You never know what expect of life and the legacy of the Kolyma Expedition

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:50:00 +0000

Can you imagine this scenario? I am visiting La Bombonera, the homeground of Boca Juniors, almost 58 000 visitors, an atmosphere which is unbelievable. They´re playing their worst enemies, River Plate, with an old favorite of mine in midfield, El Burro Ortega, who is meeting Juan Riquelme, in his best moments, propbably the best player in the world. Nobody knows me. Suddenly I guy walks up, and says in English:
“I´ve read about you in Justin Marozzis book Faces of Exploration.”
I did loose my face there, my jaw hanging down in surprise! Turns out to be a friendly Brit, working for the MI 6, who loves travelling. And exploration. He has read about my travels in Geographical as well. Well, such is todays world, you never know what to expect from one moment to the other. Great!
Another thing which has evolved after the Siberian Expedition is all, and we´re talking quite a lot, people who wants to travel and explore the Kolyma region. The latest one is Marcin Gienieczco, a young pole, who wants to ski the Kolyma from Seimchan to Cherskiy. He has invitied me early January as a consultant of the Expededition, to visit Gdynia, his hometown, to be part of the offical media presentation of the trip. He sees me as a hero, the poor chap.
The good thing with all this, of course, is that all these fellas, yes, they´re all men, are very positive, outgoing and full of life and they inspire!
And, there´s always a reason for everything, don´t believe anything else, last night, I went to a meeting for oil prospectors, and they were talking about the sultanate Oman, and there…I just remembered a long forgotten dream to explore the Empty Quarter…well, well, here we go…I have strated to read my old books by Wilfried Thesiger again!

Explorer Mikael Strandberg » la bombanera

You never know what expect of life and the legacy of the Kolyma Expedition