Direct and clear: Hiking a volcano should be considered a spiritual experience close to meditation, introspection, or even pilgrimage. Give me two minutes, and open your mind.

You won’t remember the hours you spent with friends and strangers during the night. In silence, you will trust a guide and the invisible path; they will take you to the summit or the so-called promised land. You also won’t remember the pain that your body had, the slithering into your hands and bones, or your mind wandering where else to stop. But tell me, Steven, what is this suffering for?

You will never forget looking at the sun climbing the clouds, looking at the sky with a smile, and feeling happiness as warmth once again fills your heart. You will realize that the night is over, and that the landscape that just appeared for your now-tired eyes is just the new adventure about to start. This image will stay in your head, and trust me, it will never fade away.

So, dear reader, give yourself a chance. Let go of all the extra weight on the way up; there is no use to it during the hike. Enjoy flying tired on the way back, and convince a friend that doing a summit together, at least once, is a perfect plan.

This is not a story

Neither is a tail

Is a reflection

Of what I felt today

The sky was red

My heart blue

And all my mind could do

Was think about you

Eyes that look away

Hands with tears of faith

A pair of broken fears

Why today again?

Now green fills the sky

Turning eyes pure,

They just wonder

Was it me dreaming?

Or was it you?

A couple of years ago, I can sadly say that I never heard about the idea of traveling around with a bike. I can recall some encounters with people that where doing it but it was not something that made me curious, on the slightest. Now, I can say that it’s one of the things that left a profound impact on my soul. So, how was it?

The story of this trip started with a casual conversation with my roommate, who, at the time, already knew the secrets that I would soon discover. I had a month free from work and any major responsibilities, and the idea of just traveling and visiting friends seemed okay at first but he had something to say: Why don’t you travel with your bike? Instead of taking trains and buses, enjoy the view and let your legs suffer for a bit. The idea slowly crept into my head and, after making some calls and consulting what was needed, the idea seemed not only plausible, but imminent.

So I prepared myself. I got a couple of pieces of equipment for my newly acquired third bike, which was a gift from my cat’s vet, found a bike box and decided on the twenty-two pieces of clothes that would be with me for the next month and jumped on a plane to my first visit. I didn’t know that in December, winter was a thing in Europe, where I would sleep for half of the time, that I would get food poisoning and fall in love just to have my heart a little broken after ten days.

In retrospect, I also didn’t know that I would meet some of the most amazing and kind people that I have met in my life. And who were these? Every person who hosted me, biked along with me, or just had a conversation along the way. And to this day, after a couple of years, I still remember all of them. I remember Ericka, Roberto, Juan, Sara, Martin, Christian, Sussane, Audi, Crista, Jorge, Saul, Melina, Ellie, Andreas, Martin, Nicolas, Anna, Leo, Ian, Dominik, John, Alex, Enrico, Davide, Roberto, Ruth, Dora, Mustafa, Anastacia, and Alessia.

I’ll write about the kilometers, the depression, and the crisis that came after. But today, I just want to remember all of them.

[Last modified on 2026-04-16]

I dream about waking up, and start my day by looking at your eyes

I'll bring you coffee and breakfast to bed, and forget that time exists

Then singing under the shower, and talk about how to spend the day

What else?

A home were different languages flow

Where talks and discussions are intense

Hugs and smiles are warm

A fantasy

Where kisses are slow

And sunsets are endless

Sometimes

This reality

Feels

Like that dream.

I realized that I saw very few movies last year, and that’s something that I am to solve for 2026. Before that, I want to remember what I liked the most from the previous year. So let’s see.

Pictures of Ghosts [2023]

A difficult one to describe. An extended history about the cinema trajectory of the director of the movie. It went from home made scenes and takes of the house next door, to an end with a very reflexive dialog and clean visual effects. What did I get from the movie? Inspiration. It was nice so see the progress and experiments of a person who has dedicated his life to movies. It was also interesting to get some knowledge about brazilian movies.

Saltburn[2023]

Obsession and relentless ambition. The main character outsmarted and used every single person in his surroundings to get what he wanted, money and power. I was a little disgusted with what he was doing most of the time, but won at the end. It builds a lot on the idea that rich people are easy to fool so some degree, which I don’t think is the came all the time.

Good Will Hunting [1997]

A nice and hearth comforting movie, with a not so friendly main character and a lovely but strong counter part. I like how it depicts how lonely a genius can be, and how good friends can guide someone to get out of his comfort zone tu pursuit growth. I wonder how many brilliant people decide to ‘play it love’, and sacrifice a life of science and research in order to stay close to what they know.

Sound of Metal [2019]

Once again obsession. Pushing your body to the limit to keep doing the one ting that you love? Or that you know how to do? We follow the main character going into a place where, at least i hoped, he could make peace with his new condition. And does see it and lived it for a bit, before leaving everything behind again to try to get his hearing and partner back. I really liked how at the end he could take the decision to shut up everything again.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga [2024]

Not going to lie, I don’t remember most of the plot details or the characters names. But I do remember that I was glued to the screen for the duration of the movie. Evil Thor was annoying and stupid, in my opinion, but the rest of the character did an amazing job. The rhythm of the movie felt on point, and I event went to see the next movie (or previous movie?) after finishing it because I didn’t had enough.

So, in the second part of 2024, I did a couple of attempts and ended with a new PR in 10k and 1k.

This felt really good, and I saw improvements with just a months. So I decided that in 2025 I will go all out and try to get fitter and keep track of every distance.

At the end of the season I ran: One Half Marathon, one 10k, and six 5k (A lot of park runs), so the times for every distance looked more or less like this.

It was an amazing year. My 5km time went from 21:17> 20:18 > 20:11 > 19:35. And the Half Marathon from 1:59:50 to an amazing 1:37:44 after 8 years. It was my second time running a race in the track (For in Guatemala, now in the olympic stadium). Training stayed very consistent, I ran 200km in a month bit no pain, and I felt strong and with more energy. And now, for 2026, the aim is to stay in the lower distances once again and break the 19 minutes barrier in the 5k, 40 minutes in 10k, and get as close as possible to a 60 seconds lap.

One highlight of the season was also running a 10k (47:11) in the shore in Croatia. I was just running an endless amount of people on the beach. I don’t understand why, but I felt so energized and soo free on that particular race. It was a very nice feeling.

• Editing a book in different languages that I’m not familiar with. Which turn into me getting more into learning bits and pieces of some.
• Working with biomechanical data do understand how a runner is performing, and all the feedback that can be given in order to help him/her improve.
• How to code, test and deploy fast. I went form just collecting data and doing visualizations to updating the codebase in order to get the data that I need. Backend, Frontend, security, architecture,… Whatever is needed, just try to fix it.
• And trying to get ore efficient with training, to make myself the best runner than I can.

My mind feels a bit all over the place, accordingly, so collecting everything here is an exercise to organize it.

Why this now? I want to be outside social media for a bit. And in order to do so I need something else to keep me busy. So why not make a site and program a little bit more?

I’ll try to make a collection of all my projects and things that I have done in the past, and learn something new.

I'll play around as much as possible.