24
SPRING/SUMMER 2020
Hiking the Machu Pichhu Mountain
What Makes You Happy?
I
t was an odd question from somebody you had just met – and over the telephone nevertheless (compliments of COVID-19). “Do you know what makes you happy?” A good question which needs some pondering. Not for Hadi Hajjar’90. He knows what makes him happy. He had known it since adolescence: traveling the world, meeting different people, and learning about different cultures, religions, and tasting different food. Or better put, experiencing the world. Only six years into his adventure, Hajjar has been to 82 countries with a minimum of five stops in each nation and a maximum of 55 stops in countries like the US. His adventures took him to North and South America, North and South East Asia, Western Europe, North Africa, India, and the Middle East. He even made it to Antarctica in the South Pole and to the exotic Saint Martin Island embedded between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. But these visits are not average in-and-out tourist jaunts but actual residencies among the countries’ natives. He wanted to see it all, the good and the bad. Among his destinations were Ushuaia in Argentina (the southernmost tip of South America, nicknamed the ‘End of the World’), the Middle of the World City in Quito Ecuador, Cusco the capital of the Inca Empire, Machu Picchu in Peru, the lost city in Colombia, the Vietnamese
war resistance tunnels and the Americans jails in Saigon, the Phnom Pen world hidden massacre site, the Punta Tombo National Reserve – home for a vast colony of Magellanic penguins, the Everglades (the biggest reserve for alligators), Key West in Florida, the Bahamas Island, the Huston Rockets Museum, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, the Dead Sea in Jordan (the lowest point on earth), five Universal Studios across the globe, famous opera houses and wineries. Seeing it all included participating in the color festival in the India Golden Triangle “The Happy Holly,” participating in most of the 2020 Rio de Janeiro Carnival blocos
