For many travellers the adventure starts with a map. Spread out on the floor we dream over destinations with names we can’t pronounce. We follow rivers or mountainranges with our fingers, place little marks on places we want to visit. We have maps with pins that proudly display the places we’ve visited. I am a map geek. That’s why it’s weird that I only now made a map with an overview of our trip. I don’t…
Birthdays are reflective moments. So when I turned 28, last June, I sat down and made a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year, before my 29th birthday. Which is almost 30, after all. Damn. I’m not going to share all details on the list because it’s not all your business, but among things like “Find another job” and “Read at least 25 books” there was also “Write & publish one…
We are cycling and night is falling. One by one stars appear in the sky and the full moon rises on our left. Our hands hurt from squeezing the brakes as we’re riding downhill at only 10km/hour. We are looking for a campsite. It is not easy in the mountains. There is a wall, a narrow road, and then the cliff going down. We planned to camp on top of the pass, but the howling…
So many thoughts, so many feelings, so many memories. We finished our trip two weeks ago and only now I begin to process all the experiences this trip has imprinted upon me. Like a treasure covered in a fresh layer of mud, it is best to wait for it to dry before slowly chipping away at the edges to uncover what’s beneath. When I first travelled – a month long solo train trip through Europe – I thought…
“But…Why?!” In an age where almost everybody travels (or has at least has fantasized about doing so), the question of why we travel is almost never asked. When you announce that you go backpacking in Southeast Asia, or following the Inca Trail, or do a year of backbreaking work in Australia everybody just yells “That’s great!” while silently judging you for running away from something or being the cliche that wants to ‘find herself’ by screwing…
I am glad to report that we are on the move again. Antonio’s neck is un-stuck, and after taking a bus and train from Mostar (Bosnia) to Ljubljana (Slovenia) to make up for the week we didn’t cycle, we are now in France. I was going to write that how, after nearly five months of touring and 6000km, we are really getting this whole cycling thing. But then I remembered how we left both our front wheels…
For the past three days we have been stuck in Blagaj, a tiny little town in Bosnia. Three days ago Antonio woke up and couldn’t move his back, neck or shoulders so I helped him get up while he yelped in pain. Then we rode 45km to the nearest campsite (where we had planned to go anyway). We have been there since. Well, no, we also visited Mostar to look at the old bridge and…
A week ago I got harassed by a man here in Albania. What happened was that I walked to the river we were (wild)camping at to wash myself and there was a man who beckoned me over, so I went to say hello. Like, you know, a polite person. After the usual awkward attempt of saying good morning without having a common language I told him I didn’t understand what he was saying, with a…
As you might have gathered, I am more of a cat person. Dogs are not to be trusted. I like them best when they are not barking, not drooling, not moving and not stinking. Basically when they’re sleeping. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of dog that you meet as a cyclist. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about bicycles that sends dogs into a wild, frenzied, blinding rage that literally makes them jump in front…
Before our departure I spend hours and hours researching packing lists of other cyclists and composing my own. At one point there were six different drafts saved on my computer, including a “PackList v3.6finalFINAL” which of course wasn’t the final one at all. From the ultralight to the ultraheavy, I compared them all. How many pairs of socks were they bringing? How many USB cables? Which spare parts? What brand was their sleeping bag? And what about…