…we watched the movie “The Bucket List” (2007) in which two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.
A few days later, I asked Saeed what would be Nr. 1 on his bucket list and the idea of travelling by car to ‘the other side of the world’ was born as this had been a dream of him for a very long time.
In 2006, I had walked the Camino in Spain (912 km pilgrim’s walk over seven weeks) and in 2008/2009 I had sailed across the South Atlantic Ocean on the RV Heraclitus, a two month ocean voyage with 13 companions on a 25m ferro-cement, Chinese junk, so why not a journey by car ‘to the other side of the world’?
From that day on, mid-2012
we have been in planning mode, immediately making a budget, putting ideas on paper, an initial itinerary of countries to travel through, a list of things we need etc. (all my efficient Dutch mind;)); of and on, with gaps of insecurity and anxiety and dropping it all for a while, questioning if we truly wanted to do this. How do we feel about this? Is this an irresponsible way of spending a few months of our lives or will this be an experience of a lifetime?
Then excitement again as it turned out that for neither of us the fire had fully extinguished yet when one of us mentioned it to the other; it had just become smoldering coals, that with the right amount of enthusiasm and sense of adventure could be woken up again.
Saeed had started to get into walking, seriously!; Trent Country Park, Epping Forest and the London Loop, I even joined him from time to time and we both enjoyed spending time this way. From one day to the other, or so it seemed to me;), after we had walked two sections of the London Loop, he decided he was going to walk the Camino. And so within two weeks he was off. He had an incredible time with the necessary (weather and other) challenges and returned a different, even more loving and wonderful man after 35 days, of which 31 he walked; just in time home, to celebrate our two years wedding anniversary with a delightful performance of Madame Butterfly, for which he had ordered tickets way in advance, even before realising he might not be there as he would be walking to the end of the world, aka Finistere, where the world ends into the ocean.
Saeed returned third week of October and in November, our thoughts went into the direction of our ‘journey of a lifetime’ again. Shall we go? Where to exactly? When? We picked up the thread and had many conversations. Conclusion: only if you make a committed decision, will things start shifting and will it be possible to move forward from planning to preparation mode.
And so, after having given it some more thought, in December 2013, we were even more committed to go. We decided upon a departure date (summer equinox 2014) and a rough route to take.
As we had always wanted to go to the ‘stans’, the countries around the Caspian Sea, we dubbed our journey ‘to and through the Caspian Corridor’.
The evening before visiting the Adventure Travel Show (25/26 January 2014), we also became more clear on the route, which had moved from the south of Europe to Turkey, to the north of Europe to Turkey, and back again. We finally decided however, to move through the centre of Europe to Turkey and from there into the countries around the Caspian Sea.
The journey of a lifetime has started :)!
It is now JUST a matter of getting everything ready for departure.