That is what my sister said when she was pushing me around in a stroller 47 years ago, when she met a neighbor and briefly stopped and talked to her. I learned that yesterday when I visited my American sister Sarah and met the neighbor. Since than I have traveled to 113 countries and spent more than 2500 nighs in a tent, many of them in a tent which you see to the right here. Photo is taken in the Sinai desert and this was one of the scariest nights in my life. Soon I will pass here again and I will worry less. Since than I have already met the worst demon of all.
As you can see, if you click on the photo to enlarge it, I have even been able to get my bicycle in, the one I used when I cycled from New Zealand to Cairo 1994-96, The reason was that i had been attacked the night before and was worried beyond belief. And trying to sleep then, isn´t easy. I just lay there in the dark, shivering, frightened, listening to every movement, just in case, somebody had spotted me leaving the main road and hiding behind this set of rocky outcrops, coming there to rob me, kill me...well, that is how the mind goes. Eventually i fell asleep, probably an hour before the arrival of dawn. Suddenly it happened!
Somebody attacked me, hit me hard in the right eye, I screamed and yelled, kicked and fought back against the attacker, and I shouted:
"You shouldn´t have done that!"
The attacker turned out being.....my bike. Strong wind had arrived and the bike just fell over and I got the end of my handlebar in my right eye....I did manage to brake a spoke and make life even more complicated, since I still, after almost 90 000 km:s and 7.5 years on a push bike, I still didn´t know how to adjust a spoke properly.
Another voice from the past also turned up yesterday, Bengt, a guy I worked with 1984-85, when saving money to do my first Expedition, from Chile to Alaska on a push bike, at a workshop manufacturing saw blades. He was my boss than and he´s kept track on me ever since and remembers the day I left for Chile. It was the same day the premier of Sweden, Olof Palme, was executed on a street in Stockholm. He came to honor me, traveled a big distance to do that, and that is such a privilege to experience.
I wish I was in Chile right now, because strong winds, grey sky and damp, bone chilling cold has arrived to Stockholm. I thought about yemen this morning and than thi article by a friend, Tim, showed up. Read it here!



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