In this article
Meeting the Portuguese traveller
Have you ever thought of leaving everything behind and setting off on a long journey?! So long that it seems endless…
That is exactly what 27-year-old Gonçalo Madeira had in mind around four months ago, when he began a fantastic, adventure-filled journey from Portugal to Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and then Albania. I was lucky enough to meet Gonçalo during a summer training course organised by GIZ-Albania. It was his second day in Valbona, where he had arrived after a long hike from Theth.
He had reached the western side of the Alps along the Montenegrin trail. Once he crossed the border, a man from Shkodër called Toma had given him a ride from the border to Boga, where he first stayed before setting off on foot through the Albanian Alps.
About one metre eighty tall, with the unmistakable air of a film character (a friend from the summer school, Ardit, nicknamed him Robinson Crusoe), the Portuguese traveller had long hair, a beard and a pair of old-fashioned glasses. A very cheerful fellow. Interesting, because he had begun the journey by leaving his job at an international company, Microsoft, in Lisbon, and had completed studies in neuroscience.
Now?! He was doing ordinary jobs without pay, simply in exchange for shelter and food during his travels.
“From the start, my aim was to get away from monotony, routine and that slavery of capitalism: a life dependent on material things, office work and false needs. I no longer want to work for someone who simply wants to exploit me. I try to keep costs as low as possible on my travels.
To spend no money. To travel by whatever transport I can find, or by hiking,” Gonçalo told us as Ardit made a video profile of him especially for the summer school.
Travelling through volunteer work
Our unusual traveller was not mad. In the other European countries, he used an app called “Workaway”, through which people advertised volunteer jobs in exchange only for accommodation. By doing ordinary work, as a woodcutter, a builder or a manual labourer, he had managed to cross 8 countries in four months while spending almost nothing.
Meanwhile, although he planned not to use money, he kept a backup plan for emergencies.
“I always keep an amount of money with which I can buy a ticket back to Lisbon,” said the long-haired man who looked like a pirate or a film actor. But how did he manage with his family back in Portugal?! He kept in touch with the occasional message on “WhatsApp”, which he could write whenever he found somewhere to connect to the network.
Gonçalo told us that he had many friends he had left behind in Lisbon who were fascinated by his courage in undertaking such a journey.
“Lots of my friends tell me that what I am doing is an extraordinary adventure. One of them may be able to join me once he finishes his studies. Many people ask when this journey will end… I do not know how to answer them, but I want it never to end,” the 27-year-old told us. He described his plan to travel to Kosovo, then Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere, onwards to Asia.
His enthusiasm for this adventure drove him to take lots of photographs and keep a diary with the aim of writing a book. His real dream was one day to buy a piece of land in one of the countries he had visited, which he could work and enjoy himself.
Impressions of the encounter in Valbona
What struck me about this man was not only the unusual thing he was doing, but also the simplicity with which he saw things. To him, Montenegrins were the same as Portuguese people. “Lazy people who spend all their time on beaches!”
I told him that, with this sort of laziness, all of us in the Balkans were more or less the same, and perhaps we could all be called Portuguese. An atypical Lusitanian, he did not like football. He spoke warmly of the people he had met so far, and found the scenery of the Alps breathtaking. 
I was struck by his utterly simple way of finding trails: “When I lose my way, I just follow someone who happens to appear ahead of me, or, if they speak a language I know, I ask.” His unselfconscious way of talking to strangers, and his desire to keep his unusual adventure going.
Exactly… as though he were Robinson Crusoe…
But Crusoe wanted to return home, and managed it after 28 years… whereas our Robinson, whom we met in Valbona, clearly did not want to go home again. Blindly in love with nature, this nomadic life was now his blood and breath.
I invite you to see some of the photographs Gonçalo shared with us from his journey:
