we were so eager to see what happened the next day
that we didn't even realize we were always on the bike,
because all these things that happened, all these anecdotes,
made us want to discover more and more.
I'm also someone who gets excited, you see,
in fact I got excited;
before I was hesitant enough
and I felt so much adrenaline, just adrenaline.
Like when you race that you only feel adrenaline,
you don't understand.
I was like this, I was so full of emotion
that I was flying, right on my bike,
to go looking for other emotions.
In fact, now I will tell you another anecdote,
which is this, which is particular.
Can you see our faces?
I don’t know, if you see them,
you will run away from them, instead of helping them.
Here we were, we went to Uzbekistan, we arrived near Malik,
a town to the west of Uzbekistan in the Fergana Valley,
those who know it a little, near Kyrgyzstan;
and something special happened there.
We left in the morning,
always to reach a peak called Chingam,
which was always to the north, about 2,500 meters;
but other than that,
when we arrived we had low batteries,
because we were with the cart,
because we were in a hurry,
we had to respect some deadlines to get to other places,
so we went really fast, we got halfway
and batteries were almost out
and to move that cart there without batteries -
we tried to do it
I think after ten kilometers, we could go to sleep
because we had no strength,
so we had to look for a recharge.
We searched and searched and found nothing,
we found a restaurant, which looked like a restaurant.
We said, let's go there and ask.
We entered and a world opened up to us.
We came in to ask if we wanted to...
Enough, we've become -
everyone was looking at us because there was a wedding,
this one was the bride's father.
When we got there, I said,
"Oh my God, we made a mistake. Let's get out of here."
"No, you're crazy!" They said
They took us in, they started giving us food and drinks.
"You must dance with the bride", in that condition there.
We were in very bad conditions
I was embarrassed, and so was Giacomo
but then, at some point, we adapted and we had fun,
we start exchanging,
then not everyone had a phone for photos,
a man had one
and they kept asking him
"Take a picture with him!"
This poor man was there, and he kept taking pictures.
he had only one,
and everyone was like Take the photos too, can I have one?
So it almost became a fair, it was beautiful
I was so excited:
and this is also another prejudice
because I think that here, that is, I don't know here,
but anywhere in the world,
if you see two people in these conditions who show up at your daughter’s wedding,
I don't think you will let them dance with her.
You’d say, we don’t give anything, we don’t buy anything,
I think you would close the door.
But it wasn't like that with us, just the exact opposite:
he came, he invited us, he called us,
you can't hear the movie here,
you'll shortly see it later on, but you can't hear,
he sang Toto Cutugno's songs
he sang all the songs of Italian singers, but mostly by Toto Cutugno.
So it was hilarious, it was a symphony.
And that's where he opened a world, because I said,
"I didn't think there was such a place";
and so I overcame these prejudices really
so many ideas, images, thoughts
and I say, "My God, we're in a place here -"
And I was so happy
that we went forward on this journey really fast
up to the Peak Lenin, which after there, was 7,000 mt,
there was so much else,
anyway, everything I've lived up to there
was exciting and even after.
And now I wanted to show you a short video
because I wanted to tell you, more than anything,
of this journey that I have lived
I didn't remember the miles, nor the meters of altitude,
the number of countries I've gone through, the followers I've earned
or all of those numbers that didn't mean anything.
The things that gave me the most are the smiles, the countless hugs,
the countless laughs and the countless exchanges with the eyes.
Everything that filled my heart
with the charm of the people I met,
because I'm still -
I mean, we get excited, too,
but they're even more unfettered than we were,
on some things;
so they get more excited and convey their emotions.
And these emotions are, for me, the source of life.
If you live without emotions, as other young men have said before,
there's no point living;
and so this is something that excited me.
So for me, you also have to live the trips with emotions,
emotions that others give to you and that you give to others.
So these images that you will see are this.
So I'll leave them to you, and then I'll talk to you in a second.
(Video)
These were the emotions I wanted to say, that boy who spoke like that
it was that man who sang Toto Cutugno's songs.
That's what it was.
Thank you all, it was, for me, a real emotion:
in fact I sweated, because I'm really excited.
Thanks.
(Applause)