The Long way to Return a Bicycle

“An adventurous life does not necessarily mean climbing mountains, swimming with sharks, or jumping off cliffs. It means risking yourself by leaving a little piece of you behind in all those you meet along the way.”
— Shawna Grapentin

I wonder if this is what Hernani Cardoso had in mind when he decided to embark on a solo bicycle ride from Portugal to China, and back.

I do not know Hernani Cardoso personally. It was a friend of mine who told me the story of this retired Portuguese soldier who was on a very different mission — that of returning a stolen bicycle to its owner.

It could have been just another news story, except for the fact that the bicycle had been stolen in China and subsequently retrieved from Portugal, while its owner, Eric Feng, lived in China.

In this era when just about anything can be shipped to almost any place easily and within a short span of time, this 54-year-old adventurer chose to cycle all the way from Portugal to China to return the property to its owner.

But that was not all.

He also had an additional agenda — that of visiting all the countries that have historical connections with his homeland, and meeting fellow countrymen who had settled in different parts of the world.

That has made the journey rather long and filled with deviations, but it looks like this amazing veteran is in no great hurry. He prefers to travel at his own pace, enjoying every single moment as life unfolds before him.

I have come across people bitten by the travel bug, undertaking solo drives and bicycle rides spanning countries and continents. But for a man to pedal halfway across the globe alone, braving all the hardships involved in such a journey, is no mean feat.

I salute his enthusiastic spirit and his sense of adventure that has urged him to undertake this extraordinary trip.

I firmly believe that it is the journey that matters, and not the destination.

Like most passionate travellers who embark on such journeys, perhaps Cardoso too had this wild, innate desire to breathe in the air of distant lands, to live among strangers, to feel the thrill of being on the road, and to understand the world from a perspective far better than anything Google has to offer…