Explorer Mikael Strandberg

Finally meeting Dan Buettner after being in contact for 23 years in his spectacular mansion in Minneapolis. From left: Me (yes, adding on Expedition weight), Dan Jr, Dan and his brother Steve.

23 years ago I met three Americans on a bicycle in Costa Rica. I remember us putting up camp outside a farm and how impressed I was over their equipment which was so much better than mine. I had a 3-speed bike, an old, leaky tent and a thin foam pad to sleep on. They had cycling helmets, which I thought was hilarious, Therm-A-Rests, new modern tents and 18 speed bikes. It was kind of the old World meeting the New. They were heading down to Argentina and came from Alaska. I was going the other way. They were going to do all of it in 10 months, for which I used 1½ year. The group leader wasn´t here, neither his brother. The team leader, Dan Buettner had flown to Cordoba in Spain to meet his first child, a son, arrive in daylight. His brother Steve was waiting in Managua. Since this day I have been in contact with Dan on and off over the years, since he has cycled through Africa, Russia and much more. But it took us 23 years to meet and that at his son, Dan Jrs, 23rd birthday!

In these years Dan has become very successful. He writes for the National Geographic and his latest book The Blue Zones has been a huge success, sold in 250 000 copies and he has been part of all the big talk shows like Oprah Winfrey and more and after reading his book, which I enjoyed a lot, I have realized, once again, that all seems to be meant, maybe, like the Arabs say, it is written in the stars. It was meant to be, him and me meeting. He gave me a nice perspective on certain things regarding the meaning of life. Dan seemed to enjoy every aspect of life, especially having time to be with his extended family. One of the ten commandments of how to get over 100 years old according to Dan and his Blue Zone project!

Visiting the great area where Dan had his mansion, also offered some nice winter days with son and less cold....

It was great meeting Dan during the Minneapolis visit. Otherwise a lot of my energy has been trying to figure out how the latest developments in Yemen will affect the Expedition. As it is now, the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen is closed and I communicate excessively with my friends in this great country. Latest news comes from Brid Beeler, who is more updated than most people regarding the situation in Yemen, that not even the UN are getting through. So far, one of the better articles I have read about the situation comes from The Guardians Brian Whittaker here! This is of course, bad news, very bad news, so the question is, when will the border open up again? And do we need to re-route completely? That means we need more money and more time, which is not easy to acquire in these days of recession. Right now, the situation looks worse than ever and my big worry, is that it will develop even worse, that outside troops will move in and we will have a very serious situation. It smells Afghanistan and Somalia. And all borders will, of course, then be closed to Saudi-Arabia, the country the Expedition really needs and wants to pass through. Not possible, no Expedition. That is reality. We are returning to Oman at the end of the month to continue our work to put the Expedition on its feet. Until than, there are other worries….

And if I haven´t felt the global recession anything earlier, it is moving in everywhere. I get emails from colleagues all over the world who describes the situation more dire than ever. And it easy to see here in the US of A. The recession. It has, so far, been a very important and interesting visit, and the positive aspects of this great country is the multi-cultural society and the positive attitude of most people. I am in Philadelphia right now, and I really like its Afro-American population. On the negative side, this is not a place to be, the US, if things turn bad. No matter how often I have seen homeless people all over the world, it pains to see. I have taken one decision, if I ever, in shallah, become a father, Sweden is the place to be. I have re-evaluated my own country a lot during these last 6 months. I am beginning to feel full proud Swedish again. Especially after meeting all Americans with Swedish back ground in Minneapolis talking about the Old country.

William Penn´s beautiful City Hall in Philadelphia, a very interesting and livly East coast city.

By the way, if you have time to kill, why not come to see the Siberian lecture at Williams College in Williamstown on Friday? See http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=260366986429&index=1

I met the Samwells just through a coincidence really, 9 years ago. Chris sent me an email basically saying that I am working on a project for the National Geographic regarding Explorers and are you interested to be part of it? I said yes, of course, and we went through a lot together. A film came out of it and then we lost touch due to a specific obstacle that has and still is making life very difficult.
However,why dwell on obstacles and problems in these dififcult times where other people worry too much?
Anyway, Chris and his family, a tough lot, living out in the sticks in an old farm outside Girona in Spain. It is Chris, his wife and four daughters and a bunch of dogs, ducks and hens. See photo here to the left. Chris is like the rest of his family great personalities. He is a producer of film and documentaries, who has gone through a lot of hardships in life and I respect that a lot. It is, for me, easy to respect people who have gone through a lot and return to life full of possibilities and free of bitterness and hate. If it is one thing I dislike is people in the West who complain about life, simple things, when they have all possibilties most people just dream about. Not an unheard of thing in Europe, complaining and moaning about nothing. And becoming bitter from nothing.
I went to visit Chris because I wanted him to be part of the new set up for the great Arabian project and I also brought a very good friend o f mine, Anders Åberg, who had, as always a bunch of great ideas, and as always -you tend to forget these things with time- we ended up in a roller coaster visit. Chris is not the slimmest person on earth and talks incessently, throws out a hundred ideas per second, phones half the world on one of his 3-7 mobile phones and at the end, you wonder if he heard a thing of what you said, since you never get to finish a sentence and if he will be alive tomorrow. Because it is all based on his great generosity, big heart and plenty of food and booze. Not a dead moment with old Chris.
At the end we signed an agreement with Chris on a handwritten piece of paper and if all gos well, which it at the end always does if you have a positive outlook on life, we will produce a series of six programmes. Great news as you can understand! Expedition Arabia here we come!

I´ve alway felt a bit like an ambassador for the Kolyma Region. Very few people know anything about this the greatest place on earth. And during the years since I returned home from this the most fantastic Expedition of my life, I´ve had a few requests to help travellers who´d like to visit the region. One of them, the most persistent of them all, was from a young pole namned Marcin Gienieczko And he even managed to get me to come over to visit Poland as a special guest during his preparations and during his press conference. He is leaving for the Kolyma, to ski from Seimchan to Ambarchik Bay in three months, mainly by himself. A great feat. He is also one of the foremost young adventurers in Poland with a lot of smaller Expeditions on his back. None as big as the Kolyma, of course. So I went over to this grand country, my first visit ever, for a 5 day visit, which was just what I needed to gain some energy and ideas regarding my next Expedition. I met so many great people. The Poles, a Slavic people like the Russians, are a tremendous lot of people. They´re very generous, friendly, caring, interested, knowledgable and they´ve gone through many hardships in life, which of course makes better human beings. I feel like I have made some very good friends during this time, Grazyna, Daniel, Anja and of course, Marcin. I feel a lot for his Expedition and himself. Unlike far too many self obsessed young western adventurers, I think Sweden and the US are the worst, his own perfect self isn´t the major reason for going to the Kolyma, the people are. Mainly because there were a lot of Polish prisoners in this the worst Gulag area of all Stalins nasty and inhuman workcamps. Anyway, this is the story of my visit:

I immediately recognised the worries, the stress, that comes with just leaving for a big Expedition, when Marcin picked me up at the airport in Gdansk. Winter was here, lot´s of snow and relatively cold. His jeep was full of gear, two dogs, Brenda and Fidel, and I hardly got in myself, we headed immediately, after picking up his girlfriend Anja and a stunner called Grazyna who we also managed to fit in to the car, before continuing for the Polish bush, were we spent a great New Year Eve! An evening with great food, too much vodka and no sleep in a log cabin in the forest belonging to Daniel, a great fella who spent 30 years living in Canada, which he missed a lot. A soul mate, no doubt. I am so priviliged to meet these soul mates all over the world. We cruised a village by foot, full of vodka, meeting laughing and celebrating people everywhere and during the night Daniel lost all his horses in a runaway, due to the fire works. So we spent next day looking for them and didn´t find any, really, but I got to see some of the Polish back country and it reminded me of Russia. A distinct smell of coal, half ruined buildings, flat and undulating fields and a penetrating cold.

From here we travelled for a few hours to a Sports Center, who was sponsoring Marcin with the hotell, preparations and the press conference and we spent many hours pouring over the maps and the equipment he had. And I have a few small worries, because he will be travelling in total darkness, minus 50 degrees temperature and his equipment is quite used from other expeditions, but then again, he is after all Polish, and they´re tougher then other Europeans, and especially Americans. Follow his Expedition on www.zewpolnocy.com

Next day we went through all the equipment again and I felt more tired then in a long time. I could feel Marcin worries. It was like he was draining me of energy and of course, I immediately picked up a nasty polish flu, which bedded me immediately. I had a dream that night, that Marcin lost all his fingers and I was stupid enough to tell him about this, and it made him even more worried. the cold terrifies him, which I can understand. Grazyna seemed to be responsibel for my well being and she took care of me as good as it is possible. And that is my major feeling from this visit, the love of this great people.

The third was the day for the press conference and my lecture. Polish TV, radio, sponsors and others were there, plus a lady, Tatiana, who was born in Zyryanka and had spent a big part of her life in Seimchan along the Kolyma. A real Kolymanian! She told the group of her own experiences living in this coldest inhabited place on earth. Very interesting. She felt like a sister to me. I will tell you in a seperate article about the lecture and the response. Another visitor to the press conference was a famed Polish polar Explorer and a guy writing for National Geographic, Marcin Jamkowski, who just spent a long time in the Sudan desert travelling by camel!

Next day, the fourth, I left with Grazyna, early at 6 a.m, after no sleep at all, to travel by car, train and taxi to the airport. Then back to a grey stockholm, hit badly with the flu, but feeling very inspired indeed and with a great longing to return to the Kolyma area again. Marcin is very priviliged!

I´ve been honoured to be one of these individuals mentioned below: (Book can be ordered at http://www.amazon.com/Adventurous-Dreams-Lives-Jason-Schoonover/dp/1894765915) In Adventurous Dreams, Adventurous Lives, 120 outstanding individuals representing a who s who of international exploration recall the indelible moment in their youth when the dream that launched their remarkable lives was born. As they recount the turning points to fulfilling those dreams often overcoming enormous physical, emotional or other obstacles we learn how incredibly inspirational their lives are. Included are Meave and Louise Leakey, Buzz Aldrin, Robert Ballard, balloonists Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Lucy discoverer Don Johanson, Jack Horner, Sue Hendrickson, Jean-Michel Cousteau, the Ra s Capt. Norman Baker, George Bass, Eugenie Clark, Richard Fisher, Trieste s Don Walsh and Nobel laureate Charles H. Townes. That 24 of these dynamic individuals are Canadian such as paleontologists Philip Currie and Eva Koppelhus; Survivorman Les Stroud; Sea Hunter Jim Delgado; National Geographic explorer-in-residence Wade Davis; veteran climber Pat Morrow; circumnavigators-by-human-power-alone Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei; photographers Pat and Rosemarie Keough; and naturalist Robert Bateman is testament to Canada s significant contribution to world exploration.