From Mombasa to Ven-Zelderheide
On March 1st 2008, Eowyn (2yrs), her parents, Julia and Stanley, and uncle Niels, started an unforgettable adventure from Mombasa, Kenya to Ven-Zelderheide, The Netherlands using their 1995 Landrover Defender 110.
Based on earlier jokes and meaningless ideas to drive back to Europe once the moment would come to leave Africa, it was time to turn dreams into reality. Amazingly little time was needed to convince the team to make this happen. Careful preparations for six months through regular conference calls, e-mail communication and division of responsibilities was needed. Niels was in charge of the route planning and communication, Stanley of health issues and car preparedness and maintenance, and Julia was in charge of finance and administration and had the veto on security decisions.
A journey of an anticipated 9,000 km turned out to be 14,000 km with an average speed of 56.9 km/hour travelling through Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany and The Netherlands. It was a magical way to travel. It gave us the opportunity to see how that part of the world is connected historically, politically and culturally – often with disregard to the national borders. It gave us 9 weeks to spend time with each other with the most important question of the day being where do we want to go? Or what do we want to eat? (often both). Almost as soon as we were back we began planning for another trip. Similar to how the first trip started we were telling jokes and throwing around ideas. Then we set a date, divided the tasks and started planning in earnest. Now it is time for the Naughty Lamp Lighters to Ride Again!
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