«Life flows quickly, therefore you need enthusiasm»
A 33-year-old Argentinian has arrived in the city who, under the motto of nothing is impossible, you just want to, sells photos of his travels around the world. Hosted by Giuseppe, who met him by chance, «I help him with the household chores and to arrange things in the house». And he's already thinking about how to continue his tour of Sicily
Matya Amaya is a 33-year-old Argentinian and has a motto: Nothing is impossible, you just need to want it. This awareness has matured in five years, since he travels the world with his bike and now he has landed in Palermo, city where he will stay for a few more days before leaving again. In his previous life, as Maty defines it when he lived with his family in Argentina, he was a scientific informant, was earning about three thousand euros in a week, then the economic crisis hits and he loses his job and with it his fiancée.
Disappointed, Maty sinks into a state of existential crisis and decides that to take his life back in hand requires a journey. So he decides to leave for 15 days by bike. Since then, however, he has never stopped. His bicycle now weighs 90 kg and has a name: Freedom. He toured all over Latin America: Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico. Then he left for the old continent, arrived in Spain and from there he toured the entire Iberian peninsula, going up to France and arriving in Italy as far as Palermo. In these long years on the road he has learned a lot: for example that to live you don't just have to ask but that life is an exchange; with his camera he immortalized spectacular places, sunrises, sunsets, the salt desert in Bolivia and the Amazon forest where he lived for two months in some indigenous tribes and also saw White shadow, the white tiger so called by the Indians because it is the last thing seen before dying. Maty, however, thanks to a series of lucky episodes, was saved and went further, without water in the desert and without food in other places.
He saw the Milky Way in Bolivia in the salt desert, where it was completely wrapped in a celestial mantle in a dome of stars which was also reflected on the ground because it was covered with water about two centimeters high. “In the Bororos tribe, the wildest of all those I met in the Amazon where I stayed for three months - he says - I learned that from nature we must take only what we need. One day they asked me to take some fruit from a tree and I picked them all up, when I took them to the village head he scolded me because I should have taken only one for each and not all because the others would have served to feed the birds or the monkeys or the other animals of the forest, why, he explained to me that they don't live to subjugate nature or animals, they don't take everything for themselves but they coexist with animals and plants and we think of them too. They hate the white man because generally when he arrives in the Amazon he does it either for the skins of the animals or to harm nature".
He lives by telling his story and selling his photos that he prints and in exchange for a few euros he gives to anyone who wants to support his journey and his adventure. He has a facebook page Maty Amaya for the world, and so it happens that people reach him to make a part of the journey with him. Now he is waiting for a Spanish girl to continue his tour in Sicily. Then he will leave for the rest of Europe and is placed the goal is to arrive for the World Cup in Russia. He wrote a book about his three months in the Amazon forest, the experience that marked him the most.
In Palermo he was hosted by a boy he met by chance, Giuseppe. «Even here I looked for an exchange – adds Maty – he hosts me, I was able to take a shower and a washing machine at his house, but I have two arms, I can help him with the household chores and to arrange things in the house». One of the greatest teachings that Maty gives to everyone he meets is that life goes by quickly and to live it to the fullest you have to do it with enthusiasm and filling it with many experiences. Today he was in Porta Carbone to eat a sandwich with spleen and in his video he said he had never eaten anything like it and he advised against vegetarians.
