Uruguayan globetrotter tours world cultures on a bycycle
By Arief S. Suditomo
JAKARTA (JP): The desire to learn about foreign cultures prompted Roberto Wolnowicz, a 35-year-old Uruguayan, to leave Montevideo last March for an around-the-world tour -- on his bicycle.
Wolnowicz, a graduate of the London School of Economics, said that he left Uruguay in March and stopped over in Peru and Bolivia before proceeding to the United States. In July he flew to South Korea, cycled to Malaysia and Singapore, where he spent a month and has now reached Jakarta.
Wolnowicz left Singapore two weeks ago and entered Indonesia through the province of Riau in Sumatra. After Sumatra and Java, he also plans to go to Bali, Lombok, Sulawesi and Kalimantan. After traversing Indonesia, he will continue cycling to Brunei and then Thailand.
After his first two weeks in Indonesia, Wolnowicz has discovered that this country's culture is based on friendliness.
"I find Indonesian people very hospitable," he said.
He sees Indonesia in a light very different from what he remembers in the American movie The Year of Living Dangerously, which depicted the country's political situation under the old Sukarno order in 1965.
He also said he has never had an unpleasant experience during his journey through Indonesia.
The Uruguayan intends to end this journey in Europe after cycling through India, Middle Eastern countries and Turkey. He has not made up his mind yet as to when he will finish the journey as it depends on the conditions of the countries he visits.
He wishes that the Indonesian government would extend his visa, which will expire in the next two months.
Wolnowicz doesn't feel that he must race with time given the fact that he has much more time than the average traveler.
His current journey is the continuation of a previous one he made in 1992 when he visited the Asian countries of Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, but not Indonesia.
Great exercise
In addition to the myriad places, Wolnowicz said, traveling by bicycle also enables Wolnowicz to explore cultures and people, sides that he would miss were he to use more modern means of transportation.
"There's no bus or airplane schedule to follow. I can visit not only the tourist spots but also some other places which connect one tourist site to another," he said, adding that biking was also great exercise.
As a 20th century traveler, Wolnowicz carries a Hewlett- Packard 100 LX laptop. A modem connects him to other computers and internet facilities, giving him access to all the information necessary to his trip and allowing him to exchange electronic mail. At the same time he sends reports about his travel experiences to interested publications. Hewlett-Packard is one of the 12 companies sponsoring his journey.
Wolnowicz, whose last job was a production planner at a wood- based industry back home, has always been interested in traveling and learning about other countries' cultures, though the idea was greeted coldly by his parents.
"My parents neither opposed my plan nor did they give me their support," he said.
As a member of SERVAS, an international organization of travelers and hosts, he hopes to promote peace, good will and international understanding through traveling.
Wolnowicz said that after finishing the journey he will record his adventure in a book.
"The book will not be just a common travel guide book. It will talk about various aspects, such as the links between culture and development in the many nations that I have visited," he added.