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Diary This is Jan's diary. If you want to receive this diary by mail, write your mail on the contact form.
‹ Previous (11/03/2008) MONTH Next (2008-05-10)› ‹ Previous (2008-05-12 - Turkey) COUNTRY Next (2008-06-10 - Turkey)› Greece Athens (see on map) 10/04/2008:
The 36 hours of journey from Limassol up to the port of Pireus has been much calmer. In the port I have had to pay the rates of storage and next have gone out towards Athens, but when arriving, the company of the boat has called me informing me that I have jumped me the customs, they were very severe and that i had to turn back. I have pretended a little not to understand and i have told them that i would go on Monday, although having Spanish number I do not think that it is necessary. Before nothing, I have directed myself to the Spanish embassy in Athens, where I have requested of renewing the passport in order not to have any evidence of having entered Israel and being able to enter troublefree in Iran, but on the contrary to all the other embassies visited in the previous countries, in Greece they have not been shown at all friendly even collaborative and they have told me that they could not renew the passport for me. In any case, in Ankara it waits me the passport dispatched in Addis Ababa, with which I can have some problems to enter Iran. Later I have gone to an insurance company and they have given me another address commenting that they could not assure the car, maybe it is only possible from Spain. They are small problems, but I do not have any longer the same energy and patience that i had some months ago. Although the last week in Israel it was very interesting and energetic, I find myself again without force. Before i always confronted the problems with optimism, but it now seems that the small problems turn into a big mountain difficult to be surpassed. Lately I have surprised myself sometimes with desires of returning home, and perhaps i would return if i had not bet everything in this journey. My future is found at the end of this journey. Since some time ago I have discovered that I want to be a writer. But I need to finish this journey to be able to publish my adventures and from here to have the open doors to new works and publications. But my spirits tell me perhaps that I will not be able to comply completely with all my dream. Apart from the possible problems in Iran, possibly we will not be able to enter in China by car, for it would mean to pay about 100 $ each day for an obligatory guide, neither it seems possible to enter Burma. Therefore, if we arrive to India we will be stuck. On the other hand, it will be difficult to embark the autorcaravan towards Indochina or Australia, for now I know that the autocaravan can not enter in any container. Perhaps the solution will be to sell the autocaravan in India and to follow the journey on foot, or to return in Europe for some other route. I am disappointed, but for luck tomorrow Alexandra arrives. After almost two eternal months without being together, I feel eager to hold her in my arms again and together to dream and to get excited another time by this long journey. It is true that she normally represented the pessimistic character and I the optimistic one. But I expect somebody of the two when being together again will provide the necessary energy to continue ahead. We have been too much time separate. In theory it only had to have passed a month, but the problem with Syria has delayed it. I need you Alexandra. Come to me, my love. 21/04/2008:
It is already a week and a half that Alexandra has arrived. The first weekend we passed it out of Athens, in some coastal town, passing the hours together. Even then, at first, some conflicts appeared, for Alexandra arrived without being too much thrilled with the journey and worried by her future after it, since on the contrary to her friends of Romania, she does not have finished the studies nor has a good job or status. And her situation still would be worse when finishing the journey, or before finishing it, if I abandoned her, because she would have wasted some precious years of her life. Naturally, she was not considering that many people were dreaming of carrying out a journey as the one that we were carrying out, even about the enriching experiences that this provides. I got upset about her approach contrary to the adventure and to the risk, although i also understood her reasons that were probably induced by her worried mother. On the other hand, i also noticed that the small conflicts that were appearing from the arrival of Alexandra, were not always provoked by her. i was approaching the critical date for my relations , for none of the previously maintained ones had ever surpassed two years. I was not feeling taken care of or loved, i lost the patience to the minimum and any comment or opinion that distanced from my logic was boring. At the same time, i also had to admit that Alexandra was proving to me that in spite of everything, she wanted to continue on my side, and that she preferred risking her future and to keep travelling with me, whatever happened. So, I decided to continue ahead and to keep giving us an opportunity, although during some moments I was about to send everything to hell. These days, have served not only for evaluating our relation and the forces to continue together the journey, during these days we have also dedicated quite a lot of hours to put the journey to point, after being a year out of Europe. First and the most important thing, I carried out a new insurance for the car, valid for Greece, Turkey and Iran. Beforehand i had gone to the state company of Greek insurances and they commented me that all the cars that entered to Greece without insurance had to pay 180 € for insurance for one month. I did well missing the customs of the port, for less of this amount i would have an insurance for three months carried out from Spain. Parallel to the insurance, we also change the brakes of the car, had buyed some spare filters for the next change of oil, fixed again the iron protection of the engine and buy the protection of the fridge that the customs of Israel lost during the inspection and that as it seems they will not pay me despite telling me that they had insurance company. And between discussion and discussion, and between repair and repair, we have also had quite a lot of time to meet with quite a lot of people in Greece, all of them very interesting, although I took these new friendships as another parenthesis in the journey, then already did more than one year that the journey had passed through Greece and I had then already shown interest in its politics, culture, traditions, opinions... I admit that it is not such a positive attitude from my part, even though - I repeat - i did not deprive myself of enjoying with these friends and maintaining very interesting conversations. Many of these new friendships asked me about my economic resources that allowed me to travel. It is a question that i had not been asked too often in Africa, then there it is tended to believe that any white has the possibility to travel as long as he wants it. Gotten used to the question already, i always repeated the same answer: a third of the money I obtain it writing for media, another third pays the company that i had, and the rest the bank and I will have to return them. Here, the friends often also ask me what i will do when i return, and if i will be capable to stay in one place. I always answered them that the journey does not stop being a project that I have, a project that I expect to open me the following doors: being writer and maybe writing books that provide solutions to the problems of the world. 27/04/2008:
After being Tuesday on the beach and eating a delicious bors (a typical sour soup of plants of Romania that Alexandra cooked) we returned to Athens to meet some friends and to attend a concert of Greek traditional music, with two lutes, big double bass, a melancholic singer and an excellent clarinettist. At the end of the concert, Electra, one of the friends, suggested us: - Do you want to come to celebrate the orthodox Easter to the island of Lesbos? There were other boys invited, Natan, a Belgian that was studying to plat the flute in Athens, and Hector, a Spanish that was on holidays in Greece for two weeks. Alexandra did days that she asked me to celebrate the orthodox Easter with friends, cause she is Orthodox, and naturally we accepted. Besides, who would miss the opportunity of seeing a heap of lesbians and lesbianes? Ei, I do not refer to the women that are attracted among themselves, I refer myself the people of the island of Lesbos. Anyway, it is well true that the women who are attracted to each other, are also called lesbian, due to a former woman poet from greece born on the island of Lesbos. This woman poet was named Sappho and wrote different poems of love directed to other women, leaving the name of lesbian associated with this type of love for the posterity. The five of us have enjoyed many good days in Lesbos (the third biggest Greek island, or the eighth of the Mediterranean), walking in Mitylene, its calm and commercial capital, and knowing the island thanks to some friends of Electra that had car and also thanks to the generosity of another lesbian that stopped for us when we did hitchhiking. Lesbos is famous among the Greeks for its Uzo (alcoholic drink) and for its olive oil, proves of that are the 11 million olive trees that cover most of the island. Lesbos is also known by its numerous thermal springs, which feed different baths of Turkish type and which we also enjoyed two of the days. But the most impressive thing was to observe the traditional celebrations of the orthodox Easter. The orthodox Easter is celebrated normally to different dates of the catholic Easter (or occidental), because the orthodox Christians used traditionally the Julian calendar, whereas the Catholics used the Gregorian calendar. Apart from these differences on the dates, also there are other differences in the celebration of the death and Resurrection of Jesus, although not to stretch out explaining them, I will only describe briefly my experience of these days. In any case, they were some interesting celebrations, after all, as Wikipedia says , Greece is the first big country with more proportion of Christians, only 4 small countries have more proportion of Christians, among them the Vatican, naturally. On Thursday, the night in which Jesus dies, the churches were filled with believers to listen to the sacred writings, finally, before midnight, all the lights of the church were turned off and illuminated by tenuous candles where it can be observed a big cross transported hesitating between the tearful believers and children. The day after we observed the celebration of the embalming of Jesus and its burial in the village Agiassos. Thousands of believers met in the church and the streets to observe the epitaf, a box covered of flowers symbolising the sarcophagus of Jesus and that was transported through the streets of the village. And on Saturday it was the great the Resurrection night. Again, thousands of believers met in churches taking the best clothes and white candles adorned with flowers, or toys in the case of the children, and waited for the hour of the Resurrection, when the lights are turned off and the light of God arrives turning on the candles of all the believers , passing the flame between eachother. This is also the night of the big eat and the youngsters compete with the red eggs that were prepared on Thursday night, symbolising the blood of Jesus. Every child has a hard-boiled egg, and crush against the other ones searching for a winning egg that has not been broken, while the rest of the children enjoy themselves eating their broken egg. Meteora (see on map) 01/05/2008:
During the journey we have been lodged by numerous people, but these days it has been the other way round. When returning from Lesbos, we invited Hector, the Spanish traveller, to visit the mountains and monasteries of Meteora with us. And not only travelled and ate with us but, besides, slept a day in the autocaravan, accommodating the table and seat as bed. The second night, Hector slept outside, not because we did not want him inside, but because he preferred sleeping under the stars contemplating the impressive landscape of Meteora. But despite insisting of sleeping on the ground, he often commented us how fortunate we were of the possibility to travel with an autocaravan and that in the future, if his economic situation improved, also would try of doing it. Anyway, Hector could not complain either in a complete way, since during all last year he was travelling through south America. On the other hand, Hector has the advantage of having an extrovert, affable and altruistic character that immediately arouses the friendliness of the people and their hospitality. For sure that in a near future will also be able to carry out his dream. Good luck Hector! Tessaloniki (see on map) 07/05/2008:
Following the same route as 2 years ago, after Meteora we moved up to Tessaloniki where i had to receive a letter from Spain with the insurance of the car that would allow us to enter Turkey and Iran. But on Friday the letter had not arrived yet to the post office, and instead of arranging to meet with people of Tessaloniki that previously we had already gotten in touch, we prefered passing the weekend on the beach. Alexandra did not want to meet with Kiriaki, the girl of Tessaloniki with who I had had a small adventure the previous time, and I did not feel either like running into anybody in general. I still felt without illusion to continue travelling, or as to minimum without the same illusion that i had at first, although i did not want either to give up the journey or to return home. This disorientation I mean that it was the cause of the slight attacks of anxiety that I suffered during the weekend and the two following days. Joined the disorientation or disappointment, also there is the tiredness or anguish for the possible problems that perhaps we will have in the future during the journey: the difficulties for entering Iran if they discover that I have been in Israel, the impossibility about entering in China by car, if we have to sell the car in India or to embark it to other destinations,… does not have the same energy as before to confront the slips, but I feel like having it again. In any case, I trust that the illusion will return me when i will be in Turkey, past Istanbul, when everything is new for me, and when in a certain way the odyssey of not being able to cross Syria to arrive to Turkey has finished. On Tuesday the letter arrived at last and i cheered up a little to be able to follow the journey to east, I started to define some goals that have kept being stated as we approached Istanbul: • I will be thrilled again with the project to take the pulse to the world and will try to interview many more people, more than one person for each country. • I will get excited for the new people, cultures, histories, landscapes... that I will discover, becoming every time more rich as t present. • I will convince myself again that the difficulties of the journey are positive to grow as a person and at least, are positive to explain. • I will propose to be more conscious making use of the influence of the new cultures and Asian religions. Europe was an intellectual continent, Africa was instinctive and full of adventure, I think (or I wait) that Asia will be a continent of spiritual growth. ‹ Previous (11/03/2008) MONTH Next (2008-05-10)› ‹ Previous (2008-05-12 - Turkey) COUNTRY Next (2008-06-10 - Turkey)› |
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