Ludmila Greco and Lucas Fernandez Canevari met in college, started dating and went on a holiday together. Ludmila was a psychoanalyst; Lucas was torn between mathematics, history and philosophy. Like all Argentines Lucas loves football and adores Lionel Messi. Ludmila is not all that passionate about the national sport. What brings them together is their passion for travel.
They always wanted to take a year off and at least go beyond their home city Buenos Aires and if possible parts of South America. This never materialised for some reason or the other. Then in 2013 they sold everything they could call their own and flew out to India. Today, Ludmila and Lucas have backpacked and hitch hiked across 35 countries and as this goes into print they are still travelling in some corner of the globe.
Why did they head to India first? “A friend suggested India and it was an exotic land. All we knew of this country was a bit of Gandhi, Hinduism….a land of mystery. The start was terrible. We landed in New Delhi and everything was difficult during those first couple of days. I think the people could smell that we were first timers. And to make matters worse we were hit by the dreaded ‘Delhi Belly.’ All that changed after we travelled to Amritsar, slept for nearly 30 hours, jetlagged and tired and stepped into the Golden Temple. From then on it was the unraveling of an amazing land,” says Lucas, lounging after breakfast at the tranquil Hinterland Village, Mulanthuruthy.
New Delhi became their base for their trips to Nepal, North and Central India. Ludmila and Lucas have since been to India four times in the last two years. They have now come to terms with the contradictions, the diversity, the food, the crowds and the people. “There’s so much happening around you in India. What stuns you is the diversity in culture, customs and even in the physical appearances of the people. In China, you do come across different cultures and customs but the people are so alike….,” Ludmila pauses and Lucas takes off, “I have still not been able to understand the real India. It is a country of paradoxes, there is great natural beauty but you will also find place tarnished by garbage, it is politically vibrant but also very spiritual. We have not been able to find answers to its many mysteries.”
The takeaways from India are many. “India makes us realise different realities about human beings. Many of our early apprehensions were wiped after our first few days in India. The country taught us the value of patience. We have now learned to dodge the cows on the street, haggle with the vendors, are used to seeing women in the sari, sip a glass of steaming chai in the middle of all the confusion on the road. When we went back to Buenos Aires we found the city so empty, we felt so lonely,” says Ludmila.
And their favourite Indian destinations? “Trekking along the Himalayas is magical; Sikkim is perhaps the cleanest, Kerala comes a close second, Ladakh was beautiful….India always leaves you with excuses to return,” feels Lucas.
Ludmila and Lucas have traversed through Asia, America and Europe. “This time we’ll be travelling across South India, move to Kolkata, get our visas to Bangladesh, travel to Assam, Myanmar, China, Kazakhstan and we intend to travel by road through East Europe,” says Ludmila moving the pen along the route marked on a map.
How do they fund their travel? “We started off with our savings and what we got after selling off our possessions. To save ourselves from running out of funds we have tried out ingenious ways to earn money. We work in exchange for a room, sell handmade postcards and notebooks, but our main source of income is writing. We write travel pieces for a couple of magazines back home, for our website www.mochilasenviaje.com, and click a lot of photographs as well. We believe that one need not be a millionaire to see the world it is the desire that is important. We do not write about what to see and what to do at the places of visit but try and meet people and tell their stories. We try to understand the logic of the countries we visit and try to internalise the political, cultural and historical situation of each destination,” explains Lucas.
Ludmila and Lucas will be bringing out a book on their travels in India. “We have completed five chapters so far. Both of us write, sometimes it reads the same, making us rewrite the chapters. It is in Spanish and we have tentatively decided to call it About One India,” reveals Ludmila.
