Every time I return from a trip somewhere – even as short as a week – I am completely lost. Ok, to be completely fair with you, the first five minutes at home are brilliant. Rediscovering a proper and working toilet, your very own bathroom with running hot water and the privacy – it’s priceless. But the moment that first wave of joy is gone I become utterly confused and lost. Entangled between the walls the mind starts running like crazy looking for a way out. Which of course does not exist. I came back because I had obligations to fulfil. Job to return to. And so I start thinking of places I have just left behind, people that have crossed my path. All the conversations. Experiences. How freer I was on the road that back here in the place I call home. In short post travel blues kicks in and it’s not that nice at all. Plus everybody wants to know the whole shabang – how it was, what have I seen etc. You know – you start explaining and describing and right there and then although you’ve just returned you know you need to leave again. Read the rest of this entry
Code to Travel by FAR-and-NEAR
13 October 2009 – 19:39
When travelling I try to abide by certain rules and code of behaviour to leave as little physical footprint and burden behind me and above all to travel responsibly. Here is a Code to Travel by now unfortunately extinct FAR-and-NEAR Travel Magazine that I find covers a lot of what I believe in: Read the rest of this entry
West Africa in 4 months, part I
6 October 2009 – 18:24
So let’s start at the end. I’m taking 4 months off for travelling. Backpacking trough west Africa using buses, bush taxies, pirogues, Sotramas, camels and the like. My general – infeasible – plan includes visiting 11 countries. Landing in Bamako I’ll make my yearly pilgrimage to Festival au desert in Essakane, just north of Timbuktu, Mali – which is a feat in it’s own right. Three days of music extravaganza in the middle of Sahara desert with almost no sleep, shooting concert pictures, battling immense temperature differences between day and night, friendly Tuaregs and invigorating tea by the camp fire. Read the rest of this entry
The story
29 September 2009 – 21:02
I used to read tons of books as a kid, a habit that stayed with me well into high school and university and latter on. Whenever I would be feed up with novels and their fictious stories and characters I would turn to travelogues with their free spirit for inspiration. I would read them in an instant and then daydream about far and exotic locations and experiences. All those travellers were my heroes. All their stories were my stories. I would relieve them in my memory so many times that I would know the stories by heart. And I would go to bed dreaming it is me climbing those mountains, driving those roads and watching those animals. Read the rest of this entry
