Recovering the Habit

Let’s open this chest together and see what it holds. Hopefully, something that surprises you.

During my classic New Year’s reflection, I decided that in 2025, I want to surround myself once again with books I truly enjoy, films and visual arts that challenge me, and, of course, travels that expand my world. I seek experiences that turn into unforgettable memories.

The rush of daily life pushes us to find refuge in art, beauty, and rest… and in that unique pleasure of getting lost in a book on the couch. On the first Friday of every month, this space will be an invitation to discover and reflect. A break from the routine, a reminder that art and ideas also nourish us.

What I’m Reading

I’ve been slowly making my way through Volver a pensar: Filosofía para desobedientes by Tomás Balmaceda . It’s a book to digest little by little—one that shakes up our certainties about work, relationships, technology, leisure, and even death.

Tomás warns us from the start: this book is meant to unsettle. It forces us to confront our own alienation and the temptation of distraction. In a world that rewards immediacy, how do we resist the urge to abandon challenging reading?

One of the chapters that resonated with me the most was about workism. After the Industrial Revolution, some thinkers predicted that we would work less and enjoy up to seven weeks of vacation each year. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Too often, we forget that we work to live—not the other way around. Every hour we devote to work is an hour less with family, friends, a book, or simply the pleasure of feeling the fresh air on a walk.

When I started planning HeySole! | Thoughtfully Curated Travel , slow travel wasn’t just a trend—it was a way of rethinking time. Traveling less to travel better. Pausing. Observing. Sitting down to enjoy a coffee while soaking in the landscape. Reading in a park without thinking about the next attraction we “must” visit.

This book doesn’t offer answers. Tomás doesn’t provide a magical formula. Instead, he invites us to uncover what we’re missing and to disobey the ordinary.

What I’m Watching

Based on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale is a series I recently rediscovered. I watched the first season years ago, but this time, it hit differently.

Atwood crafted Gilead’s dystopian world by drawing inspiration from biblical stories and real-life events. One is the story of Sarai, the wife of Abram, who, unable to conceive, urges her husband to have a child with her servant Hagar. The other, much more recent, is the systematic stealing of babies during Argentina’s dictatorship—an atrocious crime against humanity that marked the country until democracy was restored in 1983.

What once seemed like a distant dystopia now feels disturbingly close. Today’s world threatens rights we once took for granted. The protagonist, June, puts it bluntly:

“Now I’m awake to the world. I was asleep before. That’s how we let it happen. Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”

It reminds us that change doesn’t happen overnight—it’s gradual. And it’s up to us to stop the temperature from rising.

Beyond its political and social weight, The Handmaid’s Tale is a work of art in itself. Atwood’s novel is a literary masterpiece, and the series visually stuns with its cold color palette and cinematography that heightens Gilead’s oppression. But its greatest strength is the evolution of its characters. If at times it feels slow, it’s because it has to be. Those silences, those pauses, are what allow characters to develop authentically. It’s the same rhythm that makes Mad Men one of my all-time favorite series. A reminder that great storytelling demands patience and depth.

The Watchful Eye

This season, I’ve transformed the section on Latin American politics into a space for broader reflection—an invitation to pay attention to what truly matters.

Returning to Argentina, I found it difficult to write. The relentless news cycle from the new government left me feeling paralyzed. A few days ago, an American friend asked me:

“Have you seen what’s happened in America in the last ten days?”

A year later, 10,000 kilometers away, she was living the same thing I was. The same authoritarian rhetoric echoes across North and South America—a rejection of social progress disguised as tradition.

But last Saturday, two million people took to the streets in Argentina to defend LGBTI+ rights. The country is still awake. And yet, the government’s unilateral decision to eliminate the non-binary ID worries me. What comes next when a government decides to ignore the people and their rights?

We must keep a watchful eye. Because when we stop paying attention, that’s when the most is taken from us.

Where I’ve Been: Patagonia Azul, Chubut. Nature, the ocean, and regenerative tourism.

This time, what I learned is directly tied to where I was.

For years, I had heard about regenerative tourism, but I had never experienced it firsthand. On my recent trip to the Chubut coast, I spent a week visiting two Rewilding Argentina camps in Patagonia Azul National Park. It’s where the Patagonian steppe meets the deep blue sea.

I wandered through landscapes I never expected to find. I spotted terrestrial and marine wildlife, countless birds, and even felt like I was on a safari—sometimes just from the dining hall window. I learned about ocean conservation and biodiversity protection. Before this trip, I had never heard the term marine desertification, nor understood its link to shrimp trawling and the devastating practice of bottom trawling.

Regenerative tourism means actively participating in the places we visit. On this trip, I felt like my presence had a purpose. Expanding Argentina’s marine protected areas is a mission we must support—so that more oases remain where biodiversity thrives.

Marti, the biologist leading activities on Isla Leones, taught me something that surprised me: The more ocean we protect, the stronger the ecosystem becomes, and the more productive fishing zones become. Preserving the ocean isn’t a barrier to economic development—it’s an opportunity for balance.

I came home with a deep sense of fulfillment—both from the beauty and the rest, but also from everything I learned. And from the feeling that I was part of something bigger.

Our hosts encouraged us to share what we had learned—not just the beauty of the place, but also its history and fragility. That’s why my first in-depth travel guide will be dedicated to this incredible stretch of Chubut’s coastline—to help more people discover the most vibrant, transparent, life-filled ocean I’ve ever seen. A treasure few even know exists.

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