Maria Kazé remembers the first time she saw Julieta Hernández Martínez and her orange bicycle one evening in January 2022 at the coach station in Picos, a rural town in Brazil’s dusty north-east. “I was struck by her brilliance, her bravery. I suddenly felt small before this extraordinary woman,” said Kazé, 51, a leader of the local peasant farmers movement – and not someone prone to being awestruck.
Hernández, a professional clown who in December 2019 began a solo bicycle journey across Brazil in the direction of her native Venezuela, had a way of enchanting everyone she met. And throughout her epic ride, the 38-year-old developed a large network of fellow artists and bicycle travellers, who followed her progress closely.
