Todays Birgun
The girls got the full backpage in Today’s Birgun.
It is written by the distinguised war correspondent Dogan Tilic.
Link https://www.birgun.net/haber/yasasin-yolculuk-398891
I have Google translated it. Tead it because it is a beautiful story!
Long live the journey!
Mikael Strandberg, the world’s most important living traveler, reached Cappadocia by traveling a thousand kilometers from Izmir with her 9 and 11-year-old daughters Dana and Eva. Now, they will end their journey where they have accumulated incredible friendships and magnificent memories and fly to their countries Sweden. The journey from the story is beautiful.
I wrote a column and said that my friend Mikael Strandberg, one of the most important living travelers and explorers in the world, would make 1000 kilometers by bicycle from Izmir to Cappadocia with his 9th and 11-year-old daughters, Dana and Eva, remember?
They did… It’s over. Along the way, they crossed the hills, climbed the slopes where their bicycles carried their bicycles, not them, struggling with the most irresistible heat, cold in the tents they set up some nights, cooking and eating themselves. Meanwhile, Eva entered 12 in Izmir. “The most beautiful city to enter 12!” I said while celebrating.
As you read this article, they will end a bicycle journey where they meet great people, accumulate incredible friendships and great memories, and their countries will be flying to Sweden. By making the plans of the next journey,… The journeys take good people. During the two-year bicycle tour from New Zealand to Cairo between 1994-1996, I told Mikael several times as the man who came by bicycle ”.
Now he has been carrying his two daughters to the adventures that even those of us would not easily dare to see if they would be a traveler like him, but most of all, to discover the meaning of life. Roads and travel are not dangerous? Isn’t it frightening that two little girls stay in tents at the top of a mountain?
As I ask these questions and listen to Mikael’s stories, I am convinced: The journey is beautiful! You always meet good people on the way. On the way, sometimes a one-hour encounter opens the door to years of comrades.
In 1986-87, Mikael went from Chile to Alaska by cycling Darien Gap, one of the most dangerous roads in the world. In 89-92, he crossed the Sahara Desert by bicycle to Norway to South Africa… 1994-96, again from New Zealand to Cairo by bicycle… In 1997-98, Patagonia on horseback, Argentina from Chile to Argentina … In 2000, Kenya and Tanzania were completely walking in Kenya and Tanzania. To cover Siberia along the Kolyma River at temperatures reaching -60 degrees… In 2011-2012, this time to walk the hottest regions of the world with camels … To tell you that Yemen is not a place like the world media, to go beyond the sands of Al Mahra, and the last time to come back to the Siberian, and the last time, the last time,…
Almost all of these have documentaries that give Mikael international awards, and I listened to the stories of all of these journeys. It sounds quite surreal when listening, but none of them had a single bad person on those roads!
The time of Dana and Eva is now the time of Dana and Eva. Before pedaling between İzmir and Capadocia, they pedaled 1200 km from Malmö to Dala in Sweden in 2000. Then, 450 km in winter conditions; From Dala-Jarna to Sundsvall… Last summer, 1600 km from Malmö to Kapelskar … Always staying in the tent! They came here trained, do not say what 1000 km between Izmir and Capadocia. It’s not something that hot girls have known before. It was the warmth of the air that pushed them the most. The warmth of the people is easy to act! At the beginning of this journey, in İzmir, Mikael; “What is your problem, bro? Why are you dragging children up after a finger? ” When I said: To be better people. To know different cultures and people and to realize that no culture is superior to the other, that black, white, women, men, homosexuals, eastern and western are different or superior. In order to make a contribution to a living world. ”
Now, at the end of the journey, I look at it and Dana and Eva are not the children at the beginning of the journey. Now, the two small ambassadors of Turkey have become two “experts who will oppose the prejudices of these lands by explaining the people of Turkey and their experiences here. Two small but authentic storytellers who will make the presentation that you cannot make by giving millions!
Now that Izmir, EUROVELO 8, which has been included in the European bicycle network, rested for three days when they were exhausted from the heat and slopes, and sent thousands of immigrants to their own countries, the Salt Lake, where they were pedaling on their salts, was repaired by the people who were in their homes, and the people who were in the house, The hospitality in the gas stations, the fascinating beauties of Cappadocia, the hospitality of the mayors and governors, the roadside where they set up tents and camping at night, the historical rock churches and fairy chimneys, which are described as the entrance gate of Cappadocia, will tell the story of an unforgettable balloon flight; They didn’t just recognize new people on this journey. Who are you, where are you coming from, where are you going, how old are you, where are the mothers of these children? They did not respond to such friendly curiosities. At the same time, Dana and Eva got to know their fathers and their daughters in Mikael.
Mikael admired her girls better coping with heat and steep slopes. Turkey’s unchanging states “The people we meet here are extraordinary!” I know that Mikael sets this sentence for everywhere she goes. But yesterday he added; People in Turkey are really completely different. The goodness of people here is only in a league where you will find here. One morning, while Kulu was thinking about what to do with the broken bike, three uniformed men appeared before us. Police, I wonder what happened, they said they were from the Konya fire department, they came to repair our bike. It turned out that the President of the Cycling Association Mustafa Karakuş, who was aware of our situation, arranged. They took us to an old mechanic’s shop. The master, a complete character, repaired the bike at no charge. Here is one of the extraordinary stories of Turkey more! ” Mikael witnessed that some things in Turkey, where he passed in 1995 when he passed the big cities and went to the countryside, had never changed: less traffic on the roads, fresh air, the sky where the stars shine, the shepherds who closed the roads with the flocks of sheep, the fields, the tractors, the people of the morning, the gardens of the gardens Invitation to breakfast…
One morning when they came out of the tent, they went to the village of Sütçünun and brought them with hot pita and jams aile The family who did not allow them to stay in the tent one evening… Now Dana and Eva leave such stories like their father.
Father and daughters are on the journey A native guide in the Amazons, Mikael, said, “It was an honor to be with you. Your stories and your inspiring wisdom were priceless. What really impressed me was humbleness. I worked with some crazy explorers, especially National Geographic photographers, and many of them have in common, their enormous egos. It seemed to me to see that it was completely different. ” He said. Gaul Morrell, a well-known pole explorer and ice artist, called Mikael; “When I came to the most forgotten settlements in recent years, I heard you from the people who lived there. There’s no way around here, nothing, but these people know you. I’m happy with what I heard because I know these people can’t lie. They don’t care about fame and fame. They know and love you as you. We’ve been walking around the same places for years and I know what I’m saying: You are a great man! ” If Mikael is now a traveler and explorer in the world where he has not set foot in the world, he started this first one step on a journey of tens of thousands of kilometers. He got rich at every step of the journey, found himself and the meaning of life a little more. If the world is a book, he realized that those who never went on a journey left this world by reading only one page of it. He learned that the journeys turned people into a perfect storyteller, and that the most persuasive people were the best storytellers. And if he is a great man, as Morrell said, Mikael was not born like this, for sure! It was their journey that made him like this. Dana and Eva are on the same journey… So, live the journey!