The experience of nature is at the heart of New Zealand. It is a twofold experience: the wilderness of the South Island, and that of the pruned and cultivated landscapes of the North. New Zealand is the tale of the western settlers, who tried to escape the trials and miseries of industrialisation, and that of the Maōri who struggle to find a place for their worldview in the modern world.
To ride across Central Asia from Iran to Western China I had to traverse remote parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Along the way lay deserts and steppes, alpine valleys and high mountain passes. The weather varied from furnace-like heat to numbing cold and biting winds.
This tale is about running 6 marathons in 6 days in the desert of Arabia; a tale about achievement travel, about my own need to challenge myself and to find the limits of my own capabilities. In that sense, it is not just about running in the desert, but also about embarking on an experience that it is life enriching. To understand the Arabian desert, and to taste its elemental forces.
This tale is about running 6 marathons in 6 days in the desert of Arabia; a tale about achievement travel, about my own need to challenge myself and to find the limits of my own capabilities. In that sense, it is not just about running in the desert, but also about embarking on an experience that it is life enriching. To understand the Arabian desert, and to taste its elemental forces.
I am travelling in Mustang, the ancient Himalayan Kingdom of Lo, on nothing but a mountain bike. I cycle through the Kali Gandaki and the feet of Annapurna. I am heading to Lo Matang, the capital, following the ancient road of caravans. As I go deeper into Mustang, I leave the main paths and enter a journey of self-discovery.
The Fortress of Kuelap fulfills all the requirements for a just-do-it-before-word-gets-out holiday. These ruins are testimony of a pre-Incan culture that was conquered by the powerful Incan Empire. The fortress dates to the 6th century and once was the stronghold of “The Warriors of the Clouds”. Mysterious enough?
Inland New Caledonia is not exactly what you’d expect of a South Pacific paradise. It is shrubby and, specially in the west, much drier than the rest of the island. Here, a very peculiar cowboy culture has emerged, the Caldoche. Descendants of the original French settlers, the Caldoche manage large cattle ranches and feel at home on horseback.
The adage that it’s about the journey not the destination, was never truer than aboard the Vaka Motu, a traditional canoe that sails between the islands of Vanuatu. Emerging as a project to find green and sustainable transportation in the archipelago, the Vaka draws from local traditions and is true to the designs of old. Not only that, but the trips are full of symbolic and cultural significance.
I am standing in the battlefield surrounded by Hubla warriors armed with spears and bows. My body is painted for war. I am only wearing the traditional koteca, the penis sheath made of cultivated gourd that characterises the tribes of the Baliem Valley in the highlands of Indonesia’s Papua province.
I came to Lapland for the aurora, and in the journey discovered the deep north. It is a sparse monochrome surface of still wilderness which evokes a rich sense of space and time. Beauty appears in unexpected forms: a hue in the sky, a line in the snow, a forest, a birch tree, a wild mouse running in the deep snow. A frozen river bend, and the crackling fire by the camp…
