Bedouin Roads

It's time to put on the pack and trekking gear and go. Time to take out the camera and abuse it. To feel overwhelmed by new impressions. To have my senses overwhelmed by new tastes and flavours, new scents and shapes. It's time to raise the awareness level beyond the ordinary and soak everything in like a dried-out sponge. To leave comfort behind and get assaulted by an unfamiliar reality. To appreciate water again properly. To accept dust as a protective layer. And to acknowledge tiredness as the best sign of being alive.

I have long ago given up the very philosophical stance of "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") and assumed a more pragmatic point of view. It's neither a better way nor the way I would defend. It's just the road I have taken at some point. I need more than just thinking to feel alive. Aren't our thoughts sometimes our own worst enemies? They can make me dead tired much too often.

Very soon this road of mine will cross the bedouin roads in the Jordanian desert. And, with a little bit of luck, it will meet the Silk Road in magic places like Damascus and Palmyra.

I dream of spending the nights in the desert under the stars. And so I take my magic carpet with me - the dirty dusty beaten up yellow foampad that has been with me everywhere, from Nepal to South Africa and Kilimanjaro - and hope for the best.