Jordi Serrallonga: "Traveling allows you to see that there is another world outside your own"

Listening to the leisurely and wise tone of Jordi Serrallonga's stories about his travels, it's easy to imagine him as the archaeology professor Indiana Jones who then grabs a pair of boots, his Fedora, and a pipe, and goes off to explore remote parts of his beloved Africa to reconnect with his friends of the Hadzabe tribe or to travel, once again, the Galapagos in the footsteps of his admired Darwin.

The natural habitat of this archaeologist and naturalist, who has a traveler essence and explorer's soul, is surely far away from what he calls the "asphalt jungle", but, when he is in the city, surrounded by his books and collection of toy figure explorers, he takes the opportunity to do what he likes most after traveling, which is teaching, researching, and writing.

Who is Jordi Serrallonga? 
I consider myself a nomadic primate domesticated by culture. I am an archaeologist, naturalist, and explorer. I feel like an explorer in the sense that, for me, exploration is not only associated with the great expeditions of yesteryear or adventures that involve crossing oceans or climbing the highest mountain in the world. An explorer can be someone who, thanks to his or her ability to observe the environment, ends up finding animal or plant species or archaeological remains, even if it is close to home.

Who are your traveler and explorer references?
It would be quite a long list but, if I had to choose those that lead me to dedicate my life to my passion, my main reference would be undoubtedly Charles Darwin. Someone, who after five years of travel and who embarked on the Beagle as a theologian with very firm and deeply rooted beliefs about how the world was, was able, thanks to his great capacity for observation, to question and modify those beliefs and end up writing "The Origin of Species".

Also, my great teacher, the primatologist Jordi Sabater Pi, through whom I discovered references such as Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. Howard Carter for the archaeology part, and television references from my childhood and adolescence such as Carl Sagan, with his series "Cosmos", Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Jaques Costeau, whom I had the opportunity to meet, and Sir David Attenborough.

With eight books behind you, do you consider yourself a traveler who writes or a writer who travels?
I am a traveler who writes. For me, my field notebook is fundamental and it always accompanies me as a travel diary. I love to write and I have always written. The important thing is to put into words what is both a physical journey that I may be completing in Africa and a mental journey when I am developing a theory or a scientific hypothesis. Writing allows me to divulge and transmit my knowledge and experiences.

What have you learned by traveling?
Traveling has taught me, and continues to teach me, that I took many things in life for granted in a certain way. Learning about other cultures allows you to see that there is another world outside of your own. I have never been a person of flags or borders so I have always felt very comfortable traveling around the world. 

It's true that at the beginning I had an idealized vision that my mission was to discover things around the world but I soon realized that, when you get to a place, you don't need to discover anything because the people who have lived there for centuries have already discovered everything that is new to you. 

What fascinates me is traveling and learning new things from the people I meet along the way and not pretending that I, as a scientist or traveler, already know more than them. I can learn more from a hadzabe telling me about leopard behavior than from anything I may have read in leopard-related books. Traveling always gives me new knowledge and always serves to expand my academic and life background.

What trip has marked a before and after in your life?
My first trip to Tanzania when I was 27 years old, in 1996. Not only because I made a dream come true of traveling to that continent which fascinated me from my school atlases but also because, as a scientist, I wanted to travel to the cradle of humanity and work there as an archaeologist. So I went for more than a month to work at a site on Lake Natron, in very harsh and even dangerous conditions at that time, with armed poachers who had attacked scientific expeditions.

During that month I could not go on any safari or visit any national parks because I did not have enough money and I was working at a site, in an area where the local people had never seen a white man. From that first trip of mine, in 2001, my book "The Guardians of the Lake" was born.

Which destinations would you never get tired of?
I consider Tanzania my second home after 25 years of traveling to that country. People often ask me if I ever get tired of visiting Ngorongoro, and every time, I say "no". Each time is unique: the light, the color, the temperature, the animals you see...

Then, the Galapagos Islands appeared when I thought I couldn't find another destination like Tanzania. Yet, there I was, surprised, with not only the nature, but the kind treatment I received from the people from that remote part of the world. And, as a city, London without a doubt. I love it for its museums and its scientific societies. Doing what I call an "urban safari" in that city and getting lost in London's Natural History Museum continues to fascinate me every time I travel there.

Do you think the essence of the golden age of the great voyages of the early twentieth century has been lost?
There are still travelers who continue to make great expeditions and there always will be. It is true that, for me, someone crossing an ocean on a jet ski may have a sporting value, but it does not fit into what I understand as an expedition or a great voyage of exploration. I try to make my trips have that somewhat romantic expedition component, with a purpose always to learn, discover, and explore. 

On the other hand, one of the goals from those trips was to travel little by little, being able to observe and being very conscious of the journey itself. Today, with an airplane, some of this magic has been lost. I hope that, in the future, we will be able to recover this type of travel thanks, for example, to airships. Traveling in an airship or in a train, it is possible to explain what we are seeing during the trip itself. In addition to being a much more sustainable type of travel.

What does luxury mean to you?
Speaking of travel, for me luxury does not depend on the best hotels that a good agency can easily find. Luxury is the experience. There are people with a lot of money who don't want to go to the best hotel but want to live the best experience and, perhaps, that experience consists of traveling to a remote island where there is no luxury hotel. 

Luxury may be wanting to photograph a puma in Patagonia and having to spend days sleeping in a tent on a mountain. On the other hand, if a person has dreamed of a lifelong "Out of Africa" experience with a dinner in the African savannah, that can also be luxury and sustainable luxury, because the income from the lodge has a positive impact on the employees and the local community in the area, as well as on the conservation of the natural environment. And perhaps, for someone else, luxury is paying a lot of money to be able to dig with an expert at a site in Africa.

Let's talk about your latest book "Invisible Animals" in which, together with Gabi Martínez and the illustrations of Joana Santamans, you make a journey through some fifty extinct or endangered species and also includes some mythical animals.

How was this book born? 
"Invisible Animals" is the result of 25 years of travel to the most remote corners of the planet in order to discover extinct animal species, ones on the verge of extinction, and others, mythical or mythological, that survive thanks to local legends and that are part of cultures that could also disappear. Each of the chapters dedicated to an animal is based on personal experience.

What message does the book wish to convey?
The aim of the book is for the reader to discover what lies beyond the animal itself. For example, in the chapter where we talk about the Loch Ness monster, as a scientist I can tell you that it doesn't exist, but from that precious local legend, we connect with Scottish culture and we take the opportunity to vindicate the figure of Mary Anning, who is considered the first British female paleontologist, discoverer of the first plesiosaur skeletons.

We also want to make the reader aware that living animals that appear in this book may have become extinct in a future edition and that is what we have to try, between all of us, to not let happen. The same with the oral legends of local populations. If these populations become extinct, their cultural heritage will be extinguished and, therefore, the legends that keep these mythical animals alive.

Among all these animals, which one is your favorite?
My favorite animal has always been the giraffe. In the book, we talk about the reticulated giraffe, which is endangered, although the Masai giraffe is also currently endangered due to poaching.

Of the mythical ones, I have always been fascinated by the giant squid. It is amazing that such a large animal has not yet been able to be seen in its natural environment. We have seen parts of their bodies floating or remains in the stomachs of sperm whales. Can you imagine seeing the giant eye of this squid, watching you through a bathyscaphe?

Are you ready for your next trip?
So much so! I'm going back to Galapagos this summer.