The start of an inner journey

This is not my first inner journey, not the start of it. I’m an experienced traveller, both, physically and emotionally. Looking back I would say the first real turning point in my life was in 2012, and it was not a pleasant one.

In 2011, after having lived more than 3 happy years in Amsterdam, I faced challenging times, which made me feel impatient and somehow stuck. I struggeled to advance in my profession, couldn’t find the job I wished to do, wanted to learn and grow, not only for me, but also to make my dad proud of me. My rental time would soon come to an end and I had by then moved already 10 times within one city! I was tired of it, I wanted my own place, but couldn’t afford it, not with my salary, nor my instable job situation. Moreover I had fallen in love with an old friend from Munich. Signs seemed to be clear and although I loved Amsterdam more than any other place I had lived before and I felt at home there I decided to try my luck in Munich again. I will never forget the words of my sister on the phone when I told her my decision. She warned me! “Don’t do that!” she said, “it will make you unhappy.” She was right. No other decision in my life made me nearly as unhappy as having left Amsterdam and returning to Munich. I should soon after my move on February 12th, 2012 realize what fatal mistake I had made, and that there was no turning back. Just then I understood what being at home means, feels like and how priceless that feeling was. I had lost my home and with it home inside myself.

After a year of constant travelling back and forth, spending all my money on flights and only living up to the next trip back home I decided that this was no life to be continued. The regret of having left was always present and was eating me from the inside. In place came hatred for my current situation and Munich. I needed to change, I needed a new perspective, otherwise I would turn into a bitter person. So the day came that I decided to fulfill a long kept dream: to travel through South America on my own.

After more than a year of saving all the money I could, including not going out anymore and not buying anything I couldn’t take on that trip, the day to leave Munich again came closer. My relationship by then had already undergone a long and tedious struggle which seemed to drift into a silent process of death and my contract would end in October 2014. I canceled all my contracts, my apartment, my health insurance and my residency in Germany. I didn’t want to have any connection anymore to this place and time of my life, no obligations and no worries. I did still have the perspective of returning to my position in summer the coming year, but nothing was set in stone. I didn’t have a contract not would I have wanted one. I was ready to leave.

The beginning of the travel was different than I had imagined it to be, as it started as a family-trip and later on a friend came to join me and my sister. Years later I realized that it was the last over-seas travel that we would do as a family of four: my mum, dad, sister and me.

On October 20th, 2014 the airplane departed for Cancun and this legendary and life-changing experience started.

What was ment to become a half-year travel from Mexico to Buenos Aires turned out to be a 13-month-long life-experience, so wonderful and full of miracles that looking back it sometimes seems like a fairytale to me. On December 5th, 2014 my last travel companion Nina went back home and I remember the very mixed feelings it caused. I was finally alone, on my own in South America, with nothing more than my backpack. This was what I had dreamed of for so long. And I was feeling small and a bit lost in the streets of Bogotá, this extensive and not overall safe city. I needed a plan.

That’s how my travels usually started, with a plan. And yes, it is good and gives a feeling of safety to have a plan. So I went on, just the way I had travelled my entire life, by looking up sights and places I wanted to go to and arranging the tickets and places to stay. But dwelling for some more days in the streets of Bogotá I got closer to my own rhythm, which was very different from the way I used to travel with family and friends. The rhythm and flow of america latina got me and I started to indulge in this lifestyle more and more. Joy and flow took over. What I had left behind was soon forgotten.

On the sunny morning of December 25th, 2014, I woke up beside a man I then realized I had fallen in love with. And it was not only him I had fallen for. Colombia had bewitched me, I felt a love and connection to this place I had last and only felt for Amsterdam. I was part of it, seemed to be welcome wherever I was, I slowly gave up planning ahead, as I experienced that wherever I was there was so much beauty that I wanted to stay longer and explore the surroundings. My last planned destination was a 5-day new-year´s hike through the jungle of the Sierra Nevada, up in the north of the country, to get to Ciudad Perdida on the last day of that year. It was an unforgettable experience. Despite the immense physical effort I felt like dancing and flying through the jungle up and down the mountains. I was in heaven! Two months later I would return and the most magic night, my initiation to the powers of the universe presented itself to me. This was the moment that changed EVERYTHING!

I remember sitting in the airplane from Lima to Munich on November 20th, 2015 crying. I had lived the most wonderful and intense experience in the last 13 months that was my life and now the day had come to leave it again. To leave my life and go back to where I came from. Despite the tears there was no doubt that this was the path I was to follow. I was tired, soon out of money and I did miss some of my close friends and family. The step to go back to Munich was an inevitable need. Where else should I go at that point? But I was surely not going to stay. That was certain. I wouldn’t do that to myself again, the pain and misery of being stuck in Munich again. What an awful idea. And after finding a job in another city, no matter where but not there, working for some years and again in need for a change and time-off, I would go to travel the Balkan next time. The idea was born there, in the airplane on my way back from South America. It all came different, of course. Despite my wish and intention of a Balkan-travel.

And here I am. I’m travelling again. This time on the road with “Silberrücken”, my car and castle. (update: meanwhile he has a new name, I call him Otis, since we were standing/sitting on so many docks on the bay ;))

After only three stops at the mechanic and 2 visits from ADAC in the last 2 weeks before leaving, the one that makes this all possible was ready to roll. I guess he got a bit scared when he realized that I’m not joking but that I’m determined to drive him and me down all the way to Turkey. So I got a roof box for him to carry and “Fiets” the folding-bike as companion of tin&steel. They both got soul and I am honestly thankful for them being on this trip with me.

I left Munich on October 2nd 2020 or 02.10.2020 and by then officially started this trip. I first went to Tirol where I spent a few last days in my beloved room at Erlerberg and in the woods around it. I love this place, since December 2019 this was the most important place for me to process everything that was going on. Here I found silence and peace, deep connection to nature, my spiritual life and myself. This place is precious and sacred to me. It feels like home to be in the woods and mountains there, often more than Munich and the city does. I feel that a part of me was born here, one of the many features I carry and that make an identity, the identity of the “Waldläuferin”, the one who walks in the woods. I needed to say goodbye properly and most of all “see-you again” before hitting the road. Leaving home is leaving the comfort zone – isn’t it?

Just as my last long trip of 13 months to Central- and South America in 2014-15 also this trip started way before the day I left.

The weeks before leaving were packed with appointments and a long list of to-do’s. It felt like months and minutes at the same time. I was stressed and worn out in the end and felt like the to-do’s had soaked up all the energy I wanted to enthousiastically leave with. I was getting desperate to step in the car and finally leave and luckily the moment came…

As soon as I had left town and the country I gained distance to most concerns and seeming obligations. Whatever I couldn’t change or influence anymore was loosing importance. These are the moments when I start asking myself, was it really that important or did I just keep holding on to my idea of it? With every letting-go I find peace in the end and get closer to the truth of things. This is the beauty of travelling, moreover, the power of the journey within myself . By leaving a place I call home I am able to leave behind what doesn’t really matter and gain little pieces of freedom. I am only taking with me what matters and is needed. Well, at least I try. Looking at all the luggage I carry I know I didn’t suceed in the first place. But reducing it to what I need is just one reason why I love to leave every once in a few years, gaining freedom and detaching from whatever seems to be unevitable or where I feel stuck is another gain. Turning my back to home and going on a trip like this is more than just a happy-travel-adventure. It isn`t escaping, nor avoiding. I am taking with me what lies in my heart and soul, be it challenging or enchanting, this is what guides me and carries me on my way. By leaving I am facing myself and my feelings of what really matters. And there are always new chapters opening up. Unexpected topics and new feelings and thoughts to cope with and be thankful for. ‘Cause every challenge is a gift. That’s what it is all about.