When she was little, on her way to school, Ella Maillart stopped the foreigners she met on the street to ask them where they came from. It was the beginning of the 20th century, so there weren't many travelers, but there were enough to arouse the girl's curiosity.
However, by then her greatest passion was not travel, but sports -her mother, in fact, was Dagmar Klim, a Danish athlete-. In Switzerland, her native country, Maillart especially practiced sailing and skiing , although not only that: at 16, for example, she founded the first field hockey club in the francophone zone . It was clear that there was no challenge to the Swiss that intimidated her: if she wanted to play hockey and there was no one with whom, she would be the one to found the first club!
But the idea that most attracted Maillart's attention was that of live in the sea , that of getting lost in the immense blue like an eternal sailor. She wanted to prepare to fulfill her dream: at 20 years old, she sailed from Cannes to Corsica with her friend Hermine de Saussure, and a short time later she participated as a representative of Switzerland in the regattas of the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. They did not make it easy for her: she was the only woman and the youngest in the competition . But by then it was clear Maillart wrote the script of her own life according to her wishes.
THE SCRIPT TWIST
It seemed that nothing could stop the athlete, and five years later, the time had finally come to put into practice her deepest desire of hers: that of embark as a way of life . She did it together with four young people, including her friend, Hermine de Saussure, on a Mediterranean cruise from Marseilles to Athens. However, a host of circumstances, such as the celebration of the marriage of her friend, who abandoned the expedition, forced her to abandon his dream of living in the sea.
She got to explore regions of complicated scope, especially for a woman
And what did Maillart do then? Was she frightened, was she carried away by the inertia of circumstances? None of that: she continued to write the script of her own life and she switched to skiing, another of her passions ; The young Ella was not going to give up taking the reins of her story! With the official team of her country, she competed in the first four alpine ski world championships , from 1931 to 1934. “ If she didn't sail or ski, I felt lost, like I was only half alive. ", Counted the Swiss. Until she discovered the trips.
She did it in 1929, when she got travel to russia : she wanted to see, with her own eyes, what had the Revolution brought to the people . On her return six months later, an editor asked her to write a chronicle of her journey. "I hate writing" , she replied, to which the editor replied: “What a great opportunity then!”.
Finally, she made up her mind, and in 1932, Parmi la jeunesse russe (Among Russian Youth), Maillart's fresh and spontaneous report, became a bestseller. Then, she knew: getting to know distant cultures and writing about them was what she wanted to do. And she was willing to do whatever it took to get it.
That same year she started her her journey through Turkestan and Kyrgyzstan, reaching the seven thousand meter high peaks of Tian Shan. It was about one peerless feat for most people, let alone a woman. In 1935, in the midst of the Chinese civil war, she traveled along with Peter Fleming -a great reporter for The Times and an MI6 agent- throughout the Asian country, as well as India, along paths prohibited for Europeans. She wrote about all this, recording in articles and books the many difficulties of the way, and how she was determined to get through them all.
Nothing could stop Ella Maillart: she was determined to explore the world
In 1937, Maillart traveled to India via Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan , a virtually impossible journey that she reported on in 1938 on a lecture tour. Around this time, she met another budding Swiss traveler and chronicler, Annemarie Schwarzenbach , whom she convinced to make this same car trip with her. Many tried to persuade them not to go through with it: two women, in a car, through some of the least explored regions of the western world! None of this could stop them: they completed the entire trip, after which the author spent five years in India.
Maillart became in a short time, thanks to her determination, a renowned travel writer, that she lived more than 90 years. For more than 30 years she dedicated herself to cultural guide to small groups of tourists through Asia , and of course, she skied until she was 80 years old . Her way of squeezing each day was proverbial, as much as his perpetual curiosity and his extraordinary courage.
AND YOU, DO YOU WRITE THE SCRIPT OF YOUR LIFE?
In an article entitled Pourquoi voyager (Why travel), Maillart endorses the words of the Chinese master Chuang Tzou: "If we approach things from their differences, even the liver and the spleen are organs as far apart as the cities of Ch'u and Yeh. If we approach them by their similarities, the world is one”.
The spirit of the great travelers runs through the DNA of great, the new Golden Lager from San Miguel , a creation round, special and unique that encourages us to awaken our most restless side to enjoy a larger and more diverse world , to savor with intensity every minute. In order not to get carried away by the script of our life, but dedicate ourselves to writing it ourselves.
who is tempted by great has an open mind. He is not satisfied with what is put before him, but chooses the best in each chapter of the series of his life; he chooses, for example, this tremendously good beer, which is made through a careful hopping process in three stages with bitter and aromatic varieties . He chooses not to get carried away by the masses, to get off the established path, to draw his own roadmap. Are you like this when you travel? Find out in our gallery!