Day 0

When looking for my fancy teeth protection last night before going to sleep (I still don't remember where I put it), I found a piece of paper in one of the front pockets of my backpack - not a letter from a secret lover, no, a notification of the airport security, stating that they had confiscated my gas canister. Duh. 

My sleep was accordingly not satisfying, and I woke up several times during the night - not because people were loud, actually I think I had the 10 bed-dorm all for myself, but because I was freezing. When I got up before the alarm even went of I realized that the window had been open. Oh well, everything has it's good and it's bad sides: This way I could hear the seagulls while packing my bag.

After a quick breakfast I set off to El Corte Inglés where I was hoping to find yet another gas canister. But no luck. First I was half an hour early and went to explore the area around, but when I finally got in they didn't have anything that fit. They did recommend another shop though, so with lots of detours, exploring the city center, I finally got there. And they even had Optimus cookers!!! What a luck! But wait, gas canisters? Out of stock. 

So without gas for cooking I am now on the way to Tarifa. I already checked online if could order another canister, but that would obviously take a couple of days, and I really don't to wait and take the risk of changing my mind and going surfing instead ;D I will find out if there's an outdoor store in Tarifa, and if not, I'll probably send the rest of the cooker back home and eat my instant noodles in the hostel instead :P

Although I only had the morning to walk around, Malaga made the impression of a really nice city with lots of small independent shops in little side alleys. The contrast between newly built complexes next to the uncovered façades of houses which had their neighboring buildings torn down was quite stunning. Also there was probably a river running through the city once, but it's completely dry now, which again gives the city a kind of abandoned atmosphere. Which changes, of course, as soon as you take a turn and dive into the bustling network of plazas, avenidas and alleys that could only fit a motorcycle in it.

UPDATE:

After I had totally given up on the thought of hot dinners when camping, I seriously just found a gas canister that fits on my cooker. The two places I found in Tarifa didn't have any gas at all, but at the third place the guy disappeared to the back of the shop, then returned with a canister of about 5kgs. But eventually they got smaller and smaller and smaller until he finally pulled out a dusty 100g canister. Omg! I'm saved!

Other than that I'm relaxing at Melting Pot Hostel right now, after a short walk around town. I visited the southernmost point of Spain, although the actual southernmost point is closed to visitors because I don't know why. 

Last preparations

Today I finally got to see all the fancy hiking gear I had ordered to my parents' place in Bavaria: a Therm-A-Rest matress, a Ferrino Ultralight tent, a Me•ru sleeping bag, a camping stove, and a couple of other things I probably forgot. Obviously I'm quite nervous that I've never used those things before, so the least I could do was try and set up the tent in the garden. It worked quite well (and it seems to be a great tent), and my cats were excited too, as it seems.

I bought some medicine against stomach poisoning, probably because the memory of my experience in Macedonia is still quite fresh ;) As you might recognize on the picture, I went for some Chinese instant noodles. Now that I squeezed them into my backpack I feel a little stupid, because I don't even usually eat those, but you know.. I saw other people do it on YouTube, so :D 

I'm about to board the plane now after the obligatory stress of getting to Munich airport. Tonight I'll sleep in a hostel in Malaga and will take a bus to Tarifa tomorrow noon. I'll hopefully have some energy left to have a walk around the town of surfers and scuba divers until I start my hiking adventure the next morning. I hope you'll be with me on this journey - not only reading, but also commenting :)

Silence

I just started packing, and bit by bit, my nervousness disappeared.

During my first travel, I didn't really give the weight-issue a second thought. I took whatever got into my hands and even a bit more. My mother even sneaked in one of those embarassing money belts in the end. I don't remember the weight of my first packed backpack, but it sure was pretty heavy.

various parts of the stuff I brought back home from my first trip

But by the time I got better, probably because I actually had to carry the backpack when hitchhiking, as compared to taking rikshas to wherever I wanted to go... ;) Today I know what I would need for a hitchhiking trip through Spain, but a hiking trip is challenging me and my usual "gear". I think about every gram I can avoid - and yes, I will bring an extra small toothbrush! :D

What I actually just wanted to share with you was this video that Youtube suggested to me. Enjoy.

Preparing for a new adventure: Hiking in Spain

I've been thinking a lot about the first days and weeks of my travels lately. How did I feel when I boarded the plane to Abu Dhabi, travelling on my own for the first time? What did I think when I jumped on that overnight bus from Goa to Mumbai because I had met a (not so) random Irish guy at my couchsurfing host's place and travelled really on my own for the first time? Did I really extend my stay in Oman from a couple of hours to a whole week just like that, without knowing anyone in or anything about that amazing country? And how was it as I started my hitchsurfing trip though Western Europe, never having hitchhiked before in my life (except maybe once in Dubai, but don't tell anyone)? I remember that I actually booked a seat in a shared car to drive me from my hometown to my friend's place in Stuttgart in oder to start the journey from there - because I didn't want my parents to watch me trying something "crazy" like that - and maybe failing at it. Actually this might be one of the reasons I do so many things by myself - because then no one can see when I fail. Only the horses by the road can see me standing and waiting for a ride for ages.

What are all these contemplations about, you wonder? Well, my next big thing is coming up: I will hopefully be hiking in the South of Spain for a month, starting in Tarifa and working my way north-eastwards through various National Parks and centuries-old towns and villages, following the European Long-Distance Trail E4. Usually when I talk about it, I add: "At least that's the plan, haha."

Now that it's less than 2 weeks before my flight to Malaga, I do get nervous. I've been travelling a lot and ain't afraid of new places or getting lost. I'm experienced. Right? "Yes, you are. But...", says a low voice in my head that alarmingly reminds me of my mother's, "...you have no idea about this."

I've never been hiking more than two days in a row, I've never set camp anywhere on my own (also I can count the times I slept in a tent on one hand), I've never even used a camping stove, I've never carried a tent and a sleeping bag and a matress and enough food for one and a half days all at once. I've never done so many things that might be good to know for what I'm planning to do - so of course I'm nervous. But at the same time, I'm awfully excited to do something new.

You could say that, to some extent, travelling has become a routine to me. Hitchhiking is not that exciting anymore. Don't get me wrong: Every day I ever hitchhiked had a little surprise for me and I'll probably never stop learning, but at the same time I feel like I'm already an expert. There's only a small taste of adventure left to hitchhiking for me. It's just my way of travelling, right?

But now that I discovered my passion for climbing and hiking, I felt like this is not quite the right way for me anymore. Quite often during my summer trip I thought that it's a pity that I'm there again, passing all these beautiful landscapes and hidden gems on the way to the "main sights" in the cities, seeing mountains in the distance I will never get close to because I would be too busy taking pictures of yet another Artdéco building. Sometimes I even preferred walking a bit and seeing what's around the corner, instead of standing around and waiting for someone to finally pick me up.

I don't really remember how I chose to do this hike. I think I wanted to get away from Vienna to somewhere warmer, and the idea of doing one of the European Long-Distance Trails had been in my head for quite a while aready. Now the South of Spain happens to be one of Europe's warmest regions in February and the E4 happens to start in Tarifa... so there I had my new project to dream of in cloudy Vienna!

I'm excited. As always, I kind of have a plan in my mind and at the same time I don't. I will just see how it goes, and in the end everything works out as it should anyway. 

I'd love to keep my plentiful readers updated about my progresses with pictures and GPS tracking and everything, but I'm afraid this won't work out. I will sleep in my new parent-sponsored tent most of the time, so I'll only be able to charge my phone when I'm having lunch in towns. As I'll mainly need the phone for orientation, which takes lots of battery, and taking some pictures to show you later, I guess there won't be enough battery left for an update every evening. I though of buying one of these mobile chargers, but I didn't need it until now, so why would I add extra weight to my backpack just so I can track my pace, right? Also this hike is obviously the logical continuation of me deleting my facebook account and generally trying to avoid all the unnecessary internet bullshit, so looking at my iPhone at night is the last thing I wanna do.

Of course I am hoping that this trip will somehow bring me relevation and solutions for my problems. I see myself walking on a small path winding through the most beautiful landscapes and finally understanding everything around and inside me.  Of course I also know that this probably won't happen. Our lives are not like the ones in the movies, and there's no background music (I'm still thinking about whether to bring my mp3-player or not..). But you know what? Der Weg ist das Ziel ;)

"How was it?"

from 30 September 2015

"Well, how was the trip?" - I think it's still too recent for me to really understand what I learned from my experiences this summer. But it will always be difficult to describe a period of two months, in which I visited 13 countries, 9 of which I've never been to before, in just a couple of words. "Great", "exciting" or "interesting" doesn't really seem to describe it for me. It wasn't that special after all, I find myself thinking sometimes. I didn't really meet super interesting people I will stay in contact with, I didn't fall in love with anyone like I usually do.

Maybe it's because I didn't make any fancy SLR photos? Maybe it's because I didn't get so many likes on facebook? Maybe it's because I didn't get drunk and therefore don't have any stories to tell for everybody's amusement?

Bucharest, April 2015

When I try to free myself from all the external and internal expectations one might have of a journey like I had - that everything is shiny, that drinks are always ice cold, that people are happy all the time - I come to the conclusion that I simply had a good time. It wasn't "crazy" or "rad" or any other extreme experience - all in all it was just nice, in a good way. What else would I want if not have a nice time?

Highlights

"So which one was your favourite place?" - again I don't really know. There was places that disappointed me (like Mostar), places I couldn't get warm with (like the Baltics), and people that made my stay less enjoyable (like in Tallinn), but in general I'm glad that I went to all the places I visited (except Ulcinj maybe, but I didn't really stay long anyway). 

Mt Plješivica

If I follow my feeling though, the undisputed highlight of my trip was the hike to Mt Plješivica. Not only was it a big challenge that I overcame, it was also a lot of fun (mostly in retrospect haha), and last but not least, there was fancy pictures:

Augustow

Another highlight was my short but beautiful stay in Augustow, because I felt very much in the moment there. The canal festival, the atmosphere, the food, the weather, the waterskiing - everything was just perfect.

Poland

In general I enjoyed Poland very much. I had never been there before and actually spent more days there than in any other country. I had really nice hosts in Gdynia and Szcezcin, enjoyed the sea, liked the countryside, loved the food, was surprised by Warsaw, had a great time in the Jewish Museum, and felt really fancy in Krakow. Poland is definitely a country with lots of more places to explore, and I want to return soon.

Gdynia

Gdansk

sunset in Sczecin, where it was too hot for sightseeing

street art in Warsaw

POLIN Museum in Warsaw

Krakow

on some hill around Krakow

Bosnia and Hercegowina

I was stunned by the great atmosphere in Sarajevo, and loved how the little houses seemed to have grown uphill from the once small settlement in the valley. Of course the experience was made complete by Vjetko's perfect introduction to the local cuisine. In general, BiH would be a country I would like to visit again, not only because of the Drill & Chill Festival hopefully happening there next year again, but also because there is just so much more to see in this country.

Bulgaria

I loved both Sofia and Plovdiv, for reasons so many that I don't actually know where to start. Bulgaria is such a forgotten and neglected country, in spite of being a member of EU since 2007. I like the idea that most people whom I talked to don't spend their weekends in Sofia, even though the city is among the greenest I've ever seen, but drive to the countryside, where many families have second houses.

More than about anything or anyone else, I learned about myself on this trip once again.
I spent a lot of time alone, walking, and I liked it. I really liked it :)

More numbers

I received great feedback from lots of people about my latest statistics, so I decided you're ready for a small project I had running during the trip. Just the night before I boarded the plane to Tallinn (or even the same day? I'm not sure), I cut my hair to a "length" of 9mm. The plan was to take a picture of myself every day and see how fast it grows back. And there you go :)

Also, I never actually updated the route I took. Originally the plan was to travel along the Adriatic coast and just leave the ocean in order to visit Kosovo and Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, only to return to the sea in Thessaloniki. I'm so glad that I didn't follow this route in the end, altough it probably would've been nice as well. But, I would have missed the two countries I liked the most in the Balkans: Bosnia and Hercegowina, and Bulgaria. So luckily I think I made the right decision :)

Below you can see the route I ended up taking, including the detours I made thanks to language barriers, oscitancy, and bad luck :D

Tallinn to Istanbul on Roadtrippers

About 5000 kilometers I covered by hitchhiking only - from Tallinn to Istanbul (kind of ;)).
More than another 1000 kilometers I travelled either by bus, train, or paid carsharing.


I used at least 74 different cars during the whole trip.

2 of them were single females (another 7 couples picked me up as well)
(At least) 1 of them didn't have a driver's license.
1 of them was a taxi driver who paid the fare himself.
1 of them was a public bus, that was paid for me by a poor Albanian guy.
 
1 of them had the nerves to touch my tighs.
3 or more of them asked for sex completely out of the blue.



According to my notes, I waited 1.116 minutes in total (for 67 rides).

That makes an average waiting time of only 16,5 minutes!!!