The camera zooms in on the man. He has long dreadlocks, a several-day beard, a jacket on his back and a cane. Its appearance is noticeably neglected. He shows his bare feet. «Six years without shoes», he says to the camera on a worn tar road in the middle of a valley surrounded by mountains. No one would say that he is Álex Pons, son of motorcycling legend Sito Pons. He could have been one too, when he was a young promise of that sport, but now he is a guy immersed in a physical and spiritual journey in search of God or Allah. Then he looks at the camera again and announces: “My story is long… .».
Many motorcycling fans have once again evoked the figure of that boy, son of myth, who was once called to the succession. ANDThe new champion project would compete in Moto2 between 2011 and 2017participating in 144 races. He combined motorcycling with studies and would graduate in Management of Technological Companies at the Business Engineering School de la Salle. But his career would never take off and in 2018, at the age of 27, he would make his first drastic decision: leave behind the tar and the noise of engines to dedicate himself to fashion design.
That wouldn’t last either. Nothing could fill him. And then his second drastic decision would come, but amplified towards infinity. leave it all. Goodbye to design, goodbye to his job at a modeling agency, goodbye to his girlfriend. He needed to find a new meaning in his life and that was when He surrendered to a mystical journey that still lasts and that seems very far, probably too far, from ending.
A camera, the Hunza valley and Álex Pons
After years missing, a camera from the YouTube channel Pakistan Tourism has found Álex Pons. He has located it in the Hunza Valley, located in the Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan. Its capital is Karimabad and the Karakoram Highway passes through it, linking Pakistan with China. Legend has it that its inhabitants easily overcome the century of life. It’s just that, a legend.
The region is also known for the myth of being the place where Shangri-lá is located, the land of eternal youth. And it was those lands that inspired James Hilton to write his novel ‘Lost Horizons’, which read: «If you had gone through all the experiences that I have lived, you would know that there are times in life when the most comfortable thing is to do nothing at all. Things happen to you and you just let them happen.
Now it is Álex Pons who talks about what has brought him there: «The desire to complete union with Allah or Godand this is our way of praying and practicing: walking. A change that began three years ago and has now crossed a dozen countries. Before, he made a 15-month journey from Spain to Pakistan and that was what changed his life. Literally. «I usually walk without shoes, it’s beautiful», he assures with a nervous look.
“Just grab a backpack and walk”
But there is another video that is even more revealing and that has not been as publicized. It is from the YouTube channel Wahaj Ali.B and in it appears sitting in a chair. Talk first to a child and then to the person filming it. When they ask him his name, he first says “Isa” and then clarifies that his birth name was “Álex.”
«My story is very long, but I can tell you that since I started walking three years ago, I decided to let go of all the weight and just grab a backpack and walk», he tells the child. «About 15 months ago, when I felt ready, I decided to start walking east, towards the sun. This is what I’ve been doing this last year, and it’s been beautiful,” he adds.
Álex Pons says the transition from motorcycle racing to his new life came when he started thinking about the meaning of the racing lifestyle. «At some point, I began to question what the point of living such a fast life was. I started going slower and slower, slower and slower, until nowwhere I walk slowly, slowly, appreciating the details of life.
Complete union with Allah or God
That’s when he decided to leave. In more ways than one. If Forrest Gump decided to run, he chose the opposite. In a kind of particular revenge, he chose slowness, pause. «It’s nothing special, it came naturally. At some point, nothing made more sense than walking and deliver all the weight that we had been accumulating during our livesand only desire complete union with Allah, or with God,” he argues.
And his father? Prince of Asturias Award for Sports in 1990, Sito Pons also remains out of the spotlight. Like his son, but very different. They have sought him out to find out what he thinks of the mystical journey of your sonbut at the moment he has not answered the calls. It is known that he sold his Moto2 team after 42 years of experience and little more.
Very far away is his son, who now speaks of “a new life”, but this no longer belongs to this world, but to his. Or what he pursues. «I am from Allah. But I was born in Barcelona, Spain», he warns. He remains barefoot, walks alone and his search continues.
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