miguelmarchi's VirtualTourist Home Page

Hello travellers of Virtual Tourist!
My name is Miguel, and I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, but presently I live in Madrid, where I work and own an apartment. Apart from Uruguay I also have family in the north of Italy.
Thanks to my school teacher in Montevideo, a lady who transmitted me her enthusiasm for Geography when I was still a child, I decided to become a traveller.
I have travelled a lot in my life. I travelled around all South American countries, except the Guyana’s; I know almost all the countries of Western Europe, etc. But my favourite continent is Asia.
I love India especially, and some years ago I spent 6 months there travelling from one side to the other of the country, using trains, eating in local places and sleeping in hostels. I even went to Andaman Islands by boat from Calcutta eating only rice, everyday, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, using my hands before I could get, with much difficulty, a wooden spoon from the captain.
One of the high marks in my traveller curriculum of which I am very proud is having reached Lhasa, Tibet capital, and further to the border with Nepal by jeeps, overland from Madrid, taking only trains and buses and traversing Poland, Byelorussia, Russia with Siberia, Mongolia and China.
I have, so far, made three around the world trips. The first one took me 70 days, the second 50 days. But the third one, in 2005, I made it in a cargo ship during three months, starting in Germany, crossing the two channels, Panama and Suez, and navigating through the waters of the main oceans: Atlantic, Pacific and Indian.
I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean by ship several times. I can distinguish the difference of the waters of every Ocean, the colours, the movement of the waves, even the smell. Travelling by boat is one of my passions in life.
The best thing of travelling is the friends that you make on the road. I have friends practically everywhere, in Brazil, in Hong Kong, in Argentina, in Moscow, in Paris, in England, in Hospitalet, etc.
I love taking pictures and soon I will show them to you in these pages. I have thousands of photographs of all the countries where I have been.
The boat shown in the picture is the one that I boarded in September 2004, in Tenerife, to visit Ascension and St. Helena Islands. The final destination was Walvis Bay, in Namibia, and then I crossed the Caprivi Strip by buses in order to get to Victoria Falls.
The future seven travels that I plan to make as soon as I get enough money to finance them are:

1 - Boat from Capetown to Tristan da Cunha Island
2 - Icebreaker from Murmansk to Kamchatka Peninsula through the north of Russia
3 - Crossing Africa overland from Cairo to Nairobi and further down until Lesotho
4 - Islands hopping in the Caribbean Sea, from Puerto Rico to Trinidad and Tobago
5 - Central Asia countries (ex-USSR): Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, etc.
6 - Micronesian Islands from Palau and Guam to the Marshall’s and Hawaii
7 - The Camino de Santiago on foot, as a pilgrim, starting in Saint Jean Pied de Port

Soon you will see more of my travelling pages with photos and comments.
Hasta la vista!

I want to create a Travellers Club in collaboration with Jesus, from Argentina, and Jorge, from Spain. Both are members of VirtualTourist.
So far, the members of KILOMETRO CERO, are:

- Jesús Ferro, bonaerense (1953)
Viajero bizarro e ideólogo del Cenáculo. Conoce muy bien todos los países que han
albergado los Juegos Olímpicos. Tiene el proyecto de realizar una nueva vuelta al
mundo utilizando trenes, como el Orient Express, el Transiberiano, el Shinkansen, etc.

- Miguel Marchi, montevideano (1957)
Viajero circunspecto y cofundador del Cenáculo. Ha efectuado sin alharacas una larga vuelta al mundo en una nao carguera. Adora Asia, su continente favorito, y ha viajado de Madrid a Lhasa, por tierra, sin tomar el avión, esquivando envites de gente bellaca.

- Antonio Marín, madrileño (1930)
Ostenta el rango de Teniente Coronel en los Reales Tercios de España y es ciudadano de la Soberana Orden Militar de Malta. Durante muchos años ha capitaneado cruceros para turistas por el Pacífico y la Antártida escalando en Pitcairn y otras islas exóticas.

- Jorge Sánchez, celtíbero (1954)
Viajero consumado y amante de los lugares prohibidos. Realizó 7 largos viajes para conocer todos los países de la ONU, y su corazón se aflige cuando no viaja. Pretende visitar con arrojo las islas más impenetrables de los 7 mares, como Pitcairn y Tokelau.

- Toni Rubio, hospitalense (1967)
Miembro honorario del Cenáculo. Viajero osado entre los osados. Dentro de sus lances y cuitas se cuentan el haber penetrado en Assam y rodeado el mítico Monte Kailas. Hoy se encuentra en Hong Kong reuniendo dinero para completar su larga vuelta al mundo.

E S T A T U T O S :
1 - El Cenáculo Kilómetro Cero está basado en la utópica “Abadía de Thélème”, de François Rabelais, cuyo lema de convivencia era “Haz lo que quieras”. Podrán inscribirse ¡gratuitamente! todos aquellos viajeros gallardos y gentiles que hayan efectuado como mínimo una vuelta al mundo de 80 o más días de duración. Sólo es menester una fotografía reciente con algún motivo viajero, un historial de tres líneas relatando brevemente sus andanzas y gestas, más un mapamundi detallando con flechas su recorrido. Aquellos viajeros que hayan realizado una vuelta al mundo inferior a 80 días podrán inscribirse como CANDIDATOS PROMETEDORES.

2 - Una vez al año se propondrá a los cofrades del Cenáculo congregarnos en el refectorio de alguna metrópoli celtíbera para yantar un ágape de ricas viandas, platicar acerca de nuestra común pasión trashumante, y otras albricias fruitivas.

3 - El Cenáculo “KILÓMETRO CERO” se caracteriza por no promover la competición entre sus adherentes, por no ofrecer nada, por no vender nada, por repudiar al vil lucro y a las vanas mercedes... ¡Pardiez, voto a bríos! Sólo pretende inspirar con ímpetu arrebatador el amor a los viajes, a las gentes de diferentes culturas que pueblan nuestro fascinante planeta Tierra, a la belleza de la Naturaleza, y al enriquecimiento interior.

Three members of Kilometro Cero

I crossed the Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia. It is an amazing place.

This was my jeep.
I travel on the cheap, and since I speak Spanish, I got a good price to cross the Salar de Uyuni.

I climbed a hill.

After Asia, South America is my favourite continent.
Europe is OK, because salaries are higher, but it is an old continent.
South America is a continent for the future, and is rich in history, apart from being very beautiful.