My trips around the world

By: Mario Botello

I started traveling on my own in 2010, when I was 25 years old. I am from Agua Prieta, Sonora, and it arose from a radical change in mentality and habits due to disappointments in love at that time, work exhaustion from a job of more than 10 years and a series of bad behaviors that I acquired due to those bad decisions that I They also lost friendships.

So I focused on myself and started meditating, I changed my eating habits, I quit my job, I resumed my career and I took my first shared trip with my dad because I hardly shared time with him and he hardly likes to go out. We went from Sonora to Guanajuato to see the mummies, we passed through León and visited some little towns that I no longer remember, then we went to Michoacán, the land where he was born in Tacambaro, in a province called the Plan of Prisons, where my friend lived. grandfather, may he rest in peace, and we were filled with nostalgia watching his little wooden house already empty and falling down.

Afterwards we went to visit an aunt in Guadalajara with whom we went to Lake Chapala and the Huentitan ravines, we visited the wax museum, the museum of the incredible and we walked through the center of Guadalajara; The last destination was a ranch called Ostotan, Teocaltiche, Jalisco, where my mother is from and we visited my maternal grandparents, from there we returned to Sonora, it was incredible to share it with my father.

After that, in the following years I went to Mexico City, I went to the Historic Center, to the pyramids of Teotihuacan, I took a trip with school friends to a conference in Mazatlán.

I lived in Hermosillo where I traveled to the beaches of San Carlos, Nuevo Guaymas, I went to Cancun with my brother and his friends, I planned my first trip abroad in January 2020 to Peru, where I visited the Huacachina of Ica, and Lima.

That same year I bought a month-long English course in Manchester, UK, which was my first trip to Europe and I was able to visit Liverpool and London on the weekends. I was delighted with the museums, and the accent totally different from American English hahaha, as I was going with the idea that I had basic English and there I didn’t even understand “Hi” because they say “Hiaaaaa”.

The pandemic came and I returned to Mexico, I had been working in places outside of Agua Prieta, to be able to continue traveling I got a job in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, in “La Ribera”, where I lived for almost a year getting to know La Paz Baja California South. I swam with whale sharks and dolphins, I visited Balandra beach, El Arbolito beach, La Rivera beach, Cabo Pulmo, Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo and among others that I don’t remember. Those adventures were with the lady who rented me my room at work and she supplied her car and I supplied the gas and we went every weekend to see different beaches, I had an incredible time meeting new people.

As I worked, I was worried about going back to study but I wanted to do it outside of Mexico to continue learning and traveling, since the best option was English courses, since I had not learned much in a month, and the destination best suited my budget ( that I had to take out an educational loan that I continue to pay haha), it was Dublin, Ireland, where I currently live; I have been working and studying for two years, and it has allowed me to get to know Belfast, Northern Ireland, Galway, Cork and all the beautiful Irish culture and I have been taking the opportunity to buy cheap flights to all of Europe.

I have already visited Titlis, Zurich, Bern and Basel in Switzerland, Brussels in Belgium, Berlin in Germany, Paris in France, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Lisbon in Portugal and Andalusia (Seville, Córdoba, Granada, Málaga, Ibiza and Formentera, in Spain.

Next week I will go to France again because the previous time I only visited the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland Paris, I already watched Alan’s videos around the world and took a tour of the museums, especially where they have the Mexica exhibition. I had always saved to travel but in this last one I was overcome by desperation and I went into debt, but thank God I have a job and I don’t live as limited as I thought, it was worth it to be here.

To conclude, I share with you that I love traveling, it fills me with energy every time I do it, I have traveled with friends and family and other times alone, but when I travel alone I always find someone on the tours to accompany me, generally they are couples and it is a investment in myself, which for me has incalculable value every time I see my photos and remember. Each trip makes me travel to that moment and feel the excitement of living it again.

There on the internet I looked at a phrase that I don’t remember the author of which says something like this, words more words less: Travels are experienced 3 times, when we dream about it, when we live it and when we remember it.